28 - Wednesday, December 19, 1999 - North Shore News

New releases explore native

S A young newspa-

per scribe working in

a northern B.C. Inte-
rior town, | was once
assigned the task of inter-
viewing a political candidate
whose campaign itinerary
democratically included
every bar and lounge in the
region.

Noon was a few hours away
when we met but the parliamen-
tary hopeful had already devel-
oped a severe list to starboard
and, even more disconcerting, in-
sisted on addressing me as though
there were two reporters present,
not one.

His political platform might have
surprised the Liberal Party's policy
makers, comprising as it did two
rather unorthodox planks.

The first, of no relevance here,
was that the xenophobia of
Quebec politicians would best be
neutralized by hanging Rene
Levesque —- ideally on television.

The second was that no notice
should be taken of native aspira-
tions because (and | quote):
“Their culture is less than 200
years old. They didn’t have any
culture before the white man
came; what they have, we gave
fem.”

His problem (okay — one of his
problems) was a little thing called
“ethnocentrism” — judging a
culture by another's standards.

The fact is that all aboriginal
cultures are far more complex
than they might appear to the

uninformed observer and those of
Canadian native peoples are no
exception.

This week and next we'll be

i
oe.
g
&

MIKE wd
STEELE g\.

book review

looking at several books which
explore various facets of native
history and folklere, beginning on
the lighter side with the following
collections of legends based on
the rich oral traditions of the peo-
ples whose stories they are.

Filied with humor and mischief,
they present a fascinating and
entertaining array of creation and
morality tales. Passed down
through countless generations of
children and adults, they served
not only to explain natural phe-
nomena but also to reinforce
social behaviors essential for sur-
vival in pre-technological times.

The most ambitious of the titles
is Howard Norman’s Northern
Tales ~ Traditional Stories of
Eskimo and Indian Peoples
(Random House; 343 pp.; $33), an
encyclopedic assemblage of over
100 fables as told by the Indians
and Inuit of Canada, Alaska and
Greenland.

From Fitzhenry & Whiteside
comes joseph Bruchac’s Return
of The Sun (204 pp.; $11.50), the
author’s fourth compilation of
native legends.

In this one, Bruchac concen-
trates on folk stories from the nor-
theast woodlands, including the
Micmac stories of Glooscap tamil-
iar to many Canadian school
children.

Douglas & Mcintyre has just
published a new edition of Francis
Fraser's The Bear Who Stole
The Chinook (129 pp.; $12.95),
31 tales from the Blackfoot of
southern Alberta.

It should be noted that Fraser,
although not herself a native Ca-
nadian, first set these legends to
print at the urging of tribal elders
over three decades ago.

Joan Skogan’s The Princess, &
The Sea Bear And Other Tsim-
shian Stories (Polestar/Raincoast;
46 pp.; $5.95) provides readers
with nine B.C. coast folktales of
the Northwest Tsimshian people.

For young readers (ages four
plus) there’s the ancient Abenaki

in hardcover).

Coming Up

Next week we'll be taking a look
at two important works which deal
with various aspects of native life.

What are native land claims?
Paul Tennant has tackled the
lengthy history of the land claims
issue in British Columbia in
Aboriginal Peoples and Politics,
«the first comprehensive
treatment of the jand question in
British Columbia and...the first to

folklore

story of haw corn and tire came
into the world, as told and il-
lustratea by C.J. Taylor in How
Two-Feather Was Saved From
Loneliness (Tundra; 20 pp.; $12.95

examine the modern political his-
tory of (B.C.} Indians.”

In tron Hand Upon The Peo-
ple, authors Douglas Cole and Ira
Chaikin recount one of the darker
episodes in what some have called
a program of cultural genocide;
the federal government's banning
of one of the most vitai facets of
native social and spiritual life, the
potlatch,

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