Assignment 2.4
Feb. 22, 2021
Hello reader!
Welcome back to my blog! For today’s entry, I will be analyzing why King creates dichotomies between the two creation stories. The two stories being “The Earth Diver” and the “Genesis” story. When I first read these stories I naturally gravitated to the one which represented a more collaborative and holistic approach to the creation of the world. The reason for this is not only because of my upbringing but also because I believe that the creation of the world is more fluid and not as authoritative as you see in “Genesis”. “Genesis” for me represents rigidity and the difference between right and wrong. In this story, there is no room for originality and does not allow room for interpretation. So then this begs the question of why does King put two drastically different stories together and what does he want us to get from it?
I believe one reason why he emphasizes the believability of one story over the other is that throughout Canadian history people were taught to believe the westernized one over the traditional. This happened through assimilation processes such as the Indian Residential School System (IRSS), reserve system, the potlatch ban and the churches. While these processes were developing colonizers were more inclined to follow what they knew, which created a very distinct us versus them dichotomy. One of these processes, the IRSS in particular, was in place until the last one closed in 1996. A whopping 100 years or so after the first one opened. Seeing that the IRSS system has such a legacy, it will take my generations until Indigenous people and Canada heal from the wounds that the Canadian government inflicted. While Canada is healing there is the loss of culture and traditions happening in Indigenous communities. The loss is not only detrimental on a personal level but also dictates their own autonomy and their credibility as determined by the Canadian government. Therefore, King’s emphasis on “Genesis” being more believable is most likely based on the predetermined assumption that western creation stories are more historically correct. Not because it is fact, but what was learned to be the most believable.
So with this being said, I believe the reason why King made emphasis on the believability between the two creation stories and had them as oppositions running parallel to one another is that at the bottom of this argument, one is not more credible than the other, it is based off whose story stuck at the very beginning with the first stories.
Works Cited
“Children of God”.UrbanInk.ca. https://urbanink.ca/children-of-god/#:~:text=Children%20of%20God%20is%20a,she%20came%2C%20pushes%20toward%20redemption. Accessed 22, 2021.
Monkman, Lenard. “Historical ban on Potlatch ceremony has lingering effects for Indigenous women, author says”. CBC. Accessed 22 February 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/historical-ban-spirituality-felt-indigenous-women-today-1.4036528
I was raised in a house where we never attached to religion. My dad was raised Christian and my mum was raised Jewish, so naturally our household was both areligious and semi-religious at the same time. I feel like this has had some impact on the way that I hear these kinds of stories, because I was also drawn more to the collaborative and holistic of the two. Part of this may be that these two parents of mine were also teachers, and so collaboration and cooperation were a big part of my upbringing.
But despite this predilection, it is difficult to say whether this was actually a preference or whether I was just drawn to something novel, and exciting. After all, despite the fact that I was raised in this particular family, I was also raised in a community and a surrounding country that was heavily influenced by white supremacy and the suppression of indigenous voices. I was already very familiar with Genesis, with its stories seeped into every crevice of our culture; but I wasn’t familiar at all with the Earth Diver story. I had compared it in an earlier draft of my own post to ‘a story from Greek Myths wrapped in a story by Louis Carroll.’ Maybe I was drawn to it as an additional affect of this white supremacy, and not despite it, since the only reason it felt novel to me was because the society I grew up in had kept it away from me for so long.
Question:
You say (I’m paraphrasing, so correct me if I am mistaken) that you believe that the reason why King made emphasis on the believability between the two creation stories and then compared the two is because one has been indoctrinated into us as the more familiar and universal story. I’m curious why he would have made this comparison in such a linear way. After all, Genesis is a story that talks about the Hierarchy of the universe, and Charm is a story that talks about the fundamental cooperation of the world. Do you feel that there is something contradictory or intentional or ironic about putting these two stories back to back as he did as if they are in competition?
Hi Zac,
Thank you for the response and I enjoyed your insight to how you were raised! However, to answer your question I do feel like there is a big difference between both Genesis and the Earth Diver story. So I find it hard to think of them together. WIth this being said, I think that he did put them together in a purposeful manner, though I am not entirely sure why yet. The reason why I am not sure is because though I prefer the Earth Diver story and the message of cooperation, I recognize the importance of having hierarchy in creation stories.
Lenaya