canada

The Big Boys planned to build a pipeline from Alaska down to the US Midwest, bringing energy from source to consumer. The line had to cross some hundreds of miles of British Columbia, over land that had once belonged exclusively to Indians, but which had already been invaded by trappers, sport hunters, ranchers, oil and gas explorers, loggers, drillers, and the beginnings of suburbia. By some miracle, somebody thought that it might be a good idea to see what the Indians thought about this. It seems they had never been consulted up to then. Treaties had been made, then subverted---the old North American pattern. In general, nobody had paid much attention to the Indians of northeastern British Columbia. It was believed that their way of life was kaput, that they were all alcoholics living on welfare, and that they hadn't kept their traditions. It seems they had been living for centuries in an "energy corridor" without a viable way of life. But now they were seriously in the way. Enter Hugh Brody, a British anthropologist.

In MAPS AND DREAMS, Brody accomplishes the near impossible. He writes a marvelously sensitive, interesting report, incorporating such often-boring details as hunting and land use maps, and accounts of meetings. Not only does he show that the culture of the Athapaskan Indians was alive in 1979, he allows them to speak, describes the land use situation from their point of view, and connects their economy with their culture and daily lives. His book is at once a report, an answer to those who had written off the Indians, and a readable work of anthropology. White man's dreams of ever bigger projects, ever more exploitation of the land, he says so exactly, "are the most established carcinoma of the North American imagination". They are ever poised to crush the Indian dreams. The Indian dreams, of how to find game, how to find their way to Heaven, stand in the way of the white man's maps---the maps that show where to put the pipeline, where to drill, where to stake out more claims. Both the Indian maps on paper, which showed how they used the land and their traditional dream maps, showing the way to the Beyond, stood in the way of the white man's dreams. A few thousand souls against the tide of Western visions of "progress". We don't find out what happened, but it wasn't looking hopeful. Different maps, different dreams. For good anthropology, for deeper understanding of the problems of the Far North, for just a fascinating book, you can do a lot worse than read MAPS AND DREAMS.

I came to this book in an effort to understand how First Peoples adapted to the landscape they live in. Mr. Brody eloquently presents the people, their land, and their inherited way of life. It is heartbreaking to read how their claims to this way of life have been ignored in the past hundred years under the impact of colonization. I lived in this area as a child and it is difficult to describe the impact of this book - it presents aspects of experience so many in our inherited colonial culture wish to either eradicate or to ignore. This book is a powerful indictment of the way the people and the land in this province have been abused.

Maps and dreams is a special book. As the lector, we can understand a reality that is far from us. The writter give us the chance to know somme people by is experience. He also explain the politic context in which this people lives and why they have somme specials demands for their communauties. The book is not perfect, but he propose to the lector a series of questions that only the lector could answer or the autochtones themselves.