Living by Stories. Harry Robinson
I had surveyed in the published records. However, just as I began to relax in this timeless zone of relative familiarity, Harry suddenly shifted back to the historical period. He told eight stories about recent human encounters with power. I wondered if he intended these to illustrate contemporary manifestations of Coyote’s powers—they appeared to me as having much in common.
The first of these historical narratives was about foreknowledge. Just as God had forewarned a boy and an old woman about the transformation of the landscape by white agriculturalists, a man in the 1920s had forewarned his people about the alteration of the landscape by multiple highways. Another story was about powerful transformations in contemporary times. Just as Coyote transformed monsters such as Owl Woman to stone, so a group of Indian doctors, disturbed by the intrusion of the first trains through Sicamous, used their power to stop the train in its tracks. Just as Coyote and his colleagues had been endowed with special relationships with animals, so their descendants shared a similar relationship as revealed in the stories about hunters saved from death by wolverines and grizzly bears. Just as God had introduced the boy and his grandmother to easier means of procuring food, so a couple of cranes provided two hunters with similar skills. Just as Coyote could transform himself into whatever he wished, so could a man called “Lefty,” who transformed himself into a wolf, a grizzly bear, and a frog to track a group of people who had abducted his sister. Just as there were monsters roaming around in Coyote’s time, so too were monsters roaming through the landscape in more recent times, as evidenced in the story about a squirrel that turned himself into a “gorilla” and then picked up a boy and carried him on his shoulders from Hedley to Yakima.
By late 1980, Harry and I had established a lively written correspondence to fill in the gaps between our visits. Having been taught by a friend to read and write English, he enjoyed writing letters. Although the process of writing was always slow (it took several days and many jars of correction fluid to produce a short letter), Harry derived great satisfaction from it. He carefully filed all of his incoming letters so that he could re-read and savour them. In turn, I enjoyed receiving letters from Harry. “Oh say,” he wrote on 7 February 1981, “I was going to tell you. I was verry Happy to hear from you. Last month you got here on 8th of January. When you left Im kind missin you Im still missin you tell I get a words from you that is why I was Happy than I get to started and writing letter.” Once, he offered advice that showed his appreciation of good penmanship and a well-turned phrase. He advised me to write clearly so that he could decipher every word: “You write it so fast. Is not clear. Should do like I did clear to every shingle letter and clear. Can be much better. Better for me to read” (7 February 1981). Sometimes his letters were long: “I could not Help it for written a long letter,” he wrote at one point, “because Im storyteller I always have Planty to say” (n.d.).
Harry included many personal reflections in his letters: “I can never forget for long time the good time we have when we together. Hope its going to be some more good times for you and I” (1 March 1981). Sometimes he advised me on issues of cultural protocol. Until around this time, I had been paying Harry standard consulting fees. In his letter of 7 February 1981, however, he suggested that I stop doing this. He was obviously uncomfortable with being “paid” for sharing stories: “Im willing to tell you a 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.” Likewise, I much preferred this new arrangement that enabled me to run errands with him in lieu of dealing in cash.
The winter of 1981 was a highpoint in our relationship as I had rented a cabin in the Coldwater Valley, south of Merritt, for the year. With only an hour and a half’s drive from there to Hedley, we were able to get together regularly. In addition to visits at Hedley, Harry and I spent time at my Coldwater cabin. It was a busy year with lots of trips to see all his old friends throughout Nicola Valley, the Fraser Canyon, and Douglas Lake. In January and February, we travelled through northern Washington to take part in winter dances.
During this period, Harry opened my eyes to yet another new line of stories: historical narratives but with a strange twist. Each featured an extraordinary encounter with a lake monster, a devil, a strange snake, a talking cat, or another such being. According to folklore scholar Stith Thompson, such stories were common. And yet, they were rare in the published collections for British Columbia. I wondered if collectors, in their search for “authentic” mythological accounts, had glossed over such accounts because they were too Westernized.9
A number of these stories focussed on strange occurrences in and around lakes. For example, there were several stories about Palmer Lake. One involved a monster that swallowed a horse and released it a year later; another was about a herd of cattle that emerged from and then disappeared into the lake; and a third was about a man and his canoe swallowed by the lake. Okanagan Lake was the setting for a story about two men who disappeared mysteriously. And Omak Lake was the site of a number of strange happenings. One involved a blind calf that walked into the lake and never returned.
Other stories featured talking cats that could change at will into other forms. Some of these cats duped and killed nasty monsters or people who had insulted them. Others came to the rescue of those in need. For example, in one story, a cat used his power to endow a local man, Sammy, with cash. In another, a spotted cat warned a man against committing suicide. In still another, a cat took revenge on a woman who hated cats and treated them badly.
On concluding this series of stories, Harry took another sharp turn by recounting what he called “murder stories.” Many of these were set in the nineteenth century: for example, the story of a woman named Madeleine, who murdered a white man who attacked her while she was travelling alone on the trail. Harry had been in touch with Madeleine until her death at ninety in 1918. Another featured a man named Joseph of Chopaka, who in the mid-1800s killed a white man suspected of surveying lands for whites. Another story involved a man named “Polutkin,” who in 1845 was ordered by a chief to retrieve his wife who had deserted him for another man. There was also a story of Alexander Chilahitsa who took revenge on a man who had killed his wife while she was alone at their ranch; and another about Narcisse Tom Louis, who at the end of his life confessed to murdering a Chinese man. Few of these stories were straightforward accounts of conflict. For example, one story about George Jim, a local man who was captured, tried, and imprisoned in the 1880s, was more about the aftermath of a “murder” than the murder itself. According to Harry, Jim was abducted from the New Westminster Penitentiary midway through his sentence and taken to England where he served as an outlaw Indian in a sideshow. Harry also included numerous accounts of more recent “murders,” many of which were still well-known and controversial.
Then, during the winter of 1982, Harry retold his story about the creation of the world and the first people. On hearing it again, I began to question my earlier reaction to it. Harry obviously considered it important enough to be told a second time. And it was, after all, the story that he claimed was missing at the political meetings of his youth—that is, the story that explained “how come Indians to be here in the first place.” The story also explained why Indians and whites derived their power from two completely different sources. For Indians, power was located in their hearts and heads; for whites, it was located on paper. Harry elaborated again on the process required for Indians to gain power:
Long time ago, the Indians just like a school.
When they got to be bigger,
they send ’em out alone at night or even in the daytime.
And left ’em someplace.
Leave ’em there alone, by himself or herself.
It’s got to be alone.
The animal can come to him or her and talk to ’em.
And tell ’em what he’s going to do.
And that’s their power.
They give ’em a power and tell ’em what they’re going to do
what work they going to do….
This power, they call it shoo-MISH.
That’s his power.
That was the animal they talked to ’em.
Doesn’t