For my pages, I chose location 358 to location 419, since I’m using an ebook version of the novel.
(The) First Woman
My first thought upon reading “first woman” was of the biblical character Eve, but as Jane Flick notes, the First Woman plays a central role in the creation of Turtle Island after she falls from the sky. This is also referenced by King through grandmother Turtle, upon whose back mud is piled until it starts to grow.
What we really need is a garden
Old Coyote calls for a garden, a reference to one of the most well-known biblical stories, the Garden of Eden, where the first humans, Adam and Eve, sinned and were cast out, dooming humanity to toil for eternity. Grandmother Turtle says a garden “is the last thing we need” in King’s book, though, signalling a disconnect between Indigenous creation stories and the Bible.
Ah, damn.
As Flick notes, Ahdamn is a pretty obvious play on Adam, the first man in the Bible. The First Woman creates the garden, instead of God, and lives there with Ahdamn, where “everything is beautiful. And everything is boring.”
“Fruit”
Instead of the Serpent tempting Eve with an apple, a talking Tree itself presents First Woman with a slew of treats, including hot dogs, pizza and extra-crispy fried chicken.
GOD becomes angry
The backwards dog, “GOD,” becomes angry when he sees First Woman and Ahdamn eating what he considers to be his food, so he jumps down into the garden intending to confront them — mirroring how the biblical God cast out Adam and Eve for eating the apple from the tree of life. This is another way King plays with narrative structure — the narrator is telling GOD this story, but GOD is able to jump into the story to confront the characters.