This blog is wholly based upon the "Walsh" written by the Sharron Pollock. It clearly embodies the crush Sioux nation by the American nation!!! Another critic, Malcolm Page, calling Pollock ' a committed artist' says that "She is using the theater to expose deception, to probe the origins of human behaviour, to weigh the truth of a character or situation, and to determine people's responsibilities for their actions". It is worthwhile and interesting to read and interpret all the plays of Pollock, especially "Walsh" in the light of Page's remark.
Walsh is at once a rewriting of history and the representation of Major Walsh's personal life. It tries to expose and subvert the myth that Canadians were fair to the native peoples and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police a symbol of integrity and just conduct. It also portrays the moral degradation of Major Walsh of the North West Mounted Police from an upright humane officer to an alcoholic and a moral wreck by studying his character in relation to the situation.
In its form it is not just a historical play but a 'historiographic metadrama' as Richard Paul Knowles has labelled it. There is a orologue, an unusually long narration of historical background and the employment of a character (Clarence Under hill) just for the elucidation of the moral dilemma going on in the mind of the central character. Further, as Eugene Benson has pointed out, like so many Canadian plays the Riel trilogy, Fortune and Men's Eyes, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Walsh is a Court or prison play where national values are put on trial and where the audience is conscripted as jury.
The North West Mounted Police was formed in 1873 by Sir John A Mac Donald to police the Canadian West, an area now known as the Southern Alberta - Saskatchewan border. General Custer, the first man to be in charge of the force, could have done duty for Hitler in the days of the holocaust. Instead of administering the area he was only hounding out the Indians. The massacre of Indians was performed with clinical efficiency. The ruthless attacks were perpetrated indiscriminately whether the Indians were hostile or friendly. The policy was "The more we kill this year, the less we have to kill next year,the less we have to kill next year. To Custer killing the hapless Indians was a sport, it was a celebration accompanied by the marching song of 'Garryowen'.
The devil got his due one day. On June 25th 1876 at Little Big Horn a group of Sioux headed by their Chief Sitting Bull ambushed Custer and his men and put them all to their swords. This incident later came to be known as the 'Custer Massacre'.
Thereafter, Walsh took charge and enforced law and order. He made peace with the Sioux tribe and everything was going on smoothly without any trouble. But the American Army was itching for revenge. It would not allow the death of Custer, the flower of the American Army, to go unavenged. It brought pressure on the Canadian Government to extradite Sitting Bull and his people. The Canadian Government nothing more than a puppet in the hands of the imperialist and racist American Government meekly yielded and ordered Walsh to force Sitting Bull and his group out of the Canadian soil. Walsh faced the dilemma of his life should be champion the cause of the innocent people who called him White Sioux and looked up to him for their safety or betray them? Against the brutal machinations of a merciless government he succumbed. Sitting Bull and his people were made to cross the border which Walsh knew was nothing but their last journey towards the hangman;s halter kept ready by the American Government.
The play begins with a prologue. In the prologue except for |Walsh and Harry, a Wagon-master, the other characters take different roles. Sitting Bull is the prospector, Mc Cutcheon is Ian the bartender, Crow Eagel is Billy who plays the 'Garryowen' on the harmonica, Crowfoot, the son of Sitting Bull is Joeie, the newspaper boy and Mrs Anderson is the Courts an Jennie.
The play is in two acts. The first act begins with the unfolding of the situation in which Walsh assumes office. The most remarkable quality in Walsh is the absence of a false sense of righteousness that is so pronounced in the settlers. He can understand that the Sioux, a hunting tribe, cannot be turned into farmers overnight, that too, on a barren soil. He realizes that the White-man's bourgeoise morality will take time to be imbibed by the natives. They see nothing wrong in taking a tub unused by the owner or a horse unattended. But, for the Whites,robbing a people of their land by force, making peace with promises that they never intend to keep, sustaining themselves beneath the weight of the blood that they have shed and above all 'forgiving' them in the name of administering justice come as naturally as leaves to a tree.
The En Sioux, headed by sitting Bull, cross from the American territory into Canada after committing that one crime of killing Custer. Walsh is free from any prejudice against the Sioux and tries to do the best in the given situation. As a representative of Ottawa he finds himself unable to answer the point raised by Gall, another Hungpapa Sioux Chief:
"My people fought against the Long Knives for your people the. We were told that you would always look after your red children. Now the Long Knives have stolen our land. We have no place to go. We come home to you asking for that protection you promised.
Walsh could only blurt out that the Great White Mother had now made peace with the Americans. Yet stirred by deep anguish over the pitiable plight of the Sioux and moved by their simple honesty he decides to allow them to settle there. He slowly wins their love and affection. The Sioux revers and love him so much that they begin to call him White Sioux.
Later, General Terry of the US army meets Walsh to persuade him to drive the Sioux across the border into America. That is also the time the Nez Porep's request the Sioux to help them fight their way across, the line. Walsh prevails upon Sitting Bull against helping the Nez Perce;s as it would be harmful to the interests of his own people. Sitting Bull very Stoically expresses his abject position:
Yes......I can see it ...... Today is a sad
day for me..... In the past, I have risen tomahawk in hand. I have done all the hurt to the Whites that I could........ Now you are here. My arms hang to the ground as if dead...... I will call you White Sioux and I will trust you. I will speak to General Terry and I will deny the Nez Perco's.
Sitting Bull is anything but naive. He can carefully size up any situation. He can be brutally sarcastic. He says:
I know many who took the White man's promises.........Bear Ribes, White Antolope, Iron Shield, Black Kettle, Stirring Bear ...... Crazy Horse. I would ask their guidance, but ail of them are dead.
Still, as fate would have it, Sitting Bull is memorized by the sincerity so apparent in Walsh's appearance and words. He tells him:
Advise me now, White Sioux. Tell me What is best for my people. I will follow your advice...... and the burden\of it will be on your shoulders.
Walsh tries to convince Sitting Bull that they have no chance of survival in Canada. He also knows that General Terry's offer of amnesty is just a bait to lead the Sioux into American soil only to kill them there. So when Sitting Bull refuses to leave Canada Walsh simply passes on the information to Terry. Walsh's silent but firm decision is to do everything in his power to protect the Sioux as they have not only a strong case but have also reposed such unstinting faith in him.
This solemn promise he is going to violate and that will pave the way for the annihilation of the Sioux and his own moral ruin.
In the second act there is an idyllic scene of conjugal love showing Walsh in flesh and blood and his wife Mary in his min's eye. We got glimpses of Walsh as an adoring husband and loving father. The White officer appraises the situation impartially:
One thing I know, across the line there's been gross and continual mismanagement of the Sioux, An able and brilliant people have been crushed, held down, moved from place to place, cheated and lied to..... And now, they held on here in Canada, the remnants of a proud race, and they ask for some sort of justice..... which is what I thought I swore an oath to serve.
Soon Walsh falls a victim to the political machinations of the aggressive and arm-twisting United States. Ottawa, a more pawn of American foreign policy sends Colonel Mac Lood and in his Vice-like grip Walsh acquiesces and sends Sitting Bull to his certain death in America. Denis Salter very precisely sums up the situation.
They shot him twice and put the boots to him..... and Little Crow say the soldiers dropped him in a pit of lime, so's people couldn't bury him proper.
The reaction of Walsh is to lay his gun on the table along with the red tunic, the symbol of his authority. The last words are spoken by Sitting Bull. He softly repeats his own words addressed earlier to Crowfoot and foreshadowing his death: In the beginning..... was given....to everyone a cup.... A cup of clay. And from this cup, we drink our life. We all dip in the water..... but the cups are different........ My cup is broken. It has passed away.
As an answer to the question what had been the motivating force behind her theatrical attempts, Pollock in the preface to her play The Kamagata Maru Incident that resembles Walsh theme and purpose wrote, " As a Canadian, I feel that much of our history has been misrepresented and even hidden from us. Until we recognize our-past, we cannot change our future. Prompted by a simple desire to be honest she subjected the history of Major Walsh of NWMP to an objective study and came out with startling facts. Keeping close to historical events as much as a theatrical production would permit she had produced an absorbing drama from personal history. Historical voracity of her play, excepting for telescoping of the two events - the return of Sitting Bull to the U.S and his assassination were at least nine years apart - has been authenticated by two historic. We can conclude of Canada who put the national consciousness on the rack of self-scrutiny.
(Sources: The quotes are taken from the "Walsh" written by the Sharon Pollock) Uk
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