Pages 149-160

In these pages we start with a story of Alberta’s father, Amos, working with the tribal police dealing with a lost car. Included in this section, we follow Alberta having lost her car and Connie driving her to the Dead Dog Cafe. The story then moves on to Dr. Hovaugh and Babo eating breakfast at the Dead Dog discussing their pasts and the plans for the day and then discovering that Dr. Hovaugh’s car is missing from the parking lot. Then we move to Lionel, Charlie, Bill, Eli, The Four Indians and Coyote in Bursum’s store encountering Bursum’s TV installation and noticing a change in their favourite Western film. Finally, this section ends with Thought Woman floating around making lists and ending up detained at Fort Marion in Florida. These pages, like most of King’s novel are packed with allusions and connections. I will investigate a few of them in the following paragraphs.

149-153 

This section opens on Amos Frank, Alberta’s father and a story of his time in the tribal police force. Amos is biblical character, a prophet who fought for justice and denounced the religious hypocrisy and idolatry that ignored and mistreated poor people of Israel. It is fitting that he plays the role of a tribal police officer in King’s novel. In The Book of Amos, a compilation of Amos’ messages, poems and visions, he declares, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” This water imagery fits beautifully into King’s story. 

Amos gets caught up in the disappearance of his friend Milford’s truck which is eventually found on the lot of a car dealership ready to be sold. This story gives a nudge to land claims and theft of Indigenous artifacts and remains, with Milford’s property being stolen and sold by someone else, and Milford being the one who ends up in jail after trying to take back his property. 

In this section we also see a common Indigenous stereotype play out. Peterson, the owner of the dealership, explains that probably the reason that Milford’s truck was brought in and sold and his name was misspelled on the bill of sale, was because he needed money and he was drunk. Amos explains that Milford doesn’t drink and Peterson replies, “so you say.” This stereotype of Indigenous people as drunks is still extremely prevalent in Canada. A recent example is demonstrated in the aftermath of the murder of Colten Boushie in 2016. When Boushie’s mother was told of his death by police, she fell to the floor and was told by police to ‘get it together’ and asked if she had been drinking. 

153-155

Dr. Hovaugh and Babo eat breakfast and discuss the day. Dr. Joe Hovaugh is an allusion to Jehovah which I covered in my previous blog post. At breakfast Hovaugh is unnerved by the Canadian landscape describing it in ways very similar to Moodie and Frye. Babo is a very interesting character within King’s story. Flick points out that Babo is a character in Herman Melville’s story Benito Cereno, who leads a slave revolt while ensuring the captain that everything is fine and normal (145). Babo in King’s story is not overly concerned with finding The Four Indians and it becomes clear that she knows them very well and is likely aligned with them. In another allusion to the Melville story, Babo explains that her great-great-grandfather was a barber on a ship and suggests that Dr. Hovaugh allows her to give him a proper shave some day with a straight razor. In Benito Cereno the character Babo gives Captain Cereno a shave and cuts his cheek in a climactic moment where Cereno’s life is literally in Babo’s hands. For King’s Babo to suggest a shave is a sneaky hint toward who has the power in this relationship. 

Babos suggests she and Dr. Hovaugh do some sightseeing to the Grand Baleen Dam, Parliament Lake and the reserve. The Grand Baleen Dam references The Grande Baleine Dam. This massive hydroelectric dam was part of the James Bay Project constructed in Quebec in 1971. The dam includes eight generating stations that provide pollution-free power. The project diverted nine waterways and flooded 11,500 km2 – approximately the area of much of the lower mainland: Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Richmond, Delta, Tsawwassen, Surrey, Burnaby, Port Moody, Pitt Meadows, New Westminster, White Rock, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Hope, Squamish and Whistler.

Area calculated using mapdevelopers.com

Flick suggests that the name Parliament Lake may come from a connection to Elijah Harper and the Meech Lake Accord. The Meech Lake Accord took place in 1990 where Elijah Harper, an Indigenous member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, was the only member to vote against the accord. The accord was a set of constitutional amendments granting more legislative control to provinces, and recognizing Quebec as a distinct society. The accord did not consult with Indigenous nations or include them in the amendments. Flick states that “Just as Elijah Harper blocked the Meech Lake Accord, so Eli blocks development of the dam” (151). Choosing to call it Parliament Lake points to colonial legislation over Indigenous land. 

In final line of this section we have Babo watching Dr. Hovaugh as he stands in the rain realizing his car has gone missing. Babo cocks her head and declares “Now isn’t that the trick.” Throughout the novel I noticed that Babo exhibits coyote-like traits. She seems to have a connection to – or be a version of – Coyote. She is written as having a number of canine-like traits, including this cocking her head to the side and scratching (see page 139). Babo, like the Babo of Melville’s story, is also somewhat tricky like Coyote and often marvels at the tricks occurring in this story. 

155-159

In this section we have Eli, Charlie, Lionel and Bill Bursum in Bursum’s store along with the Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, Hawkeye and Coyote. According to Flick, Bill Bursum is an amalgamation of Holm Busum and Buffalo Bill (148). Holm Bursum was a New Mexico senator who introduced the Bursum Bill in 1921 that appropriated Pueblo Indian land to non-native people if they could prove residency for over ten years. Buffalo Bill refers to William F. Cody who created Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show a travelling vaudevillian show that featured Indigenous people in exploitative roles for entertainment. These two people combine to bring us Bill Bursum, a lover of the Western Film genre and a casual racist.

The Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe and Hawkeye are all literary figures. All four of these characters have racialized counterparts who fulfill the stereotypical role of faithful savage companion. The Lone Ranger, a masked do-gooder character in books, television and radio had a Native American friend named Tonto. Ishmael from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was good friends with Queequeg, a Polynesian harpoonist and cannibal. Check out this interview with Jonathan Lemalu who played Queequeg in the San Francisco Opera version of Moby Dick in 2012 and this scene from the 1956 Moby Dick film where Queequeg is played by Austo-Hungarian actor Friedrich von Ledebur. Robinson Crusoe of Daniel Defoe’s novel published in 1719 continues this theme of noble savage redeemed by white men by rescuing and befriending a native cannibal who he calls Friday. Finally, Hawkeye (also known as Natty Bumpoo) is a character from James Fenimore Cooper’s novels, The Leatherstocking Tales. Hawkeye has a companion named Chingachgook, a Mohican chief, who he converts to Christianity and who helps him on many of his adventures. It is an interesting choice King has made to have these Four Indians named after the white hero characters, as opposed to their Black and Indigenous sidekicks. It seem to me that this is both part of the playful mixing and swapping of roles that we see throughout the novel and also a powerful taking back of the hero titles.

159-160

In the final page of this chapter we read of Thought Woman and Coyote. Thought Woman is a figure from Navajo mythology, according to Flick (159). This figure also appears as Spider Grandmother in Hopi mythology and in Pueblo stories by the name Tse-che-nako. Thought Woman makes the world by thinking of things and thus creating them. This character is featured in Leslie Mormon Silko’s novel Ceremony. Here are a few lines from the novel, taken from an article by Suzanne M. Austgen.

Ts’ its’ tsi’ nako, Thought-Woman,
is sitting in her room
and what ever she thinks about
appears.
She thought of her sisters,
Nau’ ts’ ity’ i and I’ tcs’ i,
and together they created the Universe
this world
and the four worlds below.

Works Cited

Austgen, Suzanne M.. “Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and the Effects of White Contact on Pueblo Myth and Ritual” Hanover Historical Review, vol. 1, 1993, https://history.hanover.edu/hhr/hhr93_2.html. Accessed March 26, 2021.

“Elijah Harper’s Vote of Protest.” CBC News, 1990, https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1751911434. Accessed March 26, 2021.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature, vol. 161/162, 1999, https://canlit.ca/article/reading-notes-for-thomas-kings-green-grass-running-water/. Accessed March 26, 2021.

Higgins, Jenny. “Meech Lake.” Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador, 2012, https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/wells-government-meech.php. Accessed March 26, 2021.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto, Harper Collins, 1993.

Legros, Christine. “Benito Cereno Characters: Babo.” LitCharts, 24 Jun 2019. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/benito-cereno/characters/babo. Accessed March 26, 2021.

Marsh, James H.. “James Bay Project.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, March 4, 2015, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/james-bay-project. Accessed March 26, 2021.

Mlotek, Blair. “The Push to Bring Home Indigenous Artifacts.” The Walrus, May 21, 2020, https://thewalrus.ca/the-push-to-bring-home-indigenous-artefacts/. Accessed March 26, 2021.

“Moby Dick – A Bosom Friend.” Youtube, Uploaded by Seb Moura, March 9, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZSjiNy110. Accessed March 26, 2021.

“Moby-Dick Interview Queequeg: Jonathan Lemalu.” Youtube, Uploaded by San Francisco Opera, October 9, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPX3v3xCM_E. Accessed March 26, 2021.

“Overview: Amos.” Youtube, Uploaded by BibleProject, May 7, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGgWaPGpGz4, Accessed March 26, 2021.

“Returning Indigenous Artifacts Part of Reconciliation but Still a Struggle.” APTN National News, March 13, 2019, https://www.aptnnews.ca/infocus/returning-indigenous-remains-and-artifacts-necessary-to-reconciliation-yet-still-a-struggle/. Accessed March 26, 2021.

Soliz, Sarah. “Pueblo Activists and Allies against the Bursum Bill of 1921.” School for Advanced Research, August 22, 2019, https://sarweb.org/pueblo-activists-and-allies-against-the-bursum-bill-of-1921/. Accessed March 26, 2021.

“Spider Grandmother.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, March 17, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Grandmother#cite_note-12. Accessed March 26. 2021.

“‘We’re Tired of Waiting’: Colten Boushie’s Mother says RCMP, Justice System Need to Change.” APTN National News, March 22, 2021. https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/were-tired-of-waiting-colten-boushies-mother-says-rcmp-justice-system-need-to-change/. Accessed March 26, 2021.