Subject: Oliver La Farge's LAUGHING BOY
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliaann@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jan 08 2001 - 21:30:17 GMT
As promised . . .
Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago, I came across a mention of
the Pulizer Prize-winning novel LAUGHING BOY and drew some pretty obvious
connections, based strictly on a summary of the book, to, of course, "The
Laughing Man". Though my local bookstore was slower than molasses in Canada
(wait, that's January, sorry), in getting this book to me, I've finally had
the opportunity to read it. And I'll apologize before I begin for the
length of this one. I hope you find it as fascinating as I did.
NOTE: And if you ever plan on reading this book, you should stop reading
this message right now, for it shall ruin everything. In fact, let me say
before I go any further that this little book deserved every accolade that
it's gotten over the years. I want to call it a sweet little gem, though
it's not sweet at all, at all. It's a boy-meets-girl story, it's an
indictment of society, it's an exploration of a culture that has nearly
disappeared, it's sheer poetry.
If you read it, you will see in the first ten pages exactly why it might
appeal to a man like Salinger. For it's a parable, a contrast between, not
goodness and godlessness really, but a life lived with and without
spirituality. Walking a lone path versus walking the path of Beauty, or
Hozoji. Yes. That is it. That will do.
LAUGHING BOY
Laughing Boy is a young Navajo warrior who attends a dance where he gambles
and races horses and meets a girl, Slim Girl, a girl who was born Navajo but
was taken off of the reservation when she attracted the attention of some
"Americans" who judged that she had enormous artistic talent. She became a
"school-girl" and her Navajo-ness was educated out of her by the Americans
The dance is not an ordinary dance-- it is a religious ceremony for the
Navajo where a medicine man, or singer, leads the men in a song, a dance
ceremony where they will balance the badness of recent luck with the
goodness of their dance. The ill-luck of the clan hosting the dance will
then go away, and the people will have a chance to get together for contests
and races afterword.* Something that I found rather amusing was that a
major source of ill-luck was looking into the face of your mother-in-law.
Even worse was accidentally speaking to her. (Now THERE'S a joke that needs
no punchline.)
Slim Girl sees Laughing Boy at the dance and, when he defeats her recent
flirtation, Red Man, in a wrestling match, decides that he is the man who
will take her back to the Navajo way. Their eyes meet across a crowded
dance floor. They dance. She rejects him, though only to gain his deeper
interest. Later she surprises him alone, as he is composing a love song to
her, and she makes him sing it to her, indicating her willingness to accept
him:
A-a-a-ainé, ainé.
I ride my horse down from the high hills
To the valley, a-a-a.
Now the hills are flat. Now my horse will not go
From your valley, a-a-a.
Hainéya, ainé, o-o-o-o.
Now with a god I walk,
Now I step across the summits of the mountains,
Now with a god I walk,
Striding across the foothills.
Now on the old age trail, now on the path of beauty wandering.
In beauty-- Hozoji, hozoji, hozoji-i (30-31).
She is part of his Hozoji path, she has become a god with whom he walks, and
his horse will not go from her valley. She will lead him to Beauty, or
Truth, or the Way, or whatever you want to call it. A more brilliant
declaration of love I have never heard.
Laughing Boy is a proud Navajo warrior who will not accept coming to the
marriage empty-handed. He must get the approval of his uncle, Wounded
Face, who had a scar running across his cheekbone-- an eagle's head.
Wounded Face, however, has heard stories about Slim Girl, knows that she has
done the "worst thing" for the Americans and tells Laughing Boy what he has
heard. He denies Laughing Boy the gift of any sheep, so Laughing Boy,
undeterred, returns to Slim Girl and tells her that she must wait for him to
come to her with the proper dowry. But Slim Girl is fearful that if he goes
back to his people, he will never come back. So she convinces him that he
does not need a dowry, that she is rich, and they will forge a new path of
Beauty together.
They run away to her house on the other side of the tracks off of
reservation land. And she realizes that this plan of hers has gone awry:
she has fallen in love with him. "I shall make a god of him" (55) she
thinks. They will make scads of money here in the South off of the
Americans, and they will retire to the North country to live a pure Navajo
life.
And she won't have to raise any sheep.
She will instead, she tells Laughing Boy, earn money from the missionary's
wife in town, where she has worked for several years, and she will use the
proceeds to buy silver so that Laughing Boy can fashion jewelry to sell to
the Americans. But, she warns, he cannot go into town for they are looking
for him. Laughing Boy, though he is curious about the town, agrees and
spends his days capturing and taming horses which he then sells. She spends
several days a week in town, meeting the American who has fallen in love
with her and gives her all the money she wants. She doesn't see it as
wrong; she sees it as meting out justice. She will take her revenge upon
this American for what another had done to her: seducing her and leaving her
alone and pregnant, fit to be nothing but a whore. She will break his heart
and she and Laughing Boy will retire to the North country with the proceeds.
Time passes, and Laughing Boy hears that his clan will be hosting a dance of
their own. Slim Girl knows that they will try to take her from him, but
agrees. After the dance, the clan holds a council, during which they
attempt to convince Laughing Boy to leave Slim Girl. He refuses, and tells
them that she is his path of beauty and what they have is good, and right.
They are pretending with the Americans, he says: "'We have masks on, so
they will not see our real faces'" (106). His family accepts his decision
to stay with Slim Girl.
The dance ends with a fire, during which Wounded Face tells the Coming Up
Story:
"Slayer of Enemy Gods came to the Hunger People, they
say ... He said, 'Now I am going to kill you, because
you are bad for my people.' Hunger Chief said, 'If you
kill us, nobody will be hungry any more, nobody will
care about feasting. They will not go out and hunt
for good food, venison, and fat prarie-dog. Nobody
will want to go hunting," he said, they say."
"Slayer of Enemy Gods said, 'Then I shall let you live,'
they say" (68).
Laughing Boy and Slim Girl return to their home following the dance and fall
into an existence of joy. Slim Girl learns how to weave blankets for her
husband and learns the Navajo way, finding herself utterly happy. She
starts to doubt her life in town: "I cannot stop halfway now. I am making
a new trail of beauty. When I get through, it will be wonderful. Nothing
will ever have been like our life" (83). They stay at the hogahn of a
Navajo family, and Laughing Boy finds that he is not as comfortable in his
old life and his old hardships as he was. As Laughing Boy is drifting off
to sleep, his host is telling the Coming Up tale again. "Slim Girl had
slain the Hunger People" (129), he muses, content with his lot and eager
only to be home.
As must happen, Laughing Boy discovers Slim Girl's duplicity and falls into
a rage, whipping out his bow and shooting raging arrows at her lover. Two
arrows miss, and the third lodges in the man's shoulder as he runs away.
The fourth arrow Laughing Boy shoots, deliberately, into Slim Girls arm.
"'You have killed us both, I think'" (159), he tells her, and leaves her to
wander alone.
He returns to their home to find her waiting for him, the arrow still lodged
in her arm. He removes the arrow, and she tells him why she did what she
did. Laughing Boy decides to stay with her, as he can understand her
reasoning. But, he tells her, they cannot stay there. They must move
North, back to his clan.
They depart from their home and during their journey, Red Man, the man that
Laughing Boy defeated in the wrestling match, sees them in the distance. He
still feels humiliated at Slim Girl's treatment of him, and in his rage
fires two shots in their general direction. One shot hits, and kills, Slim
Girl.
Laughing Boy, so close to happiness, falls into despair. He buries her in
the Navajo way and sits the four day mourning period at her graveside, beset
with hallucinations and trying to determine if he should kill himself. On
the fourth day he emerges from his grief and returns home. Sitting at the
council fire, he reflects about what he has lost, wonders if he would have
been better off never having met her. But no, he decides, their love, their
life, has become a part of him and he cannot, will not forget. The past and
present have come together and made him whole: "'Never alone, never
lamenting, never empty, Ahalani, Beautiful!'" (192).
Laughing Boy.
Regards,
Cecilia.
* Not unlike Taoist custom. In fact, the Navajo belief system is
surprisingly similar to many of the tenets of Taoism. The necessary Yin
balancing the yang attained through practice and prayer. The importance of
the four directions in attaining that balance. Taoists call it the chi that
is in everything, the Navajo call it the Hozoji, or path of Beauty.
La Farge, Oliver. LAUGHING BOY. Signet, New York: 1971.
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