The Stone Canoe: Two Lost Mi'kmaq Texts

by Peter Sanger, Elizabeth Paul, Alan Syliboy (Illustrator)

This is a story about two stories and their travels through the written record. The written part begins in the mid-nineteenth century, when Silas T. Rand, a Baptist clergyman from Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, took as his task the translation of the Bible into Mikmaq the language of the indigenous communities in the region. In the process of developing his vocabulary, Rand transcribed narratives from Mikmaq storytellers, and following his death, 87 of these stories were published in a book called Legends of the Micmacs. As his understanding of the language grew, Rand began to translate the stories as he heard them, and to record them in English. Until recently, it appeared that none of the early transcriptions in the original Mikmaq had survived. Then, in 2003, poet and essayist Peter Sanger uncovered two manuscripts among the Rand holdings in the library at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. One of these contains the story of Little Thunder and his journey to find a wife, as told to Rand by Susan Barss in 1847. The other is the story of a woman who survives alone on an island after being abandoned by her husband. It was told by a storyteller known to us now only as Old Man Stevens and dates from 1884. Both are among the earliest examples of indigenous Canadian literature recorded in their original language; the 1847 transcript being perhaps the earliest. Their publication in The Stone Canoe makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Mikmaq storytelling and indigenous Canadian literature.

With the same passion for research and sleuthing that characterized his two previous prose publications, Spar (GP, 2002) and White Salt Mountain (GP, 2005), Peter Sanger provides commentary that recounts the adventure of his discoveries and the paths of written correspondence, library acquisitions, name changes, transcriptions, translations and human error that separate and reconnect two stories and their tellers. He also unpacks some of the complexities of Mikmaq cultural motifs as they emerge in these stories.

At the heart of The Stone Canoe are the two stories themselves, including Rands published versions, along with new translations and transliterations by Elizabeth Paul, a Mikmaq speaker and teacher of the Eskasoni First Nation. Paul provides new English translations, and Mikmaq transliterations of Rands transcripts, as well as notes detailing issues of language and culture. The Stone Canoe also features artwork by Alan Syliboy, a Millbrook First Nation artist. Syliboys original ink drawings illustrate scenes from the two narratives, employing some of the traditional patterns in Mikmaq art, and work visually alongside the translations and Sangers engagement with the patterns contained in the stories.

183 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2007

Reviews

[Renard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m always fascinated to read stories that originated in the land where I live.

I’m so glad to have read Susan Barss’ story of 1847, which is probably the earliest piece of indigenous Canadian literature recorded in its original language. She deserves to have her name remembered.

One of my favourite parts was learning about the aboodalooak, the double-curve motif, which felt so familiar and welcoming (like the spirals I drew in the margins of my school notes when I got overwhelmed inside classrooms as a child)

check my blog for my favourite passages & many more reviews :)

[Monica Bond-Lamberty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, if a bit too literary in its examination of the differences between the texts.
Would have liked more examination of the Mi'kmaq themselves and less of those who transcribed the texts.
That said it was interesting to see how the texts changed over time.

[Andy Pandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly literary in its focus and delivery but the amazing power of the original stories shines through, as it must. Well worth a try. 5 out of 5 for importance to the Mi'kmaq culture given that this has been uncovered and disseminated.

[Rebecca Semple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this book up for school, but thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish.

[Rob]

I found this on a free-book table nestled in an English department, alongside old literary journals, yellowing paperback classics, and anything else a professor had decided they no longer needed. This may be the only place to find this book. It isn't really in my field -- I remain shamefully ignorant about the Indigenous people who were killed and displaced to create my comfortable residence -- but the back cover did a good enough job selling it anyway.

As the title suggests, the book is about two oral Mi'kmaq texts, although it ends up being more a chronicle of how these stories have circulated. The extensive commentary is perhaps out of necessity -- the stories are, on their own, fairly short, so we get a couple different versions of each along with extensive histories. The histories are fascinating in their own right, with the contradictory characters of the white anthropologists who initially recorded these stories serving as an object of both criticism and fascination for the book's modern-day authors.

As for the stories themselves, they definitely fall under my "too old to rate" criteria, meaning that the narrative style is too alien to me and the text too historically removed for a star rating to be at all useful. If you're reading this, it's out of academic or historical interest in Mi'kmaq culture, and probably not because you want a nice adventure story to read on the plane. The editors castigate one of the original translators for distorting the Mi'kmaq's mode of storytelling and understanding time in order to make the narrative fit into an European realist framework, but I'll confess that the butchered version was the one that I enjoyed the most. These are stories from a different, and it likely requires a good bit of mental training to really understand what the narrators are doing. The editors have such training, but spend more time on history than interpretation.

Depending on how you look at it, The Stone Canoe is either a historical text about oral narrative, or a very metafictional collection of stories. Whether or not you get anything out of the texts themselves, the context in which they're placed, and the various permutations we see them in, provide important food for thought.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book, especially the concepts behind the distortion of colonialism on the culture of indigenous societies.