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Submitted by nikwa on April 9, 2007
Category: Religion
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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.
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