The moment of contact between two peoples, two alien societies, marks the opening of an epoch and the joining of histories. What if it had happened differently?
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 from New Zealand and across North America, from the Lost Colony of Roanoke on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States to the Pacific Northwest and as far as Sitka, Alaska. 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. The contributors discuss the contemporary relevance, production, and performance of Aboriginal and European contact narratives, and introduce new tools for interpreting the genre. They argue that we are still in the contact zone, striving to understand the meaning of contact and the relationship between indigenous and settler populations.
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 305.8
- General Note
- Limited edition of 500 copies Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- e------
- ISBN
- 9780774855785 9780774812627
- LCCN
- E98.F39
- LCCN Item number
- M97 2007eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- NLC
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (vi, 236 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00214544 (OCoLC)648347753 (CaOOCEL)408617
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Title proper/short title
- Myth & memory : stories of Indigenous-European contact
- Transcribing agency
- NLC
Table of Contents
- Contents 6
- Acknowledgments 8
- Introduction: Myth Understandings; or First Contact, Over and Over Again 12
- 1 Close Encounters of the First Kind 26
- 2 First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Encounters on the North American West Coast 41
- 3 Reflections on Indigenous History and Memory: Reconstructing and Reconsidering Contact 57
- 4 Poking Fun: Humour and Power in Kaska Contact Narratives 80
- 5 Herbert Spencer, Paul Kane, and the Making of “The Chinook” 101
- 6 Performing Paradox: Narrativity and the Lost Colony of Roanoke 114
- 7 Stories from the Margins: Toward a More Inclusive British Columbia Historiography 129
- 8 When the White Kawau Flies 151
- 9 The Interpreter as Contact Point: Avoiding Collisions in Tlingit America 171
- Notes 188
- Bibliography 218
- Contributors 233
- Index 237
- A 237
- B 237
- C 238
- D 239
- E 239
- F 239
- G 240
- H 240
- I 241
- J 241
- K 241
- L 241
- M 242
- N 243
- O 243
- P 243
- Q 244
- R 244
- S 244
- T 246
- U 246
- V 247
- W 247
- X 247
- Y 247
- Z 247
