Deborah Root’s excerpt, Conquest, Appropriation, and Cultural Difference, and Olive Senior’s Mediation on Yellow poem present the same message about the plight of native nations in Canada. Canada, formerly a British colony, is home to many native nations that have over the years been conquered, displaced, and suffered in the hands of immigrants who came into the country. Despite the feudal past that characterizes the history of these tribes, it is apparent from both the poem and the excerpt that native nations of Canada continue to be discriminated against and being taken advantage of. Both Root’s and Senior’s capitalize on the idea of the appropriation of their culture without the compensation of these native nations (Root 67). This paper argues that the selling of native art and other cultural pieces to foreigners by non-native business dwellers demonstrates contemporary conquest and subordination of Canada’s native nations by the mainstream society.
First of all, the lack of laws allowing native nations of Canada to be the distributors and sellers of their own art and culture is a form of contemporary conquest. One thing that is worth noting is that the arts that are sold to tourists are made by the native communities. Most of the creators of these arts remain unaccredited and unacknowledged. This means that the sellers of these arts use other people’s effort and sweat to enrich themselves. Over time, the dominant forces in the Canadian society has shaped the market place in such a way that only the non-native persons can be in a position to successfully market and sell native art and cultural artifacts. It is disheartening to see that even the tourists themselves hardly buy art from native sellers. Deborah root explains the discrimination that is evident in the market place such that even the tourists tend to avoid native seller and opt to buy the native art from the non-native sellers who are not the original owners and creators of this art.
Discrimination in the marketplace presents the idea that there is a stereotype of what a Canadian entrepreneur should look like. It is only the non-native shopkeepers who are seen as being genuine business men and women. This stereotypical characterization of the market place illustrates that there are no equal opportunities for all in the marketplace. Government is put in place to make sure that that there is equity and to also improve the outcome of the market. Continuous discrimination of native nations in the trade of selling their own cultural arts and artwork out rightly presents the idea that the Canadian government has done little to see to it that that every member of the Canadian citizenry is treated equally both by the consumer market and fellow producers. The hardships faced by native artists are as a result of inadequate government policy to make sure that the plight of native nations in Canada is protected (Wright 41). This is brought out in Senior’s poem which claims that the seller is overwhelmed by the large number of tourists who want purchase native art. It is apparent that tourists are biased towards non-native artists such that they flock their shops to a point that the shopkeepers find the large number of consumers overwhelming. During the same time that these tourists are flocking the shops of non-native artists, native artists continue to struggle in the streets to market their own products because there isn’t enough government protection and regulations to make sure that their welfare is protected.
Another idea that is presented in both the poem by Olive Senior and Deborah Root’s excerpt is the idea that Canada is a tourist destination not because of the contemporary art by the non-native nations but because of the richness of culture that is presented by the native nations. This means that without native nations in Canada then the Canadian tourist marketability would not be in its current state. As a way to make sure that there is continuity in the selling of Canadian native art, it is only plausible that the government protects the very culture that is the source of native art (Bak 56). This would mean that the government would have better laws regarding the appropriation of native culture by non-native cultures in the consumer market. The people that should have the right to sell and market their culture should be the native people because they are the originators of the art. This does not mean that the non-native nations cannot sell the native art. However, they would do so with the consent of native nations that created the art in the first place. It is important not to forget that Canada is a multicultural society that has different cultures and peoples who bring cultural richness to the larger Canadian culture (Notzke 19)This means that each person has their own culture. It would therefore be plausible to make sure that sellers do not engage in the selling of art that does not belong to them.
Deborah Roots uses history to explain the current atrocities that face the native nations of Canada. Roots trace back these atrocities to the wave of mercantilism that hovered across Europe in the early 19th century. Roots explain that the Europeans viewed the world as a place to acquire resources. In this light, Europeans appropriated the cultures of various peoples of the world. In most cases native art and native artifacts were taken to Europe from various territories without the consent of the native peoples from which the art was taken from (Kalman 21). In the same way that colonialists took native art without taking into consideration that they needed the consent of the natives, nonnative nations in Canada have adopted the same approach. For example, many of the non-native artists have engaged in the sale of native arts and artifacts as it was their own. The fact remains that these arts and artworks does not belong to them or even their culture. This means that these people just as the colonialists who conquered and appropriated the cultured of native people are engaging in a trade that they should not be participating in. Commerce is something that should be open to all. However, culture is a unique element that should not be taken from a given people without their own consent. This means just as the native nations of Canada have been discriminated against, the selling of their culture without their consent indicates that the mainstream Canadian society does not have respect and value for the cultural heritage of native peoples (Hodgins 27). Instead, nonnatives have used the cultures of native nations to enrich themselves at the detriment of Canada’s native nations.
Olive Senior’s poem brings out an important concept that tourists are not interested in the cultures of nonnative cultures. For example, tourists are not concerned about the hair styles of the nonnatives nor are they interested in the coffee that the non-native sellers are drinking. They go all these in their countries and cannot travel all the way to see and buy such artifacts. Instead, tourists are interested in having dreads and beaded hair just like the native peoples of Canada (Senior 44). This illustrates that the uniqueness of the native culture makes it more marketable to the tourists. Tourists and other peoples are attracted to the native art and artworks because they are rare. Native art cannot be found anywhere else except with the native peoples. Therefore, because native nations of Canada brings a uniqueness to the Canadian society, it is important that there welfare and the culture be protected so that future generations can also be beneficiaries of the benefits that are brought about by the presence of these native cultures.
In conclusion, the poem, Conquest, Appropriation, and Cultural Difference by Deborah Roots, and Olive Senior’s Mediation on Yellow poem present the idea that the culture of the native peoples of Canada has been used by non-natives as a way of enriching themselves. Instead of valuing the culture for the uniqueness that it brings to the Canadian society, non-natives and the mainstream Canadian society have conquered the culture and used it as way of making money. Native peoples who are the originators of this art have been sidelined in the commerce and trade of their own art such that even the tourists have adopted a consumer behavior that inclines towards non-native businessmen and not the native peoples.
Works Cited
Bak, Hans. First Nations of North America: politics and representation. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2005. Print.
Hodgins, Bruce W.. The canoe in Canadian cultures. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History, 1999. Print.
Kalman, Bobbie. Canada: the culture . New York: Crabtree Pub. Co., 2002. Print.
Notzke, Claudia. Aboriginal peoples and natural resources in Canada. North York, Ont.: Captus University Publications, 1994. Print.
Root, Deborah. Cannibal culture: art, appropriation, and the commodification of difference. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996. Print.
Senior, Olive. Summer lightning and other stories. Essex, England: Longman Group, 1986. Print.
Wright, J. V.. A history of the native people of Canada. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1995. Print.
