Sandman and American Gods: Problematic Portrayals – Part One

So, if you recall the last installment, what we’re discussing today is one of the main themes in American Gods: that America is a bad land for gods/that there were no deities in America before non-indigenous people colonized America. I’m discussing them as one theme together because they go hand in hand – why weren’t there any gods before other people came to America? Because it’s a bad land for gods, that’s why!

One of my issues with this is that it seems like a totally arbitrary rule to me. And it’s not very well defined either – does “America” mean the United States? Or North America? Shadow and Odin never go outside of the continental US, but one of the “coming to America” chapters features the Vikings bringing over their deities. However, as far as we know, the Vikings never came to the continental US. This tends to point towards these statements being said about all of North America, not just the United States.

Which brings me to the other part; the “there weren’t any gods before non-indigenous people brought them over” part. Where am I getting this from? It’s implied a few times throughout the book (although Shadow talks to a buffalo headed man several times, who I’m guessing is supposed to be the embodiment of the land), but the main reason is this, which occurs towards the end of the book:

“Look,” said Whiskey Jack. “This is not a good country for gods. My people figured that out early on. There are creator spirits who found the earth or made it or shit it out, but you think about it: who’s going to worship Coyote? He made love to Porcupine Woman and got his dick shot through with more needles than a pincushion. He’d argue with rocks and rocks would win. So yeah, my people figured that maybe there’s something at the back of it all, a creator, a great spirit, and so we say thank you to it, because it’s always good to say thank you. But we never built churches. We didn’t need to. The land was the church. The land was the religion.”

Whiskey Jack is another name for Wisakedjak, who is the only Native character/god/culture hero (he refers to himself as a culture hero, but some of the things I’m finding online refer to him as a god) in the book. Actually, the definition of “culture hero” is kind of…off too (from the paragraph or two right before the above quote):

“I’m a culture hero,” he [Wisakedjak] said. “We do the same shit gods do, we just screw up more and nobody worships us. They tell stories about us, but they tell the ones that make us look bad along with the ones where we came out fairly okay.”

By that definition, there are lot of gods that are “really” culture heroes. The idea of myths portraying deities only in positive ways is kind of a weird one; there are plenty of myths throughout various cultures that don’t necessarily reflect 100% positively on the deities within.

Anyways – the whole speech about there not being gods beforehand is totally false. Some of what he says (there being a “creator spirit” and then other spirits which might or might not be considered deities) is true – for a few tribes. But Native cultures are incredibly varied. There was some degree of mixing between tribes that were close together, but Native cultures are not and never were one monolithic entity. Whiskey Jack’s speech implies otherwise.

There’s also the problem that a lot of information on different Native beliefs is written from a Christian and/or imperialist (I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but there are definite tinges of “their belief system is inferior by definition”) viewpoint, including this little gem – and I quote: “The belief system of the Iroquois was the closest a Native American civilization had come to the complex theology of Christianity.” Cue vomit.

Defining god vs. powerful not-god entity can be a tricky matter anyways, but if you’re factoring in “a long history of persecution and suppression by government and missionaries…misimpressions that Indian religions are quaint curiosities, exotic, strange, or even nonexistent” (1), it becomes particularly complicated, especially for someone outside the belief system who doesn’t entirely grasp all of its nuances. Either way, there were definitely deities being worshiped in North America before non-indigenous peoples moved in, and all of these factors make me wonder where the idea that there weren’t any gods here before originated from.

Another related message/theme/what-have-you is that the gods are different in America than they are in other places. At the end of the book, Shadow goes to Iceland and sees Odin. He basically tells Odin he’s an ass (which, after the events in the book? understandable), and that Odin replies that “He was me, yes. But I am not him.”. However, earlier in the novel when Shadow is talking to Jacquel/Anubis, Anubis says “So yeah, Jesus does pretty good over here. But I met a guy who said he saw him hitchhiking by the side of the road in Afghanistan and nobody was stopping to give him a ride. You know? It all depends on where you are.”. If the gods aren’t the same in different places, that wouldn’t be the same Jesus. (And wouldn’t Jesus be stronger in the middle east, the area from which he came?)

Stay tuned for next week’s post, where I’ll tackle what I see as the second theme of American Gods, also reiterated several times in Sandman, the “oh, poor old forgotten gods, nobody worships them any more” one. I know you’re excited! As always, I look forward to your comments.

1 – quote taken from Encyclopedia of Native American Religions