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REFLECTIONS OF ORAL TRADITIONS IN CONTEMPORARY NATIVE WRITING: RUBY SLIPPERJACK'S HONOUR THE SUN
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Katarzyna Juchnowicz REFLECTIONS OF ORAL TRADITIONS IN CONTEMPORARY NATIVE WRITING: RUBY SLIPPERJACK'S HONOUR THE SUN In the contemporary world, our main access to literature is through books or plays or movies, and unless we are a part of those more traditional communities, we see little ofthe oral. What we see is the written, lying, as it does on the surface, a tip suggesting, as it should, a much larger body just below. —King 1996,354 THE CONTINUOUS IMPORTANCE OF STORYTELLING IN NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN CULTURES Storytelling long predates the arrival ofthe Europeans in North America, and it has alwaysaccompanied the lives ofNative peoples as it anchors memories, links generations, places, aswell as times. In traditional societies, stories form perhaps the most important available model of instruction. The purpose of telling them is "to integrate, to educate, and to entertain all the peoples. The children and the adults of the human, animal, and mythic peoples all depend on the telling ofthe myths and tales, for within the stories arewhat is essential 270 and meaningful, what is real" (Frey 1995,176; emphasis in original). In stories people (can) discover strength and find healing; elders help children find their sense of identity and their place in this world. The importance of storytelling within a culture is reflected in the status of storytellers, a community's respect for them, and the times assigned to this activity. Stories, traditionally told in wintertime (Frey 1995, 149), carry the history of apeople, its culturalbeliefs,warnings and advice, aswell as a system of values. Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) explains her usage of storytelling in the following way: "When I use the term storytelling, ... I'm talking about something that comes out of an experience and an understanding of that original view of Creation—that we are all part of a whole; we do not differentiate or fragment stories and experiences" (Silko 2001,160; emphasis in original). In the post-colonial literary world of Native North America, storytelling has taken the direction of "storywriting," marking a new means for the preservation and continuation of oral traditions. Although seemingly two distinct forms of communication, storytelling and storywriting lie on the same continuum; they are like colours of a spectrum giving a different dimension to the subject of discussion: literature as a transmitter of culture. Renate Eigenbrod put it in the followingwords: "Remembering orallyand remember in writing: the parallel indicateshow litera-ture is a continuation ofora-ture, or the so-called oral traditions" (Eigenbrod 1995,91;emphasis in original). Contemporary Native literary outcome is not only influenced by the history of colonization, but it is also closely connected to the traditional worldview and the values of the authors' tribal cultures. "Native literature has been forced to develop as an independent genre, parallelto other 'Canadian literature '" (Grant 1999,122). Native writers, in search of creative forms of literary expression, often go back to their roots and use oral traditions as a means of cultural identification.Memories that seem to have been lost are given a new shape; stories long forgotten are given a new dimension. The spoken word is transmitted into the written form. To quote Lee Maracle (Metis), "Words are not objects to be wasted. They represent the accumulated knowledge, cultural values, the vision of an entire people or peoples" (Maracle 1992,87). 271 CONTEMPORARY NATIVE WRITING [54.166.234.171] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 13:55 GMT) KATARZYNA JUCHNOWICZ The purpose ofthis paper isto introduce the reader to the world oforaltraditions in a contemporary Native literary text, using Honour the Sun by Ruby Slipperjack as an example. As a result of the post-contact era, the novel encompasses both traditional elements of the author sAnishinabe background and, obviously, features of a written work. Acting as a reminder of the past, of ones culture and identity, the novel is rich in references to oral traditions. We can trace both explicit and implicit references, and we can distinguish structural, thematic, and topological categories of oral traditions. Explicit references, which belong to the thematic category,areto be found in stories told directly by various characters, stories of the past (legends), the meaning of names, as well as wisdom, teachings, and traditions passed on usually by members of the older generation to the younger one. The explicit categoryincludes the topological category and thus the presence of Old Man, who represents the Trickster, and the presence of the Memegwesiwag. Implicit references belong to the structural category. Their understanding becomes clear when informed...