2:4 Here’s a Third Reason Why

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.

Professor Paterson, outlines for us two reasons for the difficulty of understanding the first stories. The first reason being, as she said, “the social process of the telling is disconnected from the story and this creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness”. This brings me back to Harry Robinson, who questioned why all of his stories did not make it into the two volumes published by Wendy Wickwire. He had told her so many stories over the years, there was no way she could have fit them all. However, she also thought further into the stories that did not get published in those first two volumes. Wickwire had trouble finding a place for certain stories that involved unusual things like “talking cats and disappearing cows and horses” (Robinson, 22). She found those stories meaningful when told by Robinson, however could not find a place for them in a book. I find this to be a good example of the disconnect between different methods and media of storytelling. Professor Paterson also mentions the discourse of who is collecting stories and why they are collecting them.

The second reason Paterson brings up is the residential schools and other government issued attempts of blocking culture and knowledge through seven generations of Aboriginal people. Having minimal culture and knowledge passed down through even one generation, nonetheless seven, is an extremely logical reason for the loss of many stories as well as a limited understanding of the first stories.

I would like to offer a third possible reason, based in knowledge gained from Harry Robinson. The language barrier between Aboriginal languages and English can cause a story to be told differently. When telling one of his stories to Wickwire, Robinson uses the word “imbellible”. Wickwire then asks about it and it turns out the word was supposed to be “unbelievable”. This word was offered as an English translation of an Okanagan word (Robinson, 14). The first stories were not originally told in English and therefore to be told to todays general public they must be translated. This reason, of course, piggy-backs on the first reason which, in turn, piggy-backs on the second reason. As, the reason these stories have been disconnected from their original storytelling comes from a long history of First Nations culture being stripped. These stories were originally oral stories told in a Native tongue. A story translated into another language and then told in a different form, such as a book instead of an oral story, can be interpreted very differently than the original. In translating, some parts of stories can lose their original meaning. As Chamberlin talked about, without the storyteller, a story can be told with a different meaning behind it. With these two problems, it can cause a disconnect. An audience that can only understand English would potentially have a limited capacity for understanding these stories.

Putting these oral stories in a Western context by translating it into English and then writing them in a book is a controversial issue on its own. Oral stories are meant to stay active and move and change with the oral language. The problem here is the story is taken and put in a colonized setting and made stagnant. Do you agree with my third reason for our limited ability to understand the first stories? Do you think reading the stories aloud can allow for the stories to continue to move and grow even though they are printed in a book?

Works Cited

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining         

           Home and Sacred Space. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2004. Print

Hanson, Erin. “The Residential School System.” The Residential School System. UBC, n.d.

          Web. 16 June 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres  

          May 2016. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2016.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and

           edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books2005. (1-30).