Telling “Us” in the “Days Destined to You: Response Life-Telling: Indigenous Oral Autobiography and the Performance of Relation
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Citation
Export citationMahuika, N. (2016). Telling ‘Us’ in the “Days Destined to You: Response Life-Telling: Indigenous Oral Autobiography and the Performance of Relation. Biography, 39(3), 328–333. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2016.0042
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12547
Abstract
This “tau-utuutu” (responsive) protocol feels familiar to me.² My turn to speak, to respond, to share in a conversation with Warren Cariou’s stimulating essay on “Life-Telling,” Indigenous autobiography, and Dovie Thomason. It reminds me of how life-telling, orality, and history, interweave and work in my tribal universe. At home, we take turns speaking. We inherit our words, we respond, carve, and weave new narratives—make them ours. Where I come from, lives are frequently “told,” sung, cried, carved, and performed, through tribal conversations, a chorus of textured tones, sometimes in a grand debate within which our personal and collective pasts, presents, and futures converge and diverge.³ I am glad, then, to be invited, to add my voice to this present discussion. It feels natural . . . normal . . . Native.
Date
2016Type
Publisher
University of Hawai'i Press
Rights
© Biographical Research Center