Wîhtikow feast : digesting layers of memory and myth in Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen and McLeod's Sons of a Lost River

Abstract

This paper explores and compares the ways in which novelist and playwright Tomson Highway and visual artist and poet Neal McLeod use traditional and contemporary Cree narratives to represent personal and collective cultural experiences, both past and present. In Highway’s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen, and in McLeod’s exhibition of paintings Sons of a Lost River, the mythic figure of the wîhtikow, a cannibalistic entity that symbolizes the destructive forces of colonialism and urbanization, as well as the self-abusive patterns found within the individual psyche, is used in counterpoint with the Cree trickster wîsahkecâhk, elemental spirits like the Thunderbird, and heroes such as ayash and pîkahin okosisa to express a multi-stylistic array of cultural meanings that avoid absolute interpretations. Highway and McLeod create myths that explore the oppressive as well as the redemptive processes of their cultural heritage over centuries of engagement with colonial powers and institutions.