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