7. Describe how King uses the cyclical paradigm of the Medicine Wheel (and a little help from Coyote) to teach us to understand, or at least to try to understand the power behind the stories we tell ourselves.
The cycle that persists throughout the novel contains clues that force the reader to question what they already know about stories. The reader must be put in an uncomfortable situation to try to understand and also sometimes chuckle.
First, as a way to introduce the cyclical paradigm of the Medicine Wheel, it must be understood why it has significance in indigenous culture and in the novel. The wheel is used as a tool for teaching and healing. The connection between healing and learning are at the utmost significance. The cycle from young to old and old to young is what keeps indigenous communities alive. Elders teach the youth through stories and living on the land. The youth will eventually take care of their elders in old age and will pass down the elders teachings to their own children and grandchildren. With the four seasons, the four elements, the four states of being and the four directions there is a commonality to the cycle that cannot be ignored when trying to decipher Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.
What are the stories that we tell ourselves and our children? Before diving into King’s stories, I would like to remember the stories that we have been told of creation. Many of us have grown up in a Judeo-Christian home, some of us have gone to church on Sunday and attended catholic school. The stories that we tell ourselves and our children at a young age like Wab Kinew to his son are what shape our imagination or beliefs. The stories in Green Grass Running Water are similar to what we’ve already heard, or are they?
Focusing on the four women from the novel with influences from the Coyote. When we first meet First Women, she falls from the sky. It is a similar story to the one that King told in the past. This story has it’s variations though. This first story on how the world was created is told through a humorous yet critical lense. “That would be nice, says First Woman, and all sorts of good things to eat fall out of that Tree. Apples fall out. Melons fall out. Bananas fall out. Hot dogs. Fry bread, corn, potatoes. Pizza. Extra-crispy fried chicken” (40). The story is clearly a melting of the turtle story with Adam and Eve. Ahdamn is a play on Adam who acts as an ignorant side kick to First Woman. Ahdamn also applies 21st century objects names to the first animals as a way to bridge the absurdity of the two stories. Satire is an engaging tool to capture the imagination when expectations include
The cyclical nature of the story is to begin with First Woman who is then transformed to Changing Woman. Changing Woman is faced with sexual experiences and the story of Moby-Dick.
Thought Woman is the third iteration of the cyclical paradigm. Thought Woman is faced with challenges of a world that is set up to discriminate her in a Judeo-Christian world. Old Woman becomes the fourth that paves way for First Woman in water. Old Woman graciously assists in the creation story that is set up to oppress her. The Women represent the cycle of the story. However the story is never the same, as there is never a singular truth or reality.
Coyote is yet to be included in this discussion but plays an important role. Coyote is on the outside looking at the story with an innocent and ignorant view. Unsure of the reality of what is happening in front of him. Their constant communication with the narrator contains the readers point of view. That point of view expects that the reader is not only familiar with the bible but expects the bible as THE source of creation. The coyote is so entrenched with Judeo-Christian that he is unable to sense the cyclical nature of the Old Woman falling into the hole, falling through the sky and into the water. The expectation is the “Christian rules”. Coyote offers much in the way of how we understand and question these stories. There is humour that exists within the stories on the page and how they are spoken orally, but they exist to put a mirror up to the stories we tell ourselves.
When looking at these first stories, I am honestly unsure if King is trying to use humour to highlight the differences, or use these stories as a way to bridge the understanding to a wider audience in order to make a “difference”. Why are we only able to read these stories when they are modified to be understood by a white demography. Do we as whites expect the rules to be changed for us? “I’m angry that I live in a country where, still, no one listens until a white man says it.” The article by Candy Palmater asks us why we need a white male to allow ourselves to to become engaged. In the context of this novel, do we as Canadians need satire to engage in discussion. Candy Palmater suggests that we need to face hard truths that make us feel uncomfortable.
Works Cited.
Janssens, Nolan. The Affect of a Fractured Cyclical Structure 3:5 ENGL 470 99C Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres.UBC Blogs
Kinew. Wab. Between my father and son (with apologies to Ta-Nehisi Coates). Opinion. Toronto Star. July 1st 2018.
Patterson, Erika. Lesson 3:2 ENGL 470 99C Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. UBC Blogs.
Palmater, Candy. Gord Downie championed Indigenous rights. But did he make a difference?. Chatelaine. Macleans. December 4, 2017.
hi Maxwell
Really interesting post. Your take on the novel have really left me thinking deeply about the role of Coyote in the story. I never thought of Coote representing the ignorant (non-Indigenous) readership. However, I am not sure I agree with you that the Indigenous stories are being modified for Western minds to comprehend. I think King is doing the opposite. Coyote might be humourous but he is also the catalyst for transformation and it is the Biblical story of Eden is being transformed or retold , albeit through the guise of innocent foolishness. King , in my eyes, is allowing us to have a conversation with the story rather than see it as an inflexible, monolithic statue. I believe that rather than bringing down Indigenous stories to Western (“White man”) standards, King is trying to dismantle the walls holding us captive within the Garden of Eden, to enter a much larger and ever-evolving story.
Hi Laen
Thank you for your comment.
I think you are right with your comment and it has made me look back at the sections with that point of view. The Coyote as a character is definitely one that is open to interpretation. It is considered to be a trickster, a hero and a healer. In this case the coyote is a story teller. The narrator asks coyote to tell the story of the cyclical nature of the four women. The coyote knows how it goes but tries to inject humour, fried chicken and garage sales into the narrative. Why does Coyote do this? Well it could be that coyote likes the role of class clown, or it could be that he wants to be part of the transformative aspect of the story. When we play broken telephone “mad elephants ate the bananas” becomes ” sad infants hate pyjamas”. The more these stories are told the more creative licences are taken. Maybe coyote wants to have a role in that. Like you said King wants to tear down the walls that are the Garden of Eden story. I guess you are right because there is no better place to tear down the wall than inside the story itself.
Hi Maxwell-
Thanks for your post!
I too disagree that this story is told for a white audience and I also wonder, to what extent, King tells these stories to make a difference. I think he sees storytelling as a form of truth-telling, but also as a playful and mischievous act. I’m not convinced that King sees himself as an agent of political change…. though his book the Inconvenient Indian is an excellent primer on Indigenous and non-Indig relationships, Indigenous portrayals in media, in which he also talks more about his own role and feelings towards activism. And, as a writing instructor, there’s potential to do beautiful work raising up other people’s voices and stories. At the same time— he constantly interrupts Western narrative expectations through his text and centres the complex lives of countless Indigenous characters who are diverse, dynamic, and far from the tropes that media leads us to believe are true representations of Indigenous people.
Anyways, it’s been interesting reading your reflections on the novel. My takeaways differed.
Having not been gifted teachings of the medicine wheel from an elder, I questioned the fact that we were even being asked to use it’s framework as a tool to assess the text. What made you choose this question? Where is your familiarity with the medicine wheel grounded?
Thanks for your time!
Georgia
Hello Georgia
Thank you for your comment.
It is clear that my analysis was way off on this question, however it is what I interpreted.
In the terms of your question, I was drawn to the story of the coyote and the four women. The role the coyote played and the cyclical nature of how she fell from the sky and evently fell from the sky again. I do not have familiarity with the medicine wheel as you implied and instead tried to interpret the question from my own white western point of view.
Hi Maxwell,
Thanks for this post. I agree with Laen and Georgia in that I don’t think King wrote for a specifically white audience. I do think his playful interpolation between Indigenous and Judeo-Christian Creation stories concedes to a cultural imbalance in terms of familiarity and ideological power in the latter, but I also think his satire of Judeo-Christian traditions is meant to urge readers to re-examine the foundational seminal stories they’ve been told regardless of spiritual tradition – as Laen’s suggested, to make storytelling a collaborative, perennially evolving art form, rather than a monolithic document.
I’d agree with your latter point that I think a lot of Coyote’s humour comes from feigning ignorance in the details of the Judeo-Christian Creation stories rather than actually being ignorant – the character’s trickster status allows him more licence to play around with the particulars of the story. For Coyote, humour is always employed in tandem with change and paradigm shifts – drawing attention to problematic aspects in the Biblical narrative through clownish embellishment, but also reworking the power dynamic into privileging the Indigenous Creation stories in the same way that Coyote ‘fixes’ old Westerns, resulting in John Wayne being killed rather than the Indigenous adversaries he normally infallibly shoots down.
You ask at the end if Canadians require satire to incentivize change, and it’s a very fair question. I think it’s also one that King directly addresses in the novel’s postscript interview (in my copy anyway; I’m not sure if it’s included in all printings of the novel). In the interview, King stipulates that “Satire is sharp. It is supposed to hurt; it is never supposed to make you feel comfortable. I hope that when readers laugh, deep in their hearts they are uncomfortable, uneasy, and looking over their shoulder, watching.” I think in King’s writing – much the same as in Coyote’s machinations – humour is used as a means of making sociopolitical commentary more accessible, and more approachable for a wider audience, but I don’t think it cheapens or softens the political resonance of the work in any way.
Finally, in terms of your invocation of the Gord Downie Macleans article and well-meaning but clumsy methods of trying to bridge the gap between Indigenous and Eurocentric cultural traditions, I think King himself has the best soundbite in terms of how, as a white audience member, to be the best kind of Indigenous ally: rather than trying to forcibly repurpose Indigenous narratives with Western inferences, and ultimately contributing to the cultural conversation in a well-intentioned but ultimately harmful way, it’s often best to, in King’s words, “Get out of our way.”
Thanks for a stimulating read and conversation!
Hello. You mentioned in your comment that you do not believe that the novel was written for a white audience. Then you say that it is meant to “urge readers to re-examine the foundational seminal stories that they’ve been told”. If the novel is not for a white audience then who is it for? Who is the intended audience? The Collaborative aspect of your comment lends to the belief that King wants a white audience to challenge their beliefs.