Category: Uncategorized

Scouring through pages 367-377 for the depth of meaning that lies behind the words, reminds me of the Coyote. Transformative, illusive and intriguing. Let me take you through some pages and let’s explore their meaning together.

On Page 367, we begin in a car ride to the Sun Dance with Latisha driving, Alberta in the passenger seat and Latisha’s Children Benjamin, Christian and Elizabeth (all colonizer and Christian names) in the back. Christian and Benjamin are playing a game comprised of slapping each other’s hands as hard as they can, a violent, useless game for the Christian and the colonizer. This  slapping game also reminds Latisha of men and their tendency to get bored … like her husband George  named after George Armstrong Custer(Flick 146). While Benjamin and Christian slap each other in the back seat of the car, Elizabeth, is fast asleep in her car seat. She’s the Queen after all.

Alberta Frank who is “the principal female character in the realist story.”
(Flick 144) and Latisha open up to each other about children and men. Alberta is feeling nauseous on the drive, she woke up that morning feeling nauseous and Latisha intuits that she is pregnant. “There’s not way I can be pregnant”, states  Alberta. ” That’s what I said too”, rebuttals Latisha (King 367). The two women go on  further and talk about marriage it’s purpose and the reason why Latisha’s marriage  to George ended. George took off when she was pregnant with Elizabeth and hasn’t seen him since.  As the women discuss Alberta’s prospects for marriage in either Lionel of Charlie, they also reach the Sun Dance. “No wonder you are sick”, says Latisha  as she thinks about the two men Lionel and Charlie (King 369). They drive along the grounds looking for Norma’s lodge, which has always been in the same place on the east side of the camp (King 369).

As they circle the camp, King takes us back in time to Latisha’s high school days, where one of her teachers asked her to  give a small presentation on Indian culture. Ann Hubert  (Flick 161) a white classmate who wore a new sundress every week asked Latisha if going to the Sun Dance was like going to church. Latisha can’t find the words and their is no comparison. Finally Ann Hubert says, that “it [is] probably a mystery, something you could never know but believed in anyway like God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit (King 370).

 Norma who seems to be the matriarch of the book also intuits that Alberta is pregnant, as soon as she sees her. “You got your period?” Norma asks Alberta. “No … I just don’t feel very good … I’m not pregnant … there’s not way I could be pregnant”, Alberta replies. “Like to have a a dime for every time I’ve heard that”, concludes Norma (King 371). As Alberta discovers that Lionel is at the Sun Dance  too, Latisha  decides to head out and  she “marvels at the land and how it turns to follow the sun.” (King 371).  It’s the cyclical nature of nature and the medicine wheel. While Latisha is out looking around the camp she comes face to face with George for the first time since he left her.

We Jump to Charlies story line come page 373 and see him at his motel thumbing through a copy of Alberta Now  a “play on Ted Byfield’s right-wing publication Alberta Report” (Flick 151 emphasis added). He calls Alberta’s phone and gets the “busy” tone. He gets back into Alberta Now and reads an article on how old movie Westerns are finding a new life in the home video market. He dials 7 more times to get a total of 8 “busy” tones from Alberta.

On page 375, we begin to follow Eli also walking around the camp with Harry as they witness how the Sun Dance has changed from when they were kids. Tepees now were only two to three deep, it was much more before. They see Martha Old Crow’s grand kids trying to tie down a tent. Martha was “a medicine woman, the ‘doctor of choice’ for people on the Reserve” (Flick 146). Eli and Harry also talk about Eli’s mothers house and how the dam is killing the river. Flick explores that the construction of dams and how they “staunched the flow of the rivers, cultural sites and the sweet grass and the willow, so important to Indian cultural life …” (23). With “[no] flood. No nutrients. No cottonwoods … and if cottonwoods die where are [they] going to get the Sun Dance tree”, comments Harry. Cottonwoods were used for posts for the Sun Dance. Harry then goes on to joke that if they ever wanted to make millions as a people they could give the Cree in Quebec a call.  As there conversation comes to and end they lean back with the sun on their face and watch the people gather. The cyclical nature of discussion.

We conclude on page 377, with Alberta who decides to look for Lionel despite her nausea. Alberta looks around the circle of the camp (possibly making reference to the cyclical nature of the medicine wheel), but she does not see Lionel.

I hope you enjoyed!

Till next time,

Sarah Afful

Works Cited

“Behind the Name”. 16 November 2109. www.behindthename.com/name/benjamin. Accessed 17 March 2020.

“Christian”. Merriam Webster since 1828. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Christian. Accessed 17 March 2020.

Flick Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 140-162 (1999). Web. 4 April 2013.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Miller, Stuart. “The American epic: Hollywood’s enduring love for the western”. The Guardian. 21 October 2016. www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/21/western-films-hollywood-enduring-genre. Accessed 9 March 2020.

Morrill. S John, Greenblat. J Stephen. “Elizabeth I Queen of England.” Encyclopedia Britannica. www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-I. Accessed 17 March 2020.

Psalm 104:6-9. The Bible. www.biblia.com/bible/esv/psalm/104/6-9. Web. Accessed March 17 2020.

“Religions: Immaculate Conception”. BBC. 21 07 2011. www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/immaculateconception.shtml. Accessed 17  March 2020.

“Sun Dance Religious Ceremony”. Encyclopedia Britannica. www.britannica.com/topic/Sun-Dance. Accessed 17 March 2020.

“What to do if you encounter a coyote”. Montreal. 12 March 2020. www.montreal.ca/en/topics/what-to-do-if-you-encounter-coyote. Web. Accessed 17 March 2020.

“What is an indigenous medicine wheel.” Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. 16 April 2013. www.ictinc.ca/blog/what-is-an-aboriginal-medicine-wheel. Accessed 17 March 2020.

What is an act of narrative decolonization?

“The lives of King’s characters are entangled in and informed by both the colonial legacy in the Americas and the narratives that enact and enable colonial domination. King begins to extricate his characters’ lives from the domination of the invader’s discourses by weaving their stories into both Native American oral traditions and into revisions of some of the most damaging narratives of domination and conquest: European American origin stories and national myths, canonical literary texts, and popular culture texts such as John Wayne films. These revisions are acts of narrative decolonization.”(Cox 161-162)

In my humble opinion, there are two Juicy “acts of narrative decolonization” in Thomas Kings Green Grass Running Water . The story of Eve in the Garden of Eden and the revamped ending to the John Wayne film at the end of the novel, are two great examples of acts if narrative decolonization. Let us begin at the beginning, so to speak, with Eve. Eve from biblical Genesis is a first woman made by God from the rib of Adam. Eve ruins everything in the Garden of Eden when she listens to the devil/serpent and decides to eat the apple from the tree of forbidden fruit. Now, not only does Eve eat the apple herself, but she convinces Adam to eat it too and they are made conscious of sin and cast out of the garden to suffer. Oops.

In King’s Green Grass Running Water First Woman lands in the water world, from the sky world as told by Lone Ranger, she encounters animals who put her on the back of grandmother Turtle. First Woman then goes on to make land from mud and as it grows Coyote decides drop in the idea of making a garden. “That backwards God”( King 39), as He is named appears and likes Coyote’s idea as it is part of His narrative, the Christian narrative.  From this point on the story of Adam and Eve in the garden unfolds with plot twists and turns, fry bread and pizza and complete the disregard for the Christian God. Lone Ranger in the telling of First Woman’s story does not have an Eve at all. What we see is not Adam and Eve, but is really Ahdam and First Woman. By the end of the First Woman’s story told by Lone Ranger, her and Ahdam leave the garden on their own accord and head west, because that God is both stingy and grouchy ( King 69). What ensues is an encounter with racist rangers who mistake First Woman for Lone Ranger when she puts his mask on. They spare her life.

The Christian story of Adam and Eve is erased by Lone Ranger’s telling and replaced with a melange of First Nation creationism and  historical points of reference far beyond anything biblical. Real experience and real prejudice and real escape is brought to the table. This is an act of narrative decolonization. The story of Genesis is the 15th chapter after all. It comes later.

If we Jump from Genesis or chapter 15 of the story to the time of  the Westerns, we get a very satisfying end to a very offensive Western starring John Wayne. This too is an act of narrative decolonization. “Here we go” Bursum excitedly calls, as the scene where all the Indians are killed by John Wayne and the all the whites come up oh his map.  Bursum enthusiastically explains that the  particular scene used “over six hundred extras, Indians and whites. And five cameras. The director spent almost a month on this one scene before he felt it was right.” (King 317). Lone Ranger then pipes in with,  “He didn’t get it right the first time … [b]ut we fixed it for him.” (King 317). As the Four Indians, Coyote, Lionel, Eli and Bursum watch Lionel’s father, Portland race his horse up and down the river taunting John Wayne, we expect the scene to end with the demise of Portland. What happens next though, when Lone Ranger begins sing “soft and rhythmic, running below the blaring of the bugle and the thundering of the horses’ hooves”, is he and the three Indians fix the film. What we see are the “blue-eyed  and rosy-cheeked” soldiers “c[o]me over the last rise … [a]nd disappear[ed]” (King 321). Portland and the rest of soldiers fight back against John Wayne and his men shooting him and killing him. The end.

How many films have been made  that demoralize the “other” and lifting up the colonizer. How satisfying it is for Lionel to see his father as a hero in the movie, when in life it is another story, the story of a man dealing with the effects of colonization on his self. I figure that a re-telling a story until one gets it right involves taking back the narrative and getting closer to something authentic.

Till next time,

Sarah Afful

 

Works Cited

Flick Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999). Web. 4 April 2013.

James Cox. “All This Water Imagery Must Mean Something.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999). Web. 4 April 2013.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Miller, Stuart. “The American epic: Hollywood’s enduring love for the western”. The Guardian. 21 October 2016. www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/21/western-films-hollywood-enduring-genre. Accessed 9 March 2020.

Reebus28. “John Wayne Pixel Character”.Teepublic.  2012-2020. www.teepublic.com/sticker/1916976-john-wayne-pixel-character. Image. Accessed 9 March 2020.

 

This week  I chose question #2 to respond to. Here it is framed for your reference:

“For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.”

I am choosing the Immigration act of 1910. I honestly couldn’t help myself with choosing this act to comment on. I am first generation Canadian as I have expressed before, my parents immigrated to Canada from Ghana. As a minority in Canada, as a black woman in Canada I must convince myself that I am safe in order to be free and have peace of mind. The truth is, that I am not. In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare begins his play at the Lupercalia  festival. Twins Romulus and Remus were suckled and saved by the she-wolf Lupa.  Romulus ends up killing his brother Remus in order to be the sole ruler of Rome and thus the cycle for the fight of tyrannical rule in the western world begins (Browne). How a nation begins, seems to determine how it will continue to be. Around 100 years ago the Immigration act of 1910 would have likely prohibited my parents from coming to Canada, as they would be deemed “unsuited to the climate requirements of Canada”(1800’s-1950’s).

So what exactly was the benevolent Immigration act of 1910.  In 1910 William Scott, the superintendent of Immigration yearned to sift “the wheat from the chaff” (Lyster). What the sifting entailed was giving the Canadian cabinet  the power to deny prohibited classes of individuals like, idiots, the diseased, the dumb, the blind or physically defective, felons, prostitutes, professional beggars and “Asiatic immigrants” (1800’s-1950’s).

On the surface, the Immigration act of 1910 denied people to ensure that they could secure employment in Canada and contribute to Canadian society (Van Dyk),  but what it turned out to be  was  a law that kept out non-whites. The Canadian government offered land grants to hey offered land British, Scandinavian, Icelandic, Doukhobor, Mennonite, and Ukrainian farmers (1800’s-1950’s). These laws were written by white people for white people and it was not until the 1960’s that changes to the immigration policies finally opened the borders to non-European immigrants (1960’s onwards).

I bet you are expecting me to conclude with a decisive affirmation, that my findings support Coleman’s argument about white civility.  White civility according to Coleman is the literary pursuit to create and establish a  form of Canadian whiteness based off of the British model of civility. What I found was much more ambiguous than my interpretation of my research. You see, although white people can be thief’s, idiots, felons and prostitutes, the real purpose of the Immigration act was to keep out non-whites. Non-whites were not able to uphold the ideals of  British white civility and required assimilation (1800’s-1950’s). The specific form of whiteness that formed in Canada was heavily influenced by Britishness and this was not explicit in my findings on the Immigration act of 1910.  I saw it for myself.

Till next time,

Sarah Afful

Works Cited

Browne, Alex. “Origins of Rome :The Myth of Romulus and Remus.” Web. 26 April 2018. www.historyhit.com/origins-of-rome-the-myth-of-romulus-and-remus/. Accessed 28 February 2018.

CanLit Guides. “Reading and Writing in Canada, A Classroom Guide to Nationalism.” Canadian Literature. Web. 4 April 2013.

Lyster, Caroline. “Canada Enacts ‘Immigration Act 1910.”  Web. 20 December 2014. www.eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/timeline/5495c2414dcf0b0000000001. Accessed 28 February 2020.

Van Dyk, Lyndsey. “Canadian Immigration Acts and Legislation.” Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. Web. 2020. www.pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/canadian-immigration-acts-and-legislation. Accessed 28 February 2020.

Erika Paterson asked “In the last lesson I ask some of you, “what is your first response to Robinson’s story about the white and black twins in context with our course theme of investigating intersections where story and literature meet.” I asked, what do you make of this “stolen piece of paper”? Now that we have contextualized that story with some historical narratives and explored ideas about questions of authenticity and the necessity to “get the story right” – how have your insights into that story changed?”

My first response to Harry Robinson’s story about the white and black twins and the stealing of the paper became more clear to me after reading fellow student Gaby Rienhart’s post 2:4 Interpretation of the Black and White Twins. Gaby wrote:

“Although White people originally stole from Indigenous people and harmed them, they were given a chance to make things right by sharing again. However, when the White Twin’s ancestors came back to the Americas, instead of sharing the contents of the document which both parties had a right to, they kept it for themselves. This could represent a refusal to do the right thing and the unfair taking of something that was equally a birthright of Indigenous people. The White Twin’s stealing of the document and the White ancestors’ refusal to share something that equally belonged to Indigenous people represents unnecessary greed and selfishness.” (emphasis added).

In addition to the interpretation of the white ancestors refusal to do the right thing, which would have been “sharing something that equally belonged to the ancestors” (Rienhart) of the black twin, I saw the stealing of the paper as the theft of literacy itself. The white twin stole literal literacy from the black twin when he took the paper. I couldn’t help but comment on Gaby’s post and I wrote:

“I agree that the stealing of the paper by the white twin represents unnecessary greed and selfishness. I also see the paper as representing another type of language, the written language that also belongs to everyone.  [Today] [t]he English language morphs and is constantly in flux and contradiction because it now belongs to anyone who who speaks it. I see the stealing of the paper as an attempt to own language, but a piece of paper can easily be multiplied, dyed and re-written upon right?”

I was further drawn in to the story of the stolen paper after reading the article “Orality about Literacy: The Black and White of Salish History”, by Thor Carlson. Carlson claims that “literacy pre-dat[es] colonization as the spirit world wanted the Indigenous peoples to be literate (43).  The white twin may have stolen literacy form the black twin and claimed it as his own. This claim sits well with me and to go even deeper, we may ask ourselves what is literacy? If literacy is  in part the printed word, than literacy was/is with the Salish people who’s prophets printed word revealed the coming of the white ancestors (Carlson 54). The Enlightenment story is not the only story and is not to be taken for the only truth.  Now to answer Erika’s question as to how my insights into the story of the stolen paper have changed with our contextual readings,  I’d say that once again I am ready to continue the process of dismantling the “facts” that I have been fed through the western education system. I can’t help but desire to discard the facts and start again. I can’t help but to look at what I have been told about being African by the “fact tellers” and start again, but mostly what I see is that when we steal from our twin their must be  justice for our twin.

 

Works Cited

“A Brief History of Literacy”. University of Arlington Texas Online. 9 September 2015. www.academicpartnerships.uta.edu/articles/education/brief-history-of-literacy.aspx. Accessed 19 February 2020.

Carlson, Keith Thor. Orality about Literacy: The black and White of Salish History. Ed. Carlson, Kristina Fagna, & Natalia Khamemko-Frieson. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2011.

“Cartoon Thief Clipart Image”. Clker.com.  31 December 2017. www.clker.com/clipart-508384.html. Accessed 19 February 2020.

Newsday.  BBC News World Service. 25 October 2109. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07s0cgd. Accessed 19 February 2020.

Reinhart, Gaby. “2:4 Interpretation of the Black and White Twins.” Explorer Gaby’s Blog. 7 February 2020. www.blogs.ubc.ca/gabyliteratureexplorer/2020/02/10/24-interpretation-of-the-black-and-white-twins/?fbclid=IwAR34BkDTtwLolhwCPA2LO0tN7pwnVgB72Oy92CCWSTvc6Dfeqs4gKthsyR4. Accessed  19 February 2020.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books2005.

“A Brief History of Literacy”. University of Arlington Texas Online. 9 September 2015. www.academicpartnerships.uta.edu/articles/education/brief-history-of-literacy.aspx. Accessed 19 February 2020.

Let me start by telling you a story. A long time ago a white woman named Amuwata fell from the sky in my fathers village in Ghana. As the people gathered around her, they thought she must have been sent from the god’s, as she did fall from the sky. They allowed her into their village and gave her sustenance. Over time Amuwata began making love to the men and bearing children. Her bright skin was passed on through the generations and that is why on my fathers side we have lighter skin.

Good story right? It explains the Dutch and British colonization in a way that takes fact and fantasy and turns it into a story. Amuwata could have been in a plane crash, could have simply been a visitor, or could have been from a ship.  Regardless of the pesky details, I propose to you reader, to think of  which “reality” is more interesting to read and which “reality” is more believable; the woman falling from the sky or the colonizer.

Thomas King creates creates dichotomies with his two creation stories in The Truth About Stories, “one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden” (Erikah Patterson 2:2). The biblical story is emphasized in Kings book and “The Earth Diver” story is made to be a fun story with possibly less import. We are pushed to believe the creation story that aligns with the colonizers personality. It is almost as if we are not given a choice as to what to believe, but driven by the Eurocentric way of telling stories deeply embedded in our Western culture. As Erikah  our professor writes in the overview for lesson 2:2, “who is collecting the story and why?” The collection of the the biblical creation story has been anyone who has been touched by European colonization, other creation stories have not. The why in collecting those stories is to save us from eternal damnation by reforming us in His image. The importance and seriousness of one Man wielding power over the entire Universe has been ingrained into the very fibre of every aspect of Western culture. Our ‘gaze’ aligns with the biblical creation story and the biblical creation story has created our ‘gaze’.  We are programmed in Western culture to believe a certain type of story. Drawing from parts of John Lutz’s introduction in Myth Understanding: First Contact, over and over Again, the biblical creation stories currency lies in the power dynamic it creates (being a hierarchical one), it’s performance in it’s  a serious import and delivery, and it’s power in the character who speaks it, the colonizer. (7-14).

Going back to the question as to why King creates dichotomies for us, I believe it is to display the differences in the creation story, highlighting our nurtured bias towards the hierarchical one. Who created the world? One Man or all beings? I am from a colonized nation, Ghana. My Ghanaian culture is super religious the story of Christ was brought to us by the Dutch and the English. I was raised in the church and so I am too a part of this bias. As I recount the story of Amuwata, the white woman who fell from the sky and the generosity given her by the people of my fathers village I begin to believe that stories function on many, many levels.

Until next time,

Sarah Afful

Works Cited

Eliedonweb. “African Night Sky Timelapse Video.” (Image) YouTube, 1 October 2013 www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAEwwgCY_jY. Accessed 7 February 2020.

HomeTeam History. “How Ghana was Colonized.” YouTube, 26 March 2019. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0HvG8RweI. Accessed 7 February 2020.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Print.

“The Trinity.” BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/trinity_1.shtml. 21 June 2011. Accessed 7 February 2020.

 

Nina the little black bird grew up in a neighbourhood that dressed her. What I mean is that the neighbourhood got into her bones and she wore it as a badge of honour, even though others may have seen the place as less than desirable. The many years of living in this town seemed to have  made Nina a strong and fearless woman. High school  took place without wonder, but upon graduation Nina began to dream. “What if I could actually leave this place and be better?” she thought. “This doesn’t feel like home anymore, it feels repressive.”

Nina stayed in her town through University and then finally on to a great  job, but as time went on, home was still not enough to satisfy Nina. “It is so boring here, I am bigger than this! I can feel it!” thought Nina. A deep yearning was leading her to be more that what she thought she currently was.  A deep yearning was niggling at her right ear feeding her thoughts that made her restless. ” I am fearless and I am strong, but that is not enough”, she felt. Home was not enough for Nina and she didn’t know why. Although all that she needed was there, family, friends, support and safety, Nina felt a homelessness that she believed could only be satiated by leaving and becoming more.

Nina flew from her town and landed in a smaller town. Nina knew the first night she arrived that home was not here either, but she stayed for years and blossomed where she was planted. One dreary night, in this smaller town, Nina got a phone call from mamma bird telling her that papa bird had died suddenly of a heart attack. There is something about losing a parent that makes you feel like you’ve lost a piece of home. At least that is how it felt for Nina. It grieved the little bird, but it also pushed her to keep up the search for what she thought might be home. If dad was gone than it definitely couldn’t be in that town that dressed her, although at times all she wanted was to be wrapped in it’s arms of family and support.

On she went and landed in a big city. One of the biggest in North America. How exciting it was, as she was going to start over and be somebody and live on as a legacy for her dad. And lived she did! She met a  partner bird and they created a little bird all in the span of two years. Nina was on a mission. Mission accomplished right? How much greater can you get than creating a life.

You see this story doesn’t really end the way Nina thought it would. In fact it ends with the preparation to fly back to the town that dressed her and be with her mom. Funnily enough Nina’s partner grew up quite close to the town that dressed Nina and had the same epiphany to return home. Home for Nina as she discovered is where mom is. Nina knows now that she is a mother, that home is where her mom is and that the town that dressed her was simply an extension of her mother. If mamma bird left for the arctic, home would be in the arctic. All along home was in a person. So what happens when that person or home leaves this earth? Does that leave Nina homeless?

Epilogue:

I think that for a lot of children of immigrants, home is and illusive thing when it comes to looking at a piece of land. We live between two worlds and both of them seem to belong to someone else. That is why my home is contained in my mother for me. My home is with the person that loves me beyond life. In Her I find land and in her I find rest.  I am dressed by my mother.

Till next time,

Sarah Afful

Works Cited

D’Souza. J Brian, “Children of Immigrants and their Challenges.” Canadian Immigrant, 2018, www.canadianimmigrant.ca/living/parenting/children-of-immigrants-and-their-challenges. Accessed 28 January 2020.

“Exploring the ‘Kingdom of Women’ in China”.  Today, Youtube, 3 June 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxCOrw2_2ww. Accessed 28 January 2020.

“Flying Black Bird”. Netclipart, 2019, www.netclipart.com/isee/iTwmhi_clip-arts-related-to-flying-black-bird-png/.(Image) Accessed 28 January 2020.

 

I have a great story to tell you, it’s the story of how evil came into the world. In a time before time and in a realm before realms, lived a Beautiful Lady and an Octopus with eight legs. They really got on and enjoyed each others company for years. The Octopus would say, “Gosh I love your gorgeous curls”, and Beautiful Lady would say, “well me too, but I just can’t get over how your tentacles combine beauty and function!”. For clarity sake, let us call the beautiful lady Evelyn after my mom, and the Octopus, Magic, after the gift that she soon discovered she had. Time passed in this realm-less realm and the two women began to feel the signs of boredom. Magic suggested that they create something. Octopus are known for being creative and playful anyway. Evelyn thought that was a perfect idea, but reminded Magic that she was the one in fact with the magic to do so. Upon remembering her gifts for creation, Magic began using each tentacle to create a place they came to call Earth. One tentacle for water, one for sky, one for ground, one for light, one for dark, one for animals and and one for humans. Everything was brilliant and worked in harmony and Evelyn and Magic were a part of a new world full of a love, joy and friendships. One day Magic began to feel ill and it was the first time this had ever happened. Evelyn took a good look at Magic and saw that her eighth tentacle was detaching from her body. “Why are you leaving me?” asked Magic to her tentacle. “Because you left me out, you didn’t give me a part of your creation”. With that the eighth tentacle shot off and began dipping sadness and bad thoughts into the ears of the beings that would allow her; the humans. Poison passed on from generation to generation of the humans and evil became a part of every person. That is how evil came into the world.

So. That is my story! I had a dream about it last night. I was thinking about how mystery seems to engender fear and that my fear of the eight legged creature called the Octopus was based on the fact that I knew little about her. Do we fear those whose stories are mysterious to us? Do we detach when we feel we can’t find our intersection with something or someone? And does that separation lead to our darker selves?

Reactions:

The first person I called was my mom. She is very religious as I have expressed in a previous post and so I was curious as to what she would hear. She thought my story was amazing and that I could get a well-paying job telling stories. I told her I am  already an actor, I do tell stories for a living. She agreed. She then told me that she was glad that I knew God, because God gives us the opportunity to choose between good and evil.  As much as she liked the imaginative aspect of my story she also called it a “bad” and “horrible story”. She felt that the eighth leg shouldn’t have done what she did even though her feelings were hurt.

When I called my brother, he was working but was ever so thankful for the five minute break to hear a story. He kept saying “wow” and “that is really cool” and that he really liked the story. How different were those responses between my mom and my brother. What I learned is that for some, the creation story can be an escape into the imagination and for others, a way to reflect on their own beliefs and philosophies. For me, after reading Thomas King’s version of the creation story, I truly question what I believe  and what purpose my beliefs serve in the world. Am I willing to change?

Till next time,

Sarah Afful

Works Cited

Hoare, Phillip.  “Redeeming the Octopus-the most remarkable creature of our nightmares.” Cultural Capital, 20 August 2015, www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/styles/cropped_article_image/public/blogs_2015/08/2015_33_octopus_critics.jpg?itok=Qu7GqqhI. Accessed 23 January 2020.

Rumble Viral. “Tiny Cute Octopus Plays With Scuba Diver” Youtube, 21 December 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PUp-kYQ4k4. Accessed 23 January 2020.

 

 

Good evening my fellow Canadian Literature seekers! My name is Sarah Afful and I am going to be writing you from Toronto. I chose to study with you all at UBC, because I am from Vancouver and I did my undergrad there … yet Toronto called my name and thus here we are!

I cannot wait to jump into this course, as the structure of it is different from any university course I have ever taken. As we jump in and begin to question the system, so to speak, I deeply hope that we can shift our beliefs on what comprises Canadian literature. I hope to gain some agency in my studies and have a tiny impact on the future of the Canadian literature canon. As an African-Canadian I rarely get to explore the canon of literature in school,  outside of Europe and I hope to find intersections between my experience and the Indigenous experience throughout the course. I also hope to gain literacy in web logging, as this is my first foray into that world! Bear with me as I find my footing.

In this course let us discover deeply the relationships between stories and land, but more pointedly the land that we all call our home. Working collaboratively we will become a part of the re-imagining  and shaping of Canadian literature. I am most excited to be a part of that. We will re-imagine Canadian literature by culminating all of our semesters discussions and research into an Intervention Conference. How active! How important! This group dialogue we call our Intervention Conference, will allow us to offer up ideas on how to change the stories we tell ourselves and the way we tell our stories. So. Let’s dive in.

Is music as potent a way of telling our stories as the novel? Have a listen and sense if you get a story:

How are we supposed to tell our stories?

“We must tell them–around fireplaces, in cafes, on blogs, in theaters, on walls, on street corners, in front of our computers. We must unleash them from cages, trusting they’ll fly onto the shoulders and hearts of a listener, or two, or more. Sometimes like raindrops on a pond, they’ll create ripple effects in communities, and most certainly will touch a person’s life.”- (Unknown) Big Voice Pictures

 

Till next time!

Yours,

Sarah Afful

January 12 2020

Works Cited

“Anansi the spider” Pinterest, www.pinterest.ca/pin/234046511866636276/?lp=true. Accessed 12 January 2020.

A Tribe Called Red FT. Black Bear. “Stadium Pow Wow (Official Video)” YouTube, 16 June 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAEmjW9J3_o. Accessed 12 January 2020.

“The Power of Story: The Inspiration of Maya Angelou.” Big Voice Pictures, August 2018, www.bigvoicepictures.com/blog/2014/09/09/the-power-of-story-the-inspiration-of-maya-angelou. Accessed 12 January 2020.