Midwest Modern Language Association

Subverting the "Mainstream" Paradigm through Magical Realism in Thomas King's "Green
Grass, Running Water"
Author(s): Ibis Gmez-Vega
Source: The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Winter,
2000), pp. 1-19
Published by: Midwest Modern Language Association
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 Subverting the "Mainstream"
Paradigmthrough Magical Realism
in Thomas King's
Green Grass, RunningWater
Ibis G6mez-Vega

In Green Grass, Running Water,Thomas King uses elements of magical

realism to subvert the hegemonic paradigms that inform popular Ameri-
can culture and literature on the subject of Native Americans. Since magi-
cal realism has been defined as "a mode suited to exploring-and trans-
gressing-boundaries, whether the boundaries are ontological, political,
geographical, or generic" (Zamora and Faris 5), King is able to rewrite
many of the stories that the dominant culture has imposed on the Native
Americans, beginning with the story of creation and culminating with the
John Wayne cult of supremacy over the "evil"Indians.
As a subversive text, the task of Green Grass, Running Water is monu-
mental, so it is appropriate that four of the novel's narrators, Hawkeye,
the Lone Ranger, Ishmael, and Robinson Crusoe, should start at the
beginning, attempting to get right the story of creation. Even before the
four narrators with suspiciously familiar names begin their tale, another
story begins in a conversation between Coyote, a Dream who could be a
dog but wants to be a G O D, and a Lacanian "I"who seems incapable of
conjugating tenses. Throughout the novel, as one group of narrators
attempts to tell the story of creation correctly, the other group maintains
a funny commentary on the narrative through their own personal conver-
sations. The result is one of the most hilarious and subversive narratives
in American literature, and one well worth examining not only for what
it says about what Americans as a people know but for the statement
made by what they have chosen to ignore.
Because Green Grass, Running Water is written by a Native American
writer, it can easily be read as a trickster narrative, defined by Louis
Owens in Other Destinies: Understandingthe American Indian Novel as the
type of narrative that uses "the humor and method of the Native Ameri-
can trickster, he/she who brings the world close and directs this 'comical
operation of dismemberment,' lying bare the hypocrisies, false fears and
pieties, and clearing the ground 'for an absolutely free investigation' of
worldly fact" (226). The trickster, who appears in Green Grass, Running
Water as Coyote, not only serves as narrator but also acts as the voice of

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reason in a world filled with arbitrary rules that serve only to undermine
the logical rhythmic cycle of nature. Owens credits much of his definition
of the trickster narrative to Mikhail Bakhtin's definition of humor in the
modern novel, and like Bakhtin, Owens recognizes the role that an
author's life experiences play in shaping his/her narrative. As a Native
American himself, Owens knows that the humor in trickster novels
emerges from the writer's awareness of his place in the world, from his
own pain, an essential part of Bakhtin's definition.
Many of Bakhtin's ideas on humor in (Russian) novels appear in "Epic
and Novel," one of the essays in The Dialogic Imagination. He argues in
this essay that "everything that makes us laugh is close at hand, all comi-
cal creativity works in a zone of maximal proximity." His point, of course,
is that comical creativity allows the writer and, thereby, the reader to
examine that with which he/she is familiar. According to Bakhtin,

Laughter has the remarkable power of making an object come up

close, of drawing it into a zone of crude contact where one can
finger it familiarly on all sides, turn it upside down, inside out,
peer at it from above and below, break open its external shell,
look into its center, doubt it, take it apart, dismember it, lay it
bare and expose it, examine it freely and experiment with it. (24)
If one were to accept Bakhtin's definition of humor in the novel as the
one that defines the humor in King's novel, one could assume that the
laughter in Green Grass, Running Wateremerges from the "familiar,"from
the Native American author's revisions of the stereotypical constructs of
the American Indian that plague American popular culture, but Thomas
King is very aware of the creative process from which his novel emerges.
Although Green Grass, Running Water uses both a traditional trickster
figure and the kind of humor that Owens recognizes in other Native
American texts, Thomas King chooses to define his work in his own
terms. In "Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial," examining what has come to be
called "post-colonial"literature, King addresses the assumptions made by
readers and critics about his work and about Native American literature
in general. He argues that
While post-colonialism purports to be a method by which we can
begin to look at those literatures which are formed out of the
struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor, the colonized and
the colonizer, the term itself assumes that the starting point for
that discussion is the advent of Europeans in North America. At
the same time, the term organizes the literature progressively
suggesting that there is both progress and improvement. No less
distressing, it also assumes that the struggle between guardian
and ward is the catalyst for contemporary Native literature, pro-

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 viding those of us who write with method and topic. And, worst
of all, the idea of post-colonial writing effectively cuts us off from
our traditions, traditions that were in place before colonialism
ever became a question, traditions which have come down to us
through our cultures in spite of colonization, and it supposes that
contemporary Native writing is largely a construct of oppression.
(11-12)
King's statement challenges the notion that post-colonial literature is "a
construct of oppression" because the "post-colonial"writers emerge from
traditions and cultures that were in place long before colonialism takes
place. King goes on to point out that, "as a Native writer," he is "quite
unwilling to make these assumptions" (12) about Native literature being
the result of the colonial experience; thus, one can argue that the humor
in Green Grass, Running Water emerges not from the author's pain as a
post-colonial subject but from his own esoteric way of looking at the
world as a Native American.
Rejecting the label of "post-colonial" writer forces Thomas King to
define his work with terms other than the ones already used by estab-
lished literary critics. In "Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial," King refers to his
work as "associational" (14), a new way of looking at literature from a
Native cultural perspective rather than a post-colonial one. According to
him,
Associational literature, most often, describes a Native communi-
ty. While it may also describe a non-Native community, it avoids
centering the story on the non-Native community or on a conflict
between the two cultures, concentrating instead on the daily
activities and intricacies of Native life and organizing the ele-
ments of plot along a rather flat narrative line that ignores the
ubiquitous climaxes and resolutions that are so valued in non-
Native literature. ("Godzilla"14)
Associational literature, thus, allows the Native writer to focus on the
narrative of the Native community rather than on any conflict that might
exist between the Native and non-Native communities. It in fact shifts the
focus of attention away from the influence that the non-Native group has
(or has had) on the Native community and places the focus on the Native
group itself.
Associational literature also allows the Native writer to subvert the tra-
ditional American literary experience by creating a narrative that values
not the traditional American hero but a non-traditional community expe-
rience as the focus of the narrative. King explains that "associational liter-
ature leans towards the group rather than the single, isolated character,
creating a fiction that de-values heroes and villains in favour of the mem-

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bers of a community, a fiction which eschews judgments and conclu-
sions" ("Godzilla"14). Instead of the traditional American romantic narra-
tive in which the individual becomes a sort of super man in his separa-
tion from the rest of humanity, King creates a narrative in which all the
characters are not only interconnected but dependent upon each other,
and King gleefully deconstructs the myth of the super human American
hero as he has Eli Stands Alone read a Western romance whose "cover
featured a beautiful blond woman, her hands raised in surrender, watch-
ing horrified as a fearsome Indian with a lance rode her down" (Green
Grass 177). Eli Stands Alone's novel, as the alert reader should recognize
soon after she starts reading Green Grass, Running Water,is "'based on the
award winning movie'" (178) that plays throughout the text of King's
novel and becomes one of the catalysts propelling and unifying the narra-
tive. The novel and the movie both glorify the heroic super man, appro-
priately play by John Wayne in the movie; consequently, they both func-
tion as foils to the Native narrative, which is the real hero of King's
novel. By writing associational literature, Thomas King creates a unique
version of the American novel, one in which heroes are not valued and
the individual narratives of community members are more significant
than any one narrative.
Although associational literature allows him to write outside the non-
Native literary tradition, Thomas King still recognizes that traditional
"western plots" have influenced the ways in which non-Native people see
Native Americans. In Green Grass, Running Water, King juxtaposes the
popular stereotypes held by the non-Native groups against a Native
American narrative that is sometimes wildly original and sometimes tra-
ditional. He uses Native American creation stories so that he can begin
the narrative at the beginning, with the stories of creation which must be
told right, but these stories are also filled with instances in which magical
realism takes over to deconstruct the western story that always manages
to interfere with the Native narrative. To make reading the novel less of a
traditional "western" experience, King also challenges the dominant
modes of literary discourse by having not one but four narrators take
turns at telling the same story of creation. In spite of the multiple ver-
sions of the one story, King's story tellers agree that, although "everybody
makes mistakes," it is "best not to make them with stories" (Green Grass
11) as his characters embark on a hilarious attempt to set some stories
right.
Thomas Matchie and Brett Larson, in "Coyote Fixes the World: The
Power of Myth in Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water,"recognize
that King uses the Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, Hawkeye,
Coyote, and "a first-person narrator who helps tell everybody's story"
(154) to mix

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 with the typically western plot several tribal elements: (1) a
cyclic structure to counter the linear one, (2) oral tradition itself
where we hear these characters talking in often humorous but
provocative ways, (3) a trickster, Coyote, who is lovable but fun-
damentally subversive, and (4) Native myths or legends which
the mythic characters and Coyote advance to challenge typical
biblical and American popular cultural myths. (154)
Matchie and Larson focus on the trickster narrative and rightly point out
that "the trickster Coyote [challenges] the top-down Judeo-Christian myth
found in Genesis, where God precedes and controls everything, with the
Native cyclic myth, which begins (and ends) in water" (155). They see
Coyote as "fixing" the world and "unwittingly creating the Judeo-Christ-
ian God."
Laura E. Donaldson, in "Noah Meets Old Coyote, or Singing in the
Rain: Intertextuality in Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water,"like-
wise examines Coyote's role in King's novel as she looks at King's revi-
sions of biblical stories. Donaldson argues that "Kingattempts to displace
and counteract the Christian transposition of aboriginal sign systems by
rewriting one of its foundational narratives: the biblical story of Noah,
which itself rewrites several ancient Mediterranean flood myths" (28-29).
Her article, published in Studies in American Indian Literatures, traces the
original Native and non-Native myths used by King in the novel and
explains the intertextual role played by the myths in King's novel. Don-
aldson, however, acknowledges that King "uses the intertextual process in
a more gentle and generous way" than the earlier practitioners, like friars
in Santo Domingo Pueblo, who simply appropriated Native stories.
According to Donaldson, King's use of the intertextual process "neither
subjugates nor obliterates but, rather, parodies and resists the way domi-
nant Christian stories have too often been used" (34).
Albeit important, neither intertextuality nor the role of the trickster
character provides enough material to subvert the dominant paradigms
that Thomas King seems determined to undermine in Green Grass, Run-
ning Water. To do so, he must create a world in which the supernatural
exists simultaneously in the presence of the natural world, a world in
which Coyote, his Dream, I, and G O D supervise the story of creation as
it is narrated by four fictional characters who are themselves one woman,
the source of all creation, so that they can thematically de-center images
of fixity like the "glory"of the Judeo-Christian God, Noah's purpose and
value, and even the moral character of a young and arrogant Jesus as he
walks on water. King focuses on the stories that helped to "colonize" the
"New World," but he clearly points out that those stories hide the true
nature of a people obsessed with power and control at any cost.
Because Green Grass, Running Water attempts to rewrite the story of

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creation, it is only fitting that First Woman should ride Grandmother Tur-
tle's back into a garden where she lives with a man who simply appears,
out of nowhere, named Ahdamn. In this garden, where everything is
new, people, animals, and even trees practice civility toward each other.
When First Woman bumps into a tree, he offers her food,
... and all sorts of good things to eat fall out of that Tree. Apples
fall out. Melons fall out. Bananas fall out. Hot dogs. Fry bread,
corn, potatoes. Pizza. Extra-crispy fried chicken.
Thank you, says First Woman, and she picks up all that food
and brings it back to Ahdamn. (41)

Clearly, King begins at the beginning by deconstructing the one story that
stands at the center of western lore and even western literature. He
places his creation in a garden where civility is practiced, but before
Ahdamn can finish naming animals who already know their own names,
the voice of discord is heard. "Waita minute, says that G O D. That's my
garden. That's my stuff," and he jumps into the garden. "Oh, oh, says
First Woman when she sees that G O D land in her garden. Just when we
were getting things organized" (42).
G O D 's message simply is that "this is my world and this is my gar-
den" (72), to which First Woman replies, "What bad manners .... You
are acting as if you have no relations," and while "First Woman and
Ahdamn eat those apples and that pizza and that fry bread, . . . That
G O D fellow doesn't eat anything. He stands in the garden with his
hands on his hips, so everybody can see he is angry," and he adds, "Any-
body who eats my stuff is going to be very sorry.... There are rules, you
know" (73). The rules are a little different from the rules that caused the
Judeo-Christian Adam and Eve to be cast out of God's garden. They were
simply told not to eat out of the Tree of Knowledge, but Thomas King's G
O D acts out the irrational behavior of a God who casts his creation out
of his garden when he refuses to share the bounty of his garden.
What a stingy person, say First Woman, and that one packs her
bags.
Lots of nice places to live, she says to Ahdamn. No point in hav-
ing a grouchy G O D for a neighbor.
And First Woman and Ahdamn leave the garden.
All the animals leave the garden.
Maybe I'll leave a little later, says Old Coyote.
You can't leave my garden, that G O D says to First Woman. You
can't leave because I'm kicking you out. (73-74)
There is no "fortunate fall" in King's narrative. Unlike Eve, First Woman
simply refuses to be cowed into submission by a stingy G O D, so she

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leaves the garden out of her own free will and evolves into yet another
story of creation, but before she can do that she runs into a western nar-
rative that is all too familiar to the Native people as she is arrested and
sent to Fort Marion for no apparent reason. To escape from Fort Marion,
First Woman must dress like the Lone Ranger so that she can "pass"
through the gates of the white man's prison.
Unable to continue First Woman's story, the four narrators begin again
with another tale. This time, Changing Woman falls "out of the sky" and
into a "canoe full of poop" to encounter "a little man with a filthy beard
[who] jumps out of the poop at the front of the canoe' (159). While
Changing Woman tries to apologize for falling out of the sky into the
canoe, the man claims her as his wife.
Hallelujah! A gift from heaven. My name's Noah, and you
must be my new wife.
I doubt that, says Changing Woman.
Lemme see your breasts, says Noah. I like women with big
breasts. I hope God remembered that.
Don't do it, says one of the Turtles. He'll just get excited and
rock the canoe. (160)
Thomas King's Noah is not exactly the one most people know from Bible
class or even from popular culture. The man who is in charge of this little
canoe full of animals and poop is a lecherous Noah who attempts to force
himself on Changing Woman even though she repeatedly refuses him. To
better his chance of copulating with Changing Woman, Noah even
anchors his canoe near an island, but being the western "hero"that he is,
he eventually tires of chasing Changing Woman and leaves her stranded
in the island, an act that speaks volumes for the way gender roles devel-
oped in the western world. Western women must have known exactly
how much resistance would have been tolerated from them before they
were cast out of gardens or left stranded in deserted islands.
From a semi religious story, Thomas King leaps into a literary tale as
Changing Woman is rescued from the island by Moby Jane, the lesbian
black whale who is on her way to sinking Ahab's ship. In King's novel,
Moby Dick is black, not white, and her name is not even Dick. She is a
female whale who prefers other females, which makes it all the more
interesting when she tells Changing Woman to
... Wrap your arms and legs around me and hold on tight and
we'll really have some fun.
It is marvelous fun, all right, that swimming and rolling and
diving and sliding and spraying, and Changing Woman is begin-
ning to enjoy being wet all the time. (248)

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The sight of Changing Women cavorting with Moby Jane and enjoying
"being wet all the time" provides a striking contrast to Ahab's obsessive
character, but once again the western narrative interferes with the Native
narrative and Changing Woman is arrested and sent to Fort Marion, only
to escape again by telling the guards to call her Ishmael.
The third attempt at getting the story of creation right sends Thought
Woman directly into the path of the Archangel Gabriel, AKA A. A.
Gabriel, who wants her to have a child. Thought Woman, of course,
refuses, but Thomas King will finish the narrative of immaculate concep-
tion with a Native twist later on in the novel through another character's
story. Thought Woman's journey, however, ends once again when a west-
ern narrative, this time from a book, interferes with the Native narrative.
As she is floating on and conversing with an island, Thought Woman
encounters Robinson Crusoe, making lists and complaining that, "under
the bad points" of his list, "as a civilized white man, it has been difficult
not having someone of color around whom [he] could educate and protect
(325). His assumption that Thought Woman will become his "someone of
color" confounds him when she chooses to be Robinson Crusoe instead of
Friday. He warns her that his game "would be a lot more fun if you stop
being stubborn," but Thought Woman answers that, "all things consid-
ered," she would "rather be floating. And she dives into the ocean and
floats away" (326). Eventually, she is once again at Fort Marion, and she
walks out once again under the guise of a white man's name.
The fourth and last attempt to correct the story of creation introduces
Old Woman, who meets "YoungMan Walking on Water"as he is trying to
calm the waters to save the men whose lives are in danger. "Young Man
Walking on Water" announces that he is "now going to walk across the
water to that vessel . . . to calm the seas and stop all the agitation" (388-
389), but when he walks on the water he
. raises his arms and that one looks at those Waves and that
one says, Calm down!
Stop rocking! He says that to the Boat. Stop rocking!
But those Waves keep getting higher, and that Boat keeps
rocking. (389)
Instead of the meek and gentle Christ whom most Christians would rec-
ognize from this particular Bible story, the "Young Man Walking on
Water" appears as an arrogant young man who behaves the way most
conquering white men behaved in the "New World," in spite of their
Christian values. Old Woman "watches him stomp his feet. She watches
him yell at those Waves. She watches him shout at that Boat. So, she feels
sorry for him" (390) and offers to help him. He refuses by saying, "There
you go again, . . . Trying to tell me what to do." With the generosity of a

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genuine Indian giver, Old Woman attempts to instruct him by telling him,
someone has to. You are acting as though you have no rela-
tions. You shouldn't yell at those happy Waves. You shouldn't
shout at that jolly Boat. You got to sing a song.
Sing songs to waves? says Young Man Walking on Water. Sing
songs to Boats? Say, did I tell you about our Christian rules?
It's a simple song, says Old Woman. And Old Woman sings
her song.
Boy, says those Waves, that is one beautiful song. We feel
relaxed.
Yes, says that Boat, it sure is. Maybe I'll take a nap.
So the Boat stops rocking, and those Waves stop rising higher
and higher, and everything calms down. (390)
But, of course, the "Young Man Walking On Water" takes full credit for
calming the water and saving the men because, even though the men wit-
ness Old Woman's performance and hear her song to the Waves and the
Boat, they listen to "Young Man Walking On Water" when he tells them,
"Nonsense . . . that other person is a woman. That other person sings
songs to waves" (390). Young Man Walking On Water, as a western
Christ, completely devalues the role of women in the cycle of life, so the
men tell themselves, "By golly, . . . Young Man Walking On Water must
have saved us after all. We better follow him around," and Old Woman,
never one to argue, just "floats away" (391) from the nonsense of western
men.
To complete her journey, however, Old Woman meets a man who
introduces himself as "Nathaniel Bumppo, Post-Colonial Wilderness
Guide and Outfitter" and claims that she "must be Chingachgook" (433).
Nathaniel Bumppo, better known as Nasty, instructs Old Woman on his
western wisdom that "Indians have Indian gifts ... And Whites have
white gifts"(433), a concept that puzzles her. Nasty, however, explains;
Indians can run fast. Indians can endure pain. Indians have
quick reflexes. Indians don't talk much. Indians have good
eyesight. Indians have agile bodies. These are all Indian gifts,
says Nasty Bumppo.
Interesting, says Old Woman.
Whites are patient. Whites are spiritual. Whites are cognitive.
Whites are philosophical. Whites are sophisticated. Whites
are sensitive. These are all white gifts, says nasty Bumppo.
So, says Old Woman. Whites are superior, and Indians are inferi-
or.
Exactly right, says Nasty Bumppo. Any questions? (434-435)

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Nasty Bumppo comes out of the pages of James Fenimore Cooper's nov-
els, one of the worst sources of misinformation about Native people in
American literature, and one cannot help but wonder why it took more
than one hundred years for otherwise intelligent people to start asking
questions about the veracity of Cooper's statements about Native Ameri-
cans. Before Old Woman leaves Nasty Bumppo, he gives her a "killer"
name, Hawkeye, which then becomes the reason why she is once again
arrested and sent to Fort Marion, this time for impersonating a white
man.
In Green Grass, Running Water, an unreal world of bible stories and
American literature merge and become not only real but acceptable and
natural, thereby allowing the storyteller to subvert the established west-
ern myths. To create this chaotic state of subversion, however, Thomas
King uses the radical mode of magical realism, which is explained by
Amaryll Chanady in Magical Realism and the Fantastic: Resolved Versus
UnresolvedAntinomy as a narrative characterized "by two conflicting, but
autonomously coherent, perspectives, one based on an 'enlightened' and
rational view of reality and the other on the acceptance of the supernatu-
ral as part of everyday life" (21). Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B.
Faris argue in the "Introduction" to their book, Magical Realism: Theory,
History, Community, that "magical realist texts are subversive" because
their "in-betweenness, their all-at-onceness encourages resistance to
monologic political and cultural structures" (6).
It is the acceptance of the supernatural as part of everyday life that
allows Thomas King to subvert the hegemonic paradigms that inform
American culture on the subject of Native Americans. He uses intertextu-
ality and Native myths to develop his ideas, but he destroys the dam and
lake built on the Indian reservation with a masterful use of three cars, the
Nissan, the Pinto, and the Kharman-Ghia (la Nifia, la Pinta, and la Santa
Maria) that, as Laura E. Donaldson points out, "suggest a washing away
of Columbus's colonial heritage" ("Noah Meets Old Coyote" 40). Magical
realism allows Thomas King to have three cars float away from their
parking spaces, out of their own volition, and eventually gather at the
lake to destroy the dam that has been built on Indian land against the
wishes of the Indian people. The floating cars destroy the dam and "fix"
that which needs fixing. It also allows him to have four old Indian men,
who are really old women and are estimated to be hundreds of years old,
slip in and out of John Wayne movies to "fix"the end and let the Indians
win.
The four Indians who set out to "right"the world begin their task by
"fixing" the Hollywood movie that seems to be playing on everybody's
television screen. They do so because Hollywood movies, in their racist
and inhuman depictions of indigenous people, have been complicit in cre-

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ating negative stereotypes of Native Americans that King hopes to dispel.
Unfortunately, the old Indians "fix"the problem one video at a time, but
it is only through the revised "fixed"version of the Hollywood movie that
Charlie Looking Bear can, for the first time in his life, see Portland, his
father, the "Indian"actor in the movie, and scream with pride, "'Get 'em,
Dad'" (358). Charlie has often been ashamed of his father, but the new
version of the old western movie clarifies the meaning of the father's
struggle. In the original "unfixed"version of the movie, Portland and the
Indians lose, but in the "fixed" version, when John Wayne shouts, "'Get
back, men'" to rally his troops
The soldiers ran back to their logs and holes and rocks, shooting
as they went. But as Lionel and Charlie and Eli and the old Indi-
ans and Bill and Coyote watched, none of the Indians fell. John
Wayne looked at his gun. Richard Widmark was pulling the trig-
ger on empty chambers. The front of his fancy pants was dark
and wet.
'Boy,' said Eli, 'they're going to have to shoot better than that.'
And then Portland and the rest of the Indians began to shoot
back, and soldiers began falling over. Sometimes two or three sol-
diers would drop at once, clutching their chests or their heads or
their stomachs.
John Wayne looked down and stared stupidly at the arrow in
his thigh, shaking his head in amazement and disbelief as two
bullets ripped through his chest and out the back of his jacket.
Richard Widmark collapsed facedown in the sand, his hands
clutching at an arrow buried in his throat. (GreenGrass 358)
Although small, the Indians gathered around the "map" of television
screens in Bill Bursum's Home Entertainment Barn witness popular his-
tory as it is being revised, and they like it. Magical realism allows the
four Indians to enter the movie video and "fix"the action.
Within the magical tale which is Green Grass, Running Water,King also
creates a series of "real"stories, which are as real as fiction can be, about
the lives of people living in the natural world of the Blackfoot reservation
and people whose lives are connected somehow to the reservation. The
"real"characters are all connected; they are either related or they know
each other, because this tale is about community. Eli Stands Alone
returns to the reservation after many years to live in his mother's cabin
and hold back the dam. Latisha Red Dog, Lionel's sister, owns the Dead
Dog Caf6, a tourist attraction that capitalizes on stereotypical beliefs that
Indians eat dogs and serves "such things as Dog du Jour, Houndburgers,
Puppy Potpourri, Hot Dogs, Saint Bernard Swiss Melts, with Doggie Doos
and Deep-Fried Puppy Whatnots for appetizers" (117). Lionel Red Dog is

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a Blackfoot Indian whose fortieth birthday prompts a visit from Alberta
Frank, the woman he loves. Charlie Looking Bear is an Indian lawyer
whose father spent most of his life trying to work as an actor in the
movies even though he was always demeaned, stereotyped, made to feel
that he was not quite right to play even the "Indian" characters in John
Wayne movies. Like Lionel, Charlie is attracted to Alberta, the college
professor who "liked having two men in her life, especially when they
were both over two hundred kilometers away" (45).
Lionel, however, is a character in crisis, and not the least of his prob-
lems is caused by his admission that "by the time he was six, he knew
what he wanted to be. John Wayne." Although Lionel realizes that he
wanted to be "not the actor, but the character. Not the man, but the hero
... who saved stagecoaches and wagon trains from Indian attacks" (265),
his wanting to be John Wayne defines the nature of his crisis. Lionel is
not comfortable being an Indian. Through much of his life, he has simply
existed, getting caught by mistake in a van "among the groceries and the
guns" (62) on his way to Wounded Knee before the uprising, although he
"was never quite sure how he wound up in Cecil's van, sitting on a large
pillow in the back, stuffed between canned goods, rifles, and boxes of
ammunition" (62). About to turn forty, Lionel's identity crisis must find
definition. William W. Thackeray, writing about James Welch's nameless
character in Winter in the Blood, traces how the Gros Ventre's and the
Blackfeet's systems of "age graded societies" ("'Crying for Pity' in Winter
in the Blood 61) support Lionel's journey of self definition and place him
well within Blackfoot culture and tradition. According to Thackeray,
"between the ages of 32 and 36," the Blackfoot/Gros Ventre male goes
through a personal journey of initiation that involves "a highly rigorous
process of self-evaluation, self-debasement, severe self-discipline, strict
sacrifice, and finally, visionary or mystical self-insight" (62). At the age of
thirty-nine, Lionel should be well on his way to figure out who he is and
where he belongs in the world. That he still has no clue is one of the rea-
sons why the four old Indians escape the asylum and make the journey to
the Blackfoot reservation bringing with them an old leather coat worn by
John Wayne in one of the movies they "fixed." The coat, with a bullet
hole still in it (since in the "revised" version of the movie John Wayne is
shot by the Indians), eventually becomes too small for Lionel.
Alberta, a history teacher, introduces the reader to the historical fact of
the Indians' imprisonment at Fort Marion, Florida, as she attempts to
impress upon her very bored students that the material in her lecture
may be important, not because it has any merit in and of itself but
because it could show up on the exam. Alberta's personal narrative is
familiar. As a college professor, she is the Native American who functions
within the "mainstream"world and who, like the four narrators, attempts

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to "get right" the story of her people by teaching the history of Native
Americans. When the reader first meets Alberta, she is attempting to
impress upon her students that injustices were perpetrated against Native
Americans through America's history. The history lesson that she teaches
on that day connects her with the four narrators because the narrators
magically recreate the historical lesson. Like the historical Indians in
Alberta's history book, the four narrators are taken prisoners and shipped
to Fort Marion during the course of the novel. The one important differ-
ence is that the four narrators escape the imprisonment that the historical
characters cannot escape.
Through the narratives told by his two different groups of narrators,
King weaves different versions of indigenous tales of creation into what
can be considered "real"tales. Unfortunately, something always happens
to disturb the indigenous story of creation, which forces the narrators to
begin again, but the real problem is that, in every story, the main charac-
ter (First Woman, Changing Woman, Thought Woman, Old Woman) is
taken prisoner and transported to Fort Marion, Florida, arrested for
killing rangers, for "being Indian" (77), for being an "unruly Indian" (250),
for being "another Indian" (361), or for "trying to impersonate a white
man" after she becomes Hawkeye (439). The indigenous woman escapes
imprisonment by assuming the personae of the characters from books or
events that she encounters, but these characters exist simultaneously in
time even before First Woman, Changing Woman, Thought Woman, Old
Woman becomes them. In her first transformation, when First woman
leaves Ahdamn behind because he has become a famous painter at Fort
Marion and is not eager to go,
... she puts on her black mask and walks to the front gate.
It's the Lone Ranger, the guards shout. It's the Lone Ranger,
they shout again, and they open the gate. So the Lone Ranger
walks out of the prison, and the Lone Ranger and Ishmael and
Robinson Crusoe and Hawkeye head west.
Have a nice day, the soldiers say. Say hello to Tonto for us.
And the soldiers wave. (106)
Even though the other three transformations have not yet taken place in
the story, First Woman emerges from Fort Marion as the four characters
whose identity she will assume throughout the book. These four charac-
ters, however, are all different manifestations of First Woman.
Thomas Matchie and Brett Larson mistakenly argue in "Coyote Fixes
the World"that "these four characters [the four narrators] take on the per-
sonae of four women (First Woman, Changing Woman, Thought Woman,
and Old Woman) in order to challenge several Old and New Testament
myths" (157). They miss the point that the four narrators do not come

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into existence until the women, who are all one woman, the source of
creation, assume the characters' identities in order to escape from Fort
Marion. First Woman becomes the Lone Ranger; Changing Woman
becomes Ishmael after leaving Noah's Arc and encountering the Pequod;
Thought Woman becomes Robinson Crusoe; and Old Woman, who
argues with Nasty Bumppo about what it means to be a "real Indian,"
becomes Hawkeye.
Depending on the circumstances, the indigenous woman's transforma-
tions serve as a testimony to the indigenous people's capacity for trans-
formation and tolerance of the European narratives that continue to inter-
fere with the natural progression of the indigenous narrative. This is
made clear in Eli Stands Alone's conversation with Sifton, the govern-
ment representative who regularly drops by Eli's cabin to drink his coffee
and convince him to drop his litigation against the dam so that construc-
tion can continue. Sifton's argument attempts to redefine the Indian.
'You know what the problem is? This country doesn't have an
Indian policy. Nobody knows what the hell anyone else is doing.'
'Got the treaties.'
'Hell, Eli, those treaties aren't worth a damn. Government
only made them for convenience. Who'd of guessed that there
would still be Indians kicking around in the twentieth century.'
'One of life's little embarrassments.'
'Besides, you guys aren't real Indians anyway. I mean, you
drive cars, watch television, go to hockey games. Look at you.
You're a university professor.'
'That's my profession. Being Indian isn't a profession.'
'And you speak as good English as me.'
'Better,' said Eli. 'And I speak Blackfoot too. My sisters speak
Blackfoot. So do my niece and nephew.'
'That's what I mean. Latisha runs a restaurant and Lionel sells
televisions. Not exactly traditionalists, are they?'
'It's not exactly the nineteenth century, either.' (154-155)
As far as Sifton and others like him are concerned, the "real"Indians no
longer exist because they have become part of the mainstream. They
have become educated according to European standards and function
outside the perimeters of the Indian world. For Sifton, the Indians'
authenticity becomes questionable when they can function within the
white world. He does not understand that the indigenous people do func-
tion within that other world, but they do not always relinquish their own
culture and language to do so.
The ease with which First Woman, Changing Woman, Thought
Woman, and Old Woman, the woman who figures in the four independ-

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ent stories of creation, merge into the personas of the Lone Ranger, Ish-
mael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye, the four narrators, demonstrates
the indigenous people's ability to use whatever is necessary to survive.
The original woman magically slips into the four characters' personas
after she has been captured and taken as a prisoner to Fort Marion so that
she can escape from her prison, which was something no real Indian was
able to do. As Alberta explains during her history lesson to the student
who asks if "any of [the Indians] escape" (17) from Fort Marion, the
answer is no. Magical realism allows First Woman, Changing Woman,
Thought Woman, and Old Woman to come in looking like herself and exit
looking like someone else. Different characters in the novel, however, see
them differently. In the "real" story woven into the magical narratives,
the four narrators figure as four ancient Indians (estimated to be over
four hundred years old) who escape from a state hospital, but Babo, an
African-American woman who works as a janitor in the hospital where
the Indians are patients, sees them as women, not men.
When the four old Indians "escape" from the mental hospital, Dr.
Joseph Hovaugh, the doctor in charge, tells the police Sergeant conduct-
ing the investigation that "the Indians arrived in January 1891," which of
course "would make them at least one hundred and one years old" (102),
as the Sergeant points out. Dr. Hovaugh's answer, pure and simple, is that
"They were old when they arrived" (103), which would explain Babo's
claim that the four Indians were "four, five hundred years" (52) old if the
police Sergeant were in fact paying attention. Through the police investi-
gation of the case of the missing Indians, King plays with reality and his
characters' perception of it. Although both Dr. Hovaugh and Babo recog-
nize that the Indians are old, he sees them as men. Babo, probably
because she is African American and her own history parallels the Indi-
ans' history of conquest and abuse, has a clearer sense of who the Indi-
ans really are. She claims that "they were women, not men" (55) in clear
contradiction of the hospital records and Dr. Hovaugh's description of the
four missing Indians as men. Sergeant Cereno, losing his patience with
Babo's inability to focus on answering his questions, refers to her as
"AuntJemima" as he leaves Jimmy, the police officer, alone to interview
her.
As the investigation about the missing Indians gets under way, Babo
sees through the window that her car, "the Pinto was sitting in a puddle
of water." She notices that "the rear tire was half submerged," and she
wonders "where the water had come from" because "she hadn't remem-
bered parking in a puddle" (22). Later, she attempts to rationalize what is
happening to her car by thinking that "the tire of the Pinto wasn't sunk
into the puddle .... The tire was flat" (23). Eventually, as she notices that
"the muffler was under water," she does wonder "where was the water

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coming from?" (24), especially since it was not raining outside. As she is
being interviewed by the police, she observes that "the puddle had
spread, grown wider and deeper. From a distance, the Pinto looked a little
like a ship" (25).
The odd thing about Babo's floating car and her reaction to it is that
Babo does not mention the water surrounding her car to the policemen,
and the policemen are so intent on getting the story of the escaped Indi-
ans right that they miss what is taking place in the parking lot. Eventual-
ly, the Pinto, which had been parked in the lot behind the hospital, floats
"toward the far lot" of its own volition. The reader eventually realizes
that the "yellow dog" whom Babo sees earlier "sniffing at the rear tire"
(20) of her Pinto is none other than Coyote setting the magic in motion.
In her mind, Babo tells the yellow dog to "Go ahead" and "pee on it"
because it "won't hurt a thing" (20). What happens eventually, probably
as a result of the yellow dog's watering the rear tire, is that the Pinto
floats away in a puddle of water, but Babo neither questions the phenom-
enon of the floating Pinto nor reacts to it with anything more than curios-
ity. In fact, when the car floats away, Babo is attempting to recreate the
story of creation as she learned it from the Indians. As an African Ameri-
can, something one recognizes only because Sergeant Cereno refers to
her as Aunt Jemima (57), Babo seems more disposed to accept the Indi-
ans' story than do the police officers or the doctors.
Babo's floating Pinto is one of the ways in which Thomas King uses
magical realism to turn "upside down" and examine some of the stories
that have influenced the ways people think about Native Americans.
Babo's Pinto, Alberta's Nissan, and Dr. Hovaugh's Karmann-Ghia all float
away in their own little puddles, and they surface at the end of the novel
floating on a man-made lake that must be destroyed in order to save Indi-
an land. They are a modern version of la Pinta, la Nifa, and la Santa
Marfa, the three ships that brought Spaniards to the "New World." In
Green Grass, Running Water, they are vehicles for change because they
burst the dam and restore the river to its course. In the process, Eli
Stands Alone is killed, but his stand against the dam succeeds. He had
returned to his mother's log cabin only to keep the authorities from using
the dam. When the dam bursts and the water flows, his cabin is engulfed
by the waters, and he drowns. He returns to the reservation after being
away for years only so that he can stand alone against that greater force,
out there, that exploits mother nature and, by extension, the Native
American.
While the police and Dr. Hovaugh look for the four Indians, Thomas
King sets in motion a lovely story in which most things get resolved,
more or less. The dam is destroyed by the floating cars; Charlie Looking
Bear learns to feel a sense of pride for his father; and Lionel, who

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receives John Wayne's leather jacket "with fringe" from the four Indians,
"slipped on one arm and was surprised how soft and warm the jacket
felt" (335), even though, if the truth be told, the jacket has "got a couple
of holes here in the back, but nothing serious" (336). Still, after he wears
it for a while, he decides that "'it's very nice. I mean, I like leather. And
the fringe is ... elegant. But . . . it is a little tight" (421), and King goes on
to add that "In fact, Lionel felt as if the jacket was suffocating him" (421).
The boy who wanted to grow up to be John Wayne is too big for John
Wayne's jacket because, when his time comes to stand up for his people,
he acts like an Indian. Lionel is the one who discovers that George Morn-
ingstar, Latisha's non-Indian ex-husband, has sneaked a camera into the
ceremony and is taking pictures. Lionel takes away George's camera and
protects the secrecy of the ceremony.
Through the magical influence of the four old Indians, Charlie loses
his job as the token Indian attorney for the corporation building the dam,
so he sets out for California to find his father. Lionel, likewise, evolves
and sheds the old desire to be like John Wayne. No story, however, is
more influenced by magic than Alberta's moment of conception. When
Alberta returns to the reservation, her mind is set on trying to decide
how to resolve her biggest problem, which is having a baby without mar-
rying a man. As a meticulous scholar, Alberta gives herself options.
Option one was to ignore her anxieties and good sense, swal-
low her fears, and marry Lionel or Charlie.
Option one was obscene.
Option two was to sit down with Lionel and/or Charlie,
explain to them her desire to have children, and see if either
would be willing to help, without seeing their role as anything
more than considerate donor...
Option three was to get dressed up and go to one of the better
bars in town, pick out a decent-looking man, and use him as a
willing but uninformed father. (69-70)
Alberta wants children without the inconvenience of marrying a man,
and by the end of Green Grass, Running Water,Coyote performs a dance
that gives her exactly what she wants, immaculate conception. The
Archangel Gabriel, who appears as A. A. Gabriel, "a little short guy with
a big briefcase" (298), reminds Thought Woman that "there are lots of
Marys in the world" (301) when she refuses to have a baby according to
his specifications. Thomas King turns the Archangel's statement into jest
when he impregnates Alberta, who is not exactly virginal, through
immaculate conception.
Just as Alberta is thinking that "option three was the lesser of two
evils" (71) in her plan to get pregnant, Coyote dances. He has been watch-

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ing Ishmael and Hawkeye dancing out of sheer joy when the Indians in
the "fixed"movie win the war, so Coyote arrives in the middle of all this
dancing and claims,
'Yoo-hoo,' says Coyote. 'You may not believe this, but I know
that dance. I can do that dance.'
'Ho,' said the Lone Ranger. 'Look, it's Coyote.'
'Hello, Coyote,' said Robinson Crusoe.
'Haven't seen you in a while,' said Ishmael.
'Watch this,' says Coyote. 'Watch this.'
To the west, clouds ran in low against the land with thunder at
their backs, and in the distances, the world rolled up dark and
alive with lightning.
'Oh, oh,' said the Lone Ranger. 'I don't think that's the right
dance.'
'No,' said Robinson Crusoe. 'That's not the right dance at all.'
'Watch this,' says coyote. 'This is the fancy part.'
The wind arrived first, warm and damp. The old Indians
moved under the eaves of the store and watched the sky darken.
'You can stop,' said Ishmael. 'You've done enough dancing.'
'Yes,'said Hawkeye. 'That was some very fancy dancing.' (303)
A few pages after Coyote dances his fancy dance, Alberta "got warmer,
[and] she began to feel nauseous and her breasts began to hurt. They felt
swollen and hot." Latisha informs her that she "used to get like that when
[she] was pregnant," but Alberta, of course, answers, "I'm not pregnant"
(393). Coyote and the four Indians, however, know better.
'The last time you fooled around like this,' said Robinson Crusoe, 'the
world got very wet.'
'And we had to start all over again,' said Hawkeye.
'I didn't do anything,' says Coyote. 'I just sang a little.'
'Oh, boy,' said the Lone Ranger.
'I just danced a little, too,' says Coyote.
'Oh, boy,' said Ishmael.
'But I was helpful, too,' says Coyote. 'That woman who want-
ed a baby. Now, that was helpful.'
'Helpful!' said Robinson Crusoe. 'You remember the last time
you did that?'
'I'm quite sure that I was in Kamloops,' says Coyote.
'We haven't straightened out that mess yet,' said Hawkeye.
'Hee-hee,' says Coyote. 'Hee-hee.' (456)
When the yellow dog dances, all things are possible, and Alberta becomes
pregnant not through options one, two, or three but through the magic of

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a dancing yellow dog, and the additional irony is that, while the immacu-
late conception in the Judeo-Christian story is a private matter between
the Archangel and Mary, "Lionel thought he could see a yellow dog danc-
ing in the rain ... at the end of the alley near the entrance to the store"
(309). Magic happens in unexpected places.
In an article unfortunately titled "Magic Realism as Postcolonial Dis-
course," Stephen Slemon argues that "magic realism, at least in a literary
context, seems most visibly operative in cultures situated at the fringes of
mainstream literary tradition" (408), which is exactly where Native Amer-
ican literature finds itself. His additional assertion that "asa socially sym-
bolic contract," the practice of magical realism "carries a residuum of
resistance toward the imperial center and to its totalizing systems of
generic classification" (408) lies as the core of Thomas King's radically
subversive novel.

Northern Illinois University

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