Monthly Archives: April 2016

In order to tell us the story of a stereo salesman, Lionel Red Deer (whose past mistakes continue to live on in his present), a high school teacher, Alberta Frank (who wants to have a child free of the hassle of wedlock—or even, apparently, the hassle of heterosex!), and a retired professor, Eli Stands Alone (who wants to stop a dam from flooding his homeland), King must go back to the beginning of creation. Why do you think this is so?

King’s novel begins with a feeling of disjointedness between the sections with the four Indians and the sections with other characters. That disjointedness comes from the distinction between the ancient stories the four Indians are telling, and the recognizably modern lives lived by characters like Alberta, Lionel, and Eli. At first, it was not even clear to me that the four Indians were in the same time period as the others. As the novel goes on, the two worlds start to merge as the reader realizes that Coyote, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Lone Ranger are the same four Indians who went missing from Hovaugh’s hospital in the beginning. Then the four Indians meet Lionel on the road, bringing their presence directly into the other characters’ lives. I can’t speak to whether this was King’s intention, but for me it brought the mysticism of ancient Indigenous stories together with the modern perspective.

King begins the novel with “So. In the beginning, there was nothing. Just the water” (1). I believe that King’s emphasis throughout the novel on creation stories, of both Indigenous and Christian descent, is a way of showing their importance to human beings on an essential human level. In a personal sense, King has a connection with both these cultures as his mother is of Greek descent and his father Cherokee. Perhaps his emphasis on blending and in doing so critiquing creation myths comes from their importance in his own life and personal history. Regardless, I think that King shows he importance of these stories to his characters through their attempts to leave the reserve and eventual return to it.

This is most prominent in the story of Eli Stands Alone. He has lived apart from the reserve for most of his adult life, yet he returns when his girlfriend, Karen, dies in a car accident. Upon his return, he discovers that his mother’s cabin is going to be torn down to make way for a dam. He protests this, and lives in the cabin until his death. What this story says to me is that even though Eli wanted to start a new life away from the Blackfoot and their traditions, he ultimately had a love of it deep enough to defend his family’s right to their land. To me, this was the first inkling of what I believe King is trying to get across: that no matter whether we believe in them in a literal sense, our myths and traditions are a part of who we are as individuals.

In the case of Alberta, she has also lived away from the reserve for most of her adult life. Alberta teaches in Calgary, and only comes to visit when she is seeing one of her lovers, Lionel. Lionel’s birthday is what brings her back home in the novel. Although Alberta seems to engage with her culture again almost accidentally (she runs into Latisha who prods her into going to the Sun Dance that day), she ends the novel as an active participant in that culture. When we last see Alberta, she is pregnant thanks to one of Coyote’s tricks, and she is helping Norma and Latisha rebuild Eli’s mother’s cabin after the dam washed it away. Here again, an Indigenous character returns home only to find what she had been looking for everywhere else.

Lionel is an exceptional character in that he does not live off the reserve, but he does work off the reserve. Lionel works at Bill Bursum’s selling televisions. Bill Bursum is clearly racist against Indigenous people. Although he has no problem hiring them as he does for Lionel and Charlie, Bill’s dialogue and thoughts show that he believes himself to be inherently better than them. This is emphasized at his extreme anger over the Western he watches on the Map having the ending changed so that John Wayne is killed by the Indians instead of vice versa. By engaging with Bill’s world, Lionel shows a distancing from his own culture and an implicit shame of his people. Furthermore, Lionel hopes to go to university and start a new life outside of the reserve like Eli. While Lionel does not actually desert the reserve, the reason why seems to be more about his inability to get things done, than about a desire to remain true to his heritage. Reluctantly, we see Lionel also join Latisha, Norma, and Alberta in helping to rebuild the cabin at the end. He says he even might live in it for a while, although Norma is quick to tell him, no luck, she has first dibs. For a character like Lionel – who I think is best described as a person who lets things happen to him – creation myths are perhaps of the most importance in that they actively affect him and his lifestyle. No matter Lionel’s intentions, he can’t seem to get away from his heritage.

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Works Cited

“Blackfoot Confederacy.” Canadian Encyclopedia. Historic Canada, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.

Cherokee Nation. Cherokee Nation, 2016. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.

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

Schaffer, Jennifer. “21 Feelings All Mixed-Race People Know.” BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed, 13 Oct. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.

In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” 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.

The original intention of the Indian Act of 1876 was to separate Indigenous people from Canadian citizens until they could be assimilated into Western society. One example of this is the process of enfranchisement. When an Indigenous person chose to enfranchise themselves, they lost their Indian status and became part of Western society. Until 1960, only those Indigenous people who were enfranchised could vote in Canadian federal elections. This process divided Indians and non-Indians, and suggested that there was no middle ground to be part of both communities. This most clearly supports Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility, along with the decades-long requirement for Indigenous children to attend residential schools where they were taught to read and write English.

Furthermore, the Indian Act displayed clear sexism. The rules for qualifying for Indian status have changed over the years through bills passed by the federal government of Canada. At one time, women who married men without Indian status lost their own status. However, men who married non-status women did not lose their status. In 1985, this was amended and women who had lost status because of marrying a non-status man were allowed to reapply. However, their children still could not qualify for status. The irony of this gender discrimination is not only its offence to feminist movements of the time, but that many Aboriginal communities follow a matrilineal line of descent, and the rules of the Indian act were in opposition to this, reflecting Western patrilineal lines of descent. While many bands are now in charge of defining their own membership rules, this does not necessarily mean all band members qualify for Indian status, and the government only provides funding to bands for their members with status.

I believe strongly that we need to move away from a race-based qualification for Indian status, and move towards a culture-based qualification. If a person is welcomed by a band to be part of their community, and chooses themselves to be part of that community, they should qualify for Indian status along with their band membership regardless of race. With the amount of race-mixing in our current time, it is not reasonable to define Indian status through this trait. Giving the benefit to mixed race children means that there may be an abuse of Indian status rights. For example, mixed race children with essentially no connection to Indigenous culture may apply for Indian status in order to evade taxes. While not paying taxes on goods and services is only applicable on reserves, this may still be a huge benefit in communities like West Vancouver where the upscale Park Royal mall is located on a reserve. On the flip side, denying mixed race children the benefits of Indian status can often mean leaving out individuals who are very much active participants of Indigenous culture.

The Indian Act has not been abolished despite attempts in 1969 by the Trudeau government and in 2012 by the Harper government. While I personally believe that these were both well-intentioned attempts intended to reverse the institutional racism against Indigenous people that Canada has been practicing since its creation, they displayed a degree of implicit racism on the part of the government. By trying to make the choice for Indigenous people whether the Indian Act existed, they were again showing that they, the federal government, are the supreme body that makes decisions for Indigenous nations. This blog written by a non-Indigenous person working and living on a reserve has an extremely interesting discourse on the abolishment of the Indian Act. The author makes the point that, “We can’t talk ourselves out of this situation without making structural changes, and we can’t make structural changes without talking to each other.” While the Indian Act certainly needs change if not abolishment, what it needs more so is conversation and agreement between both parties standing on equal footing.

The essential problem with the Indian Act, today and when it was created, is that it is a document filtered through the lens of the Western perspective.

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Works Cited

Adler, Howard. “Indian Status: 5 things you need to know.” CBC News. CBC, 23 Aug. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2016.

Haifischgeweint. “4 Things Non-Aboriginal Canadians Need to Know About the Indian Act.” Haifischqeweint. N.p., 16 Sep. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2016