Salish Elders

John Steckley teaches in the Human Studies Program at Humber College in
Toronto. He is the author of Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women’s
Stories.

Salish Elders offers a series of portrait-style photographs with short
texts about 21 Elders (most born in the 1920s or 1930s) from Interior
Salish country, some 200 kilometres north of Vancouver. Wim Tewinkel’s
photographs clearly evoke the character of the subjects and tell stories
in themselves. The text devoted to each Elder is minimal (in one case, a
mere two paragraphs). It seems that the author spent more time taking
pictures of the Elders than listening to what they had to say. The
result is a coffee-table book that seems aimed at readers who do not
want to engage themselves in the stories.

The lack of attention to text is unfortunate because Elders’ stories
are a valuable source of knowledge and perception. This is reflected in
the notion of teaching, the idea that an Elder’s story contains wisdom
that the listener or reader can carry through life. Of course, sometimes
a story is just a story and not a teaching. Aboriginal educators,
writers, and editors usually know how to make the distinction. This
writer does not. The small fragments of story (termed “highlights of
their lives” in the dust jacket) that accompany the portrait
photographs do not offer teachings. They tell us considerably less about
the people than the pictures do.