Myth and Memory: Stories of Indigenous-European Contact.

J.R. (Jim) Miller is Canada Research Chair of History at the University
of Saskatchewan and the author of Reflections on Native-Newcomer
Relations: Selected Essays and Lethal Legacy: Current Native
Controversies in Canada.

Myth and Memory is the revised product of the When Worlds Collide conference. The theme of both conference and book was the many ways in which contact between indigenous and immigrant peoples occurred and is remembered and understood. Four essays deal with contact in the Pacific Northwest Coast, including Alaska, while one is devoted to each of New Zealand, the western interior of North America, and the U.S. south. There is also one essay that is general in nature. All the chapters are based on extensive research and boast high-quality analysis.

The volume has several recurrent themes. Several contributors note that contact is a process rather than an event. New Zealander Judith Binney’s treatment in fact stretches over 90 years. Second, contact stories often link the past to the present, explaining the causes of things to contemporaries. In other words, indigenous contact narratives are, like Euro-American history, often very present-minded. Both Natives and newcomers are frequently in search of a usable past. Religion, whether indigenous spirituality or Christianity, is also prominent in these accounts. The essay by editor John Lutz of the University of Victoria is an especially engaging example of the religious focus. Finally, the analysis of contact stories and storytellers can throw light on other areas of the past. For example, the essay by Ian MacLaren on the influence of artist Paul Kane’s writing on the early sociology of Herbert Spencer in the late 19th century contains a sobering revelation. Apparently, Spencer relied heavily on a volume of Kane’s travel writing that proves on careful examination to be a pastiche to which the artist contributed little first-hand observation. As MacLaren’s essay shows, careful probing of contact accounts ends up enlightening us about an important chapter of intellectual history.

The essays in Myth and Memory will be accessible and of interest mainly to academic specialists. The prose and the argument of some chapters can be heavy-going, though perseverance is rewarding. The book will enjoy a restricted readership, but the collection will have an honoured spot on the academic shelf.