Prompt: Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW using at least 10 pages of the text of your choice. Be sure to make use of Jane Flicks’ GGRW reading notes on your reading list
I decided to work with page 35-50 of Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.
Coyote
Coyote is the narrator who starts the story and makes the story transitions. According to Jane Flick’s note, coyote is “a race of mythic prototypes who lived before humans existed”. They hold lots of powers as they are responsible for creating the world we know now. In the beginning of the story Coyote has an important part in setting the tone of the story. It gives readers the feeling of what the story is going to look like, setting the tone of the story. Coyote’s character gives the allusion that the story is going to tell about the Indigenous storytelling by beginning the story with creation myth with Coyote, not the God as the creator from the Christian theology.
GOD/Dog
When the dog is spelled backwards, it is god, but dogs and god have different feeling to it. When thinking about God, it is associated with being a power creator that is at the top of the hierarchy who created the world but compared to that dog is something small, cute and unpowerful. Flick points out that dogs are essentially just a lesser form of a coyote. The dog who is called GOD is a childish and immature character that the Coyote has to quiet down. It is inferior to Coyote. This gives the readers an implication that God from the Judeo-Christian religion is just like one of the many characters that can be seen in the creation story and it is not the one and only powerful character.
Ahdamn
Ahdamn is a very obvious satire reference to the biblical Adam in the Adam and Eve Genesis story. Unlike the Adam in the bible, Ahdamn lives at the Garden after the First woman. He is simply there to live with her at her garden, but then he tries to take power in the Garden by attempting to attribute names to the animals which he miserably fails to. He is portrayed as a very unintelligent character who is powerless compared to the First Woman who is a strongly Indigenous symbol. King tries to show that Judeo-Christian story cannot empower and take away the Indigenous identity and story through the Ahdamn’s failure to take power in what was already accomplished in the Garden by the First Woman.
Works Cited
BibleGateway. “Genesis 2:4-3:24.” www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 2:4-3:24&version=NIV
Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature, vol. 161/162, 1999, pp. 140-172
King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. ebook
“Native American Coyote Mythology.” Native American Indian Coyote Legends, Meaning and Symbolism from the Myths of Many Tribes, www.native-languages.org/legends-coyote.htm
“Native American Dog Mythology.” Native American Indian Dog Legends, Meaning and Symbolism from the Myths of Many Tribes, www.native-languages.org/legends-dogs.htm