The novel Green Grass, Running Water is a unique type of literature, one that I have never encountered. Its introduction of the rich cultural knowledge of the First Nations is both a new reading experience and a journey of learning right through. After reading the lesson,I realized that reading this work out loud would result in a richer and better grasp of many of the concepts that Thomas King was trying to impart on his readers. Here are three of the allusions that stood out especially when read aloud:
-1- First Woman and Ahdamn
First Woman herself is in reference to the first state of life: birth. But a few paragraphs later we are introduced to Ahdamn. When reading it aloud, readers suddenly hear ‘Adam’ as they read the name and the allusion falls into place.
This is a reference back to the Christian European creation story in Genesis…that of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. She comes from Sky Worl…which alludes to Heaven. But unlike that story, this one has done some significant things to the characters. The female is the one who came first, and Adam just appears later on…not Adam was created and then Eve. There is Sky World…but the other world is the First Nations story of Earth: a land of water where land is formed when the animals pack mud around Turtle’s shell. Also, it is not through the First Woman’s fault that she ends on land; rather this is a blameless story. Ahdamn makes fumbling mistakes in the naming of stuff and First Woman is trying to fix things and ends up falling out of the sky.
It is an unwillingness of god’s part to share, not a temptation by her, that triggers the exit from the Sky World. And most importantly, they leave of heir own free will because of the “Christian rules” and are not kicked out.
-2- “Eli Stand Alone”
In his willingness to be the sole opposition to the damn, Eli is a striking figure. He is an allusion to the equally memorable Elijah Harper, the Manitoba MLA and the only Aboriginal member who stood alone and opposed the Meech Lake Accord with an eagle feather in his hand. The Accord had been negotiated without Aboriginal input and so this one man was able to stop the constitutional reforms. King uses the name to overtly carry these references, but even in his actions, Eli projects the image of the man who is not afraid to stand alone against what he sees as an injustice.
-3- S. Moodie…aka Sue
This is a direct allusion to Susanna Moodie, a woman who became the embodiment of the frontier woman. I found it quite interesting that her mention in King’s work comes amidst the great debate about where Canada, America, and Europe intersect and where they diverge to create unique stories. Susanna Moodie was seen as doing this for Canada in her novel, Roughing it in the Bush…she marked the point where literature moved from being by British about life in a land called Canada to being by Canadians about home.
These are just some examples of the many allusion that Thomas King used…in fact just about every character name is a reinvention of some historical figure connected in some way to the story of the First Nations and other indigenous peoples. If readers approach this novel as any other book, the names will just be character names with no meaning beyond what’s on the pages. But for those who choose to read it out loud, they are given a second level of meanings, a richness obscured to those who did not choose orality as their medium.
I think this is deliberate on King’s part…the indigenous literary culture tells and shares its stories orally. He wants his readers to experience his stories in the oral form, to benefit from what this type of literacy offers. Orality as literacy…not the eurocentric view of orality as a step before literacy. It is a way that allows stories to adapt, to absorb the context, to always be relevant to the audience. And this is what King does. He takes elements from older stories and weaves them into newer stories, giving his story both the richness of the plot he is creating as well as that of the original stories they were taken from.
I think of it as a way of hyperlinking a story…of having one story act as a gateway and a medium to many other stories.
Work Cited
Hanson, Erin. “Oral Traditions.” Indigenous Foundations. First Nations
Studies Program at UBC. N.d. Web. Accessed on 21 March, 2016
“Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper votes against Meech Lake Accord.” The
National. CBC Digital Archives. 12 June, 1990. Web. Accessed on 21
March, 2016
Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush. Ebook: Project Gutenburg.
(2003). Web. Accessed on 21 March, 2016
Hi Maryam,
I really enjoyed your blog post this week! It was helpful to me to better understand some of King’s allusions better. You explained the allusions of the three characters you chose quite well and I agree with you that King uses orality in his literature to help explore native storytelling traditions.
I was particularly interested in your idea that King is essentially hyperlinking stories. He is “having one story act as a gateway and a medium to many other stories”. This is such an interesting concept and such a great way to articulate how in this novel everything is connected. Do you think that having both orality as a part of literacy is related to the Medicine Wheel theme that we see everywhere in this novel? The Medicine Wheel shows everything is interconnected and cyclical and maybe orality and literacy are more connected than Western society believes.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this idea! 🙂
Nicole
Hi Nicole! While I did not think of this in connection to the Medicine Wheel, thank you for mentioning it. I do think that orality and literacy are much more connected than Western society believes. It may be due to the eurocentric idea orality is a step before literacy, a belief that played into the tale of superiority and helped justify the colonization and ‘civilization’ of what was considered a more primitive and backward people. The First Nations people, and many other oral cultures, transmitted more stories to a wider circle of people through this type of literacy. Long before the printing press came along, powwows and potlachs allowed the transmission of all types of knowledge (history, justice, social, etc) to people of all parts of society…not just the leaders/elders or other influential peoples.
Hey Maryam!
I loved your discussion today about “orality as literacy.” Your final line (which is predicting our next blog assignment!) about hyperlinking narratives and positioning stories as gateways to a wealth of other stories, cultural contexts and themes.
Reading aloud really did peel off another layer—or even layers!—from the narrative. The reimagining of these historical figures not only conjured up the political, cultural and thematic aspects of their biographies, but also coloured them with new hues within the new context of King’s written narrative. To me, this was a lovely and animated experience. This is a literature that listens, speaks and lives.
I was wondering what you thought of “Ahdamn?” The name seems to be a pun, bringing the phrase “ah, damn” together into a name. Damn has a Christian meaning of being condemned to hell, but the interjection of “ah” makes the phrase colloquial. There’s layers to this pun, I believe. Why do you think King did this?
Thanks for the entry!
Hi Brendan. I like the way you described oral literature…as one “that listens, speaks, and lives”!
The pun on Ahdamn is one I never thought too much about until you mentioned it. But yeah, it definitely seems to be a purposeful word play. Bea left another comment below where she said that “King is being a little facetious here by suggesting that first man was a mistake too. As the narrator says, “I don’t know where he comes from. Things like that happen, you know ”
But even beyond this, I think King is intentionally trying to nuance the Genesis creation story for readers. I think he wants them to question the authority of this story…to ask themselves if maybe there is an alternative, if maybe the version they have is not the one and only. He is trying to bring the indigenous story and the Genesis story to the same level of the playing field as equals…believed and not at the same time.
Hi Maryam!
I’m so glad you also did the allusion question as well! I liked the allusions you picked as they weren’t the ones that were as obvious to me when reading King’s novel. My favourite one that you picked was the one alluding to Susanna Moodie. She was a strong female character who embodied a leadership role. I like how you described reading aloud as a second body of richness with a deeper meaning – I very much agree with that. Some of these allusions weren’t as obvious to me, and I’m wondering if reading aloud really can help to decipher the allusions? If I read “Moodie” aloud, I’m not sure I would have automatically thought of Susanna Moodie, how do you think we could use other techniques to help us decipher allusions?
– Courtney
Hi Courtney! That was something I really likes about this assignment…reading other students’ posts who did the allusions question and seeing the ones they did. I also found that some never occurred to me…especially those with popular culture or movie references. I think reading aloud does make the reader slightly more aware of the characters and slows down the pace a bit, allowing them to visualize he story. But I also thing that the oral experience does more than that…a group of listeners allows for a shared experience of the story where many people are interacting including the storyteller and where the many listeners can also share/pool their knowledge to the benefit of all.
Bea’s [Beatrice Lew] comment: “Hi Maryam
Thanks for such an elucidating post! Eli Stand Alone is one of my favourite characters in the story, and your research helped me appreciate him all the more. I especially liked your point about “orality as literacy”—that it “allows stories to adapt… to always be relevant to the audience.” When I first read Ahdamn aloud, it sounded a lot like “Ah damn!” which is something we tend to say when we make mistakes (Ahdamn makes a lot of those when he tries to name the animals). It also seems to me that King is being a little facetious here by suggesting that first man was a mistake too. As the narrator says, “I don’t know where he comes from. Things like that happen, you know (40).” Thanks again, Bea”
Hi Bea! Thanks for an amazing comment. I didn’t notice how Ahdamn the name correlated to the way King was setting him up as a mistake…thanks for pointing that out! It does add nuance to the story to consider what this intentional action could have been trying to accomplish.
And yeah, Eli was really a figure for me both as a character in the book. And when I realized the allusion, it was even more captivating to see the correlations between King’s character and the real man!