American Indians inhabited the continent now known as America for thousands of years before the arrival of Columbus to it. "The graceful boat of death" as described by Linda Hogan in Solar Storms, whose riders committed the most barbaric crimes ever: "beloved children (were) mutilated, women cut open and torn, strong, brave men would die, and even their gods would be massacred" (168). Since that discovery, American Indians suffered the worst of injustices: subjugation, expropriation, forced migration, prison, and even mass murders. Linda Hogan in Solar Storms states that the American Indians "had lived there forever, for more than ten thousand years, and had been sustained by these lands that were now being called empty and useless" (58). They
…show more content…
Thomas king asserts this truth more than one time in his novel Green Grass, Running Water. When First Woman is taken to jail in Fort Marion and she asks about her charge, she is answered: "Being Indian" (GGRW 72). And to contrast the truth, American Indians were stereotyped as savages who would kill "a beautiful blond woman, her hands raised in surrender, watching horrified as a fearsome Indian with a lance rode her down" (160).
The title of Green Grass, Running Water itself is a memoir of the injustices done to American Indians. It is an allegory of "As long as the grass is green and the waters run," a statement always written in treaties with American Indians to indicate the eternity of the treaty, which is, and always had been, a lie. King explains this view: "As long as the grass is green and the waters run. It was a nice phrase, all right. But it didn't mean anything. It was a metaphor. Eli knew that. Every Indian on the reserve knew that. Treaties were hardly sacred documents. They were contracts, and no one signed a contract for eternity. No one" (267). Water is no longer running. It is held back and dammed to death. The grass is no longer green, for it has died out of thirst. Governments "felt generous back in the last ice age, and made promises it never intended to keep" (138). Longo and Miewald quote what Wilkinson (1987) has contended in a courtroom that "the judges cannot shake their commitment to old contracts and treaties, "typically conducted in but a few days on hot, dry plains between midlevel federal bureaucrats and seemingly rag tag Indian leaders""
Thomas king asserts this truth more than one time in his novel Green Grass, Running Water. When First Woman is taken to jail in Fort Marion and she asks about her charge, she is answered: "Being Indian" (GGRW 72). And to contrast the truth, American Indians were stereotyped as savages who would kill "a beautiful blond woman, her hands raised in surrender, watching horrified as a fearsome Indian with a lance rode her down" (160).
The title of Green Grass, Running Water itself is a memoir of the injustices done to American Indians. It is an allegory of "As long as the grass is green and the waters run," a statement always written in treaties with American Indians to indicate the eternity of the treaty, which is, and always had been, a lie. King explains this view: "As long as the grass is green and the waters run. It was a nice phrase, all right. But it didn't mean anything. It was a metaphor. Eli knew that. Every Indian on the reserve knew that. Treaties were hardly sacred documents. They were contracts, and no one signed a contract for eternity. No one" (267). Water is no longer running. It is held back and dammed to death. The grass is no longer green, for it has died out of thirst. Governments "felt generous back in the last ice age, and made promises it never intended to keep" (138). Longo and Miewald quote what Wilkinson (1987) has contended in a courtroom that "the judges cannot shake their commitment to old contracts and treaties, "typically conducted in but a few days on hot, dry plains between midlevel federal bureaucrats and seemingly rag tag Indian leaders""