Who's Your Creator?

Who's Your Creator?

Eng 230B Term Paper

March 7, 2006

Instructor: Dr. Alec Globe

There are many different stories of creation throughout the world, two of the most well known to North Americans being the Christian story and the First Nations story. Both of these stories contain all the elements of a folktale, so why is one more believable and worshiped that the other? When the Europeans discovered North America, the people living there surprised them; they were ignorant to their way of life. They thought that by "helping" them adapt into the Western way of life they would be doing them a favour. Unfortunately with the placement of residential schools hundreds of First Nations groups experienced not only physical abuse but also a serious loss of culture and language. Without their own language being learned by any of the children, cultural stories had to be passed down verbally in a new language; English. The oral style of First Nations storytelling can be attributed to the need to re-tell the stories in an unfamiliar language, and account for the lack of proper grammar. Thomas King's novel

Green Grass Running Water is great at displaying this oral style in writing, as well as linking and overlapping the Native story with the Christian story. With the introduction of Christianity to the Native peoples, their translated stories may have taken on more Christian elements as simultaneously many of them were being converted into believers/patrons of the Christian Church. When you compare and contrast the two stories of creation you will find more similarities than differences, but the major purpose of both stories is to comfort people by explaining the human condition and existence. It's obvious to say that Christian Residential schools have had a strong influence on the First Nation's culture today, but maybe even more so than is known, including their creation folktale.

In order to compare the two stories the basis of what elements characterize a folktale must be known. Folktales usually consist of a generalized setting, like a garden or a palace, and the characters are flat to represent one human quality, such as goodness or evil. Because there isn't much setting or character development the plots tend to be more action focused, which is why the conclusions are also very swift. Folktales satisfy our sense of justice and morality because good is usually rewarded and evil punished. The style in which they are written often includes rhyme and/or repetition and includes a lot of imagery, as well as a feeling of oral telling. Common motifs are also found in these tales, often revolving around magic or an event, such as a healing powers or a journey.

The Latin word "poet" means "creator." Writers and Poets have written philosophies to try and explain the world for years, and before the writers there were storytellers. Both the Christian story and Thomas King's First Nations version of the creation story, with First Woman, serve to explain how humans and the world came to exist, and both started out as oral stories centuries ago. On the one hand you have the Bible's explanation of creation in Genesis:

"The Earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light", and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness...These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created...then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground...and the man became a living being...The Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it..."

And of course the man that God created was first Adam and then Eve. Two flat naпve characters, representing good and a serpent to represent evil, living in a Garden. Eve's downfall of weakness, being misguided by the serpent, leads her and Adam to their punishment for not obeying God's orders. This story, as well as most others in the Bible, is riddled with repetition to make sure the point is coming across repeatedly, follow God's wishes or be punished. Many people who believe the Bible to be sacred fact will disagree with me here, but from a theologians point of view King's story of Thought Woman and the creation of the world is essentially the same. Thought Woman falls from the sky and into water (general setting), she is also a flat naпve character, representing good and innocence. The plot quickly jumps from action to action, she talks to the water animals and rides on a turtles back while they help her to create the world:

"Down below in that water world, those animals look up and they see that big, strong woman falling out of the sky. Those ducks shout, look out, look out...and when grandmother turtle comes up to see what all the fuss is about, those ducks put First Woman on her back...First Woman [says] I guess we better make some land. So they do. First Woman and Grandmother Turtle. They get some mud and they put that mud on grandmother Turtle's back and pretty soon that mud starts to grow." (39)

Both stories also not only revolve around the event of creating the world but also magic. In Genesis God is omniscient and upon his thought he has the magic to create the world and men from dust. First Woman creates the world from mud on a turtles back and can talk to animals. At first I thought that maybe it was the talking animals that made the First Nations story less believable as fact than Genesis, but then I remembered the serpent. If "Satan" or evil can pose as a talking serpent they why couldn't ducks and turtles talk too?

By contrast, while the two stories contain the same elements of folktale they do still differ in cultural ideas. In Genesis you can establish the Western idea of hierarchy - God, man, animals, plants whereas in First Woman's story you get more of a feeling of co-operation and balance between First woman and the animals and land. Genesis' image of hierarchy is seen right from the beginning when all the power of creating the world belongs to just one being, God. Only his actions can create and destroy the world, which he displays when Adam and Eve eat from the tree of Knowledge. After the fall God punishes them by taking away the harmony and security of the Garden and replaces it with a world of cruel landscapes that they will have to struggle though to survive.