Monthly Archives: March 2015

What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories?

In the beginning, there was nothing. Just the water.

“No, no, says that GOD. That’s not the way it starts at all. It starts with a void. It starts with a garden.” Thomas King Green Grass Running Water, 40.

The creation story that I am most familiar with is the one from the Genesis. The one where God created the world in 6 days. The one where God said “Let there be light” – and light appeared.

The creation story told by King in The Truth About Stories starts out with “the Earth and how it floats at the back of the turtle” and how it’s turtles all the way down.

The most significant difference in the creation story told in the Genesis depends solely on one character, while the creation story told by King is dependent on an infinite number of turtles holding the Earth up. This is significant how different both these cultures are presently. The North American culture is based on the idea of individualism. Whereas the Aboriginal culture is more about the interdependence of people coming together to help and support each other. This underlying difference between cultures and creation stories is the fundamental point of difference is where conflicts arise.

One of the similarities in both creation stories, is the appearance of matter from nothing – the quality of mysticism. Where did God come from? Where did the Earth come from? Where did the turtles come from? In Green Grass Running Water, the story started where Coyote was dreaming and God came from the dream. In The Truth About Stories, King doesn’t tell us where God came from, or where the earth or the turtles came from. They were just there. This is a quality of faith – the faith that they were just there and that was the beginning.

“There is a story I know and it’s about the earth how it floats in space on the back of the turtle….and in all the tellings and all the tellers the earth never leaves the turtle’s back and the turtle never swims away.”

The other similarity I found is the language used of absolute certainty. In the Genesis, the language used was one of authority and finality. “Let there be…. – and it was done.”, the authority of God was never questioned. At the same time, the storyteller in The Truth About Stories is never questioned either. “There is a story I know”, is how King starts the creation story. Both these creation stories have a sort of unchanging quality to them. Even though in King’s creation story, little aspects are changed depending on the tone, pauses, responses from the audience, how the story begins and how the story ends remain the same. Just like the Christian creation story. There are many different versions of the bible and in different versions, God says something different but the result is the same. It’s almost as if both stories are self-aware of the tweaks that happen in the process of storytelling, but in all the tellings and the tellers of both stories, the begin and they end the same. The story remains unchanged.

As a side note, it is interesting to reflect on the perception that oral stories are more susceptible to change and that literature is more definite in nature. However, in this example, the Bible has been changed many times by many people, and so the ability for a story to change is not dependent on the medium that the story is told in. I think that stories change because people are dynamic and people will always add their own tweaks during the retelling of a story. It is the process of consuming stories and living them.

In The Truth About Stories, each chapter starts out with the same creation story, and from that story connecting to issues of identity of being Indian within the context of a culture that functions from the creation the story in the Genesis.

How we live our life depends on the story that we tell ourselves where we come from, where we want to go and how we can get there. There is no one right story and there is no such thing as a better story. Perhaps there is such thing as a better storyteller, but there is no such thing as a better story. Stories are what they are – stories, and in the end that that’s all we are.

Alright. So for this assignment I was assigned pages 349 to 360. In the beginning pages, Coyote is really eager to tell the story but does not tell the story the way it is supposed to be told.

A golden calf, a pillar of salt & a burning bush
A golden calf, a pillar of salt, a burning bush are representations of God’s image in the Bible.

The story of the golden calf in essence is condemning the prayer of idols. In the story the people that Moses had brought from Egypt begun to doubt Moses and God. To appease the situation, Aaron had collected all the gold from the people and made a calf-like figure. This was a sin, and as a result, three thousand people were killed.

In the context of the text, this could be also foreshadowing that if the Christian rules are broken, there will be consequences. In our text, the three rules that had to be followed were that 1) no one could help Young Man Walking On Water; 2) no one could tell him anything; 3) no one is allowed to be in 2 places at once, except himself. Since the Old Woman had not followed the Christian rules, she no longer had a place in the story and disappeared away.

A pillar of salt (349) refers to the consequence to the wavering of faith. It is said that God had mercy to spare Lot and his family from the destruction of the city. But as they were on the edge of the city, Lot’s wife looked back in a moment of longing and was hence turned into a pillar of salt.

In the context of the text, this could be foreshadowing for what might happen should one’s faith waver towards the Christian God. As we continue reading on page 352, Young Man Walking on Water is trying to establish his superiority and divinity by saving the men on the rocking Boat. In the end, the Old Woman is the one that calms the waves and stops the Boat from rocking. Despite this, the men dismiss her efforts because she sang to the waves, and chooses to follow Young Man Walking on Water. Perhaps the men did not have a choice in the matter to choose their leader, for if they chose incorrectly, then they would be turned into a pillar of salt.

The story of the burning bush is that God is showing himself through that image. This is an interesting image because the fire is not consuming yet the bush is on fire. Perhaps the contradiction here is an indication that we cannot try to rationalize or derive logic out of Christian rules, because there is no logic – how the story begins and how the story ends cannot change even if some parts do not make sense.

The story of Jesus calming the winds and the water are from Matthew 8:23-27. In the Bible Jesus has no problem calming the winds and water and even points a finger back to the men who doubted his ability. Parallel to this story, is the story where Young Man Walking On Water is yelling to the Boat to “Stop rocking!” but it does not stop rocking. It is Old Woman who calms the Waves and the Boat. Despite this, the men dismiss Old Woman and follows Young Man Walking On Water.

Reflections
I found this assignment a little challenging because I’ve never read the Bible and I am challenged to write what the Bible says in an unbiased academic manner. Moreover, perhaps because I am unfamiliar with it, I tried to simplify the stories so that others who are not familiar with the stories can understand them too.

Personal reservations aside, this exercise really exemplified the difference between Christian and Native storytelling. I think King has brought to light that the rules and structures within Christian stories limit its evolution. Meanwhile, Native stories is not limited to rules and structure and hence the different elements come together to continuously build its narrative.