EF56 "Totem" module notes

·      “Totem” module

·      Read aloud

look for words and phrases that you think might be important for quoting

·      A totem is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe.

Totem pole

·       http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jasper-totem-pole-provokes-first-nations-concerns-1.1086266

·      genre – type of fiction, type of writing

- mystery

- crime

- romance

- sci-fi, science fiction

- horror

- Magic realism

·      Talk about magic realism

-a kind of fiction, mix or realistic setting, things happen in the story that couldn’t happen in real life

- not realistic story

·      Symbolic (a)– symbol, one thing represents something else

Symbolism (n) symbolize (v)

·      Work from “Totem lit essay”

·      Irony – the museum people don’t regard the totem as being historic

Don’t respect it

Don’t understand it

Don’t value it

It is a problem to be solved, not something to be embraced

·      Humour, funny , ridiculous, black humour, cynical humour

·      NOTES

Setting- Southwest Alberta, home of Blood and Piikani tribes

(http://bloodtribe.org/)

(http://piikanination.wixsite.com/piikanination)

no totem poles from Alberta, they are West Coast- symbolizes disregard for diversity of cultures and traditions of FN peoples

Southwest Alberta Art Gallery and Prairie Museum, temporary shows,

“The current show… featured contemporary Canadian art from the Atlantic provinces… It’s called ‘Seaviews,”

outside geographical context

“show on Northwest Coast carving” out of place

“gargling” sounds of the body

“chuckling”- first hint of unreality

“do something about the problem”

“It would be a fine world, she pointed out, if paintings or photographs or abstract sculptures began carrying on like that.”

First Nations should be exhibited as static history, not as inconvenient reality

“The problem… is that the totem pole is not part of the show, and we need to move it someplace else.”(1)- metaphor for place of FN in Canada

“Find some temporary place”- metaphor for Reservations

Signs, symbols

“bothering some of the patrons” paying supporters of an institution

patrons demand director do something about the ‘problem’

take no responsibility to learn or see, tolerate, embrace, or do anything

“sortof like a chant. Maybe it’s Druidic.”

“this movie about Druids on a flight from England to New York” interpreting FN through European lens

“It’s really stuck” “It appears… that it goes right through the floor”- deep roots, always here

“Do what you have to do, but do it quietly” (2)

Res schools – lack of public knowledge, education

cut pole down “screaming”

wood chips damaging displayed art

next day “grunting” (121)

“Those grunts were pretty disgusting”- of the body, FN stories

distasteful to upper class

“cut the pole down and then cover the

stump with pruning paste. That way it won’t grow back.” Final solution to get rid of FN for good,

Final Solution – Nazi program to remove/kill all Jews in Germany

”you can’t hear it much from the basement”

Idiom “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Settlers, White people

Out of sight, out of mind

singing “a high, wailing, nasal sound and then fell back into a patient, rhythmic drone that gave Walter a huge headache just above his eyes and made him sweat.”

Who will take responsibility for this problem?

government solution “Provincial” or “more serious than that”

Jimmy – leave it there

“We can’t just leave it there,” said the director. “We need the space for our other shows, and we can’t have it singing all the time, either.”

READ TO END

“Maybe if we ignore it, it will stop singing,” said Jimmy. “It might even go away or disappear or something. Besides, we don’t have any place to put it. Maybe, after awhile, you wouldn’t even notice it ... like living next to the train tracks or by a highway.”

“Sure,” said Larue, who was tired of cutting down totem poles and trying to findspace for them. “Couldn’t hurt to give that a try.”

The totem pole stayed in the corner, but Jimmy and Larue were right. After the first week, the singing didn’t bother Walter nearly as much, and, by the end of the month,he hardly noticed it at all.

Nonetheless, Walter remained mildly annoyed that the totem pole continued totake up space and inexplicably irritated by the low, measured pulse that rose out of thebasement and settled like fine dust on the floor.

patrons, director, workers only characters portrayed as human