Storytelling is also a way of showing the consequences of
certain acts that are or would be extremely unlikely to
occur, and by doing so set certain community norms in place.
It is this kind of "teaching" component that imbues
Indigenous law with a qualitative difference from our way of
presenting law. As Ross points out: Storytelling as a means
of law-giving seems to be based on the same understanding –
that law can be known to everyone through reciting the
consequences of acts alone, not through communicating
judgmental labels for either the act or, worse still, the
actor (Ross, Returning 171).
The implication of the teaching quality in law suggests
that there is a consequence for almost every possible
scenario of life. This teaching is "like" a law, or
rulebook. It says that, to be aware of such and such an
extreme outcome of such and such an event is to warn all
listeners of the negative potential in wrong behaviour.
Contrariwise, it is to guide in a way that allows people to
live in a good way, in tune and in balance with the
‘natural’ order. It says that, should the teaching be
broken, the result will have a tremendous consequence,
usually of the kind we would associate with the
supernatural.
Storytelling could give access to the unusual to everyone
who heard such stories. These special cases of encountering
reality were not regarded as extraordinary—they were merely
experiences accorded the gifted, and everyone potentially
could experience them in dreams or in other
culturally-acceptable ways. Storytellers were specially
gifted, however, for they could articulate the teachingness
of law in a potent manner through their gifted oral skills.
It is that teachingness of law that is connected to good
medicine.
Though many of these stories and story types are found
almost everywhere in the world, what is so significant for
Native North Americans is that their stories indicate who
and what they are. Storytelling is not just the act of
retelling a favourite tale with passive listeners. It is not
even a group sitting around the fire while an elder or the
society authority relates a story of the ancestors, in
effect, recounting a foundational myth (to use our term for
the process). Rather it is a re-embodiment of the same kind
of creative act that occurred in the long-ago period.
Storytelling language is laden with meanings. By extension,
language is a creative arena within human life that can be
directly linked to the kind of orality of the group at the
beginnings of the tribe.
Furthermore, storytelling is much like a case at law that
is tried more than once…each time deals with the same facts,
but the place, time and characters can shift the parameters
of the case. No two authorities will tell the story the same
way for the simple reason that each has his/her own
spiritual take on their meaning, and the teller realizes the
nature of the group receiving the story --and their
limitations. Consequently even a myth like the Adam and Eve
story in the Bible cannot be fixed like it is in Western
religious canon because it will need to be told in contexts
that must be taken into consideration. If we examine the
apple story, we realize that the significance of the apple
can be overblown…that the key may well not have been that it
was an apple, but the disobedience of the founding couple.
Indigenous story tellers, had they the Adam and Eve story,
would say that storytellers may change the story, and even
shift the details to make the point that they thought the
group should focus upon. Specific details might be modified
considerably in oral expression.
Yet, as von Gernet and others have noted, there is a
distinction to be made, even in the indigenous case, between
oral traditions and oral histories. Ruppert and Bernet
(2001) distinguish these two categories by the way in which
the people think about and of their stories:
The first genre we will refer to as distant-time
stories…these stories tell of the origin of the world
and all its inhabitants, and they function in the manner
of sacred history. A second grouping clusters what we
might call ‘historical’ narratives that recount events
of known people in specific locations. Many of these
stories may be personal experiences or descriptions of
events that have come to an individual storyteller from
a trusted source." (Ruppert & Bernet, 2001, 9)
Scholars differ on whether the two can be separated …the
later, for example being recorded and turned into text as
‘fact.’ Some believe the text-making is itself reflective of
a vigorous social process; this is Cruickshank’s rendering
of this position:
From [women Elders] I have come to understand how
they see words as having work to do: words make the
world rather than merely referring to it. From them I
have come to appreciate a very particular definition of
‘editing’ that includes carefully tailoring performances
for specific audiences. In the not so distant past, A
Native storyteller would always count on local listeners
to be familiar with stories they were being told and
hence to appreciate why these stories were being
directed specifically to them. To really hear a story,
these elders agreed, you need to know it already at some
level, and if narratives told and written in English can
provide today’s audience with background they would
otherwise lack, so be it. From this perspective, writing
becomes just one more component of performance: one way
of familiarizing audiences with narratives so that a
storyteller can count on listeners to appreciate the
really creative editing or shaping when she tells those
stories again. Such a perspective enlarges the
definition of performance to include the written page,
so that ‘editing’ goes beyond the written page just as
‘performance’ may go beyond the physical act of telling
the story.
Such a view of Indigenous communications recognizes that
even before whites came, indigenous peoples used various
mnemonic aids, such as birch bark scrolls or wampum belts.
There is also evidence that the Midewewin medicine doctors
used sign patches for healing purposes, and in the Edmonton
area, at least one report that the Midé ceremonialist,
Maskepatoon, had received signs for writing before the time
of Evans. (Chief Wayne Roan, oral statement, 2001). But to
emphasis the writing aspect of communication is to ignore
the whole process as an interpretive activity…it is an
interpretive situation that required protocols and proper
intentions. As Simpson notes: "Traditional stories provide
us with a lens to see the past and with a context to
interpret that experience. It is therefore vital to be aware
of the cultural ‘rules’ regulating the oral tradition. These
rules must be practiced when interpreting the stories."
(2000, 26)
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