8 Indigenous Novel; Lee Maracle – Ravensong (1993)

Dr. Debashree Dattaray

Content

• Introduction

• Immigration: The early years

• Attitude towards immigrants

• Immigration in the modern times

• Ethnic and racial diversity

• The Multiculturalism Policy

• Prospects for the future

Background

Canada as a nation has projected itself as a multicultural state. It is one of the only countries in the world to exercise multiculturalism as an official constitutional policy.

Multiculturalism tends to overlook the presence of Indigenous nations, which, long before the advent of Europeans, had lived for millions of years in what would eventually be constituted as ‘Canada’. Canada’s Indigenous peoples are divided linguistically by over 50 mutually unintelligible languages belonging to 12 linguistic stocks. Moreover, their cultural and socio- political affiliations and ways of life are mutually exclusive. Therefore, Canada was and is a multicultural state long before multiculturalism became an official state policy. Consequently, shifting focus to literature, one realizes that to use the term ‘First Nations’ literature is essentially homogenous in its implications. Literatures by Indigenous peoples in English, French, or any Native language are a ‘new mode of expression’. This does not imply that such literatures are in an infantile stage of development. Rather it indicates a rich heritage of orally transmitted history, myth, fables, philosophy and verbal art from generation to generation. Aboriginal writers today attempt to preserve the lost oral traditions and also forge new directions of creating through their writings.

“Indigenity” itself is defined as the quality of being ‘born in a region’ [OED], which is considered as “otherness” based on “preconceived notions of Native cultures and peoples as “static” and on mystifications of a land-based ideology.”1 A description of ‘location’ is certainly not always self-explanatory, and perhaps may actually be relegated to the utopian sense of a homogenous time frame. This is precisely what Canadian aboriginal scholars critique in literatures on/about/of Indigenous peoples whereby notions of ‘savage’ ‘wise old Indian’  ‘squaw’ or ‘Indian princess’ have been perpetuated through fiction, media and common folklore. The aboriginal person, like all human beings, cannot be merely marked as a person comprising these apparently ‘definite’ locations of space and time. More importantly, one also needs to locate oneself while reading aboriginal literatures. Aboriginal writers have been sensitive to questions of who reads them and how do they read them. According to them, they have had sufficient reasons to complain of ‘appropriation’ of their cultures and literatures. The ‘appropriation of stories’ debate in Canada began in the 1980s and continued till the early 1990s. Native peoples accused non-Native writers for ‘stealing our stories’ and thus brought to the forefront questions of Native copyright, racist/gendered appropriation of profits, neocolonial structures of publishing houses and reception of Native texts. Native writers insisted that any reader/writer of/on aboriginal literatures must be culturally and politically located and hence sensitive to specificities in Native histories, cultures, and story-telling traditions.2 “There are a  lot of non-Indian people out there speaking on our behalf or pretending to speak on our behalf and I resent that very much,” says Okanagan writer and teacher, Jeannette Armstrong. “I don’t feel that any non-Indian person could represent our point of view adequately.” 3 One realizes the far-reaching implications of the statement given the fact that there were hardly any books by Aboriginal authors until the late 1960s. It was only in 1961 that First Nations people became citizens of Canada and received the right to vote, since there have been many encounters and expressions of creativity to overcome the colonial domination of aboriginal authors by non- native collectors and editors. Further, one would in the course of analysis realize how these very notions of identity, especially those revolving around ‘gender’ and ‘race’ are actually fluid, constructed and not a fixed, unchanging trope.

Many Native writers such as Lee Maracle along with Jeannette Armstrong see ‘reclaiming ourselves’ as a central project of aboriginal peoples in the 21st Century. Maracle’s works “document a determination to write ‘home’” rather than to “write back” as postcolonial critics describe the literature of colonized peoples. She says:

I don’t write in or to a culture not my own. If I forget that for a

minute, if I stray from that for a second, my writing would be

useless to all, including you. ’Tis Canadians, most of all white

Canadians, that need to walk a mile in my moccasins

Beatrice Culleton Mosionier also directs her writings to the general reader rather than the academia. She expresses surprise at the fact that her novels are taught at the University5 and that when she had begun to write, she had just wanted to address the question of alcoholism in her community.

By narrating the lives of individuals within communities, the writers reveal hidden histories, and common experiences of suffering. More importantly, racially discriminatory laws and policies affected diverse groups of Indigenous peoples in systematically damaging ways, so that they came to share common elements of history and identity.

Biographies

Jeannette Armstrong (1948-): was born in the Penticton Indian Reserve in British Columbia and grew up incorporating both the traditional teachings of her community and the so-called western form of education. She holds a Diploma in Fine Arts from Okanagan College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Victoria and is well-known as a visual artist, activist and author. She has also received the Buffet Award for Indigenous Leadership in 2003 and has an honourary doctorate from St. Thomas University. Since 1978, she has served in various cultural and political capacities for the Penticton Band. She has also served on her community’s traditional council, and she consults with international councils and working groups on the wide variety of issues of concern to Indigenous cultures. Armstrong has expressed her views on the coherence and collective processes inherent in Okanagan community in her novels Slash (1984) and Whispering in Shadows (2000) and in her essays entitled “Sharing One Skin” Okanagan Community”7 and “Let Us Begin with Courage.”8 For instance in “Let Us  Begin With Courage, she mentions that for the “Okanagan People, as to all peoples practicing bio-regionally self-sufficient economies, the knowledge that the total community must be engaged in order to attain sustainability is the result of a natural process of survival.”9 For Armstrong, it becomes increasingly important that there exists a continuous commitment to expression of native values and teachings for a society fragmented by colonialism.

Beatrice Culleton Mosionier (1949- ) represents ‘true Canadians’ through her Métis heritage. Indigenous women helped European coureurs de bois trappers and voyageur traders to hunt, trap, and trade in native territories. These women served as their guides, translators, cooks, tanners, carriers, slaves, concubines and wives. Consequently, Métis or halfbreeds developed from such marriages a le mode de pay. Mosionier’s semi-autobiographical novel, In Search of April Raintree created a massive impact in Canadian letters by projecting the all pervasive influence of racism in the life of two Métis sisters. Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, Beatrice Mosionier (formerly Culleton), was the youngest of the four children of Louis and Mary Clara. At the age of three, she was taken by the Children’s Aid Society of Winnipeg to grow up in foster homes, away from her family and her people. With the exception of several years when she lived in one foster home with one of her sisters, Mosionier grew up largely separated from her original home and family. Two of her sisters turned to alcoholism and eventually committed suicide. Disturbed by the alcoholism rampant in her community, the high suicide rates, she embarked on a journey of self-discovery and analysis and created her first novel, In Search of April Raintree. Mosionier has also worked in Native publishing and had been for a long time, associated with Pemmican Publications Inc.10 Her novella, Spirit of the White Bison is a powerful statement against the ruthless killing of buffalos after contact with the Europeans in the late nineteenth century. It relives an era in Canadian history through the eyes of a gentle, and sturdy white bison.

Lee Maracle (1950 – ): was born in North Vancouver, the daughter of a Salish father and a  Métis mother. She grew up in a busy household with brothers, sisters, half brothers and sisters and adopted siblings in a poor working-class neighbourhood. Her mother worked during the day and much of her childhood was spent in the company of her grandparents, one of whom was actor and poet Chief Dan George. She learnt the traditional Indigenous ways from her grandparents. She says: “I was trained in their language. [The old people] did this for me because they wanted to be able to have a writer that could express themselves.”11 Maracle derived her inspiration to become a writer from her grandparents. Maracle wrote her first poem the day she learned to read and knew at the age of 10 that she wanted to recreate myths. Writing has helped her “create a new place of belonging” by going back to aboriginal stories and re-creating them in a modern, personal context.

A member of the Stó:lo Nation, she was one of the first Aboriginal people to go to public school. Feeling isolated from her own culture as well as an outsider in Canadian culture, she dropped out of school and later drifted from western Canada to California to Toronto, supporting herself by working in construction, hospital laundry, nightclubs, film production, adult education, theatre, radio, stand-up comedy, Aboriginal arts and crafts, and traditional healing. Eventually, she became politically active and remains active in the Native struggle against racism, sexism and economic oppression. During her adolescence and adult life, she drifted between Chicano communities in California, skid row in Toronto, and her Vancouver urban environment. These years are depicted in Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel (1975), her as-told-to autobiography which was republished in an expanded version in 1990. Throughout her life, Lee Maracle and her family have been involved in the struggle of her oppressed people for the basic human rights which every human being must and should be able to experience and live up to. Being a dedicated mother and grandmother, and an untiring community worker, Maracle has spoken on and written on many occasions about Native culture and politics and has edited the works of other Native authors.

Among the most prolific Aboriginal writers in Canada today, Maracle has published  more than ten works in all, including novels, poetry, short story collections and collaborative anthologies. In 2000, Maracle received the J.T. Stewart Voices of Change Award. A collaborative work, First Fish, First People, earned an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. A graduate in sociology and creative writing from Simon Fraser University, Maracle has held numerous distinguished academic posts, including the Stanley Knowles Visiting Professor in Canadian Studies at the University of Waterloo, the Distinguished Professor of Canadian Culture at Western Washington University, and Writer in Residence at the University of Guelph. She is currently Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Toronto, Writer in Residence for the university’s Aboriginal Studies Programme, and Traditional Cultural Director for the Indigenous Theatre School.

Indigenous Novel: A Case Study of Lee Maracle’s Ravensong

Plot: Ravensong (1993) by Lee Maracle is set in the 1950s during the post World War period and highlights one of the major influenza epidemics faced by an Indigenous community during the “stupidest of times.”

Set along the Pacific Northwest Coast in the 1950s, Ravensong tells the story of an urban Native community devastated by an influenza epidemic. Stacey, a 17- year-old Native girl, struggles with the clash between white society’s values and her family’s traditional ways, knowing that her future lies somewhere in between. Celia, her sister, has visions from the past, while Raven warns of an impending catastrophe before there is any reconciliation between the two cultures. In this passionate story about a young woman’s quest for answers, author Lee Maracle speaks unflinchingly of the gulf between two cultures: a gulf that Raven says  must be bridged. Ravensong is a moving drama that includes elements of prophecy, mythology, cultural critique, and even humour.

One of the major ‘gifts’ of colonial rule has been the spread of epidemics within Indigenous communities, and the eradication of aboriginal peoples. It has led to genocide and annihilation of entire lineages of aboriginal peoples. Caught in the midst of such turmoil, the book is dedicated To all those women who fought the epidemic when this country was not concerned with our health.

The book exposes the callousness of ‘white town’ which allows native people to perish during the epidemic. It also negotiates the position of power and integrity traditionally bestowed upon women in Indigenous communities.

Narrative, Characters, and Theme:

Ravensong is in a third person narrative structure which however focuses the ‘plot’ of the story around the seventeen year old high school student, Stacey.

Stacey’s realization of choice and acceptance indicates her gradual movement towards a direction where she would not be judging her community through “their eyes”. The point of making choices and accepting people on an essentially democratic point of view is reiterated in Ravensong. The unconditional love meted out to Stacey by her family and community members is unflinching and powerful. In Ravensong ,Stacey is unable to return the affections of the white boy, Steve. Her reasons for rejecting Steve are not because he is white, but because he is not Indian14. The difference between Steve’s and Stacey’s world are too wide to be acknowledged since Steve is able to gain an insider’s perspective.

until you have experienced the horror of an epidemic, a fire, drought and the absolute threat these things pose to the whole village’s survival – and care about it, care desperately – you will be without a relevant context.

While Stacey’s people died in great numbers from the flu, Steve’s father, a doctor, would not come to the village to treat them. Stacey is also perturbed by the suicide of her classmate Polly who simply chose to take her life unable to withstand the scrutiny of her society for alleged promiscuity. Perhaps, one of the most poignant realizations of the distinctions between her community and that of the white world is evident in these lines:

Polly and Momma were the same women – good-hearted and passionate. In the white world, her Momma would have perished.

Salish Community: The community, which is Salish gains an increasing and a pervasive presence in the narratives of the two novels. However, in both texts, the reference to Salish community is mentioned only once. The reference to a Salish community in Ravensong is found when Stacey regrets what she presumes to be the male chauvinism of her little brother who waits to be served food at the table. However, as time passes by, Stacey is able to overlook Jim’s ‘arrogance’ in demanding to be served since he, like his father before him had acquired the “unalterable Salish male practice of complimenting the cook.” 17 Stacey, here, is actually, a victim of the dilemma which forms the crux of the novel. She attempts to study or delineate gender roles and discrimination according to western paradigms. As the text later on delineates, Stacey’s father, and grandfather have no qualms about helping in knitting or so called ‘womanly’ activities. In these instances, the principles of accommodation, respect for alternative thought processes, a willingness to learn and to be non-interfering in each others’ activity are advocated. As Maracle opines, I write for my future generations and the revival of the Salish nation, beyond that, I am not entitled to comment on my family/clan.

Furthermore, as the one and only conspicuous reference to a Salish background, Maracle highlights the density of perceptions. The texts promote an ethos which is so completely Salish that it does not require repeated references to the same.

Celia: As Stacey’s younger and quieter sister, Celia exhibits an intimate relationship to the community and is not someone prone to Stacey’s dilemma. The opening images of Ravensong follow a process of superimposition of images and time periods. Raven’s song spirals outwards from the deep, through layers of water stacked in sheets of varying greens. The river, shoreline, and houses of the present give way, before Stacey’s sister Celia to the landscape of big houses of another era. It also covers the first arrival of an epidemic in the village. Colonial ships and European soldiers pass on their diseases to aboriginal communities through intercourse with aboriginal women. The terrors inflicted by the first contact are replicated in Celia’s mind, even though she is too little to understand the same.

Fear, cold and thin, wove itself into Celia’s self

It foretells an impending doom for Stacey’s community with the onslaught of the Hong Kong flu epidemic. It also draws attention to the possibility of ‘change’ which is ‘gut-wrenching’. In her discussion on Ravensong, Helen Hoy points out:

“The images of superimposition, like the superimposition of at least three time periods within the text, point to a strategy of narrative density, devised to convey the plurality of affiliations, histories, and desires comprising each subjectivity and community.”

‘Superimposition’ of time frames and images ensure a complex narrative aesthetic which challenges both narrator and reader falling victim to binary constructions of black/white, Native/non-Native, male/female. The multiple narratives of Celia, Stacey and Nora or that of Stacey’s Momma in Ravensong belong to diverse historical periods. The narratives signify the diversity within a homogenous term such as the ‘Indigenous’. Each of these characters exhibits a different standpoint to what they believe to constitute an ‘Indigenous’ identity. The title of the novel is also indicative of the multiple identities.

Raven: In the context of Ravensong, Raven is the harbinger of transformation, of change. According to Maracle, “Raven represents the spirit that just wants everything to move and shift and change and loves chaos.”“Too much Raven” is a refrain which runs through the entire novel. It is the ability to witness and see the change, or to be sensitive to Raven’s song which would help the villagers and Stacey to bring about a change in their own lives. Raven “carries the power between worlds,” as Jim Cheney indicates:

“Raven is not a static and conceptually tidy link between surface people and the patterned ecological worlds of which they are a part but which – in an epistemic, ontological sense – goes beyond them, catches them up, as the rhythms of evolution go beyond the individuals who carry the evolution.”

Therefore, Raven is bestowed with sociopolitical significance and plays a distinct role in the evolution of human society. Maracle sees Raven as “the harbinger of social transformation” who “sings when the world itself is amiss. And some people hear that song.”23 Stacey’s awareness of Raven, which steadily increases through the novel, is indicative of the progress she makes in her journey towards identification with her community and as a native person. Non-aboriginal scholar Renate Eigenbrod discusses the role of the transformer character as one playing a crucial role in Indigenous literatures.

Canadian Aboriginal writers consider the transformer character a symbol of cultural rebirth because he or she communicates values that are essential in Native cultures.

The transformer character communicates values which are linked to Indigenous cultures, sociopolitical realities, and community values. Raven in the novel persists in countering Stacey’s assimilation into white town, and also in constructing possibilities of communication between the white world across the bridge and Stacey’s village.

The novel according to Maracle, is “a whole chunk from somebody’s life, how people interact, how they come to being.”25 In Ravensong, the development of Stacey whereby she becomes a significant member of a greater community is indicated through the presence and consequent absence of two personalities who interact and also do not interact with the protagonists.

References

• ‘“This Was Her Story”: An Interview with Beatrice Culleton.’ With J.M. Bridgeman. Prairie Fire 4.5 (July-Aug 1983)
• Armstrong, Jeannette. . “Let Us Begin with Courage.” Ecoliteracy: Mapping the Terrain. 1999. The Centre for Ecoliteracy. http://www.ecoliteracy.org/publications/index.html
• Armstrong, Jeannette. . “Sharing One Skin” Okanagan Community.” 2001. Columbiana Magazine http://www.columbiana.org/bioregions.htm.
• Armstrong, Jeannette. “Writing from a Native Woman’s Perspective” in In the feminine: women and words/ Les femmes et les mots: Conference Proceedings. Ed. Ann Dybikowski et al. (Edmonton: Longspoon, 1983)
• Cheney, Jim. “Tricksters in the Shadow of Civilization.” Aboriginal Peoples’ Conference, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, 18-20 October, 1996
• Eigenbrod, Renate. “The Oral in the Written: A Literature Between Two Cultures.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 15.1 (1995)
• Eigenbrod, Renate. Travelling Knowledges: Positioning the Im/Migrant Reader of Aboriginal Literatures in Canada, (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2005)
• Hoy, Helen. How Should I Read These? Native Women Writers in Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001),https://womenspress.cspi.org/books/ravensong-a-novel (Accessed May 30, 2015)
• Lutz, Hartmut Contemporary Challenges: Conversations with Canadian Native Authors, (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1991)
• Lutz, Hartmut. Approaches: Essays in Native North American Studies and Literatures, (Augsburg: Wissner, 2002)
• Maracle, Lee, Ravensong, (Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1993)
• Maracle, Lee. “Just Get In Front of a Typewriter and Bleed” in Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures, Ed. Sky Lee et al,(Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1990)
• Quoted in Janice Williamson, Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993)
• Quoted in Jennifer David. Story Keepers: Conversations with Aboriginal writers, (Owen Sound, ON: Ningwakwe Learning Press, 2004),
• Quoted in Jennifer Kelly. “Coming out of the House. A Conversation with Lee Maracle” Ariel 25, 1 (January 1994)