How do stories shape our culture? How much importance do we (and should we) place on our stories?

...you hide who you are and eventually generation after generation know less and less. The fear that is in telling you release an identity that should children unwittingly tell - the penalty is death or persecution.
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It was let slip she was Indian (maybe Arapohoe from Cache a la Poudre in Colorado?). My half Grand Uncle, a very old man in his late 90's in 1981, clammed up and went silent as if betraying the unutterable. He said, as if it were yesterday, "their are things you don't talk about in the land of Custer"! Later we heard the US Cavalry from Fort Collins had broken up families at Cache a la poudre and sent all the Indians back to the reserve.
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At one time, I did enjoy the exhiliration of capturing deer in New Zealnd Parks, by jumping them with nets from a helicopter. Wapiti, or red deer were later sent back to Canada as docile progeny for deer farms. Ultimately. a slaughterhouse death. Certainly a detraction. However that is another story.

Paul Filteau/House of Anansi Nov.22.03