Fears found in the Indigenous community following the effects of Colonization can be difficult to overcome, especially when trying to create new traditions after losing your familiar ones, but with the helping hands of community, Russel Wallace helps the reader realize that the Indigenous peoples can always find their way back to the heart of their culture. In Russel Wallace's metaphorical village, fear of a massive rockslide has been anticipated for years. A metaphorical rock slide creates bumps in the paths of their familiar tradition, telling us that this familiarity and comfort has been lost for the users of this path after their first landslide in years occurs. Russell Wallace builds on the metaphors in which rock slides are metaphors …show more content…
It can originally seem as though when the paths of tradition are stolen, the cultures are lost, but on the contrary, other paths can be made, and old paths can be re-discovered. The community works together to remove these rocks from the paths; “It takes some time and a lot of bruised knees and twisted ankles, but some new paths are carved in the fallen rocks.”(Wallace). This serves as a solution to their problems regardless of the consistency of the rock falls. From these metaphors, we can infer that community is the healing property when being faced with fear. The sudden stealing of traditions can seem large but Indigenous communities are larger, and all connected. With the Elders by their side as their teachers, and the able-bodied to clear the rocks, the community thrives, even after the large landslide and stolen pathway. As Russel says, “Colonialism has obscured and covered up so many things from our past and yet we have languages and cultures that still thrive.”(Wallace). When new paths are created by the community to heal from tragedy, skepticism arises about leaving the old path behind, but "yet the deviated path reaches the same river" (Wallace). Access to culture will always be possible regardless of those who try to take that