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What is an act of narrative decolonization?<\/p>\n
“The lives of King\u2019s 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\u2019 lives from the domination of the invader\u2019s 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.”<\/b>(Cox 161-162)<\/b><\/p>\n
In my humble opinion, there are two Juicy “acts of narrative decolonization” in Thomas Kings Green Grass Running Water<\/em> . 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.<\/p>\n In King’s Green Grass Running Water<\/em> 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n The Christian story of Adam and Eve is erased by Lone Ranger’s telling and replaced with a melange of First Nation creationism and\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n