The Trap of the Noble Savage

Most of us, in some form or another, are storytellers. Afterall, we cannot help but tell our own story simply by piling the days up, one after another. Our hand is forced and the tale begins before we are but a few rapidly dividing cells in our mother's womb -- and this inescapable fabric of humanity works to repel, attract and drive all manners of relations in between.

What if I desire to tell the story of a fictional character? A real live person, who lived on soil that I have tread upon,  hundreds of years before me, actually lived who would fill the space that my character who is, by the way, trapped in a google doc that gets dusted off way too infrequently. This character, who undoubtedly grew out of amalgamations of my imagination fed by a variety of caricatures and characters, while not specifically playing the role of a Native American child from the Clatsop tribe, which thrived on the southern aspect of the mouth of what is now known as the Columbia River, represent Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, in general. Lately I've been searching local used book stores for Native American literature, specifically historical fiction, but there exists very little. Historical periods exist but most all of them are after the arrival of the White Man, my character lives in that weird window where Europeans are on the East Coast but the West Coast for the most part remains unknown, unexplored, and ungenocided -- that's probably not a word but it works.

Furthermore, and to take a step back -- can anyone really tell another's story without transforming it into their own story? Perhaps through diligent and careful word crafting, or video editing, whatever, one can try to stay true to the tale of another. It is hard to argue that a pure, objective telling can exist. Even in medicine, where our SOAP note format includes "objective" in the section heading, how we format that the information of an otherwise objective finding can subjectify they data. To varying degrees, the storyteller is the reservoir, filter and the fountain of any given story and elements will be added, subtracted and even the medium gives shape, all of which speak to the teller.

There exists a lot of struggles surrounding writing this person and already I feel depersonalized from the character. Much of this stems from growing up with the idea of the "Noble Savage." A kind of trope used in media, advertising, literature even -- a character who, to me, as a child spoke to the injustices of modern civilization, of Capitalism and how we've let our environment come to calamatos ruin. While I don't claim to have had these thoughts as a pre-pubescent but the feelings associated with these understandings, exemplified by this commercial:

That commercial aired in the early 1970's, and while I may be old, I'm not that old and still, I remember the cultural impact this had even decades later. Memes did not move at the speed they do now, this is for sure. But it is this idea that I fight against while writing this character, and providing him a story; and this is where the difficulty lies -- it is a noble and attractive character, a font of wisdom come to show civilization the error of it's ways. To pile on top of that mental obstacle course exists the cognitive awareness that this child, living in the year 1700, would not have explicit messages for us, 300 plus years in the future, but instead, if his life is to have meaning, which all writers (even the staunchest "post-modern" abstractionist) aim to attain through their words. 

I never thought writing a thirteen year old boy, who lives in Oregon (or, what will become Oregon) would be so difficult. In many ways, we are so close in our experiences. We've gazed upon the same mountains, the same beaches and waves. The sun sinking into the western edge of the sea is a shared experience only separated by a few years, a brief blink when considering the history of this planet. Yet as close as we are we're far enough removed that a struggle to maintain authenticity is real. Getting back to what it is to be a thirteen year old boy, which I believe has certain elements that are shared through and over the barriers of time, place and culture. I wish to focus on these aspects and hopefully this story will take on a real life, one that speaks to me, as much as I speak of it. 

A fear that I will be disrespectful in my telling of this young man's story also is hard to reconcile, in that I lack a sounding board of individuals who have a reason to weigh in. A fear that I will be accused of trying to tell the story of an individual who I cannot know is also lurking -- I actively fight this notion. Here is why: the reading, of both fiction and non-fiction surrounding the culture and life of this person has been far reaching and eye opening. The other component of the novel in which this character lives, is altogether separate timeline. The juxtaposition of the writings from the 1930's concerning the building of hydroelectric dams on the  Columbia River and the attitude that this was needed to push civilization forward, and all other considerations, literally, be damned, has been worthy of serious reflection. A wild river, showing the scars and repercussions of huge earthquakes causing whole mountains to slide into the river, and of course the carving of the glaciers that carved the sheer cliffs out of limestone, silenced and tamed with steel and concrete. Now to serve the will of the masters who require the electrons be pushed, always pushed. 

Okay, I'm not as anti-civilization as I sound right now, I promise. However, I have to think that even the most conservative, pro-industry, capitalist has wondered that there has to be a better way. A way to have the luxuries of modern civilization, and those to come in the future, in a manner that is healthy in the short and long term, healthy for the planet and for the all the flora and fauna who sit on the surface, flying through space. 

It is this message that I wish my young teenager from The Clatsop Tribe would tell. I don't think that is his message, though and I've had to grieve the death of my own idea and submit to the story that is being told through this character. This is a healthy progression and had to occur in order to move forward with this book. More often than not writing in this blog is cathartic and serves to allow me to digest experiences and the thoughts that come from them. Cheaper than a therapist, I guess.