User:Newt73/Canadian Indigenous Literature

Canadian Indigenous Literature is defined as literature written by Canadian people who identify as Indigenous. While recognizing that there are many nations within Canada that make up the Indigenous population, there are many similiarites that unite Indigenous groups to form a foundation for the production, sharing, and study of Indigenous literatures. Many Canadian Indigenous narratives are seen as resisting colonization and post-colonial narratives. According to Jo-Ann Episkenew in Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literatures, Public Policy, and Healing, Indigenous literatures heal various forms of colonization and its intergenerational effects such as substance abuse and domestic violence. Canadian Indigenous literatures act as objects of empowerment because they give Indigenous people the ability to redefine themselves. Above all, as with many Indigenous literature, Canadian Indigenous literature is highly political because it involves both a singular marginalized group of people and autonomous nations who are resisting Euro-Canadian/western hegemony.

Resistance and Healing
According to Episkenew, Canadian Literature is possibly the most effective form of resistance and healing because it allows Indigenous people to acknowledge and confront the many governmental policies which have acted and continue to act towards the eradication of Canada's Indigenous peoples' rights to lands and cultures. In order to heal from the various wounds, both communal and private, the various myths which contribute to governmental policies must be confronted by Indigenous peoples through the writing and sharing of Indigenous experiences. These narratives must, necessarily,include the stories of women and children, as well as men. The audiences/readers of Indigenous literature must also be all inclusive, although, many Indigenous writers are writing for Indigenous audiences. The 'master narrative,' as Episkenew puts it is "the myth of the new Canadian nation-state, which valorizes the settlers but which sometimes misrepresents and more often excludes Indigenous peoples...Indigenous literature comprises [counterstories] that resist the "oppressive identity [that the settler myth has assigned Indigenous people] and attempts to replace it with one that commands respect".

Breaking Through Stereotypes and Regaining Identity
Canadian Indigenous Literature allows Indigenous readers to heal by regaining their identities through a process of breaking through the stereotypes of Native identity and remembering where they come from through stories, land, and languages. Maria Campbell is a Métis writer whose first book Halfbreed discusses the stereotypes found in hegemonic discourses that create shame and confusion about being Indigenous persons in Canada. At the same time, Campbell shares her history and shows how settler government policies in Canada continue to impact her community and family. As Campbell discusses her family history she notes how her extended family members were all put into different Native classifications by government policies: Status Indian, Non-Status Indian, and Métis. Government policies are largely responsible for creating inaccurate representations of said labels as many people were placed into categories according to the colour of skin, knowledge of English, and affiliations with trading companies, whether communal or personal. In ‘Real Indians’ and Others, Bonita Lawrence writes about many government policies that had detrimental effects on Indigenous people in Canada, such as the Indian Act which placed Status Indians under the care of the government and Bill C-31 which stripped Native women of their Indian status if they married a non-Indian. As Lawrence notes, when the Indian Act was legally created in 1867 “individuals who were considered to be living ‘like Indians’ were taken into treaty, while those who had at some point hauled supplies for the Hudson Bay Company, and as a result knew some English, were registered as ‘halfbreeds’”. Campbell notes that her Cheechum’s (Cree grandmother's)family were not present during the treaty process, subsequently they were not considered to be treaty Indians, even though their way of life was culturally more Indigenous than not. To counter the effects of government policies Indigenous people need to de-colonize their minds by recognizing the extensive and interconnected impacts of government policies regarding Indigenous peoples, and to break through negative stereotypes of Indigenous people perpetuated in various forms of media. Examples of breaking through stereotypes include Campbell refusing to dress up in native dance regalia for the sake of ‘being’ a white man’s version of an Indian at a Calgary Stampede. Although, there are certainly many different forms of Indigenous resistance of white settler government policy within Campbell's text. The majority of stereotypes arise from the ever present dichotomies found in the English language where everything negative is placed on the Native side and everything positive is automatically situated on the ‘white’ side. It is a dichotomy of colonization expressed in more than only Native Canadian experiences and can be found in literatures the world over where the conquering parties claim superiority. Thus, colonial mediums create and perpetuate racism. Canadian Indigenous literature is meant to fill in the gaps of historical events and stories by sharing the Native perspective. It is also a means of allowing Native readers to recognize negative stereotypes so they may be able to redefine their personal and communal identities.

Theorizing Indigenous Literature
Since the 1970's, Native writers and their discourses have emerged to impact Canadian literature and our ways of understanding narrative, story, and meaning making. In her essay, "The Disempowerment of First North American Native Peoples and Empowerment Through Their Writing," Jeanette Armstrong posits that writing is a process through which Native people can achieve cultural affirmation. Moreover, Armstrong asserts that writing is a powerful tool to "[resist] cultural imperialism...and to seek a new vision for all our people in the future, arising out of the powerful and positive support structures that are inherent in the principles of cooperation". Writing, then, for Armstrong is political, and furthermore it is a positive "mechanism for solutions" (244) through which change can be realized.

For Maria Campbell, the act of pulling some sheets of paper from her purse one day and beginning to write on the blank pages resulted in the beginning of her book, Halfbreed. Thus, writing gave Campbell agency as well as the ability to resist selling her body when she was confronted with having no money to pay for food or shelter. Writing for Maria Campbell was and is deeply personal. Louise Bernice Halfe too began writing for personal reasons. She states, "I felt silenced in the community in which I lived, felt silenced at home since what I was experiencing was not understood by the man I loved" (5). Halfe's journal writing resulted in her poignant book of poetry, Bear Bones & Feathers, being published. For Halfe, writing allowed her to express herself through voice. She states, "The voice I learned to listen to and hear demanded my attention. It could no longer be silenced. It was clear, loud, insistent, demanding, singing, weeping. I was blessed with its awakening. In its awakening I too became perceived" (6). Ultimately, writing for Louise Bernice Halfe allowed her to move out of the silent space she occupied to embrace her identity as a Native woman and poet. Her words are ones that teach and heal. Her voice is no longer silent. It will endure through her poems. Neal McLeod's own thoughts on writing demonstrate that "narratives are...essentially maps which emerge out of a relationship to a specific area, whereas wisdom emerges from voice and memory within that landscape" (18). McLeod thus articulates how writing stories allow us to "dwell within the landscape of the familiar" (17). Writing stories then are crucial. They allow the writer as well as the reader to come "home."

Jeanette Armstrong, Maria Campbell, Louise Bernice Halfe, and Neal McLeod are representative of the diverse community of Native writers who express the personal as well as the political. Consequently, through their narratives, they have transformed the ways in which Canadian readers, writers and scholars understand their own country and own identities. How then are we to theorize and engage with Indigenous literature? This is a question that I asked myself when I decided to write a term paper on Louise Bernice Halfe's poetry. Because I identify myself as a feminist, a mother, a student of English literature, and a writer, I felt deeply moved by Halfe's poetry, and therefore wanted to write and theorize about it. For me, I could see how Halfe articulated a voice that I saw at once as feminist, and one that disrupts traditional patriarchal language rooted in the masculine. I was attracted to how Halfe resists cultural imperialism through her words. Her words are words that heal. And this is what I wanted to understand and theorize by using Ecriture feminism. Therefore, by using Julia Kristeva's theory of the symbolic and the semiotic, I wanted to articulate my position regarding Halfe's ability to rupture and subvert the symbolic through her use of the semiotic. Furthermore, I would use other western feminist lenses with which to interpret Halfe's poetry. Yet this move of mine to theorize Native literature through western feminist discourses deeply troubled me. I needed to ask myself if using western feminist theory would be inadequate to define Halfe's voice. Moreover, I asked myself, was this movement of mine a further colonization of Native female voice? With this in mind, I decided to explore within my term paper how Native literature intersects with western discourses and how I could explore the ways in which writers, readers, students and scholars can engage with Native literature without violating Native voice through our theorizing of Native voice - a voice that is only recently being listened to.

Theorizing Indigenous literature using western theory is a complex and sensitive issue. In fact, Daniel David Moses asserts "[t]he issue...is one of our common humanity and our particular Native expressions of it. You are not us - and if you would permit us to be human too, you must have the good manners to listen and learn our language and forget about interpretation, even when it appears to be English we're speaking" (quoted in Groening 152). Moses' words resonate. One must always have good manners and listen. Moreover, Indigenous literature must always be interpreted through the lens of Indigenous theory. However, viewing Indigenous literature (and all literature) through more than one lens allows scholars, writers, and readers to engage in dialogue that promotes further understandings of texts, narratives, and stories, and allows us to transform the way in which we think and understand our world. If narratives are to be culturally isolated and only explored through culturally specific theory, then our ways of knowing and seeing, and meaning making will remain in a cultural vacuum. Interpreting literature drives our understanding of story and meaning making. Therefore if one does not interpret literature through a diversity of different lenses, one's understanding of literature will not evolve. Ultimately, it is crucial to be culturally sensitive and respectful when reading and writing about Canadian Aboriginal Voice. We must always have "good manners and listen" (quoted in Groening 152). Only through listening will we ever learn.