Monthly Archives: October 2016

King and Robinson both use a much more prominent storyteller voice to tell their stories, rife with repetition, when compared to western literature. However, the structure of Robinson’s tale almost begs for it to be read aloud. The strange grammar, the short sentences or sentence fragments, as well as the physical appearance of the line breaks creates a chaotic and difficult to follow style of communication. When I tried to read it silently in my head, I found it nearly impossible to understand. Reading aloud allows you to experience the story with another sense, so I tried that. When I read it aloud to myself, it was far easier to follow what was happening, and the significance of certain lines. I connected with the piece far more than if I had merely read it in my head.

King, on the other hand, uses the storytelling voice in a friendlier way. Instead of having to almost battle with the language, King’s storyteller voice blends smoothly with the more traditionally western style sections. Green Grass, Running Water seems to be a reconciliation of styles, in the alternating narrative voices, although it is important to recognize the influence of the oral storytelling notes in the more western sections, particularly the repetition in the dialogue between characters.

The presence of the Christian God differs in each narrative. In Robinson’s tale, God is an influence on the world through the messages of an Angel. His only act in this story is to tell Coyote to go make a deal with the King of England, and the Angel speaks in the same grammar pattern as the rest of the narrative style. In King’s story, Coyote is the one that creates God, and God is a rather ridiculous creature that starts out as a Dream. This Dream becomes a Dog with ambition, and then God. Once established as God, He becomes rather distant and aloof, much like the God in Robinson’s tale, but without that Angel to create a further degree of separation.

The Coyotes in each tale are recognizable as the powerful trickster, playing with humans. A fog surrounds Robinson’s Coyote whenever people try to come and take pictures of him. King’s Coyote is revealed (spoiler alert!) is have caused Alberta’s pregnancy, because she wanted a baby but not the hassle of a man.

However, once again, King’s characterization of Coyote is more playful than Robinson’s. Robinson casts Coyote more along the lines of a clever force to be reckoned with. This matches his more solemn version of God, and the overall focus of his piece. King takes a different approach, presenting primarily his fun-loving and chaotic energy. Coyote forgets the consequences of his actions, and several times accidentally creates something: whether that be the Dog-turned-God, a thunderstorm, or perhaps the flood at the end.

For each writer, their portrayals of God and Coyote are to create the specific tone of their work, and to complement the story each is telling. Robinson is telling a story of the origin of “Black and White” law, Indian and European relations. King is telling a story connecting the present to the past, weaving Christian and Indigenous creation myths into the fabric of a story about coming home for the Sun Dance.

WORKS CITED

“Reading Aloud.” The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. Web. 31 Oct 2016.

Allen, Peter J and Saudners, Chas. “Coyote.” Godchecker. 25 March 2013. Web. 31 Oct 2016.

Judge McEachern’s response to the map from the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en was to call it “the map that roared” (Sparke 468). In his article “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of a Nation,” Matthew Sparke identifies three possible readings of this statement, the first of which is the “colloquial notion of a paper tiger” (468). A paper tiger refers to something that appears threatening but is in reality ineffectual, according to dictionary.com. The phrase comes from a Chinese expression, most famously appearing in Mao’s Little Red Book. Providing a map as evidence in a court case tends to be pretty concrete, but McEachern was either unable or refused to acknowledge the stories outlined in the map of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en. The map had potential to be strong evidence, supporting the First Nations’ case, but it ultimately proved ineffectual, most likely due to McEachern’s biases, internalized or otherwise. A paper tiger may have a mighty roar, but is easily balled up and thrown away.

(Image courtesy of The Comic Ninja)

Sparke’s second suggestion is that McEachern is referencing The Mouse that Roared, a 1959 Peter Sellers film. This film is a comedy based on a satirical novel by Leonard Wibberly. The story is about the fictional, impoverished nation of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, that decides to engage in a war against the United States and lose, but things don’t go according to plan. The correlation here is that a tiny and presumed insignificant nation has taken up arms (metaphorically, in the case of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en map) against a larger, imperious body. In the fictional story, however, the smaller nation ends up with the power to subordinate the other, larger nations, and thus coordinate a movement towards world peace. Much of the satire in both the novel and the film adaptation also centres on the geopolitics of the Cold War, an interesting connection to the geopolitics of the case. If this is the reference McEachern made, it’s more likely that he intended it to be a dismissal of the potential power of the map, rather than the recognition of that potential to turn the case in the favour of those First Nations.

Both of these readings indicate McEachern’s intent to indicate the “plaintiffs as a ramshackled, anachronistic nation” (468). His ruling in favour of the defendant (the government) further reinforces his belief system when it comes to First Nations rights.

Sparke’s third reading is based on a political cartoon by Don Monet: “a cartoonist working for the Gitxsan and Wet’suweten:” “the resistance in the First Nations’ remapping of the land: the cartography’s roaring refusal of the orientation systems… and all the other accoutrements of Canadian colonialism on native land” (468). This is likely not what McEachern was trying to say, but it turns his degrading comment on its head and becomes a mode of empowerment. Many minorities have done something similar when they have taken terms or phrases of degradation and turned them into a positive term for themselves; they take back the language that oppressed them. And in the end, McEachern’s decision was overturned, opening up more possibilities for First Nations when negotiating with the Canadian government.

WORKS CITED

“Paper Tiger.” Def. 1. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged, 2016. Web. 21 Oct 2016.

Sparke, Matthew. “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of a Nation.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88.3 (1998): 463- 495. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

troz2000. “The Mouse the Roared TRailer.” Online Video Clip. Youtube, 17 May 2008. Web. 21 Oct 2016.

Watterson, Bill. “Calvin and Hobbes.” The Comic Ninja. N.p. 19 Nov 2011. Web. 21 Oct 2016.

Logically, there can only be one creation story taken as truth. Otherwise, it would be inherently contradicted by any other creation story. People have used false dichotomies to argue for the truth of their preferred creation story, but as explained in this video by carneades.org, there is also a third option of another deity creating the world, or even a fourth, being the Big Bang Theory (here’s an interesting story going into more detail on the scientific creation theory).

Thomas King presents two creation stories in the either/or scenario, suggesting that one is more believable over the other. He sets up the dichotomy of the collaboration-focused ‘The Earth Diver’ and the hierarchical ‘Genesis’ tales, operating under the idea that one must choose which story to believe in to make his point.

King presents his readers with this choice to illustrate the fundamental difference between European and Native cultures:due to the nature of oral storytelling, Indigenous stories are generally more subjective and adaptable, with an emphasis on collaboration, while European stories are based almost entirely on this hierarchical structure, reflecting and justifying their societal values. He also uses the correspondingly anticipated voice to tell each of the creation myths, the storyteller voice for ‘The Earth Diver’ and the authoritative voice for ‘Genesis.’ These different voices accentuate the oral tradition and rationalistic values of the respective cultures.

European society was originally structured according to monarchy and class divisions, falling into the hierarchy perpetrated by the Genesis creation story. This sense of human superiority is inherent to this structure, and within that is an individualistic superiority.

Sure, life might suck right now, but at least there’s someone worse off than me. If I behave like a good Christian, I’ll get into heaven. Someone else is a worse Christian than me, so they’re going to hell.

As King says, “we [are], certainly, the most arrogant” (28).

In contrast, the creation story of ‘The Earth Diver’ highlights the effectiveness of cooperation. This is not to say that there wasn’t a semblance of hierarchy in the many Indigenous tribes in North America, but it does suggest that this hierarchy wasn’t a core value, and therefore not as rigid or as integral to their sense of self identity as it was for the Europeans.

King has spent this particular chapter of the book discussing the power and effect of stories, and this dichotomy between the authoritative Genesis and the more casual Earth Diver exemplifies the purchase that the mode of storytelling can have. As King says, “As for stories such as the Woman Who Fell from the Sky, well, we listen to them and then we forget them, for amidst the thunder of Christian monologues, they have neither purchase nor place” (21). The Christian creation story is almost invariably told with the same rigid tone that brooks no argument, while any Indigenous creation myth isn’t taken seriously outside of the tribe it is important to, as King quotes Basil Johnston (23).

The way we tell a story almost always mirrors the values within the story itself. King contrasts and dichotomizes these two creation myths to show, rather than tell, the reader this lesson, while also subtly hinting at the subject of the next chapter, wherein he discusses the White Man’s Indian. The relationship here is in the absolute conviction in his beliefs, to the point of stupidity, of the white or European man. The Genesis tale and the Ideal Indian are both stories created and unwaveringly accepted by White Men, as both fictions uphold their sense of superiority and hierarchy, their place as close to the top as they can reach.

WORKS CITED

Carneades.org. “False Dichotomy (Logical Fallacy).” Online Video Clip. Youtube, 18 Feb 2014. Web. 7 Oct 2016.

Holliday, Dan. “How do atheists explain the Earth’s formation?” Quora. 4 Jan 2015. Web. 7 Oct 2016.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories. House of Anansi Press Inc, 2003. Print.

Something that Karo said in her most recent blog post really resonated with me: “Home is where the heart has been.” In reading my fellow students’ stories about how they found their own definitions of home, this statement has been present in my mind. Maybe it will make more sense with a list of the three biggest similarities between these stories:

-Significance of family

-Impermanence of place

-Childhood influences

In each of these stories, the presence of family was vital to each writer’s definition of home. Whether it was a sibling, or grandparents, or friends that created that sense of family, every story I read agreed that home could not be the same without that intense connection. For myself, as well, family plays a huge role in where I feel most comfortable and at home. Without that feeling of unconditional love and support, it can be hard to feel secure in any environment.

Many of these writers found that they only came to think about what home means when home was taken away from them, or they had to leave for whatever reason. Uprooting your whole life to move to another country, or even just down the street, still threatens the stability of your home. Moving proves that home can change, whether it’s just the address that changes, or the people, that thought is frightening. I think we tend to think about what home means so that we know how to find it again, or at least know what to look for.

The impact of childhood experiences and what was considered ‘home’ as a child is also common to these stories, which makes sense considering the impact of family on a child. Many writers discussed their childhood homes, at least in contrast to the ones they have now. That element of nostalgia for a childhood home influenced what was important for the home they now have, or are looking for.

For all of these commonalities, however, each and every writer came to a different conclusion for what ‘home’ truly is. Geographical site was a factor for some, whereas for the most part geography mattered mostly in terms of proximity to close family members. Some of them built a new home in the people they found, while others watched the place they call home disappear.

If you Google image search “home,” all you get are pictures of generic looking houses, and maybe a movie poster. But clearly, a house does not make a home, and while not everyone defines home the same way, I think we all can agree that family is the most important ingredient.

WORKS CITED

Google Search. Google. 3 Oct 2016. Web. 3 Oct 2016.

Koivukangas, Karoliina. “Assignment 2.2 Home?” Karo’s Thoughts on Canadian Lit. 28 Sept 2016. Web. 3 Oct 2016.

Gif courtesy of the CW, via Geek and Sundry: geekandsundry.com/how-to-run-a-supernatural-dd-campaign/