Alright, then. Now to hyper-text Green Grass, Running Water. I’ve been assigned pages 64-76, and cannot wait to be done with this. So let’s go!

We begin with Alberta considering her options for conceiving a child without need for marriage. She makes what looks like a failed attempt to find a one-night only liaison. This section isn’t exactly rich in terms of references, but I did feel for Alberta’s plight. It sucks to psyche yourself up for something and not be able to go through with it, what with the feeling of uselessness for not being capable of carrying out a simple plan. I felt for her; this was a good moment to just empathize with the character, to build an emotional connection.

After this, we check in with First Woman, enjoying a lovely feast in her Garden of Eden expy with Ahdamn. Suddenly, “GOD” (in all capitals) appears to break up the party. He tells First Woman that she is essentially trespassing on his property and eating his food; “this is my my world and this is my garden” (68). He takes special care to mention how his big, red apples are being eaten, reminiscent to the story I learned growing up in a Catholic household, the one about Genesis and Adam and Eve being kicked out of the garden for eating a single bite of an apple. That old thing. GOD’s insistence on there being Christian rules and the way he imposes them on First Woman forms part of a pattern in the novel where Christian rules are invoked to restrict Indians in some way. First Woman also tells GOD that he acts as though he has no relations (69); I mention this to help track the instances of minding one’s relations being emphasized in the text. Rather than fully slip into the role of Eve, First Woman is seen to just pack up and leave the garden of her own will, fed up with GOD and his stinginess. GOD says he’s kicking her out, but it’s something of an “I dumped you first” situation.

Together with Ahdamn, First Woman then stumbles into a reference to The Lone Ranger, marking the first instance where she uses the iconic character as a disguise. She introduces Ahdamn as the Ranger’s sidekick, Tonto. Notably, the rangers comment on how it is a “stupid” name; tonto translates to stupid in Spanish (71). They also toss out the names of other faithful Indian sidekicks/outlaws in popular culture: Little Beaver, Chingachgook, and Blue Duck. Having evaded trouble with rangers with her clever disguise, First Woman meets some soldiers who arrest her for “being Indian” (72), a scene that repeats itself in further stories.

After this, there is a conversation between Dr. Joe Hovaugh and Sgt. Cereno. The scene begins with Dr. Hovaugh reminiscing about the elm trees that died in his garden due to a blight, and how their being replaced with weak new trees left him “inexplicable remorse and guilt” (73). I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into a simple bit of text, but the mention that the dead trees had been there almost as long as the garden, and that they died of illness reminded me of the demise of many Native Americans through exposure from European diseases, which was sometimes strategically engineered by the European colonists themselves. His guilt over it makes me think of Dr. Hovaugh as something of a remorseful, white liberal who can feel it in his heart to feel bad for the sordid affairs his people have engineered in the past, but not exactly do much in terms of bringing about reconciliation.

Also, I giggled at his secretary being named Mary. It’s a common name, but with a man whose name sounds like “Jehovah” if you sound it out…

Pop culture references are rather dry in the conversation between Dr. Hovaugh and Sgt. Cereno, but it is full of small references to the treatment of Native Americans in modern times. Though not exactly related to Native Americans per see, it also brought to my mind the prevalence of guns among modern American people, with Sgt. Cereno pointing out his regulatory arms and Dr. Hovaugh casually mentioning that his father also owned a firearm. It might also be significant considering who is involved in the conversation that we often credit Europeans for bringing firearms to the North American continent, which they would trade with the Native population. The scene concludes with the Sergeant asking why the Four Old Indians were locked up in the hospital in the first place; Dr. Hovaugh says it was the government’s idea, suggesting that there is no real cause as far as the Indians’ behaviour is concerned. The government corralling Native American people for no particular reason… gosh, does this remind anyone else of anything?

Works Cited

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