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.