Readings 9/29/08

"Many Tender Ties" Chapter 2 and 3
by Sylvia Van Kirk

These chapters were about Native American women and their role in the fur-trading business in Western Canada. Chapter 2 was about the marriages, or partnerships, that occurred between the men of the trade company and the Native women. The Third chapter was about the role the women played in the business itself. As far as interesting quotes go, in the second chapter when Van Kirk says,

"It did not take the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company long to realize that marriage to the daughter of a leading hunter or chief could secure not only the bountiful hunt of the father-in-law but that of his relations as well" (Van Kirk, 29).

This quote - and indeed, the whole chapter - makes it sound like the only people benefiting from this partnership was the trade company. The indigenous community must also have seen some kind of benefit from this partnership, such as a trade partner with something unique to the area or some other kind of bonus that we can not see from our perspective. It is interesting to me that this arrangement is portrayed as beneficial only to the trade company, not to the communities they were trading with. I attribute some of this to the perspective of the author, but also one of the views we have of history where the indigenous communities were merely tools used by the settling peoples to better themselves.

This view of history is continued in the third chapter, where this quote comes from:

"Both companies used women as interpreters to communicate with tribes of the rich Lake Athabasca region" (Van Kirk, 65).

To me, the word 'used' is key in that sentence. It implies no will or motivation on the part of the women, rather that they were no better than inanimate objects to be used when necessary by the companies. There is no way we can know whether the women wanted to be 'used' as interpreters or not, or what they thought of their situations. To use that kind of language requires a few key assumptions about the women, their culture and their position in the company itself, assumptions I do not think the author was prepared to make. While we may never know what the women thought, or what propelled them into the roles detailed in this book, it is a mistake to impose our suppositions on their lives. It does a disservice to history, and the memory of the women and their cultures.