The Ethics of Storytelling

I wrote a little bit about the who owns a story.  But I want to talk about the topic in more detail in today.  When stories are originally told, they are intended for the people.  They aren’t intended for outsiders, or an exterior culture.  Like good wine, stories absorb the terroire of the place where they are told.

However, they have incredible value outside of the place where they are told.  To keep with the food analogies - just because gumbo is new-world adaptation of bouillabaisse, doesn’t make it any less delicious and soulful.

There is a big push for Diverse Books in the classroom.  Teachers are looking for things which show a new culture and have a more diverse cast of characters.  Some have turned to books like “The Education of Little Tree,” thinking that it is a good Native biography - not realizing that it was a literary hoax written by a KKK member who had no ties to the Nation at all.  Some have turned to Swanton and other ethnographer’s tales; some turn to modified tales featuring for-profit picture books which claim to be authentic.

And sometimes, storytellers have the best of intentions.  Don’t we all?  Don’t we all believe that stories should be told and shared and bring the world to light?  

It’s infuriating when an audience member attacks us for telling stories, telling our stories our way, and that audience member says that we are telling the wrong stories.  

What can we do?  What should we do?  

Artistic freedom is important; it’s how new stories are born and shared.  It inspires people to adventure and explore and discover.  

The only conclusion that I have come to is that the teller, like the scholar before him or her, needs to be honest about his or her sources.  In the case of First Nation stories, tell where they came from, and who told them initially.  Because the, as the Tlingit culture shows, while a group might be one Nation, they are made of many different cultures, all of whom have their own version of truth, but each story is true.  

Who is J. R. Swanton?

Who is John Reed Swanton?  His name has been connected to several of the tales mentioned in this blog, but who is he?

One of the most prominent folklorist of the twentieth century, John Reed Swanton studied linguistics at Harvard and Columbia, before departing to the Pacific Northwest in 1900.

Working for the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, Swanton collected tales and translated them for the museum.  He lived with the Tlingit and Haida, transcribing their stories and translating them into English.

He worked for the Smithsonian for over 40 years.  In addition to his work with the Tlingit,

Some of his major works include dictionaries, studies of linguistic relationships, collections of native stories, and studies of social organization.

In addition to his work with the Tlingit and Haida people, Swanton did research on the Muskogean-speaking people, the Creek, Chickasaw and Choctaw.  He also worked with the Caddo, and wrote some papers on the Inca.

Swanton was the president of the American Anthropological Association in 1932, and edited the American Anthropologist from 1921-1923.

But he wasn’t Tlingit.  

Can his stories be trusted? Do outsiders really understand what the tales mean, and can they tell them the right way?  
It is impossible to say that his stories are correct; however, the fact that he did make extensive notes on the original tribal location and transcribed them in the original language does give him a strong authenticity that other folklorist do not have.  And, it is also true that without him, many important and beautiful stories would have been lost.  

Recently, a Haida scholar uncovered a previously forgotten story, in the original Haida, when looking through the Swanton notes at the Smithsonian

For further reading on the life and work of John Reed Swanton:

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/swanton-john.pdf

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1525/aa.1959.61.4.02a00120/asset/aa.1959.61.4.02a00120.pdf;jsessionid=EAD991CF6A98FF4F746C4747F6BADCE1.f02t04?v=1&t=ihbfg4ng&s=b32696dbd9ce8787f74633e6da3d67f7411e67fe

http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/EMMTLI.html

The Salmon Chief

There once was a fisherman, who couldn’t fish for many days.  Walking along the beach, he saw a magnificent salmon.  As he was about to take it home, Salmon spoke up.  He promised the fisherman calm seas if he just threw him back into the ocean.  The man did so, and he prospered.  The next day, the storm picked up again, and the man couldn’t fish.  He walked along the beach again, and this time, he found another salmon.  As he was about to throw this one back in the ocean, it spoke up and demanded that the fisherman talk him home, eat him, and put the bones under the pillow.  The man and his wife, who had no children, ate the salmon and put the bones under their pillow.  They woke up in the middle of the night, and under their pillow was two boys.  The boys grew in strength and honor.  When they came of age, one demanded to go out in the world.  Eventually, the fisherman relented, and the boy traveled out into the world.  He met a grandmother, who offered him a meal.  The ate together, and talked a while until they heard some drumming.  The people of the village were sacrificing the daughter of the chief to a multi-headed monster.  When the villagers left, the boy followed. He fought the monster, who was too slow for the boy’s darting obsidian blade.   After slaying the monster, he wed the chief’s daughter and returned home.

Why is this story significant?  It's not one of the most common of stories. Nor is it considered particularly important. However, the history and speculations behind the story itself is fascinating.

In 1879, Captain Pratt created the first Industrial Indian School; within a few years, children were forcibly removed from their families and into these institutions.  The slogan was to “Kill the Indian to Save the Man.” Three decades later, the noted linguist and anthropologist John R Swanton was fighting against this cultural genocide, attempting to save and collect as many First Nation languages and tales as he could.  

Living with the Haida and Tlingit Nations, John R Swanton learned their languages and recorded their stories.  One of the stories that he picked up was “The Salmon Chief”, a story of a man who was rewarded for his actions by the Salmon Chief with two sons.  And how one of those sons went off to slay a multi-headed monster.  In the Smithsonian publication, Swanton noted that this appeared to be a newer story: there were fewer versions of it.  In addition, the scene where the chief’s daughter was sacrificed to the monster was alien to the Tlingit culture, but closely mimicked the Greek stories of “Perseus and Andromeda” and “Hercules and the Hydra.”  

Was this a new story, told by the first generation of Indian School Survivors?  Swanton didn’t specify.  But I am fascinated by the idea that a story can go back and forth and be shared and valued.  

For additional reading, please look at:

http://sacred-texts.com/nam/nw/tmt/tmt005.htm