Mr.

Roynon ENG 3U2-04 20th October 2013 One Strange Story, That One

The narrator in One Good Story, That One by Thomas King uses the wisdom of the God Teacher archetype to teach the white people what they need to know, rather what they wanted to hear. He teaches them that they should not make assumptions about cultures based on stereotypes. This highlights the idea that Western cultures are not willing to dismiss the stereotypes associated with Natives, one of which is the idea that people within First Nations communities are obsessed with tradition and history. The narrator compares the white men to a group of coyotes in the midst of his story. Coyote come by maybe four, maybe eight times coyote tracks come around in a circle. According to the narrator, the white men are like the coyotes. Continually coming around and walking in the same circles over and over again. The anthropologists always come to the narrator asking the same questions and for the same stories, walking in circles around the preconceived notion that Natives are more concerned with old stories of things in the past. The narrator also describes the white men similar to Kasin-ta, Like if you did nothing but stand in one place all day. He says that Those three [white men] like to stand. Stand still. I think of Ka-sin-ta. The narrator is saying by standing still in the river, they are losing the opportunity to actually follow the river. The white men are not willing to move forward with the flow of the river, much like the ever changing and evolving culture of First Nations people, and are stuck in a stereotypical state of mind. The narrator utilises the God Teacher archetype to try to enlighten these anthropologists to the way things really are with the Natives. He tries to tell them stories about Billy Frank and the dead river pig. and about Harley James. Bad temper that one. Instead of telling them a tale from the past, he makes it clear that he is more interested in sharing stories of current events than old stories. He also does not tell them an actual story about what the Natives believe to be the creation of the earth. Instead he tells the story of Ah-damn and Evening who are otherwise known as Adam and Eve from the bible. In doing this, he attempts to teach the white men that not everything in the native culture is as focused on the past as they believe it to be, and that what they think is important is different from what they believe is important to the natives. The narrator makes it clear that he prefers talking about more current events rather than things from the past in order to educate the anthropologists. Thomas King attempts to debunk common stereotypes in his story, and uses the God Teacher archetype to help the white men have a better understanding of what Native culture truly revolves around, and that it is not stuck in the past.