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The Woman in the Trees
"Owning a story in the syilx way meant not just memorizing a story, but owning its center. Each story had its own heart, and stories could not be told unless the teller knew and understood the heart, and could use the heart to tell different listeners the same story using different words."
Gerry William must believe this. This is a story he really owns. Like an ancien drama, you can imagine how this story has been told and will continue to be told as long as there are people to tell them and ears to listen.
These kinds of stories have always been the center of the indigenous world and the strands of this one twirl around this magical story of the Okanagan peoples (syilx) who have lived in the lands around Vernon for untold generations.
"Often, the way a story is told is as important as the story itself," begins
the publicity blurb that accompanies this fiction. First Nations Literature is like none other and in the hands of a master storyteller like William it will wrap itself around the reader every bit as much as that capricious wind blowing around Coyote.
So part of the tale tells of the syilx and their first meetings with the settlers. It would be so easy for it to be a diatribe against these newcomers as smallpox, raids, despoliation of the land and missionary zeal threaten and eventually overtake the Okanagans, but this isn't allowed to happen for long as the story is swished away by Coyote. In and out of time and realities we go, as animals, spirits and people unfold their tales in different bands of fantasy/reality. The Woman in the Trees is Enid; she's as real as Wolverine's mother, Sky Woman. Enid can be seen by some of syilx and has even rescued two of their children. It's to her that Walking Grizzly, one of the great Syilx chiefs, returns at the end of the book. They swap stories until it is time him to accompany her to the other world.
This storybook is full of memorable phrases. Like the cold blue stone that Horse shows to his grandson, they shine out from the book and attract attention: "Love and hate cannot be taken back once they are spoken." "There are fifty ways to tell the beginning of everything, but there is only one ending." "When I give to you, I give myself."
There is also, welcomingly, much humor, as in the story of Coyote: "At the beginning, there was only water, Coyote, and the Great Spirit. Coyote wanted things different. He wanted the sun's name then the moon's, then grizzly bear's syilx name (Kee-lau-naw), and, finally, even Fox's name. But the day the Great Spirit handed out names, Coyote slept in."
The mighty Walking Grizzly, a warrior who has nine wives and many followers, begins and ends the story. The elder Horse, his son Blue Dreams, and his grandson Wolverine are the other main syilx characters. The soldiers and the settlers are nameless and ever increasing until two of them wrest attention - one a rancher and one an orchardist. They feud with one another, much to the bemusement of the now aged Wolverine, who is friend to both of them. The rancher, Ivan, has a daughter, who like Wolverine can span both worlds. She unknowingly brings them all together during a dramatic storm and subsequent foiled rescues, but there is no end to this story. Nor should there be. Coyote, the Woman in the Trees, and the wind will remain to tell many more tales, but these humans, who lived between 1780 and 1865, now only exist in the mind of the storyteller and in those of us who listened to him.
Some may be surprised to learn that the author, the Associate Dean at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, is also a science fiction writer, but why not? Science Fiction and First Nations literature share much in common: they both deal with the future while pointing backwards, they both blend worlds, and they both travel beyond the mundane.
[2006]
Gerry William must believe this. This is a story he really owns. Like an ancien drama, you can imagine how this story has been told and will continue to be told as long as there are people to tell them and ears to listen.
These kinds of stories have always been the center of the indigenous world and the strands of this one twirl around this magical story of the Okanagan peoples (syilx) who have lived in the lands around Vernon for untold generations.
"Often, the way a story is told is as important as the story itself," begins
the publicity blurb that accompanies this fiction. First Nations Literature is like none other and in the hands of a master storyteller like William it will wrap itself around the reader every bit as much as that capricious wind blowing around Coyote.
So part of the tale tells of the syilx and their first meetings with the settlers. It would be so easy for it to be a diatribe against these newcomers as smallpox, raids, despoliation of the land and missionary zeal threaten and eventually overtake the Okanagans, but this isn't allowed to happen for long as the story is swished away by Coyote. In and out of time and realities we go, as animals, spirits and people unfold their tales in different bands of fantasy/reality. The Woman in the Trees is Enid; she's as real as Wolverine's mother, Sky Woman. Enid can be seen by some of syilx and has even rescued two of their children. It's to her that Walking Grizzly, one of the great Syilx chiefs, returns at the end of the book. They swap stories until it is time him to accompany her to the other world.
This storybook is full of memorable phrases. Like the cold blue stone that Horse shows to his grandson, they shine out from the book and attract attention: "Love and hate cannot be taken back once they are spoken." "There are fifty ways to tell the beginning of everything, but there is only one ending." "When I give to you, I give myself."
There is also, welcomingly, much humor, as in the story of Coyote: "At the beginning, there was only water, Coyote, and the Great Spirit. Coyote wanted things different. He wanted the sun's name then the moon's, then grizzly bear's syilx name (Kee-lau-naw), and, finally, even Fox's name. But the day the Great Spirit handed out names, Coyote slept in."
The mighty Walking Grizzly, a warrior who has nine wives and many followers, begins and ends the story. The elder Horse, his son Blue Dreams, and his grandson Wolverine are the other main syilx characters. The soldiers and the settlers are nameless and ever increasing until two of them wrest attention - one a rancher and one an orchardist. They feud with one another, much to the bemusement of the now aged Wolverine, who is friend to both of them. The rancher, Ivan, has a daughter, who like Wolverine can span both worlds. She unknowingly brings them all together during a dramatic storm and subsequent foiled rescues, but there is no end to this story. Nor should there be. Coyote, the Woman in the Trees, and the wind will remain to tell many more tales, but these humans, who lived between 1780 and 1865, now only exist in the mind of the storyteller and in those of us who listened to him.
Some may be surprised to learn that the author, the Associate Dean at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, is also a science fiction writer, but why not? Science Fiction and First Nations literature share much in common: they both deal with the future while pointing backwards, they both blend worlds, and they both travel beyond the mundane.
[2006]
Submitted on February 4, 2006 in By David.
