Myth and Memory

by Lutz, John Sutton

• ISBN13: 9780774812634
• ISBN10: 077481263X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of British Columbia Pr

Summary

The stories that indigenous peoples and Europeans tell about their first encounters with one another are enormously valuable historical records, but their relevance extends beyond the past. Settler populations and indigenous peoples the world over are engaged in negotiations over legitimacy, power, and rights. These struggles cannot be dissociated from written and oral accounts of "contact" moments, which not only shape our collective sense of history but also guide our understanding of current events. For all their importance, contact stories have not been systematically or critically evaluated as a genre. Myth and Memory explores the narratives of indigenous and newcomer populations. It illustrates how indigenous and explorer accounts of the same meetings reflect fundamentally different systems of thought, and focuses on the cultural misunderstandings embedded in these stories.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: Myth Understandings; or First Contact, Over and Over Again	p. 1
Close Encounters of the First Kind	p. 15
First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Encounters on the North American West Coast	p. 30
Reflections on Indigenous History and Memory: Reconstructing and Reconsidering Contact	p. 46
Poking Fun: Humour and Power in Kaska Contact Narratives	p. 69
Herbert Spencer, Paul Kane, and the Making of "The Chinook"	p. 90
Performing Paradox: Narrativity and the Lost Colony of Roanoke	p. 103
Stories from the Margins: Toward a More Inclusive British Columbia Historiography	p. 118
When the White Kawau Flies	p. 140
The Interpreter as Contact Point: Avoiding Collisions in Tlingit America	p. 160
Notes	p. 177
Bibliography	p. 207
Contributors	p. 222
Index	p. 226
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