But his greatest anguish was the loss of certainty. He had been torn up by the roots. The code he lived by was in fragments in his hand. He was confronted by scruples that were utterly strange to him. He could no longer live by his lifelong principles; he had entered a strange new world of humanity…. He contemplated…the rising of new sun – an owl required to see with eagle’s eyes.
(Part 5, Bk 4, Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

In response to the blog post Oct 22 (Where the hell is Dan…”) I thought I’d add my thoughts. I’m in an interesting position here, having enjoyed Dan’s friendship and sharing his evolving vision of this Searching for Dragons project since he came into this territory. I too feel, as Dan has pointed out about his own experience, as if I have a foot in two worlds, two paradigms, and therefore do not quite feel at home in either. I live here on the edge of different worlds: between prairie and mountains, between Canada/Alberta and Piikuni/Kainai Blackfoot cultures.

I want to vouch for what Dan is experiencing. The world of the Blackfoot, and perhaps by extension, the indigenous world as a whole, is vastly different from the “Western” world. Increasingly, I’ve come to appreciate just how difficult it is to access and understand. We often recognize the differences in perspective that various languages and cultures provide, say, from Spanish to Italian, to English and French. But these differences are slight by comparison to the divide between any of the Indo-European derived languages and cultures, and the indigenous. I use the term ‘indigenous’ in order to distinguish between what existed before colonization, and what still exists in reduced and often compromised form today, and the more legally recognized and controversial term like “native” or “Indian” or “aboriginal”. ‘Indigenous’ does not refer to blood quanta levels and status cards, but to a way of seeing, acting and relating to the world.

The challenge for a modern/Western/colonized person trying to enter an indigenous worldview is somewhat like trying to see the back of your head. You go into that world with a well-established perspective already, with language that conditions us to see already in a particular way. Of course, the temptation is to see all this new stuff through the lens of what you already have. Moreover, the ‘new’ stuff you’re trying to see is blurred by… centuries of colonization, assimilation, and adaptation – so it becomes very difficult to see anything but that which is already modified in light of your (Modern/Western) perspective. Yet the effort can be made, and a glimpse into a very different world is possible. (In my opinion, Rupert Ross, and Calvin Luther Martin are two non-native writers who have grasped this difference.)

It’s into this old world that Dan has entered. I don’t mean to suggest that Dan’s project is simply a search for indigenous values and perspectives. He may come to that conclusion at some point. Or he may find that what he is searching for in fact runs parallel to, or is very close to, indigenous values. Whatever the outcome, I think it can be said that for the time being, there is something about being on the Blackfoot reserve, going through the sweats, Sundance, roundup, and listening to what the Elders and custodians and researchers have to say about things, that is bringing about a change in perspective. This is a journey into another world, fraught with challenges. The process is painful for anyone conditioned to one particular perspective, armed with a different set of values. It provokes anxieties; the very same sensation, sometimes, as if you were letting go of a support pillar and suddenly felt yourself falling. The falling sensation tends to make you want to hold tighter to your familiar paradigms and to see everything from your familiar lens.

For some, this is a non-issue. There are those who fail to recognize the relativity of their own cultural lens and do not question anything about their perspective. Others can lose themselves altogether (I’m reminded of Kurtz’ famous line from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness “The horror, the horror…”).

Over and over, the sin I witness with well-intentioned ‘westerners’ (European, American, and Canadian) who come to experience and learn something ‘native’ is that they come, but they do not stay. And at the risk of offering up a too-crude generalization, the one central value I have picked up in my time among indigenous people is – you must take the time.

I once asked a Blackfoot friend about the meaning of a certain petroglyph image at Writing-On-Stone. He laughed at my question (in a friendly way) and asked me what the rock the glyph was on was like, what was its shape and contours? and where was the image in relation to the rock? and where the rock sat, in relation to the landscape? All these things had something to say about what the glyph was saying. To read the glyph, I had to be able to read the landscape (as well as understand the content of the glyph!) Of course I had not considered those contextual factors, accustomed as I was to simply reading print from a page.

Another friend of mine has been taking me to sacred Blackfoot landscape sites. He shows me how one ought to approach these places, what one ought to say, how one ought to conduct oneself. He told me recently that he had been taught to approach a site by first drawing near, but not arriving. Then to leave, and return another day, drawing yet closer, but not arriving. One should do this 4 times, before actually arriving at the point of interest. To do otherwise, he said (using a Blackfoot word) was to be greedy and impatient. He said white people tended to be greedy like this, in a hurry, not respecting, not waiting. If we could wait, he said, things would come to us, and speak to us, invitations would come, and we would recognize the power in things that beckoned us.

These two anecdotes teach that you don’t learn about indigenous culture without paying attention to things, by taking a long look, by taking a slow approach, being open and willing to undergo change, letting go of the familiar. I’ve seen too many people pass through Blackfoot country who want to snatch a piece of something ‘other’, and call the piece the whole. Indigenous cultures have been putting up with that for a very long time. This is the problem of the tourist, as opposed to the traveler. The tourist goes off on a trip, collects memorabilia, photographs, considers what has been ‘got’ or ‘done’ and comes home with a sense of possession, yet for all that has been ‘possessed’, the tourist is essentially unchanged by the trip. They are the same upon their return as they were when they left, perhaps sporting a tan and a batch of pictures and t-shirts. The traveler, by contrast, goes on a trip with an open mind, with courage (courage to let go, undo, all that is familiar), and returns changed in essential ways. The traveler is not the same on their return.

The other thing one learns is that you don’t simply drop into the culture. You approach, and if you show your colours, you get invited a little further. You engage in a dialectic dance of approach and invitation.

Going through this dance with his Blackfoot family and friends, Dan is not in a position to be reporting on this. Dan is being invited in, not the rest of his audience. He’s putting in the time, and showing his colours, not the rest of us. In the end, his ‘product’, if successful, will invite the rest of us into a long and carefully researched vision we’re not entirely familiar with, the measure of true art.

Ken Williams