Land, Stories and Identity FNAT 101- Arts One Lecture October, 2008

Uniting a Mixed Collection of Readings that question the master narrative The role of aboriginal people in the fur trade (Ray) The role of aboriginal women in trade (White) The Real Riel (Bourgeault or Flanagan) What was agreed to in Treaty (Saskatchewan Treaty Commission) Who are our ancestors (McNab)

A gap in stories – A space for meeting All the articles highlight the existence of two parallel and divergent histories Fur trade and early diplomacy within existing structures of relationship and toward building a ‘middle ground’ Established forms to secure relationship: intermarriage, treaties, gift & technology exchange Wide current gap – determined settler effort to disconnect today’s inequities and past injustice

Where are your Stories? Home is a border country, a place that separates and connects us [Stories] tell us where we come from, why we are here, how to live and die A way to believe & ceremonies to sustain We commemorate to remember Give communities a sense both of obligation and entitlement Changing stories has powerful implications Complimentary stories always develop in ways that ensure their contradiction & thus their hold on us

The Importance of Stories Connerton (1989) Collective Memories of a people Experience of the present depends of the knowledge of the past Stories legitimate a social order Said (1994) “nations are stories” The power to narrate is central to a culture McNab (2005) “Sometimes fear is stronger than truth” The long term effects of denial The first ‘white’ person King (2003) “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are”

Multiple Stories/ Contested Terrain Stories locate the boundaries of our identities/ which we believe and locate ourselves amidst These boundaries can overlap and lead to conflict Examples: Gitksan and British Columbia Nisga’a and Gitanyow Afrikaners and Zulus Irish and the British Pound/ Wente/ Widdowson and Charles Mann/ Weatherford The history of all cultures and thus their stories is a history of cultural borrowing

Contested Minds Often stories are the first place attacked in a campaign to control land and a people Target story holders and transmittal Potlatch ban Residential schools Not unique to aboriginal peoples 1618 Czech takeover by Austria Nazi Germany Control of stories and memories = power

Stories and Resistance “One of the first tasks of a culture of resistance was to reclaim, rename and re-inhabit the land” (Said,1994) A search for authenticity…a more congenial origin than that provided by the colonial story Authenticity crucial as we search for/construct identity in stories of our people & families (my paper at CINSA, 2000) McLeod’s (2004) “discursive authority” as the subjects & creators of our own narratives Legitimacy of voice

Risky Stories (Davis, 2004) Sacred knowledge and ceremonies that speak to fundamental relationships Stories belonging to a collective and passed on inter-generationally Stories only certain people are authorized & competent to discuss Stories that belong to a particular times and places (only told there) Stories that reveal conflict in a community & could deepen divisions or expose to attention Stories that interpret experiences through ‘outsiders’ eyes and prisms