King, through his use of tricksterish strategies, epitomises
the potential inherent in human nature and creates a dynamic, ever-shifting
textual reality in Green Grass, Running Water. Joseph Campbell has commented,
"the trickster hero represents all those possibilities of life that
your mind hasn’t decided it wants to deal with" (Maher and Briggs
39). In a similar manner to his mythological predecessors, King acts
as an agent of social transformation, challenging the systems of authority
which confine Native cultures physically, spiritually, and intellectually.
Thus, King creates a perceptual space where Native cultures are located
at the centre, while Eurocentric ideologies are marginalised. Here he
participates in what Helen Tiffin identifies as "the processes of artistic
and literary decolonisation [which] have involved a radical dis/mantling
of European codes and a post-colonial subversion and appropriation of
the dominant European discourses" (17). As we will now discuss, this
process of decolonisation and subsequent re-creation allows King to
imaginatively transform Eurocentric ideology to secure a sense of history,
as well as a contemporary reality, from an indigenous perspective. [i]
To decentre the prevailing religious beliefs
of the Eurocentric settler culture in Canada, King rewrites Biblical stories
throughout Green Grass, Running Water, reinventing the religious figures
that form the foundation of Judeo-Christianity. He creates a humorous
and delightfully subversive version of the coloniser’s religion
whereby Jesus becomes "Young Man Walking on Water", an immature and self-centred
young man who is told by Old Woman to act more responsibly and ‘mind
his relations’ (390), a Native Canadian expression recognizing the
importance of being respectful in one’s relationships with all people
and the world at large. [ii]
Similarly, Adam is transformed into "Ahdamn", a creative
mistake. The narrator tells Coyote, "I don’t know where he [Ahdamn]
comes from. Things like that happen, you know" (40). In an episode
involving Ahdamn, the Eurocentric practice of authoritatively naming and
claiming is completely undermined when King presents the plants and animals
in the Garden of Eden as more intelligent and knowledgeable than Ahdamn:
Ahdamn is busy. He is naming everything.
You are a microwave oven, Ahdamn tells the Elk.
Nope, says that Elk. Try again.
You are a garage sale, Ahdamn tells the Bear.
We got to get you some glasses, says the Bear.
You are a telephone book, Ahdamn tells the Cedar Tree.
You’re getting closer, says the Cedar Tree. (41)
Rather than being accorded the status given to Adam in Genesis, Ahdamn
is portrayed as a misguided character lacking insight, a man with delusions
of grandeur. Ahdamn’s infantile lack of understanding as to his
own incompetence remains uninfluenced by the wiser animals and the Cedar
Tree.
[i] It is important to note that Thomas King
is not the only tricksterish transformer operating in this text.
Indeed, King creates a whole host of tricksterish characters to support
his own activities as creator-destroyer. We will discuss such characters,
including four Old Native women—one of whom we have already mentioned—and
Coyote himself who revels in transformation and wreaks havoc throughout
the novel.
[ii] For a discussion of this expression
in Native cultures, see King’s introduction to All My Relations:
An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Native Fiction. Thomas King
(Ed). Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990. ix-xvi.