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Of our readings to date, I appreciate Allen the most. I think this may be because I understand it the most. Her points and ideas are clear throughout...although I wish she would have expanded further on the nature of the Keres society. From her writing she implies that Keres society is less hierarchical and less patriarchal, or perhaps USED to be- before the western tradition/values began to infiltrate. I would have liked to see what kind of a society was present before the colonizers... before the anglo-european tradition began to impose its values/views or began translating what Allen says was a balanced, peaceful Keres oral tradition to the war-mongering and patriarchal narrative of the anglo-european.
I suppose, because the Keres society is based on an oral tradition, the 'pure' and unadulterated Keres is harder to identify. Allen notes that because of the very nature of the oral tradition, that of a living body, when subtle elements of the colonizer are introduced, the "change goes unnoticed or unremarked by the people being changed"(225) I think Allen draws an interesting connection between the oral tradition not only as a "record of a people's culture" but also a living, breathing "CREATIVE SOURCE" of the "collective and individual selves" within the society (224). The oral tradition for the Keres is where the sense of self is derived. It makes them who they are. Unfortunately, the unique nature of the oral tradition is both a source of strength and a source of destruction. Because of the fluid nature of the oral tradition, subversive elements of foreign (non-Keres) tradition are able to infiltrate unnoticed, turning the Keres source of spiritual guidance into "the major instrument of colonization and oppression"(225), thereby corrupting not only the society but the people themselves. Their 'selves', their values and identities become colonized, perhaps without them realizing.
So how can we turn it back? Can we return Keres society and tradition back to the "balance and harmony" and "egalitarian structuring of society as well as literature" which the anglo-european tradition has corrupted? If the well-spring of the Keres society is a fluid, oral tradition in which subversive counter-values are able to infiltrate unnoticed, will we ever be able to reverse the damage done? Or will it take further infiltration of foreign values/theories, an introduction of feminist critique and theory,for example, to undo the damage done?