For this week’s blog assignment I was assigned pages 242-259 (which ended up being pages 244-250 in my newer version of the text). This segment of the novel contains Latisha’s reflection on a time when George had quit his job and was attempting to take up the house duties in an effort to alleviate some of her stress. This is ironic for two reasons, firstly because the text begins with her waking up, exhausted, to find her youngest daughter Elizabeth standing in a poopy diaper and only Latisha is there to help her (as George left her before Elizabeth was born). Also the text starts and finishes with Georges absence, but is mainly focused around his failure to cook and provide for the family.

George Armstrong Custer as George Morningstar

Latisha’s love interest in the novel is an American named George Morningstar which is an allusion to General George Custer, from the American civil war. Both George’s have similar appearances, tall with shoulder length hair, and both originated from Ohio and were raised in Michigan (Eldatari, 2009). Another factor linking the two men was that they both wrote detailed letters to their wives/girlfriends about their “journeys” through America. For Custer, these were to his wife while he was active in the Civil war, and for Morningstar, the letters to Latisha were after he had abandoned her and her children (Eldatari, 2009).

General George Custer famously died while in battle with Native Americans at the Battle of Little Bighorn (Bio, 2015). George Morningstar’s disregard of native traditions throughout the book as well as his disrespect towards Latisha parallels the disrespect that General Custer had towards the Native Americans. Custer’s biggest mistake was his pride, which lead to his downfall when he attacked La Kota without reinforcements, ending in his death. Morningstar also “underestimates the reaction that he will receive by attending the Sun Dance, and is summarily dismissed for disobeying the rules and attempting to photograph the event” (Eldatari, 2009). Another interesting link between the two men is Elizabeth, the name of General Custer’s wife and also the name of Morningstar’s daughter, who Latish finds out she is pregnant with after Morningstar has abandoned her.

George Morningstar is American nationalism and foolishness at its finest. In the assigned reading segment, George is ludicrously attempting to play “house-wife” by buying cook books and un-necessary cooking gadgets, but is failing miserably at cooking (and his new role). The two allusions that allow the reader to recognize his stupidity (apart from his obvious failure cooking croissants and ratatouille) are the names of his trusted cookbooks. Sam Molina’s book on pasta is a pun on semolina, the flour used to make pasta’s, and David Karaway’s cookbook on bread is also a pun for caraway seeds which are generally put into rye breads for added texture/flavour (Flick, 1994).

Reflections

I found King’s allusion to George Custer to be very cunning and thought provoking. To begin with, the average reader may not understand the reference, unless they were familiar with the history of the American Civil War, as I myself did not. However the likeness between the two George’s is uncanny. From their physical descriptions to their actions and treatment of other characters in the story, both Georges are ‘failures’ of a sort. In this section of the text George Morningstar fails miserably at household work, especially cooking. Since he is unable to hold a job and cannot even provide for the family by cooking, his frustrations lead him to abandon them. Custer was a failure by his own stupidity, sending his men and himself into a battle without waiting for reinforcement, which ended in his death and many more. There is also a theme of heroism in Green Grass Running Water as most of the characters are strong, selfless, and independent people. Latisha shows many signs of heroism, raising a family on her own, running a successful business, and always standing up for herself and her beliefs. In the section I was assigned, Latisha’s strength was defiantly displayed as she reflected upon her unhelpful and absent husband, in an almost comedic manner as she describes his attempts and failures at supporting her family.

Work Cited

George Custer. Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2015.

Flick, Jane. (1994) “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water”. Canlit. Harpour Collins.

“Semolina”. Wikapedia. Web. March 16, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semolina

Alfaro, Danilo. “Caraway”. About Food. Web. March 16, 2015. http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/glossary/g/Caraway.htm

Eldatari. (2009). “George Armstrong Custer and George Morningstar”. Lit Studies. Web. March 16,2015. https://litstudies.wordpress.com/tag/green-grass-running-water/

St. Rosemary Educational Institution. “Green Grass, Running Water Character Anaylsis.” http://schoolworkhelper.net/. St. Rosemary Educational Institution, Last Update: 2015. Web. March 16, 2015. http://schoolworkhelper.net/green-grass-running-water-character-anaylsis/.

“The battle of the Little Big Horn, 1876” Eye Witness to History. Web. March 16, 2015.  http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/custer.htm

  Question: 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 ?

I grew up in a household with both Christian and Catholic influences. I remember going to Sunday school and being read to from a colourful picture book that was supposed to educate young children about an all-powerful entity named God who astoundingly was able to create our entire world in under seven days. If you as a reader are unfamiliar with the story of Genesis 1 from the bible, here is a link to a webpage that I found best described the story in simpler terms.

I was a natural sceptic, especially because of all the non-realistic elements such as God himself and the utter “magic” behind his creation air, water, trees, animals and the human race. As an adult I follow a much more atheist approach to the creation of the world. I believe in science and the scientific story of creation. However, for this blog post I will entertain my childhood story of creation and compare it to that narrated in Thomas King’s The Truth about Stories.

Similarities

There are defiantly Un-realistic/mystical elements to both creation narratives. With talking animals in Kings variation, charms pregnancy (immaculate conception), talking babies who create the world, and this character of God (a single entity powerful enough to create an entire world). What I find interesting with both creation stories is that there is no necessity of reality or credibility. It is simply assumed that these seemingly mystical elements were realistic, and that because they occurred so long ago, the evidence has disappeared.  Also, similar to the Christian creation story where God creates and separates day and night to be two individual entities, so does Charm through the birth of her opposite twins, described as dark and light (day and night)

Both stories have the same theme of creating a sustainable earth to live upon: God creating “animals to fill the earth” (Fairchild) as well as the first humans, Adam and Eve. The twins also create humans and the animals wonder if they will “get along”. The fact that animals are present on the earth before humans and that they hold concern over getting along with humans ultimately reflects the respect that First Nations people had/ have towards animals.  The rest/reflection on their work after creation in both stories is also similar. God leaves an entire day to reflect on his amazing creations and rest after all the work. The twins, charm, and the animals merely comment on what a beautiful world they have created and then the story ends, just as Genesis does after the seventh day (rest day).

Differences

In Genesis 1 God created the earth himself. In Kings Creation story, the water creatures were the ones to labour and build charm a piece of land, which eventually was transformed by her twin children. Charms babies are responsible for forming the earth and they are two opposite beings (day and night/ dark and light) who go about creation in entirely different manners. For example, one twin first makes the lad flat, then the other stomps about in the dirt and creates hills and valleys. The creator character in both stories being completely dissimilar is a huge difference.

The earth itself is also very different in both stories. Before creation, God begins working on an empty, dark and lifeless world, basically a blank slate. In Kings story, there is already an established “air world” which hosts Charm in the beginning, and “water world” which eventually changes itself to accommodate Charm. It is also important to note the presence of Charm herself, described by King as nosy and relentlessly curious. It is because of her and her pregnancy that there is a need for land to be formed and arguably without her character or her particular traits, “earth” may never have been created.

After this assignment I became curious to read more creation stories, I eventually stumbled across this creation story by Ojibwa named “The creation of Turtle Island”. The story has very similar elements to the story told by King and the image below reminded me of Charm sitting on the back of the turtle when she first falls from the sky.

“The Creation of Turtle Island” nativeartincanada.com

Works Cited

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories. New York : House of Anansi Press, 2011. Print.

Fairchild, Mary. “The Creation Story-Bible Story Summay” AboutReligion.com, No Date. Web. March 3, 2015. http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/p/creationstory.htm

“The Creation of Turtle Island” Native Art in Canada. 2006. Web March 3, 2015. http://www.native-art-in-canada.com/turtleisland.html

The Indian Act was created and set into effect in 1876, nine years after Canada was “created” in 1867. The act enabled the government control over First Nations Indian status, resources (such as where they were able to hunt), wills, education, land, and band management (Montpetit, 2011). The objective of the Indian Act was to assimilate as many First Nations as possible, excluding Metis and Inuit, into an idealized British-Canadian society. For example, under the Indian act First Nations women who married non-status men would automatically lose their status, the government’s way of robbing of identity and ensuring forced integration. Indian status was “seen as a transitional state, protecting Indians until they became settled on the land and acquired European habits of agriculture” (Henderson, 2006).

One of the most horrific outcomes from the Indian act of 1876 was the use of residential schools, which were in operation from 1879-1996 (Montpetit, 2011). As intended, the schools forced many First Nations children to forget their language and culture, as well to suffer frequent verbal and physical abuse. Here is a very explicit account from one woman of the abuse she endured when she was forced by the Canadian government to attend a Residential school. Her story is akin to many First Nations who recount their lives at these schools. Unfortunately, Canadian government propaganda attempted to justify the schools through ads such as these which completely dissimilar to the accounts told by First Nations people themselves.

Canadian Residential School

Since 1876, there have been many amendments to the Indian act as well as the Canadian Constitution that make it possible for First Nations to control their own lives and identities. In 1982, the government amended the Constitution so that those First Nations who had lost their status through marriage because of the Indian Act of 1876, were now able to be reinstated as status First Nations / band members along with their children (Henderson, 2006).

After my research, I conclude that the Indian Act of 1876 was a way for the Canadian government to justify forced robbery of First Nations identities and control over an entire race. The idea that author Daniel Colman discusses is of English-Canadian identity being tied up with an exclusionary model of British civility and masculinity. Colman argues that colonials, nation builders, and the government were fixated on ways to “formulate and elaborate a specific form of [Canadian] whiteness based on the British model of civility” (Colman, 5). However, as Coleman demonstrates, the code of civility was inherently based on a racist assumption of white priority, where “others”, such as the First Nations, could be accepted as long as they modeled themselves according to White British values. Hence acts such as the Indian act of 1876 which aimed to completely strip First Nations people of their original identities and assimilate them into a British-Canadian culture so that Canada could be seen as one great homogenous nation.

Works Cited

Coleman, Daniel. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2008. Print.

CTV. “Accounts of Residential Schools Continue”. Youtube, March 1, 2012. Web, Febrary 27, 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3i_ootZDgM>

Henderson, William. “Indian Act”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2006. Web. February 27, 2015. < http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indian-act/>.

Montpetit, Isabelle. “Background: The Indian Act”. CBC News Canada. CBC News, May 30, 2011. Web. February 27, 2015. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/background-the-indian-act-1.1056988>.

PenTV. “Canadian Residential School Propaganda Video 1955”. Youtube, May 2, 2009. Web, February 27, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_V4d7sXoqU.

Stout, R (2010). “Residential School” [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.mediaindigena.com/roberta-stout/issues-and-politics/residential-school-money-has-it-helped-survivors-heal.

I was instructed to read Roughing it in the Backwoods as well as her sister Catherin Parr Traill’s story for a Canadian literature class two semesters ago. I have linked her sisters book The back woods of Canada, you may find it interesting to compare both stories! I enjoyed learning about Moodie’s experience and responses to the culture shock, the difficulties, and the pleasures of immigration and pioneer life. With many unpleasant experiences, she gives a sober reflection on the hazards of immigration but offers some praise of Canada as a refuge for the poor (of England) and as having the potential to be a great country.

After reading the introduction and first chapter, the readers will defiantly get a sense of the entitlement Moodie feels as she lands upon Grosse Island. Moodie describes the utter pandemonium of people at the islands shore, “literally stunned by the strife of tongues” (Moodie, 2003). Moodie goes on to describe the people of the island (Irish and First Nations) as they “appeared perfectly destitute of shame, or even of a sense of common decency. Many were almost naked, still more but partially clothed. We turned in disgust from the revolting scene” (Moodie, 2003). Using words such as revolting, disgust, and shame, really gives the reader a sense of Moodie’s claim to hierarchy at the time as she sees herself as socially above all of these people and their lifestyles. Here, she is bringing with her the ideals and norms she grew up with in England, not realizing that this island and her new home do not follow the same social principles.

Moodie also makes reference to the Garden of Eden a couple times during her story. The first being in the poem about Canada at the beginning, the second when she first views the island “basking in the bright rays of the morning sun, the island and its sister group looked like a second Eden just emerged from the waters of chaos” (Moodie, 2003). She completely disregards the island as a place that other people may already call home and does not once see herself as an invader of it. Instead, the island is a God-send, basked in sunlight as if God was shining a spotlight on it from heaven. This is a good example of the narrow minded visions that many explorers and immigrants had when they first arrived in Canada.

In Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water, Susanna Moodie is modernized as a polite, traveling Canadian named Sue. She is accompanied by three other friends, two men and a woman who all are proud that “none of us is American” (158). The four friendly travellers have stopped at the Dead Dog Café and are being served by Latisha, who makes polite conversation with her guests and finds out that they are “roughing it” on “an adventure” ( alluding to Moodie’s story Roughing it in the Bush), and are hoping to see some First Nations people. This peculiar desire would normally not be understood or accepted as politically correct in Vancouver today. First Nations people are not objects in a museum that you can openly view and discuss. However, since King’s entire novel is filled with satire, this strange yearning of the four travellers is something to be expected. It also seems like Sue is almost mummifying the “noble but vanishing Indian”, as she proudly proclaims that her accompanying friend Polly is part Indian and a writer. This leaves the reader to wonder if Polly is going to attempt to document their “adventure” and encounters with First Nations peoples just as Moodie did in the 1800’s.

At the end of Latisha’s encounter with the four travellers, she discovers that they have left her a twenty dollar tip and a book, The Shagganappi. I googled the title and discovered it online here, written by Emily Pauline Johnson (Polly for short?), and is a collection of what seems to be short stories about First Nations people here in Canada.

Works Cited

Johnson, Emily Pauline. The Shagganappi. Canadian Poetry. Online. February 13, 2015. <http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/abteds.htm>

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

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush.. Project Gutenburg, 18 January 2004. Web. 9 Apr 2013

Traill, Cathrerin Parr. The Backwoods of Canada. Gutenburg. Online. February 13, 2015.  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13559

John Guy’s 1612 encounter with the Beothuks in Trinity Bay. This piece of artwork is a depiction of a European’s first encounter at Trinity Bay. Notice the body language of the people in the art, the Indigenous dressed in few clothes (vulnerability?) and trading with/welcoming the Smartly dressed Europeans onto their land with outstretched hands. Notice the difference between the Europeans grand ships and the Indigenous peoples small wooden huts, as if the artist wanted to depict an obvious economical hierarchy between them.

Question 3:  Lutz makes an assumption about his readers (Lutz, “First Contact” 32). He asks us to begin with the assumption that comprehending the performances of the Indigenous participants is “one of the most obvious difficulties.” He explains that this is so because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Here, Lutz is assuming either that his readers belong to the European tradition, or he is assuming that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances – than the other way around. What do you make of this reading? Am I being fair when I point to this assumption? If so, is Lutz being fair when he makes this assumption?

First contact was often focused on minimalizing danger and maximizing opportunities for both parties, however it was not simply a diplomatic/trade based relationship and often included the spiritual as well (Lutz, 2007). For Lutz, first contact and the imaginary are closely linked and the encounters were often a product of expectations. The Europeans “went into new territories full of expectations, ideas and stereotypes”(Lutz, 2007), discovering what their popular myths at the time suggested they would find. The Europeans did “not see their new worlds with fresh eyes; they saw them through the lenses of their ancient stories” (Lutz, 2007). The First Nations of the Americas also drew encounters from mythologies, claiming that the Europeans were from the spirit world, spirits revisiting earth. It is important to note that both encounters were based off the imaginary, but, because storytellers in modern European tradition wrote first hand narratives using the “I/eye”, this gave them a credibility of sort, even though it has been discovered that many narratives were either borrowed, exaggerated, or fabricated (Lutz, 2007).

Lutz claims that it is difficult to comprehend performances and stories of Indigenous peoples, therefore we must “perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans” (Lutz, 2007). I believe that Lutz is attempting to explain to his readers the reasons as to why Indigenous performances may have been/continue to be difficult to comprehend for many non-Indigenous people ( of European origin of not). He does so through speaking about the imaginary encounter (of both Europeans and Indigenous), as well as both groups strong beliefs of a spiritual world in regards to their realities and historical events. Lutz offers a reason as to why many non-indigenous people cannot comprehend oral narratives; it is because the “narratives will often unsettle the European notion of event” (Lutz, 2007). The indigenous peoples “framed the event differently with different causality and temporality, making the narrative with series of related happenings into a single story” (Lutz, 2007). Therefore, the structure of oral narratives already have people such as the Europeans confused, even before the analysis of the actual story itself.

According to Lutz, a way that we can understand another cultures performances is to begin by stepping outside our own culture and viewing our own practices, spiritual beliefs etc as alien themselves. I imagined what someone  might think of a typical British, Christian wedding (since I am both British and Christian), if they had never been exposed to one. How strange would our practices seem to others?

– a bride dressed entirely in white

– the exchanging of rings that must be worn on a certain hand/finger

– a first dance to a specific song that symbolizes the couples “eternal love”

– best man’s speech, cutting of the tripple layered wedding cake, or tossing of the brides bouquet of flowers.

If I was to tell a story about my parents wedding to a person who had never encountered a Christian wedding, they might misinterpret certain elements,  express confusion over my traditions, or even take what I am saying to be fictional. I feel that Lutz is maybe addressing a more “European” audience, by instructing the reader to “think outside the box”. By giving examples of the Europeans own spiritual and imagined encounters with Indigenous, he is claiming that both cultures first encounter histories and performances are equally difficult to understand.

As a reader, what struck me about “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance…”  was the part about spiritual performance’s and the First Nations of the Northeast coast. The Gitxaala story of first contact was very intriguing; a European ship had sailed into Gitxaala territory around 1787 and the First Nations people believed them to be raven tricksters, (because of the ship appearing over a spot associated with supernatural beings). On first contact, the Gitxaala man recalls his feelings of fear and awe at the spirits (European men) who eat maggots and fungus, with his natural reaction being to douse himself in Urine for protection (Lutz, 2007). Reading this as a Canadian in the 21 century I automatically knew that the “raven spirits” were Europeans and their food of rice and bread was misinterpreted as maggots and fungus. However, if I had been one of the Gitxaala hearing a re-account of this story later that day, I would have been terrified! Likewise, one of the Europeans recounts in a letter home about a “man who peed on himself twice” would have baffled the reader. First encounters are not only filled with the will the maximize opportunity and minimize danger, but they are also wrapped up in confusion and misinterpretation.

I leave you now with a video of the Pikangikum First Nations story of the Thunderbird. Challenge yourself to watch the clip while alienating yourself from your own culture and possibly absorbing another 🙂

Works Cited

Gitxaala Nation. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. <http://gitxaala.com/>.

“John Guy’s 1612 encounter”. Colony of Avalon. Web. February 06, 2015. http://www.heritage.nf.ca/avalon/history/bry.html

Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45. Print.

Lutz, John. “Contact Over and Over Again.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indignenous- European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 1-15. Print.

Thunderbird Story: Pikangikum First Nati. Youtube, 2013. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC4xalWuSuE>.

For this weeks post we were instructed to read our fellow classmates blog posts about what “home” was to them, and their own traditions/meanings behind the word. Obviously, it was very hard to pick just three blogs because I found all of them to be so interesting! However the three classmates posts that I felt were most similar to my own concept of home were Jennifer, Nick, and Charlotte .

– The understanding and idea of home is generally attached with great force to a persons memories of their family. Jennifer’s depiction of her dad’s quirky breakfasts or the lovable family dog are things that occurred inside her childhood home, therefore making the space special  for her.

Home is always there. Even as the years pass or the distance between ourselves and home grows, we still hold on to that familiarity and feeling of being grounded to a certain place.

Our homes are important to us, we develop relationships with the physical space as well as the people inside it and the sentimental memories that develop are instantly linked to the home. Charlotte’s blogs described beautiful stories about their family traditions and her attachment to home through these experiences.

As Nick so eloquently said, “home is more than the four walls that surround us most of the time, it is a sense of belonging that can exist anywhere and at any time” (Thompson, 2014). Home is what we make it, but it can also be a figure of our imagination. Nick created three fictional characters who all seemed to sacrifice something for home. I think that sacrifice is an important part of home, whether that be working a horrible job to pay the rent for your dream apartment or sharing a bedroom with your brother, we sacrifice so that we can eventually be happy.

Interestingly, all the blog posts described a sense of home using memories that involved family, friends, pets etc and not necessarily focused on the physical home itself. I found this very intriguing because my idea of home was also centered around the senses that I could remember, the smooth wooden floors, large bay windows, smooth white walls etc. I do however, believe that home is where you make it, whether that be a room with four walls and one window or a mansion, as long as you can create these fond memories’ that will last a lifetime.

“Where we love is home- home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts” Oliver Wendell Holmes, SR.

Works Cited

Heinz, Jennifer. “Smarties and Thieves”. Jennifer’s Blog eh? UBC Blogs. January 30, 2015. Web February 2, 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/canadianjennifer/>.

Hodgson, Charlotte. “This is my Home: Piece by Piece”. From Far and Wide. UBC Blogs. January 29, 2015. Web February 2, 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/charlottehodgson/>.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell Sr. “Home quotes”. Brainy Quotes. Web February 2, 2015. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_home2.html>.

Thompson, Nick. “Home”. Like Molson, I am Canadian…Or am I?”. UBC Blogs. January 27, 2015. Web February 2, 2015. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/nickthecanadian/2015/01/27/home/>.

The flooring in my parents’ house, the house I grew up in, was solid hardwood and the color of sand. As a child, I would occupy my time by sliding in thick socks from the kitchen, to the dining room and living room. All the while twirling and leaping, as if I was USA figure skating champion Nicole Bobek. This drove my mother insane. She worked from home so that she could raise my brother and me, but this also meant that a quiet work environment was out of the question. We (my brother and I) once started a mini rock band with the kitchen pots, we accidently painted on our bedroom walls, played ferocious games of hide and seek tag, and dug holes in the back garden deep enough that we could stand up to our waists in the muddy-mess. We were far from tyrants, but we were eight (myself) and six, and I’d like to use the word curious to describe us, my mother would probably not.

It was a rainy day and my brother and I were under strict orders not to make a mess around the house. My parents had been cleaning the entire weekend so that we would be ready for a home-showing the following Wednesday evening. My brother and I loved this house and we didn’t want to leave, so we had been sabotaging the cleaning all weekend long. It was now Wednesday and I was feeling like one of the children in “The Cat and the Hat”. I remember my mother was in the living-room, working from home on her computer and my father had just came home from work and was in the garage cleaning his bike.

Since both of the prison wardens seemed to be off duty, my brother and I began to play a game of hide-and-seek tag. I went first and hid under the stairs, in a small crawl space that was filled with old junk and spiders. When it was my brother turn to hide, I counted to one hundred then began to search. Since he was pretty young, it was usually easy to find my brothers hiding spots; behind a curtain, under the bed, in a closet, typical places. But this time I really was having trouble finding him, I had spent about twenty minutes searching all over the house (it was a big house) and had recovered no sign of him. Starting to become worried, I was calling out his name to tell him the game was over, and that was when I heard it.

A muffled sound, sort of like the croak of a frog or the whimpering of a dog…but it was coming from the roof! I walked in circles to pinpoint the exact location of the noise, and it seemed to be coming from our coat closet. By now my mother had heard the commotion and came upstairs to see what all the fuss was about. She opened the closet door and then froze, “what is it?” I asked peering from behind her legs. It was my brother, or part of him at least, dangling through a hole in the ceiling. Now I could hear the voice clearly “help me” he was whimpering and he kept kicking his legs back and forth as if he was trying to stay afloat in water. I was instructed to run downstairs and get my father and his ladder. But when my dad made it upstairs, he was sans ladder. There was no ladder and no step-stool high enough to reach my brother, we would have to go in through the attic, the genius hiding place that had gotten my brother into this mess in the first place.

My father climbed up into the attic but was unable to reach my brother. The wooden beams that supported most of the ceiling ended feet away from him and the only thing to support the weight would be the dry wall of the ceiling. After that my mother had called the firemen, but it was a small town and the firemen were out helping another family. “You’re our top priority Mam” the dispatcher had said but it looked like it would be a while until someone arrived to help. Luckily, my brother was not in pain, he was more scared of the dark attic then the fact that half his body was dangling in mid-air. Since my mother and I were lighter than my dad, we went up to the attic and sat on a sturdy beam, my mother told stories to comfort my brother and I told him about all the rats that probably lived up here. Finally my father and two firemen arrived and a ladder and saw were used to bring my brother down to solid ground. When the firemen left, my brother was examined completely by my mother and I was sent to my room. I didn’t get any desert with dinner that night but we did cancel the showing of the house, and fourteen years later the house is still a place I can call home.

This assignment had us re-tell a story about ‘how evil came into the world’ written by Leslie Silko, and retold by Thomas King in his text, The Truth About Stories. The original story has many magical elements to it and involves spiritual entities (witches). I re-told the story a couple times but I was having trouble with its characters and the lack of depth that was needed to prove the moral of the story. The first edition of the re-telling is very close to the original (I may have forgotten a couple elements but it is basically the same). In my second edition, I decided to completely warp the story and change many elements, the moral and theme of the story have stayed the same but the characters and events are different. I hope you enjoy it!

First re-telling of Leslie Silko’s “How Evil entered the World”:

The root of all evil was brought into this world not by a certain race or religion, but by the Witches of the world. It happened many years ago, so many that it is almost impossible to count. From across the lands and seas, Witches had gathered in a cave for an annual meeting. The meeting was supposed to be a contest of a sort, a contest over who could perform the most impressive yet scariest trick. Some of the witches turned themselves into bats and ravens, others brewed up potions and turned unwilling humans into frogs, even some witches cast spells to turn fire into ice and rocks into gold. Once the witches had performed they began to argue over which trick had been the scariest, but there was one witch left who had not preformed anything yet. This particular witch was no man or woman, and no one knew where the witch came from. The witch stood in the middle of the gathering and began to tell a story, her one and only trick. But this was a nasty story, a story of hate and mischief, of disease and death, a story that no one wanted to hear. But once the witch was done the other witches promptly agreed that she had won the scariest trick title. However, witches hated that they had heard such a terrible and gruesome story and begged the winning witch to take it all back. But this, my friends, was not possible. For once a story has left the lips of the storyteller, it will linger on earth for all eternity. So you must be very careful of the stories you tell.

Second Adaptation:

Before cities, before cars and planes, before religion and war, and before evil, the world was calm. The animals lived without fear of humans and the humans lived without fear of the animals, everything and everyone was harmonious. But one day, a little girl was born. She was a ferociously curious baby, always testing her boundaries, drawn to exploration by the temptations of everything in her life. The girl grew up listening to the village Elders stories of the world, everything seemed so magical and foreign to her and she believed every word. Her mother named the girl Tempt, short for Temptation, and she was constantly telling Tempt to be cautious and wary of the Elder’s stories of temptations around her.

Sometimes Tempt was rewarded for her curious nature. One afternoon, when she was old enough to explore on her own, Tempt came across a deer under a sycamore tree. The deer and Tempt began to talk and the deer told Tempt about a beautiful pond deep in the woods, “only a couple animals know of its location” said the deer, “the water sparkles like the sun, the trees at the edge of the pond dance and sing with happiness and the fish leap up 10 feet into the air”. Tempt’s imagination began to run wild and she was overcome with a need to see this dreamlike place, “oh please deer, take me to this place you speak of!” she begged. But the deer refused, saying it was a place only for the animals not humans and she walked off into the woods. What do you think happened next? Yes of course, Tempt followed the deer into the woods, making sure to stay out of slight by hiding behind trees and bushes. She walked for what seemed like days until finally she stumbled out into a clearing, the trees were dancing and singing just as the deer had described them and the pond was glittering and beckoning her to jump in. The day spent at the pond was one of Tempts happiest memories.

However one day, Tempt’s curiosity became the better of her. The sun was beginning to fall from the sky and (as usual) Tempt had completely lost track of time. She hurried along the customary path home but as the sun sank lower and lower, she began to realise that she wouldn’t make it back until after the last star had appeared in the sky. Tempt came to a fork in the road and stopped. The right path would lead her to be home well after dark, but the left path (she had been told) was a short cut. Not wanting to waste more time, Tempt chose the left path and began hurriedly walking along the narrow and rocky trail. Shortly after, Tempt realized that someone or something was following her and she called for the entity to come forth. An animal, the color of fire with beady black eyes and a long bushy tail slinked out of the trees beside her. “How do you do?” the animal said, “I am Fox”. Tempt was in awe at Fox’s exquisiteness as she had never seen such an animal before. “I am Tempt” she said “I am following this path home but I fear the darkness will catch up with me first”. The fox smiled and his pointy white teeth glistened by the light of the dying sun. “Follow me then, for I know of a way that humans do not, it will lead you home in no time” said the smiling fox.

Tempt agreed and followed the fox into the dark forest. “To pass the time, we should tell each other stories” said the fox. “I love stories” said Tempt, “my Elders have told me many!” The fox smiled again, this time in a different way than before, a more menacing smile. But Tempt did not recognize this and she began to tell the fox a story about the moon and the stars. “What a beautiful story you have told me” said the fox, “I have a story for you, although I do not know if I should even tell you because it is not a peaceful or happy story”. “I have never heard a story like that” said Tempt, she was curious and begged the fox to tell her. Finally, the fox agreed, “but you must never tell this story to anyone else” he warned.

The fox told Tempt a story filled with disease, blood, lies, murder, and death. These were all things that Tempt had never heard or seen before and she became silent with fear. The evil story wrapped itself around her and held its hands over her mouth so that she could barley breath. Suddenly, the narrow path that they had been walking on opened up into a meadow and Tempt could see her village. The fox turned around and walked away without as much as a good bye.

Tempt walked into her village. Her eyes were glazed over and her limbs shook as if she was a tree in the wind. The Elders lay her down on a mat, giving her water and food, but she did not speak or tell them what had happened in the forest.

Months passed and Tempt still did not speak, she lay on her mat and became weaker and weaker, the evil stories energy draining her of happiness and the will to live. One day, Tempt realized that she was dying and knew she must warn her village of the fox and the evil story. She called out and everyone came running to her side. “Tempt has spoken!” they rejoiced, “She has come back to us!” But Tempt shook her head sadly and was barely able to speak but she recalled her encounter with the fox and his story. Then suddenly, Tempt closed her eyes forever. The village people stood around looking at each other in disbelief. Disease, famine, hate, lies, death. What were these things? Then as quickly as evil had wrapped itself around Tempt, it began to infect each villager one by one until evil had entered every man women and child.

To this day, evil lives inside every one of us. It was carried by the fox’s story and feeds on the naivety and caution-less curiosity of human beings. We must be careful about the stories we tell and hear, once they escape our lips they can never be taken back.

Works Cited

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print

Leslie Marmon Silko Final. (2013). Youtube, May 17 2013. <http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=leslie+silko+youtube&qpvt=leslie+silko+youtube&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=8433E3456089404E97C68433E3456089404E97C6>

      This blog post is focused around the book If this is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? by J. Edward Chamberlin. More specifically, an answer to the question of how riddles and charms work. I will attempt to explain the idea of a ‘world of words’ and discuss how words are able to “make us feel closer to the world we live in” (1) but can also create confusion and distance.

The author Chamberlin claims that stories, and the desire to tell and listen, are at the center of human existence. They are our common ground as human beings. However, obstacles such as a lack of knowledge, the refusal to pay attention, and competition between ‘official’ titles become major problems where stories are concerned (Grace,114). Stories are responsible for ‘taking us into the world of words’ . This world of words that we live in today includes written texts, news broadcasts, conversations, story telling, text messages etc. Words are in everything and are involved in most communication used daily. Words can often bring us revelation; force us to rely on our imagination, tip everything we thought we knew up-side-down, and generate emotions of fear, love, passion, excitement etc. Words can be very powerful and control our opinions and actions (as seen here). They can also offer an imaginary escape, an excuse to let your mind run free, but they can also help us feel closer to our surroundings by forcing us to make connections to our own lives.

There is an importance in learning to listen more carefully and with greater acceptance of contradictions within phrases and words. As Chamberlin says in the beginning of If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories, “by the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of the world” (8). Using words and language we are then building shape and meaning with stories and songs, which themselves are built on the “arbitrariness of words and images” (8). In this world of words, at what point do we feel them bring us closer to the physical world that we live in and when can they make us feel as though we are ‘falling down the rabbit hole’, lost in the words themselves.

Riddles are essentially contradictions wrapped up in a bow and are common across many cultures. Riddles give us the experience of how to deal with believing and not believing what we hear/read. Reading riddles involves “recognizing that a word is not what it is, and yet it is” (160), and we are required to make sense of nonsense. This requirement forces our brains into overdrive as we analyse every word in the riddle and then attempt to connect them to our real world hoping to make sense of them. I think that words in general have this affect on us daily, whether we are reading an advertisement in a newspaper or listening to a talk show host on the radio, we interpret words and their meanings by connecting them with our own lives. For example, this was a riddle my grandma once told me: how can a pants pocket be empty and still have something in it? It can have a hole in it. At first you do not believe this is possible, but after thinking about the riddle some more I automatically imagine my own pants and their pockets, then imagin what I usually have in them and if they were completely empty. With no tangible ‘objects’ left inside them the logical and correct answer is that they ‘have’ a hole in them (although this may take some time to conclude). In this way, words can force us to connect on a more deeper level with our world around us by engaging our minds and imaginations .

Chamberlin also discusses charms, which ” collapse the distinction between imagination and reality” (175) and are everywhere (creeds, constitutions, family stories). Chamberlin spends time re-telling a “true” story his grandfather had told him when he was a little boy and then discusses the question of credit. It is a question of filters,  we are taught from an early age not to believe everything we hear, but does this then make it more confusing to filter out the truths and lies? and do we honestly care about this in some situations (like our mother telling us a bed-time story)? As Chamberlin says, “it is only through the pressure of our imagination that we can resist the pressure of reality” (192). So is this a way of connecting us to our physical world, or do charms actually disconnect us from reality?

I will leave you with a beautiful poem by William Wentworth, an Australian poet who eloquently describes the beauty and power of words. Please feel free to leave a comment with your interpretation of this poem!

Works Cited

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. AA.

Knopf. Toronto. 2003. Print.

Gardner, Andrea. (2010). “The power of Words” Web, 15 January 2015.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU>.

Grace, S. (2005). ‘If this is your land, where are your stories’? Finding common ground”. Canadian

          Literature, 184, 114-116. Web.

“William Charles Wentworth-Words.” Voices Compassion Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.

<http://voiceseducation.org/content/william-charles-wentworth-words>.

Hello! If you are reading this you have found my blog, Canadian literature studies. A place of observations, discoveries, comparisons, and hopefully some interesting pieces of writing! As for myself, my name is Leana and I am a 4th year English language major at UBC. When I’m not spending every waking moment studying or reading copious amount of course work, I like to practise yoga, dance ballet, and travel the world. I also spend time volunteering at the Britannia Homework club, assisting high school aged students with their reading and writing skills.

This blog is in response to the course English 470 Canadian Studies, instructed by Dr. Erika Paterson. We will be reading and analyzing historical Canadian literature  and assessing their impacts on Canadians. More specifically, we will focus on the similarities, differences, and intersections between Indigenous and European traditions of literature here in Canada. I am excited to read both types of literature, mostly because I have not read many Indigenous pieces of writing and am not accustomed to the style or popular stories. I hope to also weave in historical factors into my analysis of the readings because I believe that history is very important in understanding relationships in many literature works ( for example, the colonial relationships between Canadian First Nations and Europeans during the fur trade).

Canadian studies is a broad title that encompasses a multitude of things throughout Canada. For myself, this Canadian studies course should incorporate the historical relationships between Europeans and Indigenous peoples, a diverse range of Canadian people’s feelings and opinions over certain topics or issues throughout history, and the political/social reactions to select Canadian literary pieces.

Finally, I came across this blog by a man named Aaron all about Canadian literature and I thought I would share! Its easy to read, informative, and can even be helpful for those students pulling a all-nighter right before a Canadian literature exam! Check it out 🙂

My brother and I in front of the parliament buildings in Victoria, BC. Myself looking very patriotic in red pants and white top (not planned)

I am very excited to start this blogging journey and I welcome you all to say hi in the comment box below!