Wendy Wickwire
Born in Nova Scotia, Wendy Wickwire lived in Merrit and Lytton, British Columbia while researching her doctoral thesis on Native song. During her ten years of research, she met Similkameen storyteller Harry Robinson and recorded his stories.
Wickwire teaches and continues her work in both the School of Environmental Studies and the Department of History at the University of Victoria. She now focuses her research on the oral tradition (oral narratives, songs, life history) of the First Nations peoples of south-central British Columbia.
Books (2)
Synopsis:
Following on two previous collections— Write It on Your Heart: The Epic World of an Okanagan Storyteller (1989) and Nature Power: In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller (2004)—Living by Stories is the third volume of oral narratives by Okanagan storyteller Harry Robinson. This third collection documents how the arrival of whites forever altered the Salish cultural landscape.
Living by Stories includes a number of classic stories set in the “mythological age” about the trickster/transformer, Coyote, and his efforts to rid the world of bad people— spatla or “monsters,” but this new volume is more important for its presentation of historical narratives set in the more recent past. As with the mythological accounts, there is much chaos and conflict in these stories, mainly due to the arrival of new quasi-monsters—“SHAmas” (Whites)—who dispossess “Indians” of their lands and rights, impose new political and legal systems, and erect roads, rail lines, mines, farms, ranches and towns on the landscape.
With permission from Harry Robinson, Wendy Wickwire began recording Robinson's oral stories in 1977. Robinson took his role as a storyteller very seriously and worried about the survival of the oral tradition and his stories. “I’m going to disappear”, he told one reporter, “and there’ll be no more telling stories.”
Review
Whenever I need to be reminded that language is magic and that stories can change the world, I go to Robinson.
- Thomas King
Additional Information
288 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"
Stories from Harry Robinson
Edited and compiled by Wendy Wickwire
Synopsis:
Many of the stories in Harry Robinson's second collection feature the shoo-MISH, or "nature helpers" that assist humans and sometimes provide them with special powers. Some tell of individuals who use these powers to heal themselves; others tell of Indian doctors who have been given the power to heal others. Still others tell of power encounters: a woman "comes alive" after death; a boy meets a singing squirrel; a voice from nowhere predicts the future.
Award
BC Book Prize Winner, 1993.
Review
Epic, mesmerizing tales by a great Okanagan storyteller that lift [one] eerily and movingly into a different world.
- Michele Landsberg, Toronto Star
Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"
2nd edition (First Edition published 1992)
Stories from Harry Robinson
Edited and compiled by Wendy Wickwire
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