Living by Stories: A Journey of Landscape and Memory

Joan A. Lovisek, Ph.D., is a consulting anthropologist and
ethnohistorian in British Columbia.

Historian Wendy Wickwire is captivated by the stories of Harry Robinson,
an Okanagan Native storyteller. This collection of 23 stories is a
continuation of two previous collections of the oral narratives of Harry
Robinson, but the focus is on the more recent past and on Coyote
stories. Wickwire investigated the coyote stories reported in the
anthropological literature and found them incomplete, fragmented,
lifeless, and lacking in detail and dialogue. In contrast, the stories
told by Robinson provided the missing context and narrative richness.
More importantly, Robinson’s Coyote did not fit the accepted academic
portrayals of Coyote as a trickster, fool, creator, transformer, or
prankster.

Although Wickwire does not provide interpretations of the stories, she
gives an overview of the anthropological limitations of the works of
Boas, who sanitized the stories (by removing mention of guns or
“impurities,” for example) in an attempt to give the appearance that
the stories related to the pre-contact period.

Unlike the classic anthropological treatments of traditions or stories,
which seek to expunge non-Native elements and reify a mythological past,
Robinson’s stories embrace the political and social commentary fully
expressed and are set in the more recent past. The primary message they
convey is that Coyote continues to thrive through the chaos and conflict
of white contact. Robinson’s stories aptly demonstrate how stories
live and change and continue to inform. Those who read them will
undoubtedly find both enjoyment and scholarly interest.