I Will Fight No More Forever

The first paper for my Multicultural Literature in North America class for my Masters degree.


Stories are the representation of personal feelings and attitudes, yet amazingly, some stories show that these feelings and attitudes are represented in more than one author’s perspective, in more than one culture’s perspective.

Three stories that represent a common theme are “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” by Leslie Marmon Silko, “Borders” by Thomas King, and “American Horse” by Louise Erdrich. These stories share the refusal to accept newer definitions for beliefs and backgrounds over another culture’s overlay of ideas.

In “The Man to Send Rain Clouds,” the death of one man creates an unknown clash between cultures. The priest that is asked for by the grieving family only want a bottle of holy water to sprinkle on the man’s grave. While they are accepting the custom of the holy water, they also are sticking to their beliefs that sprinkling this water on the grave will cause the man to never become thirsty and perhaps help them by sending rain clouds. While he asks for the water, the priest blurts out, “For a Christian burial it was necessary.” While they both trust each other, while they both are trying to work with each other, this shows the underlying tensions and beliefs from a priest who probably didn’t think he had any. When the grieving man resigns his position and gives up, only then does the priest decide to help, as if it were the last straw. The grieving family did not waver but waited patiently by the grave. Both sides seemed to not understand each other. The grieving family could only accept so much of the newer definitions for how to bury their kin.

In “Borders,” a Blackfoot woman has a conflict crossing the border between the United States and Canada, just as she has a conflict crossing the border into the worlds of these two countries. She simply will not accept a country’s dominance over her nation. When asked what country in which she was a citizen, a standard question for crossing the border, she defiantly says, over and over, “Blackfoot.” One border patrol officer even quips back, “…And I’d be proud of being Blackfoot if I were Blackfoot…But you have to be American of Canadian.” The officer negates her first statement with the “but,” applying her own definition to the system. Also in the story, “the reporters would come over and ask me about how it felt to be an Indian without a country.” Inherently, both sides don’t understand each other. The woman said which nation she was with: Blackfoot. It is only the new definition that she refuses to place upon herself.

In “American Horse,” a social worker goes to take a boy out of a home. The clash here is between what both sides think as right. The reader can sense that the home has been upset for quite a long time, apparently from the lack of meshing with the definitions and culture of the newer world. The social worker says, “I want to find that boy and salvage him…Look at his family life—the old man crazy as a bedbug, the mother intoxicated somewhere.” The social worker never actually asks how this family came to be like this. There was love in the house: “you are the best thing that ever happened to me.” This family somehow couldn’t accept the new world, yet this world didn’t seem to work with them. The social worker says to the boy, “We’re going to help you,” but nothing is done to help the rest of the family.

These stories seem to ask if we can “recognize the voices” and listen to them. Can we hear the other side of the argument and give it the perspective it deserves? Why does this one perspective, as there is one evident winner in the three stories, win out? Who sets the rules and who has to live up to the rules whether they want to or not? The clashes in these stories happen because one side refuses to accept the new definitions being thrust upon them. However, by not accepting these definitions, they seem to be resigning themselves to less than stellar fates. But then again, am I imposing my ideals onto their fates? Perhaps the honor of the fight is actually the best fate to be had. Chief Joseph once said that he “will fight no more forever.” What if there are those with the desire to still fight?


1877
I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER
(Surrender Speech)
by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER -
I am tired of fighting.
Our chiefs are killed.
Looking Glass is dead.
Toohulhulsote is dead.
The old men are all dead.
It is the young men who say no and yes.
He who led the young men is dead.
It is cold and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death.
My people, some of them,
Have run away to the hills
And have no blankets, no food.
No one know where they are-
Perhaps they are freezing to death.
I want to have time to look for my children
And see how many of them I can find.
Maybe I shall find them among the dead.
Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.
My heart is sad and sick.
From where the sun now stands
I will fight no more forever. - -
THE END
(from 4Literature.net, http://www.4literature.net/Chief_Joseph/I_Will_Fight_
No_More_Forever/)