Introduction
For this assignment I decided to take a look at pages 136-148 of Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King. These pages contain three stories that I find significantly engaging: the dialogue between Eli and Sifton about Eli forfeiting his property, the story of the tourist taking pictures of the Sun Dance when Eli was a child, and the introductory interactions between Noah and Changing Woman. All three stories portray Indigenous-settler relations, and not only starkly portray them as challenging but highlights how inconsiderate and hostile settlers can be. These relations are portrayed tensely as well as humorously in these pages, and I believe they all illustrate some important lessons about how to better handle finding mutual understanding of those who are different from each other.
Indigenous-Settler Relations
I find the relationship between Eli and Sifton to be a fantastic microcosm of Indigenous-Settler relations, specifically in the larger context of land disputes and trying to push through settler infrastructure. When Sifton says “I could have had the big project in Quebec” (King 136) he’s referring to The James Bay Project. As Jane Flink points out in Reading Notes, The James Bay Project was “a monumental hydroelectric-power development” that significantly disrupted the Cree and Inuit people’s way of life. The project was initially rejected by these Indigenous groups, but eventually the Cree and Inuit came to an agreement with the developers and the project has since been built. Sifton is lamenting the fact that he did not get to work on the James Bay Project because those Indigenous groups made a deal and the project was built, whereas Eli is halting development on his property because he refuses to compromise.
Jane Flink explains that the character Sifton is named after Sir Clifford Sifton, a Canadian lawyer and Minister of Interior around the turn of the 20th century (while researching “Sifton” further, ironically I also found a real estate company called “Sifton Properties”). Historical Sifton was responsible for a great increase of immigration into Canada while he was in office at the sake of Indigenous dispersal. Although this Sifton acted in bad ethical taste, he believed those with a “pioneer” mindset would be good to strengthen the young nation of “Canada” and encouraged those sorts of people to settle (Waddell). Historical and King’s Sifton are both vanguards, as they represent the mentality of progress and capital gain for the sake of their sense of a strong community and nation, and both represent the drive to meet their ends at the diffusion of First Nations. Sifton also tells Eli that he reminds him of Bartleby the Scrivener (King 142), the main character from a short story by the same name – a story of “passive resistance” (Desmarais).
The Sun Dance confrontation from Eli’s flashback was a tense scene that made me uncomfortable; reading a story like this is always upsetting as it highlights how ridiculous privileged people can be when confronted with barriers. A Sun Dance is an important ceremony practiced primarily by Plains Indians that has survived even after it was banned by colonial law (Dance Facts). The conflict between the tourist and Eli’s clan in GGRW is another microcosm of the broader relations of Indigenous people and settlers. The resistance of the clan in demanding the tourist hand over the film with the photographs of the ceremony is a metaphor for Indigenous resistance of the despotism of colonialism. By refusing to let the tourist go before meeting their demands, Eli’s family is standing up for their way of life despite the tourist not understanding the harm he was causing. Eli’s family also explained to the tourist that he was in the wrong, calmly compromised, and finally had the film handed over (even if the tourist tricked them). Eli’s family tried to make peace with the tourist by having him understand why his actions were wrong in an attempt to build mutual respect, something that often feels like a losing battle even to this day on a national level.
Clash of Indigenous and Biblical Creation Stories
Near the end of the chapter, Sifton says to Eli that once they open the floodgates, Eli’s “house is going to turn into an ark” (King 142). This is clear foreshadowing for the next chapter where Changing Woman meets Noah from the Bible. Changing Woman, as Flink points out, is a Navajo deity. In the novel, King alludes to her being gay (196), something that would never be suggested in the Bible. In GGRW Noah is portrayed to be a predator and misogynist (“Thou Shalt Have Big Breasts” is a play on the Ten Commandments), blatantly sexualizing Changing Woman and chasing her so he can sexually assault her. As bold as this retelling of Noah may be (although not the first; Jane Flink catches the reference on page 148 to Timothy Findley’s novel called Not Wanted On The Voyage in which Noah is again portrayed as a negligent and abusive man), it brings to light the underlying misogyny found within the Christian church. On the contrary, in many Indigenous communities women are highly regarded and treated as equals to men. The stark difference in characterization of these two spiritual figures helps highlight how far apart the two ideologies can be, and why when they meet the collision is so disruptive.
More conflict of fundamental story characteristics is Noah’s “strict rules” and what they are trying to control. Flink mentions that one of these rules is that animals do not speak, unlike how they do in Indigenous stories. Even Coyote and the narrator are aware that there are many rules imposed by these Biblical characters (King 147), which is a play on how strict Christian stories are compared to the fluidity and changeability of Indigenous stories. This harkens back to King in The Truth About Stories when he tells an Indigenous creation story in an engaging and oral tone, followed by a cold retelling of the Genesis story with minimal fun and intrigue.
A humorous allusion on page 146 is when the narrator tells Coyote that beatiality is “against the rules,” and Coyote gets defensive (King). Flink reminds us that this is reference to the numerous stories that Coyote sleeps with humans, but this also reminded me of all the time Zeus turned into animals to sleep with or seduce objects of his desire. Honestly – the gods are crazy.
Summary
I believe these twelve pages of Green Grass, Running Water encapsulate the dichotomy of Indigenous and settler stories and illustrate what happens when they collide without mutual respect. The episodes present are why we need to slow down as a society and take the time to listen to others and hear their stories; if we approach someone different with our own sets of biases and prejudices against them, we are never going to find common ground.
Works Cited
“Aboriginal Women.” The Justice System and Aboriginal People, http://www.ajic.mb.ca/volumel/chapter13.html. Accessed 18 March 2020.
Blumberg, Antonia. “Christian Women On Twitter Unload About Misogyny In The Church.” Huffpost, 20 April 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/christian-women-on-twitter-unload-about-misogyny-in-the-church_n_58f8f71ce4b018a9ce592e05?ri18n=true. Accessed 18 March 2020.
Desmarais, Jane. “Preferring not to: The Paradox of Passive Resistance in Herman Melville’s ‘Bartleby’.” Journal of the Short Story in English, vol. 36, Spring 2001, pp. 25-39, https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/575. Accessed 18 March 2020.
Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. Print.
“The James Bay Project.” Cree Nation of Waskaganish, https://waskaganish.ca/the-james-bay-project/. Accessed 18 March 2020.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. Print.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories. House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003. Print.
“Noah’s Ark.” Answers In Genesis, 2020, https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/. Accessed 18 March 2020.
Rutherford-Morrison, Lara. “8 Weirdest Things The Went Down In Greek Mythology.” Bustle, 5 July 2015, https://www.bustle.com/articles/94692-8-weirdest-sex-things-that-went-down-in-greek-mythology. Accessed 18 March 2020.
“The Story of Changing Woman.” YouTube, uploaded by KJZZ Phoenix, 13 September 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bSpMC-dS2s. Accessed 18 March 2020.
“Sun Dance – Ceremony of the American Indians.” Dance Facts, 2020, http://www.dancefacts.net/dance-list/sun-dance/. Accessed 18 March 2020.
“Ten Commandments List.” Bibleinfo, https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/ten-commandments-list. Accessed 18 March 2020.
Waddell, Deborah. “Clifford Sifton and Canada’s Immigration Policy.” British Immigrants in Montreal, 2018, https://www.british-immigrants-in-montreal.com/clifford_sifton_policy.html. Accessed 18 March 2020.
Hi Jacob,
I also felt surprisingly uncomfortable reading the scene where the tourists are confronted for taking pictures of the sun dance. You are right, this was a great example of how privileged people do not understand cultural boundaries and when faced with them, feel as though they have the right to act however they choose. Later in the book, George visits the sun dance and attempts to take pictures as well. We can assume that he knows that pictures are not allowed because he is using a hidden camera. When confronted he says that he needs them for his job because “the magazine is crazy about Indians” (King 379). The unfortunate reality is that people feel entitled to access, view, record, etc. sacred ceremonies in whatever way they see fit. The other unfortunate reality is that the lack of pictures and knowledge of ceremonies such as the sun dance is part of what fuels the intrigue and attempts to photograph these ceremonies. The view of Indigenous culture as mystical and exotic prompts a desire for it to be uncovered and revealed. In the case of the sun dance this view obviously has very negative effects. However, in the case of Latisha’s restaurant, the Dead Dog Cafe, it appears to work in Latisha’s favour. The intrigue surrounding Indigenous culture and cuisine prompts people to visit Latisha’s restaurant and to buy her merchandise. This is known as “ethnotourism” or “tribal tourism”, using to exotic stereotyping of Indigenous or other cultures for financial gain (https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/health-and-society/how-ethnotourism-exoticizes-latin-americas-indigenous-peoples) In the case of Latisha’s restaurant it appears that King may have used the opportunity to point out the ridiculousness of the obsession and mystification of Indigenous culture. Do you think King used the Dead Dog Cafe to show the absurdity of some of the bias and assumptions people make towards Indigenous culture?
Thanks,
Emily
Work Cited
King, Thomas. “Green Grass Running Water” HarperColins Publishers, 1993.
Martinez-Gugerli, Kristen. “How Ethnotourism Exoticizes Latin America’s Indigenous Peoples.” Panoramas Scholarly Platform, 15 April. 2019, https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/health-and-society/how-ethnotourism-exoticizes-latin-americas-indigenous-peoples. Accessed 19 Mar. 2020.
Hi Emily,
Thank you for your thorough and thoughtful response – you really captured the essence of entitlement and as you said, “ethnoturism,” present in the King novel. I think King’s binary examples, that of preserving culture and hiding it from greedy settler onlookers compared to Latisha leaning into cultural (almost) exploitation to make a profit. And I think both actions are fair. As a minority, it’s tough to get by in a world build to your disadvantage, so wanting to either protect or capitalize on your marginalized culture is an act of survival.
I think the Dead Dog Cafe was a great metaphor for the assumptions people make about cultures they do not understand, and having it act as almost a mockery of that ignorance was an effectively realistic side to expose. I think having these sorts of examples in popular fiction and media are important to hopefully encourage entitled folk to check themselves before gawking open-mouthed at people they are not familiar with. I think it’s also important because it teaches these folks how to respect other cultures without acting the fool.
Hi Jacob,
When reading your analysis, and reconsidering these pages with your excellent hyperlinking, it occurred to me that many of these passages include sites of confrontation between the contradictory mentalities that settlers develop to marginalize Indigenous people. For instance, Noah’s banning of bestiality, despite, as you pointed out, this being common even in Western settler mythologies such as those of Ancient Greeks. Perhaps King is pointing out the inherent contradiction to indicate settler bias.
Additionally I am wondering if the juxtaposition of Indigenous and Christian narratives also serves to illustrate the inherent misogyny of the bible, where very few active roles are ascribed to women, and most of those place women in the role of wife or mother. Do you think King considered the origin of these biblical stories and their implications in regard to portrayals which justify colonialism and misogyny or do you think that he was more interested in addressing the ways in which the bible has been used perpetuate cycles of violence against Indigenous People?
Hi Sophie,
Thank you for your taking the time to engage with the hyperlinks – this was a fun blog to really go to town with the extra research! To answer your question, I believe King was doing so much at once in GGRW that it seems unlikely he wasn’t intending to address the inherent misogyny within Christianity. This is a good essay that explores the huge impact colonializm had on Indigenous women specifically because of it’s Eurocentric Christian foundations, and I believe King fully had this in mind when writing the novel; he clearly has a solid understanding of Christianity, and as an Indigenous scholar, I think all of these allusions were intentional.
Hi Jacob,
Yeah it really struck me when you described the Sun Dance scene and how Eli’s family tried to make peace with the tourists by explaining why what they were doing was wrong, attempting to build mutual respect, but that this is often a losing battle. I think this is a crucial point of the Sun Dance scene, and one I didn’t recognize until I read your post. A lot of these types of issues are created by misunderstandings, but many of these misunderstandings are created by privilege and a belief in self-righteousness. The tourist, even if he may have felt a tiny bit wrong, persisted in his belief of self-righteousness because he didn’t want to acknowledge what he was doing was wrong. It was easier to blame the Blackfoot Tribe that “ganged up” on him. It is extremely hard to have respect for people that take advantage of one’s people and tries to justify it because they want to persist in their self-righteousness…
-Gaby
Hi Gaby,
Thank you for your reflective comment – I’m glad that my post helped you reconsider the underlying message that I thought King was trying to portray in this interaction. It’s too bad that people can be more willing to fight and defend their position than take the time to listen and understand so they have a better foundation on which to have an opinion. It reminds me of how last night I was biking down the left lane of a two-lane road and a motorist zoomed past me and yelled something nasty about me not using the bike lane. Luckily, we both were turning left at the upcoming intersection so when we got to the following red light he saw that I had to turn, and this hopefully allowed him to realize how silly his behaviour was.
Hi Jacob,
First of all, I want to give you props on this blog post. I liked how all three passages you chose to write about illustrate Indigenous-settler relations which, combined with your hyperlinking, made for a very coherent and interesting read!
I also thought Eli’s flashback of the confrontation of the tourist trying to take pictures at the Sundance was an intense read and it was probably the small section of the novel that I read the fastest, unable to wait to know what was coming next. I found it particularly interesting how you pointed out that Eli’s family was simply trying to make peace with the tourist and “build mutual respect,” and not cause further conflict. Like you said, they didn’t confront the tourist simply for the sake of it, but because they had practices and traditions that were not being respected. You also note that this is representative of Indigenous resistance against colonialism.
Naturally, I found the tourist’s disrespect towards the Blackfoot’s traditions to symbolize the disregard that settler-colonizers had for Indigenous ways of life. You mention that this mutual respect is still unable to find ground these days, despite inclusivity being some sort of a revolution recently. I do think that this respect for “the other” begins within each and every one of us, of course firstly by eliminating that “other” mindset, but not everyone gets it. How do you think we get everyone on board to just accept one another as fellow human beings, regardless of their background and lifestyle?
Thank you,
Chino
Hi Chino,
Thank you for your astute comment – I’m glad you found my blog post coherent and interesting!
Honestly, I feel like conflict between humans will always be prevalent across societies because there will always be differences in opinions or outlooks. And I think this global variety is good – having one homogenized culture feels bad to me, and in doing this would lose the nuance and beauty of individual perspectives and cultures. That being said, I believe more respect should certainly be obtained on a larger scale; as much as I believe the world should remain more like a “cultural mosaic,” folks need to work on accepting people who are different than each other. As far as how this should be done, I believe one way is that understanding needs to start at a young age. The most realistic application that I can think of off the top of my head is the introduction of different education at the elementary level that exposes children to different cultures (for example, having more significant Indigenous education and resources added to the curriculum).
Ultimately, change starts from the ground-level. I think we need to treat others with respect if we expect respect back, even if that seems hard (or they don’t seem like they deserve it). Attacking those we don’t agree with will never help them understand a different point of view, so unless those people are completely rotted and have no chance at seeing the other side, I believe giving people the chance to understand is key to a more inclusive global culture.