My thesis consists of a commented translation of five selected short stories, including the title story of Thomas King’s One Good Story, That One, and a theoretical and contextual introduction. My commentary, beyond the explanation of my syntactic and vocabulary choices -which I will relate to King’s interfusional use of idiolect, which is to say his uniquely personal use of orality in writing-, discusses the use of irony and the Trickster as instruments of anticolonial resistance (based on King’s “Godzilla vs. Post-colonial”), with which King hopes to both challenge Western paradigms and raise awareness of Natives’ plight. King uses both of these strategies, interfusional dialect and the Trickster, not simply as postcolonial but rather as anticolonial instruments of discursive resistance (based on King’s “Godzilla vs. Post-colonial”), being in tune with King’s vision that postcolonialism is a concept which only lives in academia and in fact has no real basis in our current society, since we are still, in many ways, living in colonial times. King uses satire, first, to raise awareness of Natives’ physical and psychological plight to this very day, and second, to create a sense of accountability in these same people, to transform them by playfully making them aware of their unwitting complicity in this sordid affair. King's use of the Trickster Coyote as well is an important humorous element which also serves as an instrument of anticolonial discursive resistance and education, and whose mythological significance is crucial to the development of an alternate ideological structure, one which King establishes as a healthy counter-part to the Western religiously inspired one with its traditional Judaeo-christian dualism. When commenting on my translation, I note how King, with his use of the Trickster, satire and orality, contests the validity of Eurocentric paradigms with his literarily and orally established framework of modern Native mythologies and perspectives. With my translation, my aim was to reproduce King’s own translation of orality and traditional Native storytelling into writing, albeit with a slightly different use of dialect (closer to international French than Quebec French), since translating King's idiolect was no easy feat. And so, my main concern was to stay as true as possible to the original work, its gaps, repetitions, syntax and phatic (speech used as social function) use of language. In doing so, my goal was to once again foster the reader’s understanding of Natives and their plight, establishing an oral bond through the translation of King's orality between them and the translated work. Pertaining to the latter will be a discussion on how translation also ideally bridges the gap between cultures while expanding their horizons, just as King's modern, syncretic Native storytelling breathes new life into traditional spiritual practices and beliefs. However, as King warns us about stories, which can be not only healing but also harmful, translation can adversely widen that gap and harm intercultural relationships when improperly harnessed. When properly harnessed, however, translation re-enacts a narrative to launch it in a new language-culture (Benjamin in Venuti), in the same manner that Native storytelling (both traditional and modern) enacts a performative that not only preserves culture but recreates it anew. Hence my interest in discovering the links between the fashioning of a new world, full of promise, through narrative, and the refashioning of a narrated text through translation into a new language-culture. Translating the activism at work in King’s own telling of One Good Story, That One, I would further like to capture the ways in which King's modern Native storytelling and the bleak, satiric humour with which much of it is tinged, continues to combat neocolonialism to this day, even in this so-called postcolonial society. Eva Gruber's Humour in Contemporary Native North American Literature is an in-depth and informative work on this subject. I would like to elaborate on Gruber's statement that humour, more than just a coping strategy, as many would claim, is also, more importantly, especially to a non-Native audience, a Trojan horse of sorts: “Sneaking up on readers through shared laughter, humour can align their empathy with Native viewpoints, obscuring conflicts and hierarchies and triggering consensus and solidarity instead” (“Humour in Native Lit”, 118). As well, I take into account in the course of my translation how in presenting Western history and religion from a humorous angle, the author is exposing its fallacies in a tragi-comical context which blurs the boundaries between reality and myth, and thus alleviates the burden of colonialism upon his Native & non-Native readers, while also encouraging accountability. // Abstract : Mon mémoire consiste en une traduction commentée de cinq nouvelles, incluant la nouvelle titre, du recueil One Good Story, That One de Thomas King, ainsi qu'une introduction théorique et contextuelle. Mon commentaire, au delà de la justification de ma syntaxe et de mes choix de mots -que je relierai à l'utilisation d'un idiolecte interfusionnel de l'auteur, c'est-à-dire son usage personnalisé d'oralité dans son écriture- aborde l'usage d'ironie et du Trickster en tant qu'instruments de résistance anticoloniale (basé sur l'article « Godzilla vs. Postcolonial » de King), avec lesquels King espère contester les paradigmes occidentaux et contribuer à la reconnaissance du fardeau des Autochtones. King utilise ces deux éléments en tant qu'instruments discursifs de résistance anticolonialiste plutôt que postcoloniale, en accord avec son idée que le postcolonialisme est un concept qui n'existe que dans un contexte académique et non dans la réalité quotidienne de notre société, puisque nous vivons ultimement encore dans un contexte colonial. King utilise la satire premièrement pour contribuer à la reconnaissance du fardeau physique et psychique des Premières Nations jusqu'à ce jour, et deuxièmement, pour créer un sens de responsabilité chez ces même gens, pour les transformer en les rendant humoristiquement conscients malgré eux de leur complicité dans cette histoire sordide. L'usage de King du Coyote trickster est aussi un élément humoristique important qui est également un instrument discursif de résistance et d'éducation anticolonialiste, dont la signification mythologique est cruciale au développement d'une structure idéologique de rechange, qu'il établit en tant que saine contre-partie à celle inspirée par les religions occidentales, avec sa dichotomie traditionnelle judéo-chrétienne. Je commente sur le fait que King, avec son usage du Trickster, de la satire et de l'oralité, conteste la validité des paradigmes eurocentristes avec sa littérature oralisée portant sur les mythologies et perspectives autochtones modernes, qui exposent les problèmes de ces 8 paradigmes. Avec ma traduction, mon but est de reproduire la propre traduction de l'oralité des contes traditionnels autochtones de King dans un contexte littéraire, quoique avec un usage partiellement différent de dialecte (plus près du français international que de celui du Québec), puisque traduire l'idiolecte de King n'était pas une tâche aisée. Donc, ma principale priorité était de rester aussi fidèle que possible à l'original, à ses pauses, ses répétitions, sa syntaxe et son usage phatique de la langue (le langage en tant que fonction sociale). En ce faisant, mon but est encore une fois de donner une meilleure contextualisation aux lecteurs de la cause des Premières Nations, et d'établir une relation orale entre eux et la traduction. En relation à ce dernier aspect, je discute du fait que la traduction est aussi idéalement un pont entre les cultures qui sert également à élargir leurs horizons, comme les contes modernes, syncrétiques de King insufflent une vie nouvelle dans les croyances et pratiques spirituelles autochtones traditionnelles. Cependant, comme King nous met en garde contre les histoires, qui peuvent guérir mais aussi empoisonner, la traduction peut également élargir ce fossé et nuire aux relations interculturelles quand elle n'est pas adéquatement utilisée. Quand elle l'est, par contre, la traduction recrée une narration pour la relancer dans une autre culture langagière, de la même façon que les contes autochtones (traditionnels et modernes) recréent une performance qui non seulement préserve la culture mais la fait renaître. C'est pourquoi j'ai un tel intérêt dans la découverte des liens entre la création d'un monde nouveau, plein de possibilités, à travers la narration, et la nouvelle création d'un texte narré dans une nouvelle culture langagière à travers la traduction. À travers la discussion de l'activisme de King dans les nouvelles que j'ai traduites, je discute aussi des façons dont les contes modernes de King et leur humour noir et satirique continuent de 9 combattre le néocolonialisme jusqu'à ce jour, même dans notre société soi-disant postcoloniale. Le livre d'Eva Gruber, Humour in Contemporary Native North American Literature, est un ouvrage approfondi et très informatif à propos de ce sujet. Je voudrais élaborer partiellement sur l'affirmation de Gruber que l'humour, bien plus qu'une stratégie de survie comme plusieurs le croiraient, est aussi un cheval de Troie en quelque sorte, particulièrement pour un lectorat non-Autochtone : « S'approchant discrètement des lecteurs grâce au rire partagé, l'humour peut créer une empathie pour les points de vue autochtones, obscurant les conflits et les hiérarchies et déclenchant au lieu une solidarité et un consensus. » (« Humour in Contemporary Native Lit », 118, ma traduction). Je discute également de comment, en présentant l'histoire et la religion occidentale d'un point de vue humoristique, l'auteur expose ses faussetés dans un contexte tragi-comique qui estompe les barrières entre réalité et mythe, et ainsi réduit le fardeau du colonialisme sur les épaules de ses lecteurs autochtones et non-autochtones, tout en encourageant une prise de responsabilité.

In Canada, almost everybody is familiar with stereotypes about ‘Native social dysfunction’. Canada’s present-day “Imaginary Indian” (Francis) is indeed associated with substance and welfare dependence as well as family violence and neglect. However, the mainstream tends not to wonder about the actual social suffering behind the image and about the causes of these supposed patterns. In Daughters Are Forever, the Sto:lo / Squamish writer and activist Lee Maracle deconstructs these racist clichés by emphasizing the impact of the colonial process on real-life Native populations. Through a Sto:lo social worker’s attempts to understand how colonial policies have affected Aboriginal motherhood, Maracle demonstrates the roots of Indigenous social ills in collective traumas inflicted over several centuries and transmitted intergenerationally. The conclusion of the protagonist, Marilyn, that “[c]olonization is such a personal process” (216) summarizes the ways in which collective trauma and cultural genocide largely condition individual traumas and grief. Her parallel journeys to help an Anishnaabe woman patient, prevent the abductions of Native Canadian children by mainstream welfare services, and mend her own toxic relationship with her daughters further demonstrate the interrelatedness of Indian policy, patriarchal institutions, and personal and familial spiritual illnesses. They also enable Maracle to show the dangerous ethnocentrism of mainstream psychology and the need to create cross-cultural methodologies and therapies appropriate to the diverse Native North American cultures. By depicting the “unresolved human dilemmas” (Preface 11) of Aboriginal characters, she strives to create social change by drawing her readers into her stories to shock them into awareness.

In Canada, almost everybody is familiar with stereotypes about ‘Native social dysfunction’. Canada’s present-day “Imaginary Indian” (Francis) is indeed associated with substance and welfare dependence as well as family violence and neglect. However, the mainstream tends not to wonder about the actual social suffering behind the image and about the causes of these supposed patterns. In Daughters Are Forever, the Sto:lo / Squamish writer and activist Lee Maracle deconstructs these racist clichés by emphasizing the impact of the colonial process on real-life Native populations. Through a Sto:lo social worker’s attempts to understand how colonial policies have affected Aboriginal motherhood, Maracle demonstrates the roots of Indigenous social ills in collective traumas inflicted over several centuries and transmitted intergenerationally. The conclusion of the protagonist, Marilyn, that “[c]olonization is such a personal process” (216) summarizes the ways in which collective trauma and cultural genocide largely condition individual traumas and grief. Her parallel journeys to help an Anishnaabe woman patient, prevent the abductions of Native Canadian children by mainstream welfare services, and mend her own toxic relationship with her daughters further demonstrate the interrelatedness of Indian policy, patriarchal institutions, and personal and familial spiritual illnesses. They also enable Maracle to show the dangerous ethnocentrism of mainstream psychology and the need to create cross-cultural methodologies and therapies appropriate to the diverse Native North American cultures. By depicting the “unresolved human dilemmas” (Preface 11) of Aboriginal characters, she strives to create social change by drawing her readers into her stories to shock them into awareness.

In Canada, almost everybody is familiar with stereotypes about ‘Native social dysfunction’. Canada’s present-day “Imaginary Indian” (Francis) is indeed associated with substance and welfare dependence as well as family violence and neglect. However, the mainstream tends not to wonder about the actual social suffering behind the image and about the causes of these supposed patterns. In Daughters Are Forever, the Sto:lo / Squamish writer and activist Lee Maracle deconstructs these racist clichés by emphasizing the impact of the colonial process on real-life Native populations. Through a Sto:lo social worker’s attempts to understand how colonial policies have affected Aboriginal motherhood, Maracle demonstrates the roots of Indigenous social ills in collective traumas inflicted over several centuries and transmitted intergenerationally. The conclusion of the protagonist, Marilyn, that “[c]olonization is such a personal process” (216) summarizes the ways in which collective trauma and cultural genocide largely condition individual traumas and grief. Her parallel journeys to help an Anishnaabe woman patient, prevent the abductions of Native Canadian children by mainstream welfare services, and mend her own toxic relationship with her daughters further demonstrate the interrelatedness of Indian policy, patriarchal institutions, and personal and familial spiritual illnesses. They also enable Maracle to show the dangerous ethnocentrism of mainstream psychology and the need to create cross-cultural methodologies and therapies appropriate to the diverse Native North American cultures. By depicting the “unresolved human dilemmas” (Preface 11) of Aboriginal characters, she strives to create social change by drawing her readers into her stories to shock them into awareness. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the implications of three early twentieth-century First Nations collaborations that were produced in the context of salvage ethnography and attributed mainly to their non-aboriginal collaborators: Henry Tate and Franz Boas’s Tsimshian Mythology (1916), E. Pauline Johnson and Chief Joe Capilano’s Legends of Vancouver (1912), and Chief William K’HHalserten Sepass and Eloise Street’s Sepass Poems (1911-15). By using a versioning framework to attain a “fluid” reading across variants, I can identify the intercultural mediations across versions and attempt to engage in a form of digital repatriation. Through digital archives like Kimberly Christen’s “Mukurtu” project, these cultural documents can be repatriated and accessed only by those who, following cultural protocols, should have access. Ultimately, an analysis of variants suggests that while salvage ethnography privileged the non-aboriginal collaborators, the changeability of these narratives across versions functions to perpetually unfix these texts from a static concept of aboriginal identity.

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