Talk:Haida mythology

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Question on refdesk[edit]

There is a question pertaining to this article on the Reference Desk, if anyone wants to take a look. Mark Richards 23:47, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy over Bringhurst's translation[edit]

citation for contested by haidas statement: https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/TC/article/viewFile/4142/3387 Inforlife (talk) 09:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

sorry that reference misses the crux of the issue; that being the appropriation , and apparent misrepresentation of stories.Inforlife (talk) 09:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

here is a better one. short mention of the issue on page 15, is this sufficient to be considered a citation? http://aa.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/40/1/1.pdf Inforlife (talk) 10:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The most relevant sentence I can see is (p 15):

The issue that caught the mainstream media’s attention was the relationship between Bringhurst, a

non-Native scholar, and members of the Haida community, who argued that their myths are the

property of particular Haida Houses that have exclusive rights to tell the stories.

That seems fair game to integrate into the article. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Complaints about appropriation are a POV issue and should not negate the use of Bringhurst's translations here; and it should be noted - which modern Haida are apparently unconcerned with - that Bringhurst is working from Swinton or whatever the earlier mythoographer was who did have the stories conferred upon him (and the right to re-tell and circulate him). i.e. The earlier-era elders who decided to share the stories were well aware that they would be widely published; they already gave them to the outside world. Now, Haida seem to want to revoke their predecesor's wishes, apparently for commercial gain (the movie rights I suppose, must be worth a mint....). Either that or they don't want anybody to know anything about them, unless it's told by them and people have to come stay in Haida-run lodges on culture-tourism junkets where each hearing is worth a fee. I'm always amused and a bit perplexed by modern-era FN people trying to "reclaim" their culture by shutting down anybody else about it; Bringhurst was trying to do a service to Haida culture, instead he has been vilified for being of the wrong skin colour and the ethnographer who recorded these now-otherwise-forgotten materials is vilified as some kind of theif without permission from the elders (except he did ahve permission from the elders of the day). All very pitiable, and rather juvenile.....Skookum1 (talk) 13:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should also add that if "Haida law" were in operation of Wikipedia, then this page could simply not exist unless its only contributors and sources were from the clans in question. Wikipedia is, thankfully, not governed by Haida laws, but by its own....Skookum1 (talk) 15:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i was just trying my hand at a citation. now that your here; do either of those links constitute a citation enough to render the statement cited? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inforlife (talk • contribs) 19:17, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

they would seem to be; I don't have time to read them fully right now; excerpt the bits/phrases you think shoudl be cited and put them as quotes here, with page refs. They can only be cited as opinion/position, not as "fact", i.e. the fact is that some Haida authorities maintain this (others, now dead, trusted Swanton/Swinton and still others trusted Bringhurst). Essentially it's a WP:POV issue so care must be taken in how it is cited. Not as fait accompli, but as part of a dispute.Skookum1 (talk) 19:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further noting, again, that if Bringhurst's tellings fall under this interdiction - "members of the Haida community, who argued that their myths are the property of particular Haida Houses that have exclusive rights to tell the stories." - then so does any telling of those stories here in Wikipedia. It's a bit of a conundrum, and an issue on more than one FN page....Skookum1 (talk) 19:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To whit, on such pages maybe we SHOULD have a disclaimer template at the top, that the stories rendered "here" are the property of particular individuals and clans under Haida/indigenous law, but Wikipedia is presenting them out of public interest based on available in-print sources drawn from indigenous-consulted contributors (such as Bringhurst)". ..... that's not boilerplate, just an idea.Skookum1 (talk) 19:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

not a bad idea at all. where such information is available. i understand your reservations surrounding POV or whatever. i listened to an ideas program a while ago and a point that was made, albeit an emotional one, was that haida people are not dead, and so for bringhurst to do his works without approaching the community in some fasion was not acceptable to them. for bringhursts part, he stated that he had no responsibiliy to do so because "there are no haida scholors". allowing that there are egos at play on both sides of the fence, a statement like that has a special sort of arrogance. It's too bad that peace couldn't be made. what bringhurst did bring to the table was an enormous amount of research, and an approach to the telling of these stories which could be more palatable than swantons. the theory being that these were epic poems in haida, but halting and awkward in swantons english. which is all true. The other issue, and to me the one with most merit, is that published works take on the airs of gospel. by his own admission (sorry forget where i read it) bringhurst did not translate these texts, is not a haida speaker. that said the haida concern would be the line between poetic license an d utter fiction. an example would be in the naming of some of the characters in these stories. a far easier example to illustrate the issue is a recent argument a young haida parent had with his daughter over a particular myth which she had learned through ravens tales (an animated series), incidentally the errors found within that myth seem to trace back to bringhurst.Inforlife (talk) 20:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or Swanton's? Or somebody else who had sourced Swanton? Also, are their actual heirs to Skaay and Ghandl, or is the claim of possession based only on broad group-grounds? Thing is, the popularity of Haida culture outside of teh Haida realm has greatly helped the Haida; it seems a bit odd doesn't it for people condemdning others for showing interest? It's not Bringhurst's fault that he's the only one in print; as far as citability goes, User:OldManRivers, who's 'Namgis and Skwxwu7mesh, has discovered that one of the things holding back wider knowledge of his people is the degree to which things are kept locked up in the tribal library and not published deliberately. Then it's so much easier to condemn someone else for printing what little there is known outside that library....he's since discovered there are ways he can cite some of it, as some has been cited in other works. The old saw in "the writing business" is "publish or perish", and it appies to the Haida as much as anybody else; complaining that somebody else has written a book that you should have is only remedied one way - write the book that needed writing, and do it well enough to shove the other one aside. There's elements in this equation that are like the "I refuse to talk to my husband" combined with "my husband doesn't understand me" non-relationship. complaining that someone doesn't understand you when you refuse to let them in on who you are....who's to blame, exactly? Also, consider this - there's a lot of native-written history that's very unfair and biased about early settlers, ship captains etc, I could point you to dozens of webpages of this kind that have really specious "facts" combined with sweeping value judgements and race/cultural generalizations against white people; white people aren't dead either, and to complain about some of them telling your stories when you're not telling theirs honestly either (I'm not saying you, Inforlife) is just more than a bit hypocritical. That being said, NPOV sources are hard to find; Barbeau's compendium of legends in Totem Poles is apparently no logner acceptable...but what do I do with a Tlingit myth about the origin of the Haida? Diepense with it because it's not told by the Haida??Skookum1 (talk) 18:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"write the book that needs writing"... agreed. however if the Haida people have esoteric knowledge, that they do not wish to share with the outside world, and choose not to publish, this does not negate their right to critique works that they believe to be false or misleading. the criticism shouldn't come in the form of uncited edits on wikipedia,( but i believe when they are public/ published they do become fair game to include in a wikipedia page.) In terms of the criticisms themselves, and the charge of hypocrisy (in light of existing works by native writers which exhibit a bias) i have to disagree completely. in the particular case that i mentioned ("people are not dead") that was a quote from an individual, who to the best of my knowledge is not a published author, never-mind one who has published specious"facts" etc.. further to suggest that the existence of such papers in the world somehow denies a haida person or people the right to criticize another paper seems to take things a bit too far. as you said they have a point of view, and an agenda. which, if a can be so bold, would seem to be protecting (in the indaviduals view) the cultural property, and or integrity of their people. they are then compelled to speak out against perceived errors in the public forum as they appear, for tho it might not be their first wish to share this information with the world, it is their responsibility not to allow it to become the new cannons of their culture.Inforlife (talk) 11:02, 14 February 2009 (UTC) allowing that it IS wrong to allow a certain type of document to exist without comment (in this case it would be... ? a translation of a popular, or better yet proprietary story to be published in haida. or as you suggest, a specious history of white folk), does not make anything that they say inherently wrong. if I'm not putting to fine a point on it .. if i were to say, as i took deep pulls on my cigarette, that smoking is bad for you, i am not speaking an untruthInforlife (talk) 11:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC) source for Gyhldeptis? looks like a haida word??Inforlife (talk) 17:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC) i am going to erase gyhldeptis if nobody has anything to say about it.. i've seen it on the net, as an earth goddess shared by haida and tlingit, but it is the same article reused. pretty new-agey.. i've never seen any reference to it, and it is unreferenced here. anybody know where it came from06:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inforlife (talk • contribs) [reply]

Should the title of this page change to become more politically correct?[edit]

Since the Haida culture still survives, and many people still believe in their cultural beliefs, should we change the title of this article from "Haida Mythology" to "Haida Beliefs?" Bob2357 (talk) 00:58, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]