Dr Patterson writes that “there is no doubt that King wants us to work to get the story,” and that “his invitation is specific.”There are many allusions and references in Green Grass, Running Water which are worth exploring. In the section which I was assigned (pages 300-317) there is certainly some work to be done in regards to understanding King’s use of outside sources. One of the most interesting references King makes is in regards to John Wayne, the quintessential Hollywood Western hero.

Of obvious significance to the novel is the nature of John Wayne’s role in film. Wayne was a typecast performer, generally playing the white cowboy in struggles against often Native American adversaries. Wayne was symbolic of the mythological cowboy figure, which justified violence against Indigenous peoples and reinforced theories of their inferiority. In the traditional cowboy versus Indian narrative the Indian is an obsolete person, destined to be eradicated to make way for progress and civilization. The clash between Indigenous culture and modernity is a recurring issue in King’s novel. Charlie, Lionel, and especially Eli struggle with their identities and their heritage throughout the text.

What is particularly interesting about John Wayne is that his personal belief system was not entirely different from his on screen performances. Wayne was an outspoken Republican and a conservative, and a supporter of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Wayne was active in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt of the 1950s, even starring in the anti-communist propaganda film Big Jim McClain. Later, he would make the film Green Berets, which was part of an effort to rouse public opinion in support of the Vietnam War. Wayne’s striking views on indigeneity and race relations were recorded in an interview with Playboy magazine in 1971:

“I believe in white supremacy, until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people … I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans] … Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”

John Wayne is more than a symbol of the American West. For many people, and I think for Thomas King, Wayne represents an insidious tradition of bigotry, hatred, and injustice inherent in North American culture. Through Wayne’s work in Hollywood, this tradition is normalised and perpetuated. The participation of Native Americans in the production and the viewing of the Westerns in Green Grass, Running Water might represent an internalized racism, something which the Four Indians resist through their “fixing” of the John Wayne film.

The pervasiveness of a sort of cultural malady is iterated by the normally mild-mannered Babo on page 314. Babo is herself a reference to a character in Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, the tale of a black slave revolt aboard a Spanish ship. “All sorts of slaves in the world” Babo says, “Drugs, television, junk food, religion, cars, sex, power, cigarettes, money, fashion, jobs, designer kitchens, politics.” Here King’s analysis appears to be reaching beyond Indigenous issues, into a broader critique of Western consumer culture. Indigenous issues might be a part of an overarching imbalance, according to King.

“Yellowstone, Mount Saint Helens, Wall Street… Krakatau? Yes, it was indisputable. Everything made sense” Dr Hovaugh ruminates on page 313. What is the meaning of Hovaugh’s list of geographical locations? What do Wall Street and Krakatau have in common? Krakatau was the sight of a devastating volcanic eruption in 1883 (Mt. Saint Helens and Yellowstone are seismically active areas as well). Here King appears to be likening Wall Street to a cataclysmic natural disaster. I would like to suggest that John Wayne’s bigotry, Babo’s “slaves,” and a volcanic Wall Street are interrelated. The issues which Indigenous peoples have faced through the ongoing process of colonization are the product of a particular paradigm, of which the aforementioned things are a part. Power and money are the prevalent malignant forces of this paradigm.

Of course, I am basing my analysis of King’s symbols and character around a very particular worldview. But I believe that the connections which King makes are strong enough to support this. Even if this is not the message of the novel as a whole, I believe it is one of many messages which King includes in the text for the consideration of the reader. King’s intent with Green Grass, Running Water is probably not to promote a rigid and encompassing ideological framework. Rather, I feel like the purpose of the book is to stir a variety of feeling and ideas within the reader.

Works Cited:

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto. Harper Perennial. 1993. Print.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:3.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 3 March 2014.

“Big Jim McClain Trailer” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJJfVgU4pJM Web. 17 March 2014.

“The Green Berets Trailer” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F49A3zS3no0 Web. 17 March 2014.

“John Wayne Playboy Interview” https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/Wild_Wild_Cold_War/files/2011/11/John_Wayne_Playboy_Int2.pdf Web. 17 March 2014.

There are several instances in Green Grass, Running Water in which traditional narratives are altered in order to “extricate the characters’ lives from the domination of the invader’s discourse.” I plan to discuss two of these instances, beginning with the “fixing” of the fictional John Wayne film by the Four Indians in Bill Bursum’s electronics store (316-322).

It is important to note, especially in the context of our previous assignments, that the Four Indians “fix” the film through song. This song is a form of oral narrative, and this method of fixing usurps not only the content of the film but its medium as well. King challenges the “invaders discourse” by suggesting that even the fixed recorded narrative of the film is subject to revision, and that oral traditions are still powerful. Through rewriting the history ascribed to settler-Indigenous relations in the film, the Four Indians appropriate an Indian identity which subverts that which is presented in this “invaders’ discourse.” In the new version of the film the Indians are not the inevitable victims of the settler’s superior technology and military strength. They are strong, resistant, and dangerous.

The film is broadcast on the The Map, a representation of the world according to Bill Bursum. The Map is made up of televisions, potent symbols of capitalist consumer culture. The televisions themselves are a medium through which stereotypes and invaders’ discourses’ are propagated. Televisions construct and enforce identities and worldviews. By altering the narrative presented by The Map, the Four Indians challenge the global hegemony of Western consumerist ideology. In this way, their actions transcend Indigenous issues, and are representative of a larger struggle.

Another narrative which is altered from its original state occurs when Changing Woman encounters Ahab, sailing aboard the Pequod. (194-198) This is, of course, a retelling of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a powerful symbol of American culture. Ahab is very much a Western colonial figure in King’s retelling, and he is not portrayed kindly. Both Ishmael and Ahab are eager to assign names and identities to characters who these identities do not belong to. Changing Woman becomes Queequeg and Moby Jane becomes Moby Dick, according to Ahab and Ishmael. The whalers are so intent on succeeding in their quest that they are willing to manipulate reality in order to achieve their ends. Ultimately, their efforts are unsustainable and destructive. Ahab and Ishmael’s behaviour, firstly, mirrors Columbus’ “discovery” of America. The explorer was looking for something completely different, but when he found the Caribbean he treated this land according to his needs and desires (slaves and precious metals). That Ahab’s crew abandons him, and his ship sinks, could be read as a commentary on the unsustainability of Western exploitative ideology – that our propensity to dominate and consume is a short sighted and ill fated phenomenon. Throughout this section, Changing Woman refuses to cooperate with Ahab and Ishmael. Changing Woman represents and independent, strong, resistant and adaptable Indigenous identity.

Works Cited:

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto. Harper Perennial. 1993. Print.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 3 March 2014.

The Immigration Act of 1910 was basically an extension of a similar legislation passed in 1906 which aimed to “sift the wheat from the chaff” (cic.gc.ca), so to speak, in regards to multi-ethnic immigration into Canada. Around the turn of the 20th century, the Canadian government was making a concerted effort to populate the Western provinces, and the prairies in particular. They were quite successful in doing this, perhaps too much so. Within a few years the population of the Western provinces had become increasingly non Anglo Saxon in origin, and the Immigration Acts of 1906 and 1910 were put into effect to curb the influx multi-ethnic immigration. One of the most notorious parts of the 1910 act was labelled Section 38, and stated that the Canadian government had the power to restrict “immigrants belonging to any race deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada.” (northamericanmigration.org) This remained the official policy for Canadian immigration law until 1967. Along with increasing the difficulty for people of certain ethnicities or nationalities to get into Canada, the Immigration Acts also increased the power of the state to deport immigrants whom they deemed undesirable. Grounds for deportation included “becoming a public charge, insanity, infirmity, disease, handicap, becoming an inmate of a jail or hospital and committing crimes of “moral turpitude”” (peoplescomission.org)

It can certainly be argued that Daniel Coleman’s theories on “White Civility” in Canada apply, in practice, to the Immigration Acts of 1906 and 1910. Particularly in the prairie provinces, these acts sought to erase or redefine a very recent history of settlement and land cultivation, one in which the principle players were Eastern European minorities. In collusion with the Immigration Acts, the Mennonites, Ukrainians, Jews, and Doukhobors who had spent years converting previously unfarmed land into valuable real estate were forced to assimilate to Anglo Saxon society or lose their land. Many Doukhobors chose to give up their homes rather than their culture, and relocated to British Columbia. Of course, the Indigenous peoples who had traditionally occupied the prairie lands were not made to be part of the new national identity, either. It is difficult, however, to evaluate the role of the Eastern European prairie settlers in the displacement of Indigenous peoples, because many of these immigrants were in fact refugees fleeing persecution, pogroms, and genocide.

The “fictive ethnicity” which Coleman describes was very much at work during the passing of the Immigration Acts. Coleman writes that a fictive ethnicity has to be constructed, in order to make a particular social structure appear natural. The Immigration Acts did this specifically – they ignored the contributions of peoples from Asian countries and of European minorities to the construction of the Canadian state through reinforcing the Anglo Saxon as the dominant Canadian ethnicity. The Acts also served to naturalize Anglo Saxon dominance over Indigenous peoples in regards to ownership of land. The irony of a settler population assuming it has a moral basis for excluding certain immigrants is something we still see happening today.

Works Cited:

“A History of Racism in Canada’s Immigration Policy” http://www.peoplescommission.org/files/poped/05.%20A%20History%20of%20Racism.doc.pdf n.d. Web. 25 Feb 2014.

“Forging Our Legacy: Canadian Citizenship and Immigration , 1900 – 1977”  http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/legacy/chap-3.asp. n.d. Web. Feb 25 2014.

“Homepage.” www.immigrationwatchcanada.org Web. Feb 25 2014

“Immigration Act (Canada) (1910)”  http://northamericanimmigration.org/141-immigration-act-canada-1910.html n.d. Web. Feb 25 2014.

“Komagata Maru” http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/archives_komagatamaru.htm Web.  Feb 25 2014

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:1.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 7 Feb. 2014.

5] “To raise the question of ‘authenticity’ is to challenge not only the narrative but also the ‘truth’ behind Salish ways of knowing “(Carlson 59). Explain why this is so according to Carlson, and explain why it is important to recognize this point.

As Carlson explains in his article, imposing European concepts of authenticit” onto Salish history challenges the fundamentals of Salish culture. The narratives which Salish people share are sacred, and the importance which is placed on their accuracy ensures that mistakes are not made during their telling. Authenticity, as we understand it, relies on material evidence. Applying this mode of judgement to Salish storytelling is not only pointless, but harmful to our understanding and acceptance of cultural diversity. The Salish stories emerge out of a culture which values accuracy in storytelling the same way in which we value it in our historiography. Carlson writes that “it is difficult to imagine a context in which a Salish person could intentionally modify a historical narrative… the community would not allow such an individual to get away with it even if they tried.” To impose a Western concept of authenticity is to discredit the strength of Salish tradition.

Further, the status of Salish oral histories is strong enough that it “cannot be easily challenged by either indigenous people or Non-Native newcomers and their competing chronologies of interpretation.” (59) By applying European methods of authentication we are supposing that these methods, and our opinions which derive from them, have any bearing whatsoever on Salish perception of their own histories. This may be an example of Europeans granting our opinions more merit than they actually possess. Salish stories belong to the Salish people. Salish concepts of truth exist independent from our scrutiny. To instill our own truth-telling devices onto Salish stories is to evaluate something which is not ours to do this with.

It is important to recognize that we do not need to analyze the validity of Salish stories, because our evaluation of them ties in to a larger characteristic of Colonial-Indigenous relations. I am referring to the idea that the Indigenous culture has to be identified and made valid according to the value system of the colonizer. In reality, it is not necessarily our responsibility to do this, and I believe in doing so we assert that the colonial culture is inherently more valid than the indigenous culture. 

Works Cited:

“Enjoy Coast Salish Territory.” Sonny Assu. Web. 17 Feb 2014.

“Eurocentric.” Miriam-Webster Dictionary. Web. 17 Feb 2014.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:3.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web.77 Feb. 2014.

Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The Black and White of Salish History.” Orality and Literacy: Reflections Across Disciplines. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamenko-Frieson. Tornoto: U of Toronto P, 2011. 43-72.

Question 2: In this lesson I say that our capacity for understanding or making meaningfulness from the first stories is seriously limited for numerous reasons and I briefly offer two reasons why this is so: 1) the social process of the telling is disconnected from the story and this creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness, and 2) the extended time of criminal prohibitions against Indigenous peoples telling stories combined with the act of taking all the children between 5 – 15 away from their families and communities. In Wickwire’s introduction to Living Stories, find a third reason why, according to Robinson, our abilities to make meaning from first stories and encounters is so seriously limited. To be complete, your answer should begin with a brief discussion on the two reasons I present and then proceed to introduce and explain your third reason from Wickwire’s introduction.

Due to our cultural and historical situation, our “capacity for understanding or making meaningfulness from first stories is limited for numerous reasons”. Two of these reasons are outlined by Dr Paterson. The first reason is the difference in the social process of storytelling between our current method and Indigenous tradition. In particular, the practice of reciting stories orally in special social situations is quite different from our standard mode of written, mass produced narratives. Rather than participating in the process, we become passive receptors to the story, diminishing its meaningfulness. The second reason which Dr Paterson outlines is related to the policies which the colonial government enacted to deliberately alter or erase Indigenous cultural practices. In particular, the outlawing of the potlatch ceremony and the forcible removal of children into residential schools dealt crushing blows to traditional methods of storytelling, and consequently to our ability to understand these stories and their implications.

In her introduction to Harry Robinson’s “Living Stories”, Wendy Wickwire presents another reason for our limited capacity to understand first stories. According to Wickwire, academics such as Claude Levi-Strauss and Franz Boas instituted anthropological definitions of storytelling which diminished the relevancy of first stories. Strauss, for example, identified first stories with “cold zones” of consciousness, which he identified as “resistant to change… timeless and ahistorical.” (11) In this way, indigenous stories were relegated strictly to the past, discounting their importance and validity. Indigenous stories became representative of an obsolete culture, one which was incompatible with European cultural characteristics of “constant, irreversible change.” (11)

In reality, Indigenous stories were not as static as Boaz and Levi-Strauss would like us to believe. As Wickwire points out, there existed many stories which addressed both the arrival of European colonizers and their origins as a people. The story about the white and black twins is an example of this. By creating a conception of Indigenous storytelling as situated strictly in the “deep past”(22), these anthropological analyses could fit with the overarching agenda of colonial powers to identify Indigenous culture, as a whole, as incompatible with change and progress. Europeans had both a “God-given purpose” and “science and reason” (Patterson, Web) on their side, something which Indigneous cultures could not have had if colonial practices were to be justified within Western consciousness.

Wickwire even points out deliberate doctoring of first stories in order to relegate them to the deep past. For example, the mention of a gun being traded with a deity-like being was edited out of a recording of a tale by Boas, “thus transforming what may have been intended as a historical narrative into the more desirable precontact myth”(23). I think it would be fitting to conclude that the traditional treatment of indigenous storytelling and first stories is congruent to a greater colonialist theme of discounting the validity of indigenous culture. This mentality served (and continues to serve) the justification of brutal colonial acts, including the institution of Residential Schools.

Works Cited:

Beehive Collective. The True Cost of Coal. 2013. Web. 15 Feb 2014.

“First Nations Potlatch” BC Archives. Web. 15 Feb 2014.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books. 2005. (1-30)

A wide range of ideas which make up home from reading the group’s blogs:

Family

Acceptance

Comfort

A place for growth

Friendship

Familiarity

Tradition

Bonding

The Natural Landscape

Throughout reading the blogs, it became apparent that home had many different meanings, depending on who was describing it. Home is not a fixed concept, and one of the most interesting things I found about my classmate’s stories were the ideas of what home was not. It was not, necessarily, a fixed geographical location. It was not something which can be identified and applied universally to all people – Home, it seems, is something which is created both by individuals and by groups of people – these groups can be families, friends, cultures, etc…
Canada, in particular, offers a unique understanding of home, because for many it is a place of refuge or escape. In this way, home can be defined relatively to somewhere else.
Yet I think it is important to remember that while Canada does offer refuge for people who are escaping hardship or suffering, this refuge is located on a land which once belonged to another people, and the history of its ownership is complicated and contradictory to many of our shared values.

There is a town, a village really, in the mountains to the east.  It is a secluded place nestled in a valley which runs east to west. There are legends that say this layout carried certain connotations for the first peoples in the area, so they would not settle there. But they certainly passed through, and as these people did not have a fixed location in which they lived year round, as we do now, it was as much their home as it could be.

The shape of the valley is such that it receives a great abundance of sunshine. Many years ago a group of refugees noticed this, and as they were looking for a place to live, and relied on the sun and the earth to cultivate crops for their livelihood, they decided to settle in the valley. This was after the first peoples had been forced to cease their traditional way of life, and did not pass through the valley anymore. And though the refugees, who had travelled halfway across the world just to be left alone, had a fixed concept of home similar to ours, their differences were enough to attract the attention of the authorities. This was mostly due to their language. The government’s idea of home was such that everyone who lived in the area which they decided was under their control had to speak the same language, and to adopt other cultural norms. But the refugees, who had already undergone great hardship at the hands of many governments, refused to abandon their language. And so a sort of battle began, one that was never really resolved, and was often fought in secret. But that is another story.

The refugees grew apples, raspberries, potatoes, and just about any fruit and vegetable you can think of. They built a factory to turn the fruit into jam and sell for a profit. They ran a cooperative where they sold their produce to the public. They even built a brick factory to make the material with which they built the houses in which they lived – large buildings which were home to several families. They also built their own schools out of these bricks, so that they did not have to send their children to government schools and lose their language. And though the government tried to destroy the refugee’s independence and strength, much of the philosophy and culture survived for generations, and even exists to this day. They still call the valley their home.

Long after the valley was settled by the community of refugees, a war broke out in a far off country. It was waged by a government which did not have the support of the young people who were supposed to be the ones fighting the war. The government adopted policies which forced young people to fight in the war, or be sent to jail. Rather than fight or be imprisoned, many young people fled north, some of them to the very same valley which I have been telling you about. Here they would not have to fight or be imprisoned, but could live in peace. The policies of the government which controlled this valley had loosened over time. Like the refugees who lived in this valley already, the young people just wanted to be left alone. They, too, made use of the valley’s extraordinary sunshine. But rather than growing fruits and vegetables, they grew special strains of a plant which has many uses. This plant could be used to make rope and many other useful things. It could also be smoked or eaten to alter an individual’s perception of themselves and their surroundings. This plant had to be grown and sold without the interference of the government, so an underground economy was created, and the valley became famous for its illegal export.

And so the people who called this valley home probably had a different understanding of what home meant than most of us do. For them, home simply meant a place where they could be left alone, where no one was going to impose rules or stipulations on them to which they were strongly opposed. Home was a place of peace, cooperation, and understanding. And many people who were born and raised in this valley grew up with this understanding of home, and though many left to see the world and to enrich their understanding of life in general, they carried this particular understanding with them. Wherever they went, as long as they held peace in their hearts, they were home.

Works Cited:

“Bob Erb 4 Herb Legalize It! Brian Taylor (Grand Forks) sings a marijuana song” YouTube. 13 Sept 2013. Web. 1 Feb, 2014.

Fructova School. 1912. Boundary Museum, Grand Forks, BC. Web. 1 Feb 2014.
“Jesse LeBourdais – I Go By The Sound” YouTube. YouTube, 3 July 2010. Web. 1 Feb, 2014

I have a great story to tell you

This is a story that happened a long time ago, but it is happening right now, too. I think it is a story that is going to keep on going… it may never end!

It is a story that takes place far away, in distant cities and countries and continents, but it takes place inside of you and I, too.

It is a story about evil, something which takes many different forms. This formless thing, evil, has existed for as long as man can remember. All of our oldest stories, both those written down and not, tell of this thing. Some of these stories explain this thing as having a particular origin or cause, implying that man once lived in a world without evil.

My story is different. And it goes like this:

There is a man who lives inside of a man. Or a woman who lives inside of a woman. Or a woman inside of a man… it does not really matter. Let’s just say that it is a human inside of a human. This little human is not alone. There is a second little human with him. And though they are the same size, they are very different in character. And though they are different from each other, and much smaller than the big human, they have one thing in common – they were all born at the same time. The little humans could not have been born before the big human, because they would have had nowhere to live. And they could not have been born afterwards, because the big human would not have let them in.

One of these little humans is very, very loud. Sometimes he yells in an angry, shrill voice, and stomps around kicking and smashing everything he can find. Other times he talks in a low, grating growl and carefully takes things apart, making sure all of the parts remain intact.

The other little human is usually very quiet. He spends a lot of his time fixing the things that his neighbour has broken. And when he runs out of things to fix, he likes to make new things. He knows how to make just about everything – paintings, boats, poems, cabinets, birthday cakes, tattoo guns…. you name it. If he is not busy fixing the broken things, there is no limit to what he can build.

One other thing these two little humans have in common, besides their birthdays, is that the only person who can hear them, besides themselves, is the big human inside of whom they live. They both want to be heard by more people, though, and they both compete for the big human’s attention, in order that he might speak for them to the rest of the world. The first little human does this by being very loud and persistent, and drowning out the voice of the other one. The other little human knows he cannot be louder than his neighbour, so instead he stays quiet and tries to show the big human all of the wonderful things he has built.

Now, if the big human listens to the loud and angry voice, that little human becomes encouraged and only gets louder. On the other hand, if he ignores the yelling, and focuses on the wonderful things the other little human has built and wants to share with everyone, that little human swells up with quiet pride and begins to work harder and more efficiently. So it is a choice for the big human, which little one he will pay attention to, and thus make stronger.

Now, in the world of the big human, there are many others like him who have made choices of their own, for everyone of the big humans is born with two similar little companions. And many of the big humans have chosen to listen to the loud, angry human, and have given him so much attention that he has become so loud and strong as to be able to speak through the big human. So the big humans repeat the words of the little angry human, oftentimes without even realising they have ignored and silenced his neighbour. And the voice of the little angry human acts much the same way when it is uttered through the mouth of the big human – the more people pay attention to it, the stronger it gets.

And these big humans, who are overpowered by the voice of anger, tell stories. They tell stories about a magical place called “enough”, where a person can go if they only acquire a lot of things, or a lot power over other people, or a large number on a computer screen somewhere. But the big humans who can listen to the quiet voice of the other little human, and who can see the wonderful things he can create, know that “enough” is not a destination at all, but is something which can actually come to you if you open yourself up to it. And these humans wish that the stories told by the angry voice would just stop, and that people would quiet down and listen to what the other little human has to say. But, of course, it is too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose on the world.

Post Story Commentary:

In writing this story, I tried to reinterpret and expand upon a quote I heard about two wolves fighting inside of every person. Maybe some of you are familiar with it. I also tried to remove gender from my description of the humans in the story, but found myself reverting to describing them as “he”, perhaps out of habit. My intention was to illustrate how evil is a continuous process, one that can be affected by our choices, philosophies, and awareness of ourselves. We all have evil within ourselves, and if we let it control us, it will.

Works Cited:

“Cherokee Legend: Two Wolves” First People – The Legends Web. 27 Jan 2014.

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

Shakespeare Voltron. “No no no no no no no.” Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube. Nov 22 2009. Web. Jan 27 2014.

Hello all

In this post I will be addressing question one, from assignment 1:2.

In Courtney MacNeil’s  article on orality, the author challenges an academic viewpoint which puts oral cultures and literary cultures at odds with one another. According to MacNeil, placing these traditions within a rigid binary suggests that oral culture is inferior, and plays into an ideology of “Western egocentrism.” In this way, the idea that oral culture is somehow more primitive than literate culture connects to a broader bias against non-Westernized societies.

Likewise, J Edward Chamberlain addresses this binary analysis, stating that “This kind of thinking— if we can call it that—encourages people to treat other societies with a blend of condescension and contempt while celebrating the sophistication of their own.”(n. pag.) For both writers, creating a definitive distinction between oral and written cultures is symptomatic of a greater malignant thought process.

The binary analysis not only enforces ethnocentric ideologies, but also misses the mark entirely. Chamberlain identifies so-called oral cultures as being rich in “non-syllabic” and “non-alphabetical” literacy. Instead, culturally specific objects make up a form of literacy. According to Chamberlain, the cultures which we identify as “oral” actually use an alternative literacy for the exact same function as our own “literate” cultures. Likewise, Chamberlain identifies the many institutions of literate culture (courts, schools, etc) as depending greatly on oral communication.

MacNeil further expands on the problems of dichotomizing oral and literate cultures by exploring the fluid nature of our own forms of communication, due to the technological advancements of recent years. Our so-called “literate culture,” through participating in text messaging, twitter, snapchat, etc. is actually engaging in communication which is just as temporary as that of so called “oral cultures.”

MacNeil’s analysis on electronic communication, however, does not take into account the fact that many of these communications are being monitored and stored by US government agencies. MacNeil was writing at a time before the extent of US electronic surveillance was made public. It would be quite interesting to read what Chamberlain and MacNeil have to say about the surveillance state, in regards to our notions of oral and literate cultures, and the fluidity of our electronic communications. Does a third party’s monitoring and storing of communications for private use affect the function of these communications for users? Or is there little impact, given that the practical implications of this storing are not immediately apparent? It could be argued that the collection and storage of phone calls, text messages, internet history, etc. changes the transience of these communications, rendering this particular aspect of MacNeil’s analyses in need of some review.

Works Cited:

Chamberlin, J Edward. If This is Your Land, Where Are your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Knopf Canada, 2010, Kindle Edition.

MacNeil, Courtenay. “Orality.” http://lucian.uchicago.edu/. University of Chicago. Web. 17 Jan 2014.

“Mountain Goats: Images and Materials”. Royal BC Museum. Web. Jan 16 2014.

“NSA Collects Millions of Text Messages Globally” . CBC. Web. Jan 16 2014.

Greetings and Salutations

My name is Stepan, and I am currently in my fifth year of studies at UBC. I am looking forward to finishing up this spring with majors in Creative Writing and English Lit.  This blog is for a Canadian Literature course titled “Oh Canada: Our Home and Native Land?”In this course we will be exploring colonial narratives and Canadian indigenous realities through a literary lens.

I was born and raised in the small town of Grand Forks, BC, in the Southern Interior of the province. Indigenous history in this area was something which was generally not discussed during my upbringing, despite evidence of pre-colonial habitation. Rather, conventional history generally begins with white settlement and industrialization. In the beginning of the 20^th century Grand Forks boasted the largest copper smelter in the British Empire, supplied by the now disappeared mining boom-town of Phoenix. Eurocentricism and the glorification of capitalist industry are concepts which, I believe, are at odds with a balanced understanding of Canadian history.

Grand Forks, BC

Many of my ancestors were Doukhobor, a pacifist religious sect exiled from the Russian Empire around the turn of the 20^th century. In particular, my family belonged to a radical splinter group of the Doukhobors who called themselves The Sons of Freedom. The Sons Of Freedom garnered national and international attention for their unorthodox methods of nonviolent protest against the Canadian government, as well as for their acts of sabotage and destruction of property. At the root of this unrest was The Sons of Freedom refusal to assimilate to Canadian culture, and to send their children to English schools. The Sons of Freedom were the only non-indigenous ethnic group in BC to have their children forcibly put into residential schools. I am very proud of my ancestors’ independence.

I look forward to using this course as a way to explore alternative storytelling, and to challenge traditional or dominant concepts of Canadian identity. I believe it is important to recognize that colonialism is an ongoing process, and not something which resides strictly in our past. This course aims not only to analyze a variety of stories, but to discuss the reasons why some voices may be more prevalent than others. Ultimately this course will be a way for students to collaboratively engage issues of identity, voice, division, and history.

Works Cited:

Christina Lake Pictographs. N.d. Photograph. n.p. Web. 9 Jan 2014.

GeoBC, . British Columbia. BC Geographical Names.Phoenix BC. 2014. Web.

“Sons of Freedom 1944.” pasttensevancouver.tumblr. N.p., 12 01 2013. Web. 9 Jan. 2014.

The Spokesman Review, . “Bomb Blasts Rail Bridge in Kootenay.” news.google.com. N.p., 11 12 1961. Web. 9 Jan 2014.