“Oh NO says Coyote … The Pinto was sitting in a low depression …” (122-130)

Green Grass Running Water is a novel full of allusions, the following are allusions I have researched from pages 122 to 130.

Noah and Changing Woman

Changing Woman encounters Noah’s ark, or “big canoe” (King) in this case, and is determined not to land in all of the “poop” (King) created by the myriad animals on board. The Noah we encounter appears savage, unlike any of the Islamic, Biblical, or literary references I have encountered before. According to Flick the words “big canoe” are a mockery of ” missionary adaptations of biblical stories for Indians” (Flick 152).

Noah, in this narrative, equates talking to animals to “bestiality” and wants Changing Woman to show him her breasts. Noah’s admonishments to Changing Woman regarding her talking to animals appears to be symbolic of colonizers who attempt to convert people as well: Noah keeps using the argument of “Christian rules” when speaking with Changing Woman. King uses this Biblical reference and shows Noah as a man who assumes that since Changing Woman fell from the sky she must be a “gift from heaven” (King) and proceeds to treat her like property he has no right over – perhaps this allusion is a reference to the fact that when white settlers landed in North America they chose to just take or presume that all land they had landed they had in fact conquered and therefore it belonged to them: even though the land had people living them from before and clearly belonged to someone else.

According to Laura E. Donaldson this use of the Noah story is also a

” kind of poetic justice, since early Euramerican accounts positioned Native Americans as descendants of Noah’s disgraced and exiled son, Ham. For the seventeenth-century Puritans, such a paternal heritage allowed them to ask whether the Indian “was not perhaps the farthest of all God’s human creatures from God Himself? Descended from wander ers, had he not lost his sense of civilization and law and order? Had he not lost, except for a dim recollection, God Himself?” (Pearce 25). ”  (Donaldson, 29)

Thus using this as a backdrop for the Noah story in this novel it is evident that the tables are being turned on him. Donaldson also references the idea of the Christian belief that “women bear primary responsibility for the Fall.” (Donaldson, 34).

The Pinto

Image Credit: Colorado Pinto

As Charlie arrives in Blossom he rents a car and ends up with a rickety red Pinto. The car plays a strange role in the novel as it is one of the cars which ends up in the dam. The car is made by Ford, a quintessential American car brand. According to Jane Flick a Pinto can also refer to a “Plains horse”, or a “piebald or “painted” pony associated with Indians of the Plains”. Pinto is more specifically a horse coloring, considered “the proper breed” in America. A Pinto horse has a dark background coloring with large, and random, splashes of white. Considering the fact that this car is associated with the destruction of the dam, an area warred over by  Eli and a white building company, the coloring aspect of its name and the fact that King chose this car could either be a strange coincidence or King chose it on purpose – the horse itself depicts a colored background with large patches of white coloring.

According to HorseChannel.com “spotted horses seem to have originated with American Indian horses, the distinctive two-toned coat pattern probably came to North America through Arabian and Spanish stock that accompanied early explorers. Early American Indians preferred the spotted color and bred horses specifically for this characteristic.” thus making these horses, and this distinctive coloring, all the more poignant for a story where Indigenous people are being harassed – whether through Amos’ experience with border officials or through the stolen truck incident – this word, and by extension this car that Charlie drives, becomes symbolic of the divide, harassment, and colonization of the Indigenous peoples.

Charlie’s Father: Portland Looking Bear/Iron Eyes Screeching Eagle

Throughout the novel Charlie is recognized and mistaken for his father, people constantly ask him why he appears familiar and comment on having seen him before, this is due to the fact that his father appeared as the quintessential ‘Indian’ in Hollywood Westerns. (Later in the novel a Western film is ‘fixed’ by the four Old Indians and Charlie’s father, unusually for Westerns of the time, defeats the Cowboys.). According to Flick Portland Looking Bear’s stage name, Iron Eyes Screeching Eagle is a “joke about choosing a “really Indian” name for the movies.” (Flick, 153).

Still from a John Wayne film|Image Credit: Writer Loves Movies

According to the AMC Filmsite, Westerns plots were simple and consisted usually of one main theme

“the classic, simple goal of maintaining law and order on the frontier in a fast-paced action story. It is normally rooted in archetypal conflict – good vs. bad, virtue vs. evil, white hat vs. black hat, man vs. man, new arrivals vs. Native Americans (inhumanely portrayed as savage Indians), settlers vs. Indians, humanity vs. nature, civilization vs. wilderness or lawlessness, schoolteachers vs. saloon dance-hall girls, villains vs. heroes, lawman or sheriff vs. gunslinger, social law and order vs. anarchy, the rugged individualist vs. the community, the cultivated East vs. West, settler vs. nomad, and farmer vs. industrialist to name a few. Often the hero of a western meets his opposite “double,” a mirror of his own evil side that he has to destroy.”

A young Charlie asks his mother whether his father played a myriad of roles and is told by his mother, Lillian, that his father “made a very good Indian” (King). Portland Looking Bear fulfilled Hollywood’s demand for the stereotypical Indian, the ‘Hollywood Indian’, and we are thus led into the racist world of Hollywood where actors were paid less than “their white counterparts” (Tavare) and were forced to wear prosthetic noses in order to look even more like the stereotypical Indian. All of this led to the idea that “all Indians are the same” (Flick 153) an idea which King emphasizes through the Westerns talked about and shown throughout the novel.

Works Cited

“Breeds of Livestock, Department of Animal Science.” Breeds of Livestock. Oklahoma State University Board of Regents, 28 May 1996. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.

Dirks, Tim. “Westerns Films.” Filmsite. American Movie Classics Company LLC, n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.

Donaldson, Laura E. “Noah Meets Old Coyote, or Singing in the Rain: Intertextuality in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.”Studies in American Indian Literatures 7.2 (1995): 27-43. JSTOR. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162.161/162 (1999): 140.

“Pinto Horses.” Pinto Horses. HorseChannel.com, n.d. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.

Sutor, Cheryl. “Equusite.com – Coat Colors and Patterns: Paint and Pinto Horse Color.” Equusite.com. Cheryl McNamee-Sutor, Jan. 2000. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.

Tavare, Jay. “Hollywood Indians.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 May 2011. Web. 15 Aug. 2015.

Q. “Narratives assume, in Blanca Chester’s words, “a common matrix of cultural knowledge.” The Four Old Indians are perhaps the best examples of characters that belong to a matrix of cultural knowledge, which excludes many non-First Nations. What were your first questions about and impressions of these characters? How have you come to understand their place in the novel?”

When I was younger I used to like reading books that involved decisions and consequences: you would read a few pages and then make a choice between option A and option B (each option would lead to a different page and set of plot points). As a child if I disliked the option I had chosen – or my characters met with an unfortunate demise – I would immediately go back to the last cross roads and make another choice, sometimes I would have to go back to the first cross roads in my novel and make a different choice. While first reading Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King I felt as if the Four Old Indians were ghosts, or spirits, who ran throughout the novel changing it at will.

My first impressions were that they were figments of Dr. Hovaugh’s imagination, characters he was chasing and looking for who appeared and re-appeared at will, seemingly saw everything, entered into the storyline where they felt like, and generally caused a certain amount of mayhem. Without much prior knowledge of First Nations cultural knowledge I was unable to place certain aspects of their stories and did indeed wonder if the Women whose stories they were telling were indeed other characters that had ended up out of their place in history and storytelling by accident.

As the novel progressed it became clearer to me that these  characters were not as distanced from the action as I had previously thought – even though the characters names like Ishmael and Robinson Crusoe brought to mind fictional characters from Western literature – these characters were clearly not  Ishmael from Moby Dick  and Robinson Crusoe.

When the Four Old Indian’s turn up to Lionel’s job its incredible to see how their interactions seemingly affect the novel, the jacket they give Lionel fits him perfectly and he enjoys wearing it, whereas after leaving their presence “the jacket had become uncomfortable, tight, as if it were slowly shrinking around him.” (King). As well the fact that the Indian’s, and the reader, can hear what Coyote is saying implies that they are not quite human.

As a Classical Studies student I often find similarities between Greek mythology and most pieces of literature – it was more difficult to find such similarities here except for the river images – however the way these characters behaved reminded me greatly of the Gods in Greek and Roman mythology. The main male Gods: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades – who ruled the heavens, seas, and the underworld respectively – displayed more human characteristics than expected. These Gods would often interact (in different forms and shapes) and interfere with humans and cause chaos in the human realm.

For me, by the end of the novel, the Four Old Indians held a special place between the real and the supernatural. Like the old humans that they are they run away and attempt to interfere in other peoples lives, like the ancient gods they resemble they often interfere where they might not be needed and change things which need changing – for example the John Wayne film.

Works Cited

Chester, Blanca. “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature 161-162.161/162 (1999): 44.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162.161/162 (1999): 140.

Hornblower, Simon, Antony Spawforth, and Oxford Digital Reference Shelf. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd rev.; 3rd rev. ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

King, Thomas (2012-10-30). Green Grass, Running Water. HarperCollins Canada. Kindle Edition.

The Royal Proclamation 1763

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was a document, issues by King George III, that dealt with the ‘ownership’ of North America. The Royal Proclamation was one of the first steps towards “the recognition of existing Aboriginal rights and title”. The Royal Proclamation has also been referred to as the “Indian Magna Carta”. The document was also issued in response to Pontiac’s War and the threat from the Thirteen Colonies and their desire for expansion.

An image of the Royal Proclamation | Image Credit: Indigenous Foundations UBC

The Royal Proclamation states, in summary, that Aboriginal title exists, and will continue to exist, until the land was ceded by treaty. The document made sure to outline that settlers could not claim land from Aboriginal occupants; instead land would have to be bought by the Crown and then sold to the settlers. By making sure to state that a treaty is required between the Crown/settlers and the Aboriginal people the document highlights that the land belongs to the Aboriginal peoples and that they need to be compensated for their land.

Although this document was a step in the right direction it was still written by the British without any input from the very people it was regarding thus, “clearly establishes a monopoly over Aboriginal lands by the British Crown”. (“Royal Proclamation, 1763.”). The documents guidelines highlighted that the Crown was a necessary agent for any land treaties or purchases – thus making the Crown indispensable (in the United States this document also held power, until the American Revolutionary War and subsequent independence) for land purchases and expansion. As well the Aboriginal nation could choose to sell their land or not – whether this practice was followed as closely as the law outlines is another matter.

At the end of the day this document did emphasize that the Crown was sovereign over the territory listed in the document, even though Aboriginal nations were given land rights and titles, the British Crown was emphasizing its power and sovereignty. Another issue arising from this document is a modern one – since the constitution still retains this proclamation it is technically valid till this day. However there is a problem with regards to the province of British Columbia: BC argues that since it did not exist when the document was issued it is not applicable to follow it. It is interesting to see how a document issued in 1763 can have such far reaching consequences, causing people to have ot prove their land rights and ownership.

While this document attempted to encourage the Aboriginal nations to accept British rule it is still a document written by and for the British Crown and, while being a step in the right direction with regards to Aboriginal rights, did serve to emphasize the sovereignty of the British Crown. Daniel Coleman’s argument about “White Civility” is poignant here because the document assumes that allowing a certain amount of rights would have encouraged Aboriginal people to give up their lands. As well the proclamation only encouraged British expansion and civilization in the region, only this time through more civil means like treaties. Since people today are forced to prove their land ownership – rather than the ownership being a given, without having to provide proof, as the document meant it to be, it is safe to say that this emphasizes the “fictive element of nation building” and that nationalism favors the British/white population rather than the whole Canadian population.

A quote from the Royal Proclamation extrapolates upon this idea:

“We do therefore, with the Advice of our Privy Council, declare it to be our Royal Will and Pleasure, that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our Colonies of Quebec, East Florida. or West Florida, do presume, upon any Pretence whatever, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass any Patents for Lands beyond the Bounds of their respective Governments. as described in their Commissions: as also that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our other Colonies or Plantations in America do presume for the present, and until our further Pleasure be known, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass Patents for any Lands beyond the Heads or Sources of any of the Rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West and North West, or upon any Lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them.” (“Royal Proclamation, 1763.”)

Works Cited

“Royal Proclamation, 1763.” Royal Proclamation, 1763. First Nations Studies Program, 2009. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.

Hall, Anthony J. “Royal Proclamation of 1763.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Ed. Gretchen Albers. The Canadian Encyclopedia, 02 July 2006. Web. 14 Aug. 2015.

A Summary of Home

I found Hannah‘s blog post resonating deeply with my own ideas of home through her story. Home is not specifically a place at the end of the day. Home cannot be converted into a standard family unit living in a typical way. Sometimes home is different and “that home does not have to look like a family you see on TV with the successful dad, the loving wife, the two kids, the token dog and cat, and the house with the two car garage and the barbecue”.

Alishae‘s post strikes a different chord in me. Home for me was Pakistan and Dubai too. Her narrative of moments in Lahore, a city I have visited, and quintessential things which every Pakistani will understand remind me again that home is not just the four walls which you sleep in. Home is, again, a collection of moments or pieces which all fit together and create a feeling. Home is the fan in the hot air, home is the curses we throw at the electricity people and the people in charge as we sit in sweltering heat waiting for the lights to come back on. Home is the small of home cooked biryani and the feeling of friends around you who have seen you grow up. Alishae’s blog post reminds me that home is not only places, but people and good food and cursing at electricity and the way the light shimmers in the hot Dubai air.

Timothy‘s story about home is fascinating because it reminds me that home is so changeable, so fluid that it can sneak up on us. Homes are sneaky, you don’t notice when you start calling a certain place home, even though you never meant to, even though you may not have wanted to. Home becomes something you are used to, something comfortable and steady. Home is something you understand, be it considered normal by societies standards or be it something uniquely yours!

Cheers,

Saarah

Home.

Home is an interesting word, don’t you think? When I was a little girl, its shapes and rhythms reminded me of houses. The stereotypical family house, the one in storybooks. You know the one I mean. Of course you do. The house with the white picket fence, the green green grass and the sloping roof with burnt orange tiles. The word Home to me always looked like that house, that white white picket fence and those orange tiles popped up in my mind whenever I read or wrote the word. Then my life changed.

I grew up in Redmond, Washington. The home of Microsoft (my father worked for them) and Boeing, of Nirvana and Starbucks. I remember only moments from Redmond. I remember an apartment complex and the walk to my school, I remember wearing heels in the rain and walking over the bridge to my school. I remember my Dad’s red car and the days when the heater was broken and those five minutes from our building to school were so cold. What I do remember about that time was the summer. As soon as school was out, we would leave for Karachi (Pakistan) and my mother, my sister and I would spend the summer at my grandparents house. I never thought of Pakistan as home, even though some of my happiest childhood memories are from times spent in the warm cocoon of Karachi surrounded by love, food, cats, and color. I never thought of it as home even as I grew older and began to understand more. Then when I was about 12 or 13, and living in Istanbul, Turkey,  – I can never remember my age with regards to places, I always remember where I lived at that time or where I went to school – a summer vacation from Istanbul turned into a permanent move to Karachi. To a foreign, dirty, conservative, and alien country where I never felt like I had belonged.

I cried. And wept and sorrowed for the life I had lost, the cozy apartment I had left and the, comparatively, privileged life I had had to leave behind. My father left his job at Microsoft and started his own company, and as many people know when starting new companies, for the first few years all your money is funneled into a black hole. I hated Karachi with a passion. I hated the school I had to attend on short notice, the uniform I had to wear, and the mockery I had to face for my accent which many people dubbed fake. I hated it so much I forget the moment I began to love it. I learnt many things while I lived in Karachi. I learnt happy things, difficult things, painful things, sad things, and beautiful things. But most of all, I learnt what home meant. I learnt that home, for me, was going to be always intrinsically intertwined with that place in my mind.

Not many people know this, but Karachi is known as the City of Lights. It is the city that never sleeps, our days begin at 11am and end at 3am. Karachi is like the ocean. We whisper at the edges, always a little afraid of falling in love with it, to drown in its dirt and filth and… and… and chaos and hatred and shaadi’s (weddings) and mehndi’s (dance functions associated with weddings) and prohibition and illegal alcohol and that brisk winter air filled with salt and love and old memories. Loving Karachi is like drowning yourself knowing that you can’t climb out, that you cannot escape because no matter how much you don’t want to love it, you end up drowning in her anyway. But. somehow, somewhere. Slowly and suddenly and forever and all at once I realized it ran in my veins you know? That that dirt and filth and chaos and sadness and dancing lights and happy memories and dark nights and that sky seeped into my skin and bonded with my cells, it became a part of me. Karachi taught me about life, and understanding that sometimes the little happinesses are enough, that life is short and fleeting and home is love.

Home is not that white picket fence and that sloping roof house. Home is not that perfect “normal” western family unit, nor is it the image portrayed of stereotypical India. Home is Karachi, where bad things happen, awful terrible destructive things. Home is where we learn that good things happen too, that on a bad day you can always call your friends and family and find an ice cream shop near the beach or fried chicken in the cool Karachi air. Home is the city that never sleeps. Home is understanding and accepting the future while simultaneously respecting and honoring the past. Home is bright colorful weddings with traditional clothes and modern thoughts. Home is being able to choose to have an arranged marriage, or a love marriage, or simple running away with someone. Home is a family that loves you and makes mistakes. Home is a city that is complex and simple all at once.

Home is not just a single place or a single person. Home is an ever evolving organism, shifting and changing as you grow older and fall in love with people, places, and moments. For that little girl, home is and always will be the city that taught her to love and hate and feel.

This story was partly inspired by this quote from Kamila Shamsie’s novel, Kartography:

“And yet. When I read the Dawn on line and then looked around me to the pristine surroundings of campus life, I knew that every other city in the world only showed me its surface, but when I looked at Karachi I saw the blood running through and out of its veins; I knew that I understood the unspoken as much as the articulated among its inhabitants; I knew that there were so many reasons to fail to love it, to cease to love it, to be unable to love it, that it made love a fierce and unfathomable thing; I knew I couldn’t think of Karachi and find any easy answers, and I didn’t know how to decide if that was reason to go back or reason to stay away.”

The following is an example of a typical Karachi wedding (not of people I know specifically, but an authentic example nonetheless):

Hello Everyone!

I am answering question number seven.

Digital literature is a huge deal these days. There are blogs, online publications, video blogs (vlogs), twitter, online newspapers, and things like Facebook posts. Its interesting to see all of these stories, ideas, and thoughts being automatically transferred to the world wide web for widespread readership lacking formal editing and publication. Its a strange thought. I grew up in a house full of books, often rooms had so many books the bookcases overflowed and we had to make mazes in between the piles of books on the floor in order to access the rooms. I feel strange thinking about stories and literature being accessed through a tablet versus a chunk of paper and glue and ink. Social media tools like WordPress and YouTube and things like Facebook and Twitter are all ways of bypassing the paper and ink of old days. While reading Chamberlin’s book I felt confronted with the idea that perhaps this use of social media to share words, thoughts, and stories was almost like a reversal to an oral culture of stories. They go directly from one person to the next, without being edited or changed, without changing language in some cases and through an easily accessible database. Due to distance and travel its not always possible for a thought or idea from North America to reach South East Asia, for example, but a blog post can reach quit easily and encompass so much distance in a single click. Social media, for me, seems like the reemergence of an oral culture. Chamberlin also talks about stories, and the differences within them, help us understand other people even with the differences. While reading further into the novel I was confronted with the idea that all of this, strangely, reminded me of a scene from the 2013 film Star Trek: Into Darkness and specifically the opening scene where the characters accidentally change the future of a civilization. This idea, of changing the original trajectory of a society, is evocative of the idea of how imperialism changed the original trajectory of evolution of societies all over the world. I find it, interesting, that a series set so far in the future is attempting to teach, instill, and force humans to realize that interfering in another culture/people/society/planets original trajectory of evolution is a bad idea.

A link you may find interesting is this comic about Bartolome de las Casas.

Another aspect of online media is hyperlinks. It is a backstory almost. I was reading an article online the other day, about how Facebook is the Star Trek villain the ‘Borg’, and part of the article was an extension of a hyperlink. In order to understand the disclaimer at the end one had to click the hyperlink and think about article almost within the original article. The idea of the hyperlink is like giving an individual a story, telling them a story, and then saying hold on, wait here for a second, and bringing in a second person to give another mini-story to explain one sentence. After the mini story the original storyteller steps back in, pushes the other away, and restarts the original story. Hyperlinks are all about stories within stories within stories, it is like one of those Russian dolls, opening one only leads to another doll and another doll and another doll until one finally ends up with a single fact or idea. Everything leads back to a single thought, it is like branches of a tree and the final hyperlink’s destination are the roots, and they have their own meaning.

Hello!

Hi! My name is Saarah and I am a 3rd/4th year international Art’s student. I grew up kind of all over the world: I have lived in Pakistan, Turkey, UAE and the United States. I have a double major in English Literature and Classical Near Eastern and Religious Studies (with an emphasis in Classical Studies). I chose these subjects because I think that whenever we do anything or learn anything or begin anything we should always first go back to the basics, the beginning, and I believe that language, literature and classical/ancient history are the basics.

As an avid reader I read The Handmaid’s Tale a few months ago and loved the novel. I did not discover that Margaret Atwood was Canadian until a friend pointed it out to me and I further researched her background on her website. It was exciting to discover that she previously taught at UBC and this discovery made me rethink the lack of knowledge I have about Canada, its history, culture and the role it plays in the world of literature and storytelling. In order to further broaden my knowledge I decided to find a mainstream source of it and discovered a Buzzfeed article which highlighted beautiful passages from Canadian authors. I chose Buzzfeed because it such a unique and prominent source of information today; if we are going to be studying how the past affects the future it may be beneficial to first observe and understand the future we reside in.

As an internationtal student I am aware of my huge lack of knowledge about Canadian traditions, history and literature. Extrapolating from this idea, here is a picture of my high school in Karachi, Pakistan. This image is my way of reducing this lack of awareness by showing a different viewpoint of my home city than that usually portrayed in news outlets and social media. (I apologize for the unclear image, technical difficulties)

This course, named “Oh, Canada …. Our Home and Native Land?” is about Canadian studies with relation to its historical context and First Nations literature and history. It about Canadian literature and storytelling and the intersections between the two. The course is also about how Canadian literature intersects with European traditions and Indigenous traditions. This course is all about stories, both hidden and public, and the roles these stories play in revealing things both, about ourselves, and about the society these stories are from. Through all of these aspects we are going to learn more about colonization (recognizing it within literature and stories), the relationship between nation building and literature and the ability to see symbols and metaphors apart from the Western examples we are so used to seeing in literature. I am excited to learn more about Canadian history and literature and about Indigenous traditions in Canada.

Works Cited