In the foreword to a collection of traditional stories, Tse-shaht author George Clutesi (1967) says:
Quaint folklore tales were used widely to teach the young the many wonders of nature; the importance of all living things, no matter how small and insignificant; and particularly to acquaint him with the closeness of man to all animal bird life and the creatures of the sea. The young were taught through the medium of the tales that there was a place in the sun for all living things. This resulted in a deep understanding and love of man for all animal life. (pp. 9-10)
Clutesi’s explanation discloses that the practice of stories as
knowledge is not just about technical knowledge, such as how to carry out
specific tasks for living, but also knowledge on how to orient oneself to the
world. Story knowledge can contain both emotional and ethical teachings.
Syilx scholar Jeanette Armstrong (2013) wrote her dissertation
on the ethical teachings within Okanagan stories, and also published a chapter
summarizing her dissertation. She says:
Captik stories told in the Nsyilxcen language display and mimic the dynamic aspects of nature's required regenerative principles. Captik stories communicate to each succeeding generation and act as a continuous feed-back loop reconstructing the social paradigm. As such, captik might be seen as a distinctly human adaptive response scheme to the conditions present in a natural system. The way captik constructs the Syilx Okanagan world through literature as ‘social instruction’ results in behavior with a direct sustainable outcome in the environment. (p. 40)
She envisions a future where there is re-indigenization of
society, “opening a viable path toward a future willingness to engage in a
human practice of sustainability for all lifeforms on the planet” (p. 45).
Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
(2013), in a foreword to traditional stories, says:
Storytelling within Nishnaabeg traditions is a wonderful way of teaching and inspiring not only children but also people of all ages. Young children listen in a very literal way. Adolescents begin to make deeper connections. Adults notice conceptual meanings and are able to integrate the teachings into the breadth of their experience. This is the brilliance of our traditions—our stories are seeds, encoding multiple meanings that grow and change with the passage of time. They are a dynamic, engaging conversation that requires personal engagement and reflection and that our people carry with them throughout their lives. They are meant to provide comfort, meaning, and a sense of belonging within our families and our communities. (2013, p. 3)
Thus, a story does not mean the same thing to all people.
Stories have the potential to inform our lives at various life stages, and the
interpretation of a story is not fixed or objective. Interpretation changes
according to context and over the course of time. I recall as a child having a
book of Aesop’s fables. At the end of each story, there would be a little
caption which said, “and the moral of this story is…”. Note that that is a
different approach than the one that Simpson describes. Likewise, when I was a
secondary English teacher, my classroom came with binders of blackline masters
to go with various novels and short stories. There were multiple choice quizzes
where students could select, from a pre-populated list, the “correct”
interpretation of a story. That is also an approach which differs from
Simpson’s perspective on interpretation.
Anishinaabe jurist and scholar John Borrows (2010) says:
One of the strengths of Anishinabek storytelling is that the participants can draw their own conclusions about its relevance for the issues they receive. In Anishinabek traditions, stories might possess multiple meanings, encouraging interpretive scope for the various people involved in their recounting. They are best related without the burden of explicit commentary. (p. 71)
This quote can be viewed as a description, observing and
explaining how stories work and how people engage in stories. It can also be
viewed as instruction, encouraging one to share stories in such a way that
there is room for interpretation. It can also be viewed as ethical instruction,
encouraging the listener to take an active role in interpretation, rather than
just asking the storyteller “but what does it mean?” It could also be an
ethical instruction in that it encourages people, when sharing their own
interpretations, not to insist that their interpretation is the only correct
interpretation. In that way, it is empowering, acknowledging one’s
interpretation to be valid even if others do not have identical
interpretations.
According to Stó:lō scholar Jo-Ann Q’um Q’um Xiiem Archibald,
making meaning from stories is “a process that involves going away to think
about their meanings in relation to one’s lives” (Archibald, 2008, p. 91). The
job of the listener is to make sense of the story and apply it to one’s
situation. This sets story apart from straight advice, as the listener has
responsibility to create something from the story. The listener’s role
is to draw something—not as one draws water from a well but as one draws an image,
and that image is an interpretation. This responsibility assumes that the
listener has the ability to interpret. It assumes that the listener has the
agency to use their own creativity to make decisions about their life based on
story knowledge. This also means that stories are infinitely dynamic, for if
interpretation is tied to individual lives and individual’s situations, and if
(as Simpson says) interpretation changes as one moves through time, then
possible interpretations are infinite.
I have learned that the traditional ways favour no or very little guidance from the storyteller. However, the effects of colonization, assimilation, and acculturation, predominantly through schooling, have left many people unable to engage in story listening and make story meaning unless directly guided. (Archibald, 2008, p. 112)
Thus, the act of engaging in story listening and meaning making is implicitly an act of decolonization. At times I have listened as others argued about the minute details of stories, each claiming that they were correct. I think that these arguments reflect the rigid approach of residential schools, where there was only one truth, the truth outlined in the Bible, and those who did not adhere to the truth were punished severely. There are often variations of the same story that appear in different places and from different families. That doesn’t make them any less true. But when I hear people argue about what version is correct, I feel too afraid to present any version of the story to any audience, for if there are variations, and only one variation can be correct, then no matter what I do, I will always be wrong. And so I haven’t engaged in telling our traditional stories. Likewise, I have largely relied on others to interpret the stories for me because it is a safe approach. I have been passive about our stories because I am overwhelmed by the impossible expectation of correctness. As I enter mid-life, though, and as the people who told me stories in the past leave this world, I realize that the “safe” approach of not telling any stories and not making my own interpretations is potentially detrimental to the vitality of the stories themselves. I won’t be sharing traditional stories in this work, but I do note that both storytelling and story interpreting have been negatively impacted by residential schools, and that for me the journey of overcoming that harm is personal and complex.
Nicole Penak (2019), a social worker and psychotherapist of
mixed Mi’kmaw, Malisee, Acadian, and Ukranian heritage says, “stories are my
chosen medicine” (p. 139). She also says,
I believe Indigenous storytelling has the power to restore relationships in our lives. It’s not prescriptive in nature with an index to follow applicable solutions to life's challenges. In many cases rather, our teachers help us to see the upside down, the opposite, and the other balances of things around us. (p. 145)
This quote illustrates the belief that stories can have
a positive transformative impact on relationships. However, Penak does not
advocate engaging with stories as though they were reference guides, where the
answer is clearly outlined. When Penak says stories have the power to do things
to us, she gives the stories their own agency. Stories are not things that we
consume or objects that we use. They have their own power. Penak’s approach is
not one where we extract things from stories or where we place the stories into
a rigid interpretative formula in order to generate a meaning. Rather, the
stories play on the listener, and the listener’s stance is flexible enough to
allow them to enter the play in turn.
Janice Acoose (2016), teacher educator and literary critic from the
Sakimay First Nation and the Marival Métis community, says:
Indigenous knowledge is evolving, intelligent, and contributing to the world community. Using Indigenous-authored texts, I also show students how contemporary Indigenous writers use contemporary literary forms to re-member and recreate Indigenous cultures and relations while simultaneously remaining connected to essential Spiritual values and traditions. (p. 28)
What I appreciate about this quote is that writing stories is
presented as a form of cultural expression. The written form of cultural
expression is not presented as a threat to oral tradition, nor is it diminished
in comparison to oral tradition. It is celebrated as being a part of how
Indigenous people express ourselves. As the world changes, our traditions
change too, but that doesn’t mean that they no longer have value. It simply
means that they have found new expression, and, in the case of writing, this
new form of expression has expanded our ability to express ourselves.
Indigenous people are not fixed in the past. We are part of the world, and our
writing is one of the ways that we are part of the world. Within colonialism,
writing was superior to orality, and thus Indigenous people were looked down
upon for not having a well-established tradition of writing. Sometimes I
encounter individuals who, as a strategy of decolonization, flip this hierarchy
and assert that orality is superior to writing. I assert that hierarchies are a
colonial tool of social violence which undermine our relationships to each
other, and thus I refuse to pit written self-expression against oral
self-expression, and I refuse to place one above the other.
Engaging with storytelling traditions, including storytelling
and story interpretation, ensures their vitality. “Our traditions are alive and
relevant when they interact with the world around them. Our legal perspectives
would be lost if we didn't use them. I've always had a problem with the notion
of trying to preserve traditions in their pristine form. You preserve jam—you
live traditions.” (Borrows, 2010, p. 219). It is not possible to perfectly
re-tell stories as they were before contact, and likely before contact there
were already variations. If we limit our choices to either perfect recitation
of stories and their interpretations or nothing at all, then we risk destroying
our own traditions. I don’t think my ancestors were focused on preserving
traditions in their pristine form, and I don’t think they would hold me to that
standard either. And so, I choose to step into the tradition of interpretation,
even at the risk of doing it imperfectly.
Acoose (2016) highlights the reasons why keeping traditions
alive matters for Indigenous people when she says:
Like the stories of the oral tradition, contemporary Indigenous literature serves a socio-pedagogical function as well as an aesthetic one. By challenging the prevailing mythology about the formation of the settler state, it teaches both settlers and Indigenous people, who too often blame themselves for the problems that plague our communities, about the damaging effects of colonization. Based on the premise that an enlightened population will demand equitable and effective public policy, this socio-pedagogical function of Indigenous literature promotes social justice for Indigenous people, perhaps more effectively than political rhetoric. Indigenous literature also serves a therapeutic function by using story to help Indigenous people heal from colonization. (p. 193)
Stories have a unique role to play in positive social
transformation. And stories can play an important role in facilitating
individual well-being. Similarly, in her book Taking back our spirits;Indigenous literature, public policy, and healing, Métis scholar Jo-AnnEpiskenew (2009) says:
Despite the ferocity of the colonial regime's attack on them using public policy as its weapon, Indigenous people have not assimilated or disappeared. Indigenous people have appropriated the language and literary practices of the colonizers, which they use to expose the consequences of imperial policies on their people. However, Indigenous literature is not merely an exposé of past and present injustices. The discussion of Indigenous literature and drama in the following chapters reveals that Indigenous people have learned that the creative process has restorative powers. Today's Indigenous writers use the power of narrative and drama to heal themselves and their people from the trauma that colonial policies have inflicted. (p. 67)
I think that it is interesting that she links public policy and
literature together. I work in the education sector, and I wonder whether
decisions made in the education sector would be enhanced if the practice of
reading Indigenous literature were widely adopted as a form of ongoing
professional growth. I think that it’s notable that Indigenous literature plays
multiple roles (exposé/restoration). Personally, I have sometimes found that
films or books which are specifically intended for a non-Indigenous audience,
and which are written with the intent to act as an exposé, are not restorative
for me, because it can be painful to revisit trauma again and again. Also,
having spent a lot of time learning about Indigenous public policy in Canada, I
rarely encounter new information in books intended for a mainstream
(non-Indigenous) audience, thus the exposé function is less effective.
Conversely, I have encountered books which are written with an Indigenous
audience in mind, and I find that they generally provide me with a positive
experience. I have relied on stories that have a restorative impact on me as
sources in this study because I hope that this work will have a restorative
impact on me.
Stó꞉lō author Lee Maracle said, “our stories are about our recovery, not our demise” (Beard,
2019, p. 10). In addition to teaching people about the past and engaging people
in healing today, literature also can have a forward-looking function which
helps us think about questions such as “what do we want?”, “what could that
look like,” and “how do we get there?”.
Stl’atl’imx scholar Peter Cole (2006), speaking about academia,
says, “They have visionaries but who listens to them/aren’t there any
listenaries in their culture?” (p. 101). The author does not define listenary,
nor is there much in terms of context clues that might help one understand how
a visionary is different from a listenary. Nonetheless, I am somehow moved by
the idea of a listenary. Perhaps its because I associate listening with
stories. I imagine a visionary as someone who looks out into the world with a
vision on how to create a better future. Whereas I imagine a listenary as
someone listening to stories and looking to storytellers and stories for
wisdom.
Nicola Campbell is a Nłeʔkepmx, Syilx, and Métis author who has
written a number of award-winning children’s books (Campbell, 2005; 2008; 2011;
2018) and recently published a memoir (Campbell, 2021). In her recent
dissertation defense on the topic of Indigenous stories, she states, “Our
stories have responsibilities, and our stories have a purpose… to show us the
ways of healing and that transformation and recovery is possible” (Campbell,
2022). While listening to Nicola’s defense, I realized that as Indigenous
authors write both fiction and non-fiction, they work through emotionally difficult
concepts, and they bring us along on their journey. They lay their hearts on
the page and it is an incredible form of leadership that I am so grateful for.
Works Cited
Acoose, J. (2016). Iskwewak kah’Ki Yaw Ni Wahkomakanak: Neither Indian princesses nor easy squaws (2nd ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Women’s Press.
Archibald J. (2008). Indigenous storywork: Educating the heart, mind, body, and spirit. Vancouver, British Columbia: UBC Press.
Armstrong, J. (2018). Influences of Okanagan Oraliture: Sources of Syilx Knowledge. Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien, 24-36. http://www.kanada-studien.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ZKS_2018-67_3Armstrong.pdf
Beard, L. J. (2019). Resistance, resilience, and resurgence: Tracing the Rs in Indigenous literary studies/Resistencia, resiliencia e ressurgencia: Perseguindo os erres nos estudos literarios Indigenas. Revista Artemis, 28(1), 8-17. gale.com/apps/doc/A616167730/IFME?u=anon~4e1bf0d9&sid=googleScholar&xid=44772868
Borrows, J. (2010). Drawing out law: A spirit’s guide. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press.
Campbell, N. (2005). Shi-shi-etko. Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books.
Campbell, N. (2008). Shin-chi's canoe. Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books.
Campbell, N. (2011). Grandpa's girls. Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books.
Campbell, N. (2018). A day with Yayah. Vancouver, British Columbia: Tradewind Books.
Campbell, N. (2021). Spíləx̣m: A weaving of recovery, resilience, and resurgence. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Portage & Main Press.
Campbell N. (2022, November 21). Doctoral Dissertation Defense. Kelowna, British Columbia. University of British Columbia Okanagan.
Clutesi, G. (1967). Son of raven, son of deer. Sidney, British Columbia Gray’s Publishing Ltd.
Espiskenew, J. (2009). Taking back our spirits: Indigenous literature, public policy, and healing. Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba.
Penak, N. (2019). The trickiness of storytelling with Indigenous social workers: Implications for research in the era of reconciliation. In S.Wilson, A. V. Breen, & L.DuPre (Eds.), Research and reconciliation: Unsettling ways of knowing through Indigenous relationships (pp. 139-151). Toronto, Ontario: Canadian Scholars Press.
Simpson, L.B. (2013). The gift is in the making. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Portage and Main Press.
***
This is an excerpt from my dissertation, Singing into the Machine, p.40-45
This is a sister blog to https://twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com/
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