The Politics of Joking by Jana Kopelent Rehak Susanna Trnka

Author:Jana Kopelent Rehak, Susanna Trnka [Jana Kopelent Rehak, Susanna Trnka]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138314054
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

Cree hunters of today do not condone the burning of ceremonial drums by the missionaries. The one missionary in Chisasibi who tolerated the open discussion of Cree practices and legends is appreciated in a different way than all those others who did not. The missionaries, who had no competence in the bush, were never seen as authorities in rules and practices for the bush. In this regard, the Sunday prohibition for hunting is a curiosity. There is no evidence in Chisasibi that such a rule existed before the missionaries. Did it appeal to a deeper-rooted desire to extend the rules for social interactions to the rules governing relations between humans and animals?

Accommodating the pantheistic beliefs of the native religion into Christianity is the kind of adaptability which has served the survival of Cree culture. It has to be acknowledged here, however, that scholars differ on the question of survival of Cree culture. There is little argument that hunting technology and lifestyles have changed. Instead of sail canoes (until the mid-1950s) and dog teams (until the mid-1960s), Chisasibi hunters/trappers/fishermen now travel along the James Bay coast by motor-canoes and snowmobiles. But the patterns of travel are much the same. Fishermen use nylon gillnets. But these nets are wielded in much the same way as the old nets used a century ago or more. There is no evidence that fishing methods and practices have changed, with the exception that some old methods such as the use of stone weirs have been abandoned at Chisasibi (Berkes 1979; Berkes 2012).

In examining harvesting practices in the bush, it is fairly clear that new technology is simply superimposed upon the old structure. In a similar way, one can perhaps characterize the adoption of Christianity. Even though the people themselves are Christians, they are pantheists too, as Bird (2005) makes clear. The old rules of conduct in bush life are still recognizable underneath the veneer of village-life Christianity. This is, of course, not in reference to all aspects of life but simply to bush life and for those people for whom life on the land is still important.

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