myth and its absence
One of the themes that the groundbreaking short film Messenge explores is the extent to which humans are obligated to maintain some sort of mythology, personal or shared. I think this theme is also somehow deeply relevant to Winter in the Blood, though I'm not sure how. My guess is based on the assumption that 1. stories (from world mythologies to soap operas to lies to self-confirming delusions) are a universal trait of the human species just as language and music are 2. as my boy darwin would tell us, nature allows for no excess; if a trait exists, it has a cost to the organism but is perpetuated because of its adaptive advantage. So, these native american fellows once had a complex and rich system of beliefs that infused the greater culture. My hypothesis is that, unlike modern american mythology (religion, history, television), native american mythology was an adaptive mechanism central to their survival as a people. It was like a traffic system with agreed laws, assumptions, courtesies, etc. that guaranteed the safety of the road. When the white man came, not only did he nearly bring the native americans as a people to the edge of nothing, but he also erased their culture and its mythologies. Welch paints a bled world in the opening pages and chapters of his book. Nihilism, deadness, decrepidness, hopeless humor. The fish are gone from the river, the ancestors of the deer that the protagonist's ancestors hunted are no longer within reach, the last thread to the ancient knowledge is thin and thinning. My question is how much of this lack of life and prosperity is the result of the lack of a unifying and clarifying story, and how much can Welch's book do to resuscitate the stories that might be left, for them and us, and all the rest of those bad beginners.
posted by hallamorgan at
9:42 PM
6 Comments:
Nice post Mo. A very perceptive statement and question and another reason to think that the narrator was being too hard on himself when he said the alienation he felt came from within himself. Not only did he grow up in a harsh physical, social, and family environment, he grew up in an environment devoid of a supporting culture and its attendant mythology. His parents, friends, and neighbors have essentially adopted the white man’s culture in order to survive. First Raise made a living by repairing the white man’s machines. He spent his free time in bars making white men laugh. Theresa has converted to Catholicism and has contempt for Indians. Lame Bull is a prosperous cattle rancher. Only Yellow Bull, the blind seer, has any connection to the collective past. He communicates with the deer who “speak of days gone by. They talk a lot about that. They are not happy.” So “how much?” Probably a lot.
I’m not sure I understand the idea of "excess" and its “cost to the organism.” Can you explain that a little? Also, are you saying that modern American mythology is not an “adaptive mechanism” for anyone or just for Native Americans? Doesn’t the American Dream serve the same function for modern Americans as Native American mythology did for American Indians even if it’s based on Christianity, Capitalism, and conspicuous consumption?
Everyone constructs their own personal world view, sometimes true but usually ungrounded in reality (at least a little for even the best of us/you), that helps them survive a confusing, contradictory, painful life. It is a method of adaption for survival, a natural Prozac that keeps us from getting too caught up in hopelessness and keeps us motivated to push on. "You can accomplish anything, world peace can be real, hard work pays off, truth will prevail, I'm not ugly, etcetera" and on and on.
Advantages for modern Americans created through adaptation of personal stories are not existent for modern Native Americans. Their realities are adapted to a different and non-existent world. Natives satisfy the holes and confusions that come with possessing untrue personal truths with alcohol and fighting (at least in Winter in the Blood). They do not receive the Somatic benefits that modern Americans get from their stories.
“The cost” to the organism or human that comes with creating these stories is the misperception of reality that these stories facilitate... This is actually the point and the purpose of such stories though. In most cases this ungrounded reality is actually an advantage because it carries us smoothly through life with our heads peacefully in the clouds. It takes energy, glucose, etcetera, to create these realities but the benefit outweighs the costs even though on a larger societal level too many jaded, unattached people may be hurting the world as a whole. For now the story trait creates survivors and the story gene is successfully passed on.
The American Dream is one such constructed reality used to get us painlessly through life. When you think about the possibility of every American or every world citizen achieving the American Dream then the obviously constructed and obviously false truths in our identity as Americans become apparent. It isn’t possible. It isn’t true. It is a world that isn’t real and cannot exist. What is true is that having this view and this goal keeps us motivated to keep our head up with eyes focused ahead. We live our lives based on it.
It is interesting to compare this modern myth with Native American mythology. While their spiritualism and magical realisms may seem ridiculous today we should consider how our own modern constructed realities, the myth of the American Dream, justice for all, or religion will hold up 1,000 years into the future. They may be just as obviously strange, weird, CRAZY as a talking animal seems today. Modern realities, however, do function and are valuable, and do get us through life... At least for now.
You know what though? Yellow Calf's story about starving in the winters of the past don't sound like the Indians were so happy back then either. So... Do their ancient stories really work for them... or can you consider that they made it through the hard times as succesful use of stories? Maybe it was just easier back then even though the situations (starvation) was bleaker.
By the time Yellow Calf and the Blackfeet tribe spend the winter near starvation, they have already been defeated by western culture. They were stripped of their freedom, their heritage, and their homeland.
They were probably doing a lot of questioning about the benefits of a shared mythology themselves.
In fact, it's important to note that Yellow Bird and the grandmother to the Namless and Aimless narrator are Blackfeet. They're exiled from their culture not only by the New Americans but by the Gros Ventres as well.
This condition creates conflict among the Blackfeet, some wanting to go home and die where they lived, and others wanting to move south. In the end, their state of cultural paralysis is resolved for them by the U.S.Army which herds them to a reservaion stripped of culture,mythology, and self-determination. No wonder they're bummed.
Yellow Calf only shares the tribes story of its reletively recent past, the tribes demise, and while he is connected directly to nature he doesn't share much of his tribes mythology.
I still think that this is what Welch is going to attempt in Fool's Crow which I probably have to read now.
By the way incase you missed it:
The Blackfeet Medicine man is named Fish.
When first introduced in the story, the airplane man is dressed in "one of those khaki outfits that African hunters wear." Ironically, he's the one that's being hunted.
I still don't understand what's going on with him. A parallel to the Blackfeet? Both are being tracked down by the U.S. Government.
nice comment. further.
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