Hi everyone, for this blog post I will be answering question 3, as below:
“What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story or stories you are familiar with and the story King tells in ‘The Truth About Stories’?”
The creation stories that I have been most exposed to are the Christian narrative of Genesis and the Big Bang theory. I went to a Catholic school and so for a long time, Genesis was the only creation story I was familiar with. Junior high was when I first encountered the idea of the Big Bang. I remember we were learning about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, and because I was confronted with a narrative that conflicted with the only creation story I knew of at the time (Genesis), I did some research and eventually came across the Big Bang theory.
The Big Bang theory differs from Genesis in that according to the latter, we human beings were created by some almighty being, God, soon after (within 7 days) He created light, darkness, and the rest of the world. In contrast, the Big Bang theory is rooted in scientific knowledge and research, particularly in the idea of entropy, which states that the universe is always moving toward a greater degree of disorder. The Big Bang theory argues that all of this universe is constantly expanding, i.e,. space itself expands, and that it originated from a singular atom, which exploded and resulted in this ever-expanding universe.
Because of this nature of being supported by empirical evidence and the fact that learning about Darwinism is what initially led me to the Big Bang theory, I tend to also consider and believe the concept of evolution (not necessarily Darwinism) in conjunction with the Big Bang. Darwinian evolutionary theory states that we homo sapiens evolved from some lesser species after it gained favorable traits for survival that nature has “selected for.” It follows that this “lesser species” also had some predecessor, and so on until we go back to very first living being that was a product of (probably carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen) atoms smashing into one another, resulting in life.
This idea of the accidental creation of life works well with the idea of entropy and the Big Bang theory itself, and contrasts almost entirely with the story of Genesis. I say “almost” because in my personal opinion, the Big Bang does not necessarily discount the idea of a creator. I still do think that there must have been some “God,” some source of energy from which the very first atom originated. Ultimately, we can see that the Big Bang theory models an increasingly chaotic universe, which again points to the concept of entropy.
The story of the Woman Who Fell From the Sky in Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories is more similar, I think, to Genesis than it is to the Big Bang, mainly because of the idea of a Creator that created landscapes, rivers, and humans and/or animals. Genesis says that all of the universe and all life on it was created by God, and while in King’s story, not all of life was created solely by some omnipotent being, Charm and her Twins created the land masses, rivers, mountains, forests, and human beings on Earth (18-20).
There is another common thread between these two creation stories, and that is balance, which contrasts with the chaotic universe painted by the Big Bang. In Genesis, there is good and evil; reverence to God and sin; the Garden of Eden and the wilderness to which God banished Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit. In King’s story, there are Charm’s Twins and everything they created, which do not represent good and bad as much as they symbolize order and chaos. The Twins were a left-handed girl and a right-handed boy. The boy created great plains, rivers that flowed in both directions, roses, and the summertime. The girl, on the other hand, constructed mountains and valleys from the plains, made the rivers rocky and unidirectional, put thorns on the stems of roses, and created the season of winter (King, 18-20).
Lastly, I never realized how Genesis is slightly misogynistic in that it mostly places the blame on Eve for Original Sin, even if in the story, both Adam and Eve partook in the apple that the serpent had handed to Eve. This is unlike the story of Charm, who is depicted as a curious and hungry woman who made the Earth what it is, rather than as the reason for Original Sin. I had only taken this point of view after reading The Truth About Stories where King says that a “less misogynistic reading would blame both” (21), and my colleague Arianne’s blog post where she mentions this point in her response to the question that this very blog seeks to answer. I am always glad to come across new perspectives and am thankful to have encountered this one.
Works Cited
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Kindle ed., House of Anansi Press, 2003.
Parker, Julie Faith. “Blaming Eve Alone: Translation, Omission, and Implications of עמה in Genesis 3:6b.” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 132, no. 4, 2013, pp. 729–747. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42912464. Accessed March 09 2020.
Robbins, Arianne. “Assignment 3:2 Ethos of Creation.” 02 March 2020, https://blogs.ubc.ca/ariannerobbins/2020/03/02/assignment-32-ethos-of-creation/. Accessed March 09, 2020.
Zaikowski, Lori, Wilkens, Richard T. & Fisher, Kurt. “Science and the Concept of Evolution: From the Big Bang to the Origin and Evolution of Life.” Evo Edu Outreach, vol 1, no. 8, 2008, pp. 65–73. Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-007-0008-5. Accessed March 09 2020.
Hi Chino,
I enjoyed reading your post, I would probably agree with you on your point of comparing similarities between Genesis and The Truth About Stories. I saw that you pointed out the misogyny of the Genesis story, I almost feel as though the fact that the Gods or the creation is gendered is a large part of both stories. I also thought about the differences though between God and the Gods in The Truth About Stories. It seems like there’s a big difference between what is considered a god and what the presence of the god means in correlation to the story of creation. I think that in Genesis, God’s presence in the story really depicts the image of good vs bad. In The Truth About Stories, I don’t feel as though the Gods are presented the same, they almost appear to me as a type of entity that is not completely disassociated from humans. They almost act as part of nature, like they are ascribed to certain duties.
Not really a question! Just wanted to add a slightly different view 🙂
Thanks!
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for reading my blog and for your insights! I do agree that the gendered gods help to highlight the differences between Genesis and Native creation stories. Interesting point as well about how God in The Woman Who Fell From The Sky does not so much represent absolute good as the Christian version of God does. The last part of what you said is exactly what I meant in my post when I discussed the element of balance: Charm’s twins were opposite in every possible way, but did not necessarily serve to contrast good vs. bad. Instead, they have mutually antagonistic duties in the formation of the natural world.
Chino
Hello Chino,
I really liked all the ideas in your post. I liked what you said about the Genesis having a slightly misogynistic feeling to it when the story of the Woman Who Fell From the Sky definitely felt less misogynistic. I also liked how you discussed Christianity having one creator/god when this Indigenous creation story has multiple gods. When I was reading your post about all the different creation stories I was also thinking about how in other Indigenous creation stories there is the figure Coyote and and I was wondering how he would fit into this discussion. We see Coyote in the beginning of King’s story Green Grass Running Water and we also see him in Living by stories by Robinson. Coyote in these two stories is portrayed in many ways, and one way that he is portrayed is as a creator. And in many stories he acts like a god figure or is even affiliating with the God from Christianity. I know that the initial question only asks about the story Women Who Fell From the Sky but I was curious about what your thoughts were on how the Indigenous creator figure Coyote compares to the story of the Genesis or even how Coyote compares to the God figure from Christianity?
Hi Sidney,
Thank you for the read and quite an interesting question! Based on my reading of GGRW and knowledge of Genesis, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and religion in general, I see Coyote as some sort of prophet, so to speak. Like well-known prophets such as Moses and Muhammad who were chosen by God/Allah to preach their teachings, Coyote associated with gods, as you mentioned. Moreover, in GGRW, Coyote travels with the four old Indians who are trying to “right the world.” I think that this aligns well with the missions of the prophets I mentioned earlier, to “spread the word of God,” which I think loosely translates to “bring good into the world.” One could even go as far as to say that Coyote is a similar character to Jesus in Christianity. Coyote, also portrayed as a creator, may represent the “son of God,” as Jesus is described. The bottom line is, however, Coyote represents a prophet sent to bring good into the world, regardless of whether he is like Jesus, an omnipotent being, or more like Moses or Muhammad who were humans appointed by God to spread his word.
Chino
Hi Chino! It was interesting to hear about your experiences with the creation stories you came across and how you managed the contradictions. When you mentioned the part about Genesis placing the blame on Eve for Original Sin… Wow I always felt their was something wrong with that, but I never questioned it. To me, this is kind of similar to the way characters see reality in Green Grass Running Water. A lot of White male characters, rangers, police, etc. talked to the Indians in a strange way that felt wrong, but it wasn’t very noticeable until I read story after story portraying a similar pattern. It was as if the characters were operating off of some weird and off reality that subtlely conveyed some kind of weird blame or implications of fault or wrongness in the way they talked to the Indians. They were operating off of a story they believed in about Indians, but that story was so wedged into the way they thought that it distorted their thinking in a strange and irrational way. And they didn’t even know it nor were they able to see it. This story had so much imposing power, restricting the Indians by expectations that were actualized through law, the rangers could only arrest First Woman because they had systemic power and backing, Sifton the dam building supervisor expecting Eli to get off of his deceased mom’s property so he could finish building, and the company publicizing the story on media, hiring Charlie, another Blackfoot Indian, to fight Eli in court, reframing the story of Indian to against Indian, and portraying the dam as something that would help Indians just to get more public support. Both Eli and First Women were faced with an imposing force, in that their counterpart in the story framed things a certain way, and they were physically subjected to that reality. First Women couldn’t avoid her arrest even though it was wrongful. Power, at least in this instance, is really portrayed as power over shaping the story to oneself and others in a particular moment, making others believe the story, and, therefore, having the ability to enforce it over others. Even Indians like Charlie and Lionel were convinced to believe in the stories told by the White Men about how they should live, and adopted as their own.
Gaby
Hi Gaby,
Thank you for you comment. I like how you phrased your point, saying that the white male characters in GGRW were “operating off of a story they believed in about Indians.” I believe what you are trying to say is that their interactions with Native characters were influenced by their existing knowledge and prejudices about them, whatever those may be. I think this is a great point that also applies to our readings. Dr. Paterson emphasized forgetting what you know before reading to allow you to read and process information with an open mind. This is difficult because I think it is natural to process new information in relation to what one already knows, but sometimes it may bend this new information to conform to one’s existing perspectives. The white males in GGRW speaking to Indian characters in a certain (condescending) manner and Charlie and Lionel living by stories told to them by whites are perfect examples of this.
Chino