Nature Power. Harry Robinson
“the Indian Doctor were here, him and his wife on the 1st day of November. that night thee work on me for two night. Left on the 3rd.” (Letter, November 4, 1983) By early spring of 1984, Harry finally asked Carrie, his neighbour, to call an ambulance. Back at the Princeton Hospital, he was close to death. After several months of intravenous feedings, he regained his strength, and eventually he recovered. At this point, he moved out of his small bungalow into the Pine Acres Home, a senior citizens’ complex owned and operated by the Westbank Indian Band. Other than the hospital, this was Harry’s first experience with institutionalization, and he did not like it. He missed his home, and most of all he missed his Similkameen Valley: “Im kinda lonesome. Is noone to talket with.”
After a year, Harry transferred to Mountainview Manor, a seniors’ complex located in Keremeos. Here he was finally happy, especially with the thorough home-care provided by his band. Harry lived for almost three years here, sleeping a lot and eating too little. He continued to tell stories, but the vigour was going.
On November 13, 1989, Michael and I travelled to Keremeos to launch Write It on Your Heart. It was a big day for all of us. We had circulated word about the event widely. Harry dressed for the occasion and was wheeled the several blocks to the hall, where he was enthusiastically feted by a hundred of his people. He spoke to his friends, he sang and he drummed. He signed books carefully and precisely, one by one. After he had finished, he watched a slide presentation while the local drumming group sang in his honour. When we said good-bye the next day, it was for the last time.
“NOTHING I CAN DO BUT TELL STORIES”
Although Harry had loved listening to stories as a child, he did not become a serious storyteller until late in life.
I forget for a long time and I never thought. But the older I get, the older I come, and it seems to come back on me. Just like I think and I could see, like. It just seems to come back. That’s the way I remember. But, for a long time, I forget. I didn’t remember. But when I get older and nothing I can do but tell stories. And then I begin to see ’em. And people. Remember again.
In a way, storytelling filled the gap created by the loss of ranch work. “I can go for twenty-one hours or more when I get started,” he explained, “because this is my job. I’m a storyteller.” In his prime, Harry had a huge repertory that he could perform with ease in both Okanagan and English.
Harry learned many of his stories from his maternal grandmother, Louise Newhmkin. While her daughter Arcell worked, Louise looked after Harry. But the arrangement was a reciprocal one. Because Louise was partly blind, Harry also cared for his grandmother. During their many hours together, Louise told her young grandson stories. There were others who told Harry stories, too—John Ashnola, who was in his nineties when he died in the 1918 flu epidemic, and Mary Narcisse, who was close to one hundred when she died in 1944.
Harry recalled that, as a child, he was never content to let a story go unfinished.
They tell stories anytime. And we just sometimes maybe just myself and tell me the stories. But sometimes we need two, three of us. And tell the stories for maybe a couple of hours, the old people. And they stop, because they can’t talk too long, you know. They too old to keep talking, you know. They can tell the stories about a couple of hours, maybe three hours, and they have to stop. And if we remember just whereabout, and next day or anytime after we could remind ’em.
“You tell the stories that much. But you should’ve tell me some more about it.”
“Oh yeah, I can tell you. I can tell you the rest of it anytime, you know.”
Then they tell me the rest of ’em. And that’s the way we do. That is how you leam, that is, if you enjoy the stories. But some of them, they don’t care, you know. Whenever the old people stop telling, then they forget. They don’t care. I always remember and I like to know. I want to hear the stories till they get to the end. So that is the way that happens.
The setting for most of Harry’s storytelling was the front room of his bungalow. At a small Arborite table precisely laid out with his pens, papers, scissors, white-out (for correcting his letters), knives, rulers, cigarettes, ashtrays and matches, Harry felt at ease. He usually initiated a story after dinner. Except for pauses to smoke his Players cigarettes or to suck on peppermints, he spoke without interruption for several hours at a time. His only prop was a continuous series of striking hand gestures, indeed a whole hand language that told the story almost as a manual dance. Harry stopped only when he thought I was tired, usually around midnight.
FROMWRITE IT ON YOUR HEART TO NATURE POWER
In the beginning, I listened to the stories without running my tape recorder. However, as I began to appreciate the cultural depth and historic importance of Harry’s unique artistry, I saw the need to record the stories he told. According to Harry, no one had made a systematic record of them. So one day I proposed to do this. Without hesitation, he responded, “All right. Go ahead.”
For neither of us was this an “extractive” exercise. Harry rejected the idea of payment, which is common in anthropological fieldwork.
If you want to know, I’m willing to tell you stories at any time. You don’t have to pay me. If you happened to be around I might need your help, or may not. Just depends. (Letter, February 7, 1981)
Harry never launched spontaneously into a story. He was always thinking ahead, and he planned his stories well in advance of my visits. Usually, sometime after dinner, he would announce, often without any explanation, “Now, I’m going to tell you number one stories. ‘There was a man …’” Thus would a story begin. At the end, he would announce abruptly, “That’s the end of that story. Now, here is number two stories.”
I did not interrupt while the stories were in progress. He told whatever he felt like telling, and my tape recorder appeared not to bother him. Other than telling me to turn it off during a smoke break, he made little reference to the machine.
The stories Harry told me were always in English. Since an increasing number of his listeners over the years spoke only English, he decided to translate his stories to keep them alive. By the time I met him, he had become as skilled at telling his stories in English as he was in the Okanagan language.
I first proposed to Harry by letter that we turn his stories into a book. He responded with enthusiasm.
About you going to write a Book about me. my stories. I think that is good idea. Do it while Im life yet. You have saying you going to start it written in March. Go right ahead. Im agree about it. (Letter, February 1985)
About my stories, its on tape already for you to put that on Book. But still you want me to Help you on some when you doing that. Oh I will do what I can for the rest of you want to know. (Letter, March 1, 1985)
With support from the Canada Council Explorations Programme, we began our work. Although he followed the project closely and participated directly in certain components of it, such as suggesting items to be included and collecting old family photographs, Harry encouraged me to take the lead in organizing the book’s contents.
that’s really up to you. don’t have to ask me about it. I wrote the some of it or I mention on tape and you do the rest of the work. The stories is worked by Both of us you and I. (Letter, January 27, 1986)
And so I did, listening again to the entire tape collection and selecting from it a representative cross section that I organized into four sections: stories about creation and the animal-people, stories about the early human ancestors, stories about power (the shoo-MISH) and stories about Native-White interactions throughout the past century. These stories were published in Write It on Your Heart.
This second volume focuses on Harry’s stories about “nature power,” the life-sustaining spirituality that guided Harry throughout his life.
You got to have power. You got to, the kids, you know. They got to meet the animal, you know, when they was little. Can be anytime till it’s five years old to ten years old. He’s supposed to meet animal or bird, or anything, you know. And this animal, whoever they meet, got to talk to ’em and tell ’em what they should