Old Stories, New Settings: The Elder Brother and Windigo in Contemporary Canadian Indigenous Literature
Abstract
The paper analyzes the adaptation of traditional characters of Indigenous storytelling in contemporary Canadian Indigenous literature. It examines selected works by both established writers (Thomas King, Joseph Boyden) and by emerging writers (Richard Van Camp, Leanne Simpson, Lesley Belleau).
The long, rich, complex, and vital oral culture of Indigenous peoples of Canada has created a sound base for Indigenous written art. A myriad of stories and teachings has been a significant source of inspiration and knowledge background for contemporary authors.
Writers re-tell old stories in new settings, adapting traditional characters (the elder brother, windigo) to present day world. The way the writers use the characters in the narrative and ascribe to them the ability to inhabit both the realm of the mythical and of the contemporary, being both natural and supernatural and human and other-than human has been often defined as postmodern.
Indigenous theories suggest, though, that such intertwinement, interconnectedness and ambiguity of the realms is intrinsic to Indigenous perspective of the world. The paper examines the variety of ways Indigenous writers employ traditional characters in their work, the manifoldness and equivocality of their qualities and discusses the theories that define these qualities as inherent in Indigenous culture.