“How to write an oral culture”

This chapter examines some of the ways contemporary indigenous literature has used, or in some cases transformed, oral culture. The texts used to illustrate the process are: Halfbreed, the autobiography of Maria Campbell; In Search of April Raintree, the autobiographical fiction by Beatrice Culleton; Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden’s novel on Cree participation in the First World War; and Kiss of the Fur Queen, the novel by Tomson Highway. Following the thesis put forward by Joe Episkenew, the author sows how indigenous storytelling is being used as a means of healing the historical traumas arising from colonialism. It shows how the oral traditions of Canada form the foundation of Aboriginal societies, connecting speaker and listener in communal experience and uniting past and present in memory, and how they manifest in contemporary literature in Anglophone Canada.