The Truth About Stories

A Native Narrative

Thomas King

• Publisher: House of Anansi Press
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9780887848957
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Studien der amerikanischen Ureinwohner

Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award

"Stories are wondrous things, " award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous."

Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples.

Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

V
WHAT IS IT ABOUT US
THAT YOU DON’T LIKE?

THERE IS A STORY I KNOW. It’s about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle. I’ve heard this story many times, and each time someone tells the story, it changes. Sometimes the change is simply in the voice of the storyteller. Sometimes the change is in the details. Sometimes in the order of events. Other times it’s the dialogue or the response of the audience. But in all the tellings of all the tellers, the world never leaves the turtle’s back. And the turtle never swims away.

One time, it was in Moncton I think, a woman with a baby in the audience asked about the turtle and the earth. If the earth was on the back of a turtle, what was below the turtle? Another turtle, the storyteller told her. And below that turtle? Another turtle. And below that? Another turtle.

The woman began to chuckle and rock her baby, enjoying the game, I imagine. So how many turtles are there? she wanted to know. The storyteller shrugged. No one knows for sure, he told her, but it’s turtles all the way down.

The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.

“There are stories that take seven days to tell,” says the Cherokee storyteller Diane Glancy. “There are other stories that take you all your life.”¹

I like Coyote stories. And one of my favourites is the one about Coyote and the Ducks. Not the one where the Ducks dance around with their eyes shut while Coyote grabs them one by one and tosses them in his hunting bag. And not the one where he tries to talk the Ducks into teaching him how to fly.

The other one.

The one about the feathers.

And it goes like this.

In the days when everything was beginning, and animals were still talking to humans, Coyote had a beautiful fur coat of which he was very vain. Every day Coyote would come down to the river and look at his reflection.

Goodness, but I have a lovely coat, Coyote would whisper to the water, and then he would give himself a hug.

One day while he was admiring his fur coat, he saw six Ducks singing and dancing and swimming around in circles. Back and forth they went, spinning and turning and diving and leaping in the sunshine. Now, in those days, Ducks had lovely long feathers that shimmered and flashed like the Northern Lights. And when the Ducks had finished singing and dancing and swimming around in circles, they carefully cleaned each feather and straightened it and fluffed it up, so that it glowed even more than before.

That is certainly a wonderful song, said Coyote, who was a little dizzy from watching the Ducks swim around in circles. And that is certainly a beautiful dance.

Yes, said the Ducks. We sing to keep everything in balance, and we dance for peace and generosity, and we swim around in circles to remind everyone of our relationship to the earth.

And those are certainly lovely feathers, said Coyote. Yes, said those Ducks, they certainly are.

I would certainly like to have one of those lovely feathers, said Coyote. It would go so well with my excellent fur coat.

Now, in those days, Ducks were very agreeable. All right, they said. Just be careful with it, for we are quite fond of our feathers.

I will, said Coyote, and he stuck the feather behind his left ear and ran off to show it to all his friends.

What do you think of my feather? he asked everyone he saw.

It certainly is unusual, said Bear, who tended to be more critical than he needed to be. Too bad you only have one, for now you look a little lopsided.

Oh, dear, said Coyote, and he ran back to the river to find the Dancing Ducks.

Excuse me, Coyote shouted, would it be possible to get another feather?

Another feather? said the Ducks.

Yes, said Coyote, as you can see, having only one feather makes me appear lopsided.

Ah, said the Ducks. You’re right. You do look a little lopsided. And the Ducks gave Coyote another feather. But this is the last one, they said. Don’t ask for any more, for we need our feathers.

I won’t, said Coyote. I promise.

And Coyote stuck the feather behind his right ear and ran off to show it to all his friends.

Aren’t these the most beautiful feathers you’ve ever seen? said Coyote.

They certainly are, said Raven. And such an improvement on that ratty fur coat.

You don’t like my wonderful fur coat? said Coyote.

Fur’s okay, said Raven, but feathers are so much better. They are? said Coyote.

Certainly, said Raven, stretching out one wing as far as she could. Anyone who is anyone has feathers.

Well, you can imagine poor Coyote’s distress. If Raven was right, and she was seldom wrong, then fur had somehow fallen out of fashion. Oh dear, oh dear, said Coyote, I’m going to need more feathers. And back to the river he went.

When the Ducks saw Coyote waiting for them on the bank, they ruffled their feathers and looked quite annoyed.

We hope you haven’t come to ask us for more feathers, said the Ducks.

I wouldn’t do that, said Coyote, and he smiled so all his teeth showed. I’ve come to protect you.

Protect us? said the Ducks. From what?

Human Beings, said Coyote, who on occasion can be clever. I heard them talking. They plan to steal all your feathers.

Steal our feathers! shouted the Ducks.

They might even try to eat you, said Coyote.

Eat us! said the Ducks. Human Beings eat Ducks?

Coyote pretended to shudder. You’d be amazed what they will eat, he said.

But then who will sing for them? said the Ducks. Who will dance for them? Who will remind them of their relationship with the earth?

Never mind that stuff, said Coyote, and he lowered his eyes and lowered his voice and looked around to make sure no one was watching. I have a plan that might save you. You give me half of your feathers and I’ll pretend to be a Duck and I’ll let the Human Beings chase me around until they get tired and give up.

Half our feathers? said the Ducks.

You’ll get to keep the other half, said Coyote. And you’ll be safe.

So the Ducks talked it over, and they agreed that half their feathers was better than no feathers, and certainly better than being eaten.

But what happens if they catch you? said the Ducks.

Oh, don’t worry, said Coyote, they won’t catch me.

For I am exceptionally fast and very tricky.

Well, you can imagine just how good Coyote looked with his long shimmering Duck feathers. Even Bear was impressed.

They’re okay, said Bear. If you like that sort of thing.

Look at me, Coyote cried, as he ran through the woods and over the mountains and down into the valleys, the feathers trailing behind him, flashing in the light. Look at me!

But Coyote was not very careful with the feathers. He didn’t clean them or straighten them or fluff them up as the Ducks had done, and, after a few weeks, the feathers were bent and dirty and ragged, and they looked very, very sad, for they no longer shimmered and glowed.

We can’t have this, said Coyote, and he threw the feathers away and went back to the river.

When the Ducks saw Coyote without the feathers they had given him, they were concerned.

What happened to all our feathers? said the Ducks.

The Human Beings took them, said Coyote. They caught me while I was sleeping.

How horrible, said the Ducks.

What’s worse, said Coyote, is I need more feathers.

More feathers! shrieked the Ducks. Absolutely not! No, no, no, no!

Then, said Coyote, puffing out his chest as best he could, we’ll fight them together.

Fight? Fight whom? said the Ducks, who were well versed in the rules of grammar.

Human Beings, of course, said Coyote. For they can be very fierce when they don’t get what they want.

Well, the Ducks didn’t know what to do. They talked about flying away but their long feathers made flying tiring, and they talked about swimming away but they didn’t know where they would go, and they talked about running away but their legs were too short to do that. Besides, they were happy just where they were.

These Human Beings, said the Ducks, what is it about us that they don’t like?

Oh, they like you well enough, said Coyote. They just like your feathers better.

Now, I could finish this story but you already know what’s going to happen, don’t you? The Ducks are going to keep giving up their beautiful long feathers. Coyote is going to make a mess of things. The world is going to change. And no one is going to be particularly happy.

Besides, this particular story is a long one that takes days to tell. A good storyteller can keep it going for a week. We don’t really have the time. And there are other stories that are just as much fun and much shorter.

Such as the one we like to tell ourselves about injustices and atrocities and how most of them have happened in the past. We tell ourselves that, as we have progressed as a species, we have gotten smarter and more compassionate. We say of slavery, for example, yes, that was a horror. We know better now, and we won’t make that mistake again. Of course, segregation was a problem, too, wasn’t it.

And if we do make such a mistake in our lifetime, say, for instance, dumping raw sewage into the ocean or dropping bombs on people, we say that this was an aberration, a creature of the moment. We say that it was the times, that the fault was in our stars, that you had to have been there. As if what we did was set in motion by natural forces outside our control, something that caught us unawares or took us by surprise.

Indians, for example.

One of the surprising things about Indians is that we’re still here. After some five hundred years of vigorous encouragement to assimilate and disappear, we’re still here.

Don’t worry, this is not the prelude to a flock of sweeping generalizations and caustic complaints. I’m not going to carry on about genocide or residential schools or blankets infected with smallpox (no one has ever been able to prove that one anyway). I’m not going to mention Big Bear or Louis Riel or the Lubicon Lake Cree or the Mi’kmaq at Burnt Church or the Innu at Davis Inlet or Dudley George at Ipperwash or Neil Stonechild and the Saskatoon police.

I’m not going to talk about the forced removal of Indians from their homes or the reserve system or the paternalistic manner in which governments manage the affairs of Native people.

What I want to talk about is legislation.

In the old days, when we were still a problem, the military solution was as good as any. But after a hundred years or so of killing each other, both sides decided that wars were expensive. They cost money. They cost lives. And so, in North America, where Indians and the British and the French and the Americans spent a good deal of time and effort fighting each other, it was eventually agreed that making treaties was better than making war. A rather enlightened decision, if I do say so. The problem was that, like the Ducks i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Openers
• I “You’ll Never Believe What Happened” Is Always a Great Way to Start
• II You’re Not the Indian I Had in Mind
• III Let Me Entertain You
• IV A Million Porcupines Crying in the Dark
• V What Is It About Us That You Don’t Like?
• Afterwords: Private Stories
• Notes
• About the Author
• Also by Thomas King
• About the Massey Lectures Series
• The CBC Massey Lectures Series List
• About the Publisher