Question: “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 By Stories, find a third reason why, according to Robinson, our abilities to make meaning from first stories and encounters is so seriously limited.”

Before beginning, I will clarify the parts of the question where I have lingering questions; where I am required to make assumptions.

Who is our? Who is us?

I can safely assume that “our” means the students in this course. “Our” might also refer to Canadians. It might refer to Indigenous people, it might not. I am only part Indigenous. It matters to how I understand the world, but I don’t identify that way because I am not close to a specific community; I never have been (yet- though I intend to spend time in and around South Indian Lake in the next couple years). I haven’t heard “the first stories” from my Cree kin because I’ve lived apart from my grandma and her relatives my whole life but, I wonder, would I lack ability to make meaning of those stories?

What are first stories? Are they creation stories? Are they reminiscent of Franz Boas “fixation on the deep past” (Robinson)? Are they the first stories that were recorded in writing throughout the lands we now know as Canada? Are they the first stories that were told here, or are they stories told now about the beginning of time, or are they both? Are they any and all stories told by First Nations people? Can anybody define what is or isn’t a first story?

Back to the question- why is our capacity for understanding or making meaningfulness from the first stories seriously limited? I will respond in three parts.

“Indians and whites derived their power from two completely different sources. For Indians, power was located in their hearts and heads; for whites, it was located on paper.” (Robinson)

1. “The social process of the telling is disconnected from the story and this creates obvious problems for ascribing meaningfulness,” (Paterson).
   

   Relational storytelling among friends and family – informed by time and space

   Story telling is a relational act. When we read stories, especially as a class assignment, we are less likely to be invested in the story and in the relationship to the teller than if we were sharing space. As readers, we are unknown to the storyteller and our own voices, experiences, history and knowledge shadow our reading.
   Lost is the honour of hearing the tone, intonation, the pauses in between; we miss the hand gestures, eye contact, or lack thereof; we miss the moments before, after, and in between; we miss the place where the story is told; we miss shared time.
   As listeners, it is our role to receive stories. As good listeners, we understand the importance of reciprocity. Something is given in return, whether it be presence, tea, a meal, a story in exchange, the ability to carry that story with us lighting, from then on, the way we move through the world (this happens in subtle and radical ways). Reciprocity is better understood through relational storytelling. Through shared moments and shared space.

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,” (Paterson).

   Indigenous families, communities, and nations ability to be together and well has been gravely fractured through the horrors of colonialism and settler colonialism. But, importantly, people, communities and nations have resisted. Strength remains, in abundance, despite the ongoing violences of colonialism and the inter-generational trauma of colonialism, due to dislocation, residential schools, and discriminatory and inhumane government policy which attempted to diminish Indigenous cultures, languages, ways of life, and ability to be together.When we are well, we have time and space for stories – to share and to listen. Fear and internalization – when colonized peoples internalize the message told to them by their oppressor (that their stories and ways of knowing are invalid) – are both barriers to storytelling. Beyond that, the settler state has been attempting, systematically, to diminish Indigenous cultures, pride and connection to lands and life ways for over 150 years.The government of Canada, the provincial governments, municipal governments, the church, and settler-Canadians have committed genocide and violence on Indigenous people, reducing their ability to be together, be well, and to share stories. This has happened in a myriad of ways, including but not at all limited to:

• Potlach ban, Sundance ban – gatherings to reaffirm creation stories, governance, to enact law, to celebrate, to mourn
• banning of Indians gathering in groups
• the Indian Act as a whole
• Reserve system, Pass system – essentially locking people up. Keeping them from being free on their lands, which are inherently connected to their stories and ways of knowing.
• Dislocation of Indigenous people from their lands
• The destruction of Indigenous lands for profit, and also, the imposition of capitalism on Indigenous communities without consent
• Residential schools and boarding schools – where the goal was to “kill the Indian in the child,” as said by Duncan Campbell Scott
• Children STILL having to move away from their homelands for schooling
• 60s scoop- and the fact that EVEN MORE Indigenous children are in care today
• Imposition of Christianity
• Imposition of English and French – stories are embedded in language. Stories lose meaning when translated.
• Population decimations, such as through smallpox, insufficient medical care for disease brought in by settlers
• Disproportionate incarceration rates
• MMIWColonialism continues to interrupt indigenous people’s ability to be together and to be well.
  
  3. Because the West has been attached to a made-up idea of the mythic Indian, rather than an evolving and diverse people. “The ‘mythteller’—the bearer of the single, communal accounts rooted in the deep past.” (Robinson) — and this doesn’t exist!

  Though Harry Robinson doesn’t explicitly say it himself, it is suggested through the introduction to Living By Stories that “our” ability to let first stories resonate deeply is fractured by the West’s attachment to a mythic idea of who/ what an Indigenous person is, and what Indigenous stories should be like (ie, set in the past). This idea has been built upon through film, television, and advertising depicting a variety of Indian tropes (wise, stoic, noble savage, ecological/ one with nature, Indian princess, cowboy vs. Indians, etc) representing “some overarching, static, ideal type of culture, detached from its pragmatic and socially positioned moorings among real people.” (Robinson).

  In The Truth About Stories, Thomas King hypothesizes why so many Indigenous authors write in the present- to respond to the world’s attachment to the dead Indian; to represent the ever-evolving, diverse lives of Indigenous people today. Wendy Wickwire discusses her own influence from Franz Boas and the stories he deemed important thus publishable, mostly pre-contact stories. Initially, Wickwire let this influence her choices in which stories of Robinson’s were worthy of sharing, but she has let go of this attachment.

  Harry Robinson responds to attachments to the mythic Indian by seeing value in telling and sharing a diversity of stories, to represent a variety of experiences of what it means to be Indigenous and what it means to be on this planet. “He wanted to show the cultural importance of maintaining a full range of stories,” (Robinson).

  Does it mean we’ll understand? No- but still- as readers, we can read knowing that stories are told because they are meaningful.

Works Cited

Henderson, William. “Indian Act.” February 7, 2006. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indian-act

Monkman, Leonard. “Indigenous incarceration rates: why are Canada’s numbers so high and what can be done about it?” June 29, 2018. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-incarceration-justice-system-panel-1.4729192

Robinson, Harry. “Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory.” Talonbooks. Kindle Edition.

Sardar, Zia. “Fanon and the epidemiology of oppression.” November 30, 2009. http://www.frantzfanoninternational.org/Fanon-and-the-Epidemiology-of-Oppression