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The Storytelling Wheel: Visual Essay

Emma Devenny – 30088928

Werklund School of Education – University of Calgary

EDUC 530 – Indigenous Education

Dr. Jennifer Markides

October 7th, 2022

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Storytelling is more than just a means of communicating; it is a way of expressing both

past and present while giving meaning and purpose to life. I took this photo while riding on a

friend’s land south of Cayley. This old water wheel is a remnant of the first settler homestead

built on this section of land in the early 1900s. The exact history and story behind the wheel are

unknown to my friend. The presence of this wheel is representative of settler colonization, but it

makes me acutely aware of the Indigenous stories that preceded it. Europeans considered history

“as a document-bound discipline” which undermines the richness of the stories that exist in oral

tellings (Dickason & McNab, 2008, p. ii). Written histories are placed external to humanity and

are constantly in danger of undergoing a final death. Records of the water wheel are potentially

locked away in the Cayley archives where it is unlikely that they will ever be brought back to

light. Conversely, Indigenous stories are not limited to the generations before the building of the

water wheel but are retold and recreated with the passing of time. Stories are a part of creation
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and “creation is continuity” (Little Bear, 2000, p. 3). Even through challenges due to

suppression, and horrific abuse, the story takes on a life within the culture it is birthed in. The

importance of oral storytelling, as presented to me by this course, has shaped my understanding

of what it means to bring Indigenous education into the classroom.

Part of bringing a community together around a story involves being in a circle. The

circle is holistic and leaves no one out. When we first entered this class and sat in a circle we

shared where we are from, and where we are going. The circle is situated, much like the story

that is about to be told. I came to understand that the circle is not a grand abstract concept, it is

entirely in the moment and shapes a current understanding of the world. Colonization fractured

the circle of community that was so integral to Indigenous communities and their thriving. The

effect of having “jagged worldviews” leads to “contentious, fragmented, and competing desires

and values” (Little Bear, 2000, p. 8). It is the stories that “carry our memories – real, imagined,

or envisioned” (Poitras Pratt & Daniels, 2014, p. 180). As educators, we are called to listen

deeply to these stories and become witnesses (Poitras Pratt & Daniels, 2014, p. 180). Stories of

missing and murdered Indigenous women, stories of inadequate resources on reserves, stories of

residential schools, stories of Indigenous revival, stories of traditional medicine, and stories of

holistic communities are all equally important. Part of the wholeness of experience and the

cyclical nature of stories encompasses the good and the bad – the parts that we would like to

submerge, and the parts that are exposed to the sun. It is about reclaiming creation and re-

engaging with the renewal ceremonies; “the telling and retelling of creation stories, the singing

and resinging of the songs” (Little Bear, 2000, p. 3).

The water wheel and the individual who built it are unnamed. I cannot help but believe

that if these names were known, I would feel a deeper connection to the story behind the wheel’s
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existence. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action involve the reclaiming of

names changed in residential schools, as well as funding for Indigenous language initiatives

(Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2015, p. 2). Authentic names are critical when engaging

with stories. The wisdom of Elders is passed on through the remembrance of their names as was

witnessed by our class when we watched the moose story presented by Richard Van Camp

(2020). There is great respect for the past, but by naming important figures in the community, the

story also becomes situated in the present context. Most current Indigenous tribal labels “were

imposed by Europeans and do not represent how the people termed themselves” (Dickason &

McNab, 2008, p. xii). I believe that land acknowledgments are also a chance to engage in oral

storytelling experiences that extend much deeper than reading scripted words. Using the

untranslated, original names of Indigenous groups in land acknowledgments is an act of respect

that gives value to the people reflected in the statement. With the importance of names goes the

importance of language. In Indigenous cultures knowledge is primarily passed down “from the

older to the younger generation through language; consequently, language is of paramount

importance” (Little Bear, 2000, p. 6). The story translates differently across mediums, and across

languages. Concepts are defined by the language that they are birthed in. For example, many

Indigenous languages are “verb-rich languages that are process or action-oriented […] and

everything is more or less animate” (Little Bear, 2000, p. 3). One author struggles to explain the

cultural values of tunnganarniq through the English language and likens it to “trying to climb

over a big boulder” (Anoee, 2015, p. 90). I have learned that the preservation of Indigenous

languages is synonymous with the revival of Indigenous ways of knowing.

In my future classroom, I envision having the power to weave stories in and out of the

science curriculum. I might not share a cultural consciousness with Indigenous peoples, but there
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are Elders that I can connect with and videos that I can tap into as resources. Weaving stories

into the curriculum is an intentional way “of welcoming and validating students” (Anoee, 2015,

p. 90). Through stories, “customs and values are taught and shared” anew (Little Bear, 2000, p.

6). In my classroom I envision those values to reflect “intercultural understanding, empathy, and

mutual respect” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2015, p. 7). Stories provide examples of

embodied knowledge and characters like Kwezens and Nanabush model how to live life through

a reconnection to the land (Simpson, 2014). Marie Battiste further consolidates my

understanding of the importance of storytelling to pedagogy when she writes “story-telling is the

most important way of sharing the experience of Indigenous peoples” as it allows “sharing

meaning with new context” (Battiste, 2013, p. 184).

Indigenous stories have been subject to the storms of the past, but stories cannot be easily

erased from the Indigenous consciousness. Residential schools were systematically designed to

strip Indigenous children of their “language, oral narrative, and storytelling […] and the essence

of an effective means of education,” but Indigenous stories are invested in the land, the people,

and the water itself (Poitras Pratt et al., 2018, p. 8). That sense of interconnectedness is the

foundation of the Indigenous circle of storytelling, and it is eternal. The flow of the waterway is

the very flow of life itself. If we consider the wheel as the story, we see the timelessness of the

circle. The story wheel pauses it for a minute, captures a moment situated in change, and then the

creek flows on.

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References

Anoee, N. (2015). Learning through tunnganarniq. In F. Walton & D. O’Leary (Eds)., Sivumut,

Towards the future together: Inuit women educational leaders in Nunavut and Nunavik

(pp. 89-102). Women’s Press / Canadian Scholars’ Press.

Battiste, M. (2013). Chapter 10: Possibilities of Educational Transformations. In Decolonizing

Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit. Purich. https://ebookcentral-proquest-

com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/lib/ucalgary-ebooks/reader.action?docID=5652479

&ppg=176

Dickason, O. with McNab, D. (2008). Introduction. In Canada’s First Nations: A History of

Founding Peoples from Earliest Times (pp. x-xvii). Oxford University Press.

Little Bear, L. (2000a). Jagged worldviews colliding. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming

Indigenous voice and vision, (pp. 77-85). UBC Press. https://www-deslibris-

ca.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/ID/404356

Poitras Pratt, Y., Louie, D.W., Hanson, A.J., & Ottmann, J. (2018). Indigenous education and

decolonization. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford University Press.

doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.240

Poitras Pratt, Y. & Daniels, L. (2014). Métis Remembrances of Education: Bridging History with

Memory. In P. Preciado Babb (Ed.). Proceedings of the IDEAS: Rising to Challenge

Conference (pp. 179-187). http://hdl.handle.net/1880/50603

Simpson, L. (2014). Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation.

Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1-25. https://jps.library.utoronto

.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22170
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Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (2015). Calls to Action.

http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

Van Camp, R. (2020, October 27). Contemporary Indigenous Storytelling by Fort Smith, NWT,

Tlicho Dene Storyteller Richard Van Camp [Video]. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kp9T_34VmI&t=36s