ASSIGNMENT 2:6

7] Following Carlson’s discussions on literacy as “part of a broader genre of transformation” (61), try to explain what he means when he says that transformation is an “act of literacy.” This can be confusing at first, but if you follow his discussion beginning with “how Salish people understand the process or act of transformation in relation to literacy itself” and pay attention to how he uses etymology to shape his insights, you should be able to extract an explanation for conceptualizing transformations as writing and as readable.

It is widely recognised that the Indigenous stories, particularly those transformative ones that look at the “beginning of time” (Robinson 7), play a critical role in the way in which we define indigeneity. The stories told by the Aboriginal elders or chiefs or prophets reflects not only what beliefs and values they hold as a cultural group but how they make sense of the world, their historical identity as well as the strategies that prepare them for continuing transformations in an ever changing environment. As revealed by the two Salish stories about transformation investigated in Carlson’s research study addressing how Indigenous orality relates to literacy, seeking the power of literacy has been the inherent motivation of the Indigenous people to “making the world right” (Carlson 46). In this essay I argue that in the Indigenous historical sense of transformation, to transform in a way means to perform the act of literacy.  

Both of the two Salish transformative stories studied in Carlson’s article, regardless the “great diversity exists among the speakers of the twenty-two mutually unintelligible Salish languages” (Carlson 45), demonstrate the critical role that literacy plays in the historical consciousness of the Indigenous people. First of the all, the divine nature of literacy in the context of Indigenous cultural values is identified in both historical accounts. For example, in Bertha Peters’ narrative, the three Indigenous chiefs were taught to write by the “Great Spirit”, a God figure, implying that the “powerful forces from the spirit world had wanted them to be literate” (Carlson 45); whilst in Robinson’s narrative, a confidential “written document” was kept by God who assigned Creation tasks to a pair of twins who were claimed to be the forefathers of the Indigenous and British people (Robinson 9). Here literacy is considered as much powerful as the Creation forces in history. Moreover, both stories make it explicit that any attempt of the monopoly of this intangible public property will be punished. For instance, in Bertha Peters’ narrative, the three chiefs who acquired literacy from God were “turned to stone” for failing to share and pass on the writing skills (Carlson 43); whilst in Robinson’s narrative, the younger twin who stole the “paper” and refused to reveal the contents of the written document was “immediately banished to a distant land” (Robinson 9). These similar storylines seem to suggest that literacy is so essential that a shared ownership of such knowledge should be protected. Furthermore, both stories indicate profound and bitter consequences are to be expected if literacy being denied or stolen. For example, Bertha Peters’ story points out that, given the three Chiefs’ failing to teach their people literacy skills, the Indigenous people would remain illiterate and therefore becomes vulnerable for the situations where the Native things such as the knowledge of literacy, the Native land and resources and governing authority would be taken away from them. Similarly, Robinson’s story implies that the loss of literacy for the descendants of the elder twin leads to the killing of their lives as well as the stealing of their land by the descendants of the younger twin. Nevertheless, one of the most effective remedies addressing the issues of interracial balance, as suggested by Robinson’s story, seems to be associated with something in readable and written form – the “Black and White Law” jointly produced by the two heads of the two races (Robinson 10). The distribution of the three copies of this Law to both parties, as the story goes, seems to symbolise the repatriation of literacy to the Native people and as a result, the interracial balance that was earlier disrupted has been restored (Carlson 44).  The fact that in Indigenous stories “literacy is shown to be a powerful force, capable of precipitating transformations in people’s lives not unlike the transformative power associated with Coyote” (Carlson 51), goes to show the historical understanding of the Indigenous people who embrace literacy as part of the historic transformations as well as their own historical identity. More significantly, the Indigenous people seemed to believe that the transformative power of literacy might determine whether one culture fails or continues to thrive.

Given their post-contact content, it is argued that the Indigenous historical narratives, where literacy is prominently featured, were likely to be informed by some historical factors such as the smallpox epidemics and subsequently the early encounter between Indigenous people and the Europeans (Carlson 56). It was the time, according to Paterson, when the Indigenous traditional stories were required to make sense of the new reality that the Indigenous society was facing (“Lesson 2:3”).  More precisely, the historic changes demanded that the past experience needed to be resymbolized and reinterpreted in relation to present situations in order for the Indigenous people to survive the changing environment (Gamlin 19). As a result, the transformative stories re-told by the Aboriginal prophets drew upon the power of literacy, which is illustrated the prophetic literacy as well as the Indigenous etymology. The nineteenth-century Salish prophets are believed to have acquired literacy and “used this medium to prepare Salish people for the profound changes associated with European colonization” (52). It is argued that the prophets, who were the major story-tellers, expected the arrival of the newcomers, who possessed literacy skills, to “bring positive change to a chaotic world in the aftermath of smallpox epidemic” which might be assumed to be caused by the lack of literacy (54). This historical factor is paralleled with the previously mentioned two transformative stories that stress the significance of the loss as well as the repatriation of literacy. Interestingly, the creditability of the prophets’ predicting “the impending arrival of white people” lies crucially in “a piece of paper” which “was so valued that it was passed from son to son” (Carlson 54). However, it was also the printed words that the prophets told stories with prompted the Native people to “welcome and make room for the white people” and as a result led to their marginalization (Carlson 56). In this sense, literacy seems to be a determining factor that affects the way the Indigenous cultures understood and coped with transformations. In addition to prophetic literacy, some etymological evidences that demonstrate the close relationship between transformation and literacy in the context of Indigenous culture have also been identified. Carlson found out that the Indigenous terms referring to the names of the Transformers, the acts of transforming share similar root words with the word of literacy (61). That is to say, to transform is to read and write in the Indigenous sense of literacy.    

Works Cited:

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.” Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamemko-Frieson. Toronto: Uof Toronto P, 2011. 43-72.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:3”. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres Sept 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2016. Web. 18 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-2/lesson-2-3/

Robinson, Harry. “Introduction.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. 7-30.

Assignment 2:4

First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. “The Earth Diver” story reflects a world created through collaboration, the “Genesis” story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation – right? That’s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?

In “The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative”, Thomas King demonstrates, in the way of story-telling, the problematic aspects of the monotheism-based dichotomy, where different cultural beliefs exist in competing and hierarchical relationships. He suggests that such an “easy” way of thinking might lead to situations where cultural complexities and choices of beliefs are at stake (King 25). In the context of cross-cultural exchange informed by the monotheism-based divisions, according to King, cultural complexities are likely to be reduced to simplified and opposed terms, such as “civilized/barbaric”, with superiority as well as negative connotations involved (25). Such dichotomy-based conceptions with egocentric and dismissive characteristics, as identified as “the elemental structure of Western society”, might lead to the distrust of the cultures of “them” which seem to contradict those of “us” (King 25).  In the context of Christian-monotheism-based dichotomy, for example, if the Christian Creation stories are accepted as “sacred”, then the Creation stories BY the Native North American people, which also claim to be authentic, will be automatically categorized as “secular”. Such categorization implies the Christian European’s cultural hegemony that undermines the First Nation stories’ credibility as well as their status; despite the fact that “these two creation stories are essentially the same” from a theologian’s perspective (King 23). In King’s words, “if we see the world through Adam’s eyes, we are necessarily blind to” the Native stories (25). In my own words, given the “omnipoten, omniscient, and omnipresnt” (King 24) and “martial” (King 26) nature of the Christian God who insists that “there’s only one rule” (King 21) and “a single deity” (King 24), the Native Creation myths have to be eliminated in order to be “invisible” to Adam’s eyes.

The consequences of the European ideas of monotheism-based dichotomy were devastating to the Indigenous people and their cultures which are known for diversities (“Lesson 2:2”). The European settlers saw the Indigenous traditions “through the lenses of their ancient stories” (Lutz 3) informed by “firm and distinctive hierarchies and divisions” (“Lesson 2:2”). From this peculiar dimension, the “Indians” were immediately assumed to be “originated outside of the Garden of Eden” and conveniently classified as a kind of primitive species from “somewhere between the realms of man and animals” (“Lesson 2:2”), as opposed to the Europeans who were proud to be descendants of Adam and Eve. Once the dichotomy was readily established, the European colonizers, armed with the supremacy of science and reasons, were determined to enact “God’s will” that might include a “divine” plan of excluding the “Indian” oral traditions just because they did not seem to fit into the European “cosmology, mythologies, and histories” (“Lesson 2:2”) under the circumstances of the “Christian monologues” (King 21). According to Paterson, in a 75 years’ time between 1880 and 1951, the First Nations institutions such as telling and retelling of stories at the potlatch were outlawed by the Indian Act (“Lesson 2:2”). Moreover, the continuity and credibility of Indigenous oral traditions were seriously disrupted as First Nations children were “cut off from their community and family stories” due to their mandatory attendance of the residential schools (“Lesson 2:2”). The major cause of such a brutal genocide of Indigenous cultures is very likely to be rooted in the ethnocentric notion of monotheism-based dichotomy that creates fierce tensions and inequitable power relations between distinctive worldviews held by different cultural stories.

In order to prompt his readers to reflect on the conventional Western paradigm of monotheism-based dichotomy critically, King retells the two Creation stories, one attributed to the Christian Europeans and the other Indigenous people, by pairing them up in a binary opposition in a subversive way. Despite the centrality of the Christian Genesis and the marginalised status of the First stories in reality, in King’s story-telling narratives, the believability of the Native Creation story is instead given more credits while the Christian one’s seems to be undermined. Such a creative dichotomy that frames the story-telling narratives is further reinforced by a neat analysis of the contrasting characteristics of the two stories, in which the values that the Indigenous myth represents, as opposed to the Christian ones, continue to be favoured in a contemporary paradigm. For example, being influenced by “different strategies in the telling of these stories”, a general modern audience is very likely to find themselves identifying more with the imagery of a “comic” world of equality and cooperation and balance crafted in the Native story, than the authoritative, hierarchical and chaotic world in Christian Genesis (King 22-24). Then the story-telling ends up abruptly with a tough question: here are the choices and which one do you choose? At this point, it manifests itself as a false choice based on a simplistic and exclusive dichotomy. The interpretation of the values that claim to be characteristic of respective stories seems to be deliberately selective for the sake of making up a binary opposition, overlooking the cultural complexities of each story; not to mention that the distinctive values of both stories are not mutually exclusive, as one may argue that a world of competition and a world of co-operation simply represent two sides of one coin. After all, Creation stories are ONLY stories that are used by different cultures to “understand the world in which they exist” (King 10), with no issues of believability or authenticity involved. In this sense, both the Christian and First Nations beliefs that “define the nature of the universe” (King 10) from divergent dimensions make equally perfect sense. In my opinion, they could also work together in an cooperative way, contributing to providing diverse and comparative perspectives for human beings to make complete sense of the complex world.        

Works Cited:

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Print.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2 First Stories”. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres Sept 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2016. Web. 7 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-2/lesson-2-2/

Assignment 2: 3

Read at least 6 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of BOTH the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find and look for differences as well; look to see if you can find student peers who appear to have different values then yourself  when it comes to the meaning of ‘home.’ Post this list on your blog and include commentary please.

After taking a look through most of the essays addressing the sense of home for my student peers, I have noted a whole variety of aspects of this conception, which are different than my perspectives, has been explored. However, regardless the divergent facets of home we looked into, a common ground has also been identified. It is illustrated by our writings that home is defined by both conceptual and physical terms simultaneously.

Just like me, the ideas about home for some of my fellow students start from their childhood with something tangible involved. As children, their sense of home is naturally tied to the house where their family resided (Westerman; Lu). Here the sense of home engages not only the dwelling place but people, be it parents (Koivukangas) or sisters (Heathwood). However, from the ways they connect their sense of home with their relationships with their families, it seems to be “a feeling of completeness” they are referring to (Heathwood). You are home when you are surrounded by those loved ones who complete you (Heathwood; Wagner). This resonates with me as I maintain that a house cannot be made home without a family.

While I examined the way in which my understanding of home changes from “A man’s home is his castle” to “home is where my family is”, my student peers explored the change of the concepts of home in a different way. They seem to argue that the ideas of home ever evolve as we grow and change (Westerman; Lu; Koivukangas; Bachynski). It seems that most of them share similar experiences of moving out of their childhood home when they became adults. Then one may be aware that the childhood home “was my parents’ home but it was just my house” (Wagner). They also came to realise that one’s home is in a sense up to the individual him/herself to create and build up when you are independent of your family and getting adapted to real-life situations (Wagner; Chloe Lee; Higgs). However, it does not mean that homes are mutually exclusive. Instead, it is argued that both our childhood homes and our new homes are  worth embracing and feeling blessed of (Walker; Bachynski). Such a notion corresponds with mine which in a way recognizes both my China home and Canada home.  

Although some of my classmates emphasized the conceptual aspects of the sense of home by arguing that “home lies within my own thoughts” (Westerman) and that home is only “a state of mind” and “inside of every one of us” (Chloe Lee), the ways they defined their sense of home appear to contradict their denial of the connections between a home and a place. For example, both statements of “[r]egardless of where my home physically is, it has always been a place of acceptance, freedom, and love” (Westerman) and “[i]f you have both a place and a community and you are wanted in that place and you want to be in that place, then I would say that is a home” (Chloe Lee) demonstrate that the concepts of home always go side by side with physical spaces. In addition to geographical locations, the sense of home is also tied to relationships with people as shown by the portrayals of feeling at home such as “I can feel at home in many places, and so long as I feel safe and content with people that I care for, then I am home” (Westerman) or “Home is where I feel I belong and know that people there will say you belong to them, no matter the situation” (Chloe Lee).

Apart from the connection of the sense of home with places and people, the other intersection that conceptions and reality meet up and contribute to the idea of home is identified in the relationship between memories/stories and particular places/people. It is suggested that one of the main reasons why a place is remembered as a home is it holds not only fond memories such as one’s childhood (Lu; Westerman) but beautiful stories tied to the unforgettable experiences with other people such as your family (Koivukangas). In this sense, you can call one place home even if you are no longer living around there (Hui). As a result, both Hui and I celebrate Guangzhou as our common home even though neither of us resides there. Likewise, when some of my coursemates identified a country or a city as their homes, it is likely that what they actually feel belonged to is something intangible associated with that land e.g. its culture norms and values (Westerman; Izat) or a song such as the national anthem (Vernon).

From reading through my fellow students’ blog posts addressing their sense of home, an evolving and adaptable quality of the home conceptions has been identified. Their early notions of home is tied to their childhood homes as well as the relationships with their families that make them feel a sense of completeness. Such a concept, however, is destabilized as they grow up and become aware that they get to build up their own homes as opposed to their parents’ homes. Their ideas about what makes a home become increasingly fluid and conceptualized as they move around, no longer being confined within four walls (Higgs; Chloe Lee). However, my findings drawn from my student peers’ essays have shown that their feelings of home are always defined by both spiritual and physical terms. They engage specific places and people as well as the memories and stories they give rise to. It is evident that one’s sense of home is always situated in the intersection of something both tangible and intangible.  

Works Cited:

Bachynski, Jenny. “Shifting: Assignment 2:2”. Canadian Studies: Exploring Genres through Canadian Literature. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/470acanstudies/2016/09/28/shifting/

Heathwood, Bryony-rose. “2:2 ‘Home’ grows just as we do”. Bryony-Rose Heathwood’s English 470 Blog. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/bryonyroseheathwood/2016/09/28/22-home-grows-just-as-we-do/

Higgs, Kaylie. “Is This Home?”. Creating Connections—Exploring the Impact of Stories on Identity, Place and People. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/kaylieandautumn2016/

Hui, Lucas. “Blog Post 2.2 – “Home” Is Where the Heart Is”. ENGL 470A. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/lucashui/2016/09/28/blog-post-2-1-home/

Izat, Alison. “2:2 Home Sweet Home, Country Sweet Country”. The Power of Stories Alison’s Blog—For ENGL470A Canadian Studies . Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/alisonsblogstoriesandremembering/

Koivukangas, Karoliina. “Assignment 2.2 Home?”. Karo’s Thoughts On Canadian Lit. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/karoscanlit/2016/09/28/assignment-2-2-home/

Lee, Chloe Coco. “2.2 Home”. Chloe’s Blog for English 470–My Exploration of Canadian Literature | Winter 2016. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/470chloe/2016/09/28/2-2-home/

Lu, Jenny. “2.1 Home”. English 470A Insights. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/jennytlu/

Wagner, Hannah. “Assignment 2.3 – Stories of HOME”. A Look at Canada-Exploring Canadian Literature, Stories and Identity. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/hwagner/

Walker, Madeline. “One Great City”. Canadian Studies—Reading (and Writing) Canadian Stories. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/walkermad470/2016/09/26/one-great-city/

Westerman, Hannah. “Assignment 2:3”. Hannah’s Blog | ENGL 470 – Canadian Studies. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470westerman/

Vernon, Danielle. “Home”. Exploration Of Canadian Literature–Just Another UBC Blogs Site. Oct 2016. University of British Columbia Blogs. 2. Web. 03 Oct. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/cdnlit/2016/09/28/home/