Hey, everyone! I hope you’re doing great! For this blog post, I decided to write about the first 10 pages from Green Grass Running Water, by Thomas King. I think the first pages of any novel are really important because they set the reader up to either enjoy the novel and be captivated by it or to decide not to read it any further. Because the first ten pages have a gap of blank pages in them, I will be focusing on pages 1-3 and pages 7-13.

Before I begin discussing the first 10 pages, I believe it’s important to first have an understanding of what the title of the novel means. Green Grass Running Water references to the promise of the U.S. government to Indigenous people that they will have rights over their land ‘as long as the water runs and the grass is green’ ( Maithreyi, 3). Just by the title alone, you can see the amount of superiority that the European culture brought with them from Europe and how they dictated Indigenous people so much. The fact that the government had to promise them the rights to their land meant that Indigenous people were not being treated equally, and to this day Indigenous people are oftentimes treated like children who can’t take care of themselves. Rights to their land have often been undermined.

Thomas King starts his novel out with reality intertwined with fantasy. He begins by telling a creation story, just like he does in a lot of his work. The creation story starts out with water, just like the story he often tells of the turtle’s back. This story, however, is about a coyote. In the Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water by Jane Flick, she describes what coyotes can signify. In Indigenous tales, a coyote often represents a “trickster,” and is especially important in the oral tradition of storytelling. Coyotes in this tradition had special “powers” and “created the world,” which is probably why Thomas King decided to use the coyote at the beginning of his novel (Flick, 143). The novel starts off with the coyote dreaming, but then the dream gets loose, and it somewhat becomes its own entity. In Indigenous culture “dreams are also powerfully significant” (Flick, 143). One significant symbol in Indigenous culture about dreams are dreamcatchers.

On page 2, the coyote tells the dream that it can be a dog because initially, the dream wanted to be a coyote. But the coyote wanted to be the only coyote. The dog dream then tells the coyote that it is God. This is a “play on words,” since dog backwards is god. Also, a dog is “a “lesser” form of coyote.” “God is a contrary from a dog’s point of view” (Flick, 143). When the dog dream tells the coyote that they are God, the coyote believes the dream is a contrary and that they have everything backwards. This relates to “The Plains Indians,” who sometimes also “acted in contrary fashion.” “They did things “backwards,”” because “they rode into battle” and sometimes “fired arrows” at their own people, instead of the enemy, according to Jane Flick (Flick, 144). There is a very large fantasy element to these first three pages, but intertwined in this, is the truth, since there are many hidden meanings (King, 1-3).

Then on pages 7 and 8, we get introduced to Lionel and Norma – the first Indigenous characters to be introduced in the novel. Norma is trying to pick out a carpet colour and also wants to paint the house. But Lionel seems to have a negative attitude about it, and tells her “Wouldn’t hold my breath.” Norma tells Lionel that the band council is also talking about paving the road asphalt. And then Lionel replies “What happened? Council run out of dirt and gravel?” I think this question is significant because it signifies the expectations that people often have for Indigenous people. A lot of people think that Indigenous people are ‘one with nature,’ and that they have less money than non-Indigenous people. My favourite paragraph on this page is the last one, as Norma goes on to say “If I didn’t see you born with my own eyes, I would sometimes think you were white. You sound just like those politicians in Edmonton. Always telling us what we can’t do.” I believe this paragraph to be the most significant paragraph on this page. People seem to have expectations for the way Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people should act or should do things, but those are just expectations and stereotypes, nothing more. Indigenous people should be able to do everything that non-Indigenous people can do, and vice versa. After all, we’re all people. Otherwise, it becomes an us versus them dichotomy, which separates one group from the other (King, 7-8).

Then on page 9 and through the rest of the pages I’m looking at, the story turns to four characters – Robinson Crusoe, Ishmael, the Lone Ranger, and Hawkeye, all from the Blackfoot community.  These characters add an interesting element to the novel since they add some humour. On pages 11-13 they begin to tell a creation story, but the story gets cut off a few times since every beginning they start with is not good enough; “Once upon a time,” “A long time ago in a faraway land,” and “Many moons…” Page 13 ends with the Lone ranger telling everyone he knows how to start the story, and they wait for him to begin (King, 9-13).

Thomas King was smart by choosing the names he did for his characters because every one of these names has significance: The name Robinson Crusoe is used as the “Hero of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719)…A narrative of a shipwrecked mariner, based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk… the most famous of all desert island narratives…the novel contains meticulous details about survival” (Flick,142).

The name Ishmael is a name that is in “Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, who begins the story with one of the most famous opening lines in American fiction: “Call me Ishmael”” The name is also biblical (Flick, 143).

The name Lone Ranger has been used many times, and it can mean a “masked man with a faithful Indian companion.” Lone ranger has also been used as a “hero of Western books,” which is what I first thought of when I read the name. The name was also used on the radio, television, and many movies (Flick, 141).

Hawkeye, as Jane Flick explains, is a name most commonly “famous of the frontier heroes in American literature.” It’s also a nickname for “a white woodsman and guide with knowledge of “Indian ways”” The name Hawkeye is also found “in five major Hollywood films…and two television serials” (Flick, 141-142).

What I noticed to be most significant about all these names is that it seems like they’re all borrowed names from non-Indigenous people, and none of them are traditionally Indigenous names. What I thought of when I noticed this is colonization and non-Indigenous people thinking they’re more superior than Indigenous people, which is also what I noticed when I discussed Lionel and Norma. When norma said what she did about white politicians in Edmonton, it also made me think of non-Indigenous people thinking they are more superior to Indigenous people.

I think one huge goal of Thomas King when writing this novel was to challenge the way many non-Indigenous people have treated Indigenous people since the time of colonization, stemming from colonialism, and the way they make assumptions and stereotypes. Until non-Indigenous people stop making assumptions, there will always be an us versus them dichotomy. I really enjoyed Green Grass, Running Water, by Thomas King, and I suggest every Canadian read this novel.

Works Cited:

Maithreyi, Gollakoti. “Reconstructing Identities Through Intertextuality: A Critical Study Of Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” The Criterion An International Journal In English 4.5 (2013): 3. The Criterion. The Criterion, Oct. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2016.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes For Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999): 141-44. UBC Blogs. UBC. Web. 18 Nov. 2016.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. 2007 ed. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1999. Print.

Everyone is on the move in this novel, road trips abound and in order to hit the road what do we need? — a road map. At the same time, Lionel, Charlie and Alberta are each seeking direction in life. As Goldman says, “mapping is a central metaphor” (24) of this novel. Maps chart territory and provide directions, they also create borders and boundaries and they help us to find our way. There is more than one way to map, and just as this novel plays with conflicting story traditions, I think King is also playing with conflicting ways to chart territory. What do you think lies at the centre of King’s mapping metaphor?

Hey everyone! I hope you’re doing well! The central metaphor of mapping, a symbol for the protagonists longing to find a place in the world, in Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King is a recurring theme in his novel.

This “place” can be seen in a very abstract way. While a map usually is a piece of paper with some lines and coloured areas, as a metaphor it is that and so much more. A map can act as a metaphor for your place in life; your goals. It can act as a metaphor for rough times when you have “lost your way” and feel “lost.” Our language is full of map-themed metaphors to symbolize our longing to find the “right” place in our life, and define this place.

And, while maps can provide guidance, the mere existence of a map does not always help you to find your way. Not only do you have to be able to connect the map with the real world, to be able to read it and find directions, you also have to know where you are right now for a map to be useful. And even then, a map is just a tool to help you find your way. If you don’t know where you are headed, a map might help you find places, but you might still feel lost. In the end, it is you who has to find your path, your way in life. A map could protect you and could help you from losing your way, but a map is just a tool, not a solution.

For this blog post, I decided to do some research on what mapping means to Indigenous people. I found this interesting chapter from a book (Lewis). For Indigenous People maps had a different meaning than for most European colonizers. While maps for European colonizers were oftentimes tools to mark territory, to show treaties, and to visualize properties and divide them up for consumption, Indigenous Peoples maps often have other meanings. Indigenous maps “were born of experience and oral tradition, not an ascribed archival history in the Western sense.” Yes, the occasional Indigenous map might be used to visualize boundaries between different tribes, but maps were meant to represent nature, to show where to hunt, where to live, where to bury the dead, etc.

One passage in Marlene Goldman’s (Goldman). article says:

“Native American peoples have repeatedly asserted the legitimacy of their own maps and contested European maps and strategies of mapping, which have played such a central role in conceptualizing, codifying, and regulating the vision of the settler-invader society…”

This passage saddens me, as it reminds me of the brutality that colonization forced onto Indigenous people. The Indigenous people treated the land as their life, but the European colonizers, treated land as something they could consume, destroy, and discard, something which continues to this day. For example, big companies putting oil pipelines right through Indigenous people’s land (McSheffrey).

It’s interesting looking at the difference between Indigenous and European ways of mapping, and seeing how much it has to do with attitude and lifestyle. European colonizers using mapping for controlling, destroying, and discarding, versus Indigenous people using mapping as a way of discovering and documenting while living as one with nature. 

Works cited:

Goldman, Marlene. “Mapping And Dreaming Native Resistance In Green Grass, Running Water.” CanLit. N.p. 2015. 19.  Web. 09 Nov. 2016.

Lewis, G. Malcolm. “Chapter 4 Maps, Mapmaking, and Map Use by Native North Americans.” The History Of Cartography. Vol. 3. Chicago: U Of Chicago, 1998. 52. University Of Chicago Press. Web. 09 Nov. 2016.

McSheffrey, Elizabeth. “First Nations across North America Sign Treaty Alliance against the Oilsands.” National Observer. N.p., 22 Sept. 2016. Web. 09 Nov. 2016.