I chose a random point in the novel (pages 208-219) and attempted to find allusions and references to hyperlink. King’s intention is not for the reader to recognize every allusion, but to pursue their curiosity beyond the text. It is very much a text made for hyperlinking.

When Charlie and his father visit C.B. in the novel, he mentions that “maybe Remmington’s is hiring.” This appears to be an allusion to Frederic Remington. He was an artist who focused on old west imagery, specifically that of cowboys and Indians. He depicted scenes of conflict like Wounded Knee with sympathy towards his fellow white men. Remington’s work romanticizes and glorifies the cowboy and the “wild west.” Portland balks at the idea of working at the fictional Remmington’s.

C.B. mentions that Remmington’s “is better than Four Corners” (King, 208). Four Corners is a geographical reference. It is the region where southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico meet and is a mostly Native American area.

Both of these workplaces are presented as bad options in the novel. Is it because they represent the white understanding of “Indian” life? When Portland eventually takes a job at Four Corners is he selling out his identity in order to perform “Indian-ness” for a white audience?

The allusion to Four Corners made me realize how often the number four is repeated through the novel. Alberta’s fourth option for pregnancy is artificial insemination (King, 175) and lesson 3.2 introduce us to the concept of the medicine wheel with its four direction and colours. There are four old Indians and four creation stories that correspond with four main characters. Each story is interconnected like the wheel.

On page 215, George comes into Latisha’s restaurant wearing a “fringed leather jacket.” It reminded me of the “Indian jackets” that were especially popular in the 1970s among non-Indigenous people. The Wikipedia page for buckskin jackets has a subsection listing “famous wearers” from Buffalo Bill to Davy Crockett to George Armstrong Custer. Custer is mentioned earlier in the novel, in a painting at the hotel where Lionel had stayed. I thought it was interesting that George, a white man, wore something that put him in comparison with a man like Custer- and then I realized that Custer’s first name was, in fact, George.

On page 219, Changing Woman meets Ahab, an obvious reference to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick character. Changing woman takes the name Queequeg, another character in the novel. Queequeg was written as a dark-skinned, savage cannibal. King subverts the traditional white, male story here with the introduction of “Moby-Jane, the Great Black Whale” (King, 221).

Works Cited

I didn’t realize that many of the names in Green Grass Running Water were allusions or play-on-words until I was considerably well into the novel. At some point my eyes glossed over “Hovaugh” on the page, my brain connected it with Joe, and I smacked my hand against my forehead for messing the reference. Joe Hovaugh. Jehovah.

Of course, if this was a story told out loud I would have gotten the reference straight away. Thomas King blends oral and written storytelling in a way that requires some extra effort on the part of the reader to find every hidden detail.

I used the search function on my Kindle to scroll back through the novel and find all references of Mr. Hovaugh. I found this paragraph, from when we first meet the character:

“Dr. Hovaugh sat in his chair behind his desk and looked out at the wall and the trees and the flowers and the swans on the blue-green pond in the garden, and he was pleased.” (King, 13).

Genesis 1:4-14. God was pleased with what he saw.

King uses historical and religious references for many of his characters. Off the top of my head I count Hovaugh, Eli Stands Alone, and Bill Bursom and Clifford Sifton. There are many more, but I will focus on these characters.

I’ll admit I had to do some Googling to understand the reference to Eli Stands Alone. King appears to be referencing Elijah Harper, who played an instrumental role in rejecting the Meech Lake Accord. Eli stands up, and alone, against greater powers in the novel who wish to build a dam near his home.

Eli is up against Clifford Sifton. The real life Sifton was a politician whose “pro-immigration policies for white Europeans through the ‘Prairie West’ movement also came at an enormous expense to First Nations peoples, who were displaced in large numbers.”

The real life Bill Bursum was a proponent of the Bursum Bill, which threatened the land of the Pueblo people.

Unless you happen to be a reader well-versed in First Nations history or perhaps a biblical scholar, many of these references will pass you by. Some, like Hovaugh, might be realized if you read out loud, combining orality with traditional reading.

Why does King include these references and allusions? I think his intent here is to get readers to think for themselves and to seek out knowledge. King allows curious readers to make connections and find the answers.

Works Cited