The Three Nativities, Pt. 7 - The Nativity in a New Key

As I write this next to last essay on the Nativity stories, I wanted to express my deep thanks for your patience as I have blogged with you through this Advent season. I have learned a lot and your comments both public and private have been extremely helpful. I do want to sneak up a bit on the present topic about transposing our story into a new key. So please bear with me if I chase a couple of tangents.

I. Most of us grew up with the fun poem, ‘Twas the Night before Christmas, written by Clement C, Moore in 1933. It functions as a secular narrative counterpoint to our nativity stories and most of us know the lines by heart. But retired Candler ethicist Ted Weber, who was raised in Louisiana, put me on to a different version this year. It is called the Cajun Night Before Christmas. It was first published by Pelican in 1988 and attributed to Trosclair You may already know it. So put on your best Justin Wilson voice and have some fun with me.

'Twas the night before Christmas
An' all t'ru de house

Dey don't a t'ing pass
Not even a mouse
De chirren been nezzle
Good snug on de flo'
An' Mamm pass de pepper
T'ru de crack on de do'.

Den Mama in de fireplace
Done roas' up de ham
Stir up de gumbo
An' make bake de yam.
Den out on de by-you
Dey got such a clatter
Make soun' link old Boudreau
Done fall off his ladder.

I run like a rabbit
To got to de do'
Trip over the dorg
An' fall on de flo'.
As I look out de do'
In de light o' de moon
I t'ink "Manh, you crazy
Or got ol' too soon."

Cuz dere on de by-you
W'en I stretch ma' neck stiff
Dere's eight alligator
A pullin' de skiff.
An' a little fat drover
Wit' a long pole-ing stick
I know r'at away
Got to be ole St. Nick.

Mo' fas'er and fas'er
De 'gator dey came
He whistle an' holler
An' call dem by name:
"Ha Gaston!
Ha, Tiboy!
Ha, Pierre an' Alcee'
Gee, Ninette!
Gee Suzette!
Celeste and Renee!"

"To de top o' de porch
To de top o' de wall
Make crawl, alligator
An' be sho' you don' fall."

Like Tante Flo's cat
T'ru de treetop he fly
W'en de big ol' houn' dorg
Come a run hisse'f by
Like dat up de porch
Dem ole 'gator clim!
Wit' de skiff full o' toy
An' St. Nicklus behin'.
Den on top de porch roof
It soun' like de hail
W'en all dem big 'gator
Done sot down dey tail.

Den down de chimney
I yell with a bam
An' St. Nicklus fall
An' sit on de yam.
"Sacre!" he axclaim
"Ma pant got a hole
I done sot ma'se'f
On dem red hot coal."

He got on his foots
An' jump like a card
Out to de flo'
Where he lan' wit' a SPLAT!

He was dress in musk-rat
From his head to his foot
An' his clothes is all dirty
Wit' ashes an' soot.
A sack full o' playt'ing
He t'row on his back
He look like a burglar
An' dass fo' a fack.

His eyes how dey shine
His dimple how merry!
Maybe he been drink
De wine from blackberry.
His cheek was like a rose
His nose like a cherry
On secon' t'ought maybe
He lap up de sherry.

Wit' snow-white chin whisker
An' quiverin' belly
He shook w'en he laugh
Like de stomberry jelly!
But a wink in his eye
An' a shook o' his head
Make my confi-dence dat
I don' got to be scared.

He don' do no talkin'
Gone straight to his work
Put playt'ing in sock
An' den turn wit' a jerk.

He put bot' his han'
Dere on top o' his head
Cas' an eye on de chimney
An' den he done said:
"Wit' all o' dat fire
An' dem burnin' hot flame
Me I ain' goin' back
By de way dat I came."

So he run out de do'
An' he clim' to de roof
He ain' no fool, him
For to make one more goof.
He jump in his skiff
An' crack his big whip.
De 'gator move down
An' don' make one slip.

An' I hear him shout loud
As a splashin' he go
"Merry Christmas to all
'Til I saw you some mo'!"

II. Those of you who are familiar with the processes of Bible translation understand just how difficult it can be as one moves from one cultural context to another. I just recently learned that Adam didn’t eat that first sinful bite from an apple, because apple trees did not exist in the Near Middle East in those days. The original Hebrew suggests fruit, perhaps what Adam ate was either an orange or most likely a pomegranate. The story has been translated into a new key for those of us more familiar with apples than pomegranates.

In the 1980s, Judy and I had the special privilege of taking care of a young child who because of health reasons needed to stay in the states while his parents served in mission in India. Jeremiah had lived his entire life in Indonesia before joining our family for some 8 months. One of my fondest memories had to do with a story time we shared. We were reading one of those traditional barnyard tales and our ritual went something like this – I would point to a picture and ask, “What’s that?” Jeremiah would reply, “That’s a dog.” I would then ask, “What does a dog sound like?” He would then answer – “Wolf, wolf!”

We have all done something like this game with kids.

So that afternoon, we looked at pictures of cats that said Meow! Horses that went Ney! Sheep that bleated Baa! Roosters that sang Cock-a-doodle-doo! Then, we looked at the picture of a squat little round animal with a snout for a nose and a curly tale.

“What’s that?” I asked Jeremiah?

Silence!

“Why Jeremiah, that’s a pig!”

Silence…

“Okay,” he sighed…..”What’s a pig?”

Having spent his entire first two and a half years in Muslim villages in Indonesia, this pig was not a part of his imagination. Oh, he could recite and intone perfectly the call to prayer that issued from the local minaret, but a pig was indeed a wonder to behold.

For your reference, Muslims' abstention from pork eating is

in adherence to the Qur'anic Law which states:

" Forbidden to you for (food) are: dead meat,

blood and the flesh of the swine and that

which hath been invoked the name other than

Allah. "

Holy Qur'an 5:4

Such prohibition is also found in the Bible:

" The pig also because it is a splitter of the

hoof but there is no cud. It is unclean for

you. None of their flesh must you eat and carcass

you must not touch. "

Deuteronomy 14:8

My guess, that children growing up in small villages in Israel might also have the same trouble understanding what a pig was. Their families didn’t pinch toes and sing this little piggy went to market!

III, Having talked about the Three Nativity stories, to begin to bring my reflections to a close for this year, I now want to talk about what I choose to call the transposition of the nativity story into a new key. In my previous post, I opened the door to this discussion by quoting Alfred Burt’s wonderful poem and song “Some Children See Him.” It ends with the haunting thoughts:

. The children in each different place
Will see the Baby Jesus' face
Like theirs but bright with heav'nly grace
And filled with holy light!

O lay aside each earthly thing
and with thy heart as offering
Come worship now the infant King
'tis love that's born tonight!

Indeed in our global world, children and adults in each different place must appropriate the story by learning to see themselves in the narrative. But in some settings, the story itself must be transformed into terms that can be related to in the first place.

In my early years working internationally, I spent considerable time living and teaching in the Pacific region. One trip in 1985 took me to Tonga for a training conference. At the end of our week together it came the time for our closing worship which traditionally included communion. Our service was presided over by Dr. Sione Havea’ the late dean of the Theological College in Fiji. Instead of bread and wine, our table had several freshly shucked coconuts. When the appropriate time came, our pastor took a machete and split open each coconut capturing the sweet liquid in the traditional chalice. Now if all you have ever seen is one of those brown things they sell at the local grocery store, this will be hard for you to understand. A fresh coconut has clear sweet pure juice, not yet transformed into the white stuff we call coconut milk. It is pure and life giving. I am told that during WWII when sterile water was in short demand as it always is the case particularly on the dessert atolls of the North Pacific like Kwajalein and Eniwetok, coconut juice was used by medics to sterilize their instruments.

The inside of the shell of a fresh coconut doesn’t have that dry hard stuff, we grind on the top of cakes either , but a bright white sweet fleshly meat that one uses one’s thumb to separate from the shell and eat. For traditionally in Tonga, as in most other Pacific islands and atolls, there are no grapes, there are no wheat fields. Jesus took the stuff at hand, the common stuff and turned them into symbols of our common lives as Christians and our calling. If Jesus would have been in Tonga, I believe that he would have split a coconut and said, “Take, Eat – as we share from one “ewe” (it is called in the Marshall Islands), we are one body.” “Take, Drink – this cup symbolizes your willingness to take on the apostolic mission before us after I am gone.” Dr. Havea’ transposed the elements of the story and indeed allowed it to speak with power.

IV. What would the transposition of our nativity stories look like? Fortunately, we do have an example. Stories from the Bible have been translated into dozens of languages from around the world and printed on everything from quilt squares to microfilm, but a retired United Methodist pastor David Fison in Alaska has brought the Christmas story to life in a 12-foot cedar totem pole.

Early Christian missionaries to the Pacific Northwest viewed totem poles as pagan idols and encouraged new converts to abandon their symbolism, Fison said. "The old way was, you have to give up your traditional ways and be like us.'" But "totem poles were never idols," Fison said. Indians of the Pacific Northwest have a rich tradition of oral histories, he said. "In the absence of a written language, the Indians of the Northwest had preserved their stories and events carved from cedar logs. They were the nearest thing people had to books. "The characters on a totem pole provide an outline so that, after hearing the story, listeners can read the pole for themselves,"

In a UMC News story. David said the inspiration for the Tsimshian Indian-style totem came during Advent in 1961, while he was serving as a pastor in Ketchikan, Alaska, and later as an interim pastor for the Tsimshian in Metlakatla.

After he retired, with a slab of cedar from Ketchikan, and hours of research into Native Alaskan history, the Rev. Fison began to tell the story as he thinks the Natives would have.

The angel Gabriel is portrayed as Raven, emissary of the Great Chief of the Heavens, the Tsimshian term for God, Fison explained. Raven, sitting atop the pole, carries the Star of Bethlehem in its beak. Bear symbolizes the place of Jesus' birth. "They had no domestic animals," Fison said. "Jesus is born where the forest animals feed."

The following chart indexes the transposed symbols:

THESIMSHIAN (Sim' shee on)—A Tribe of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia.

RAVEN (Angel)—Emissary of "the Great Chief of the Heavens." (Tsimshian term for God.) He holds the star of Bethlehem.

WOODCARVER (Joseph)—Canoe paddle sym­bolizes the journey to Bethlehem. Travel be­tween Tsimshian villages was usually by canoe.

MOTHER & CHILD (Mary and the Infant Jesus)— There is no room! The village is filled with visitors to the "Potlotch." (A gathering called by a powerful chief to display his wealth and power.)

BEAR (Symbolizes the place of birth)—They had no domestic animals for a stable. Jesus is born where the forest animals feed.

KEEPERS OF THE VILLAGE FISHTRAPS (Shepherds)—Since the Tsimshian had no sheep, fishtraps were the nearest equivalent.

CHIEF (Wisemen)—They come from distant villages following the star. They had no gold but present their most valuable possessions, such as the copper shield.

FROG (The angel of Dreams)—Gives re­assurances to Joseph to take Mary as his Wife and later warns him of Herod's plan to kill the Child.

POTLATCH CHIEF (King Herod)—He is upside down in Frog's clutches. This symbolizes his be­ing outwitted by Frog.

I first viewed the completed pole as it stood anchored to the spiral staircase in the center of the geodesic dome house he and his wife, Aleen, had built for themselves in Anchorage. Small reproductions of the Christmas totem pole are now found all over the world, including in the Vatican. A copy is a central feature of our family’s collection of crèches.

I will close by sharing the poem the Dave wrote to tell his story in this new key.

The Christmas Totem Pole

My friend behold the carving,

Now open up your soul,

And you will learn the legend

Of the Christmas Totem Pole.

Now the ancient Tsimshian

had "books" for all to see,

For when they "wrote" a story

They carved it from a tree.

'While gazing at old Totems

One Christmas dreamingly

I beheld a vision

Of a strange nativity.

Now, I sought to hold it

But it escaped my grasp

Not 'til I searched long their culture

Did it return at last.

Yet did some Ancient Craftsman

Guide by hands to lift the veil

Of how He would have carved it

If he had only known the tale?

From the lore of these people

Then let this pole proclaim:

That "Great Chief of the Heavens"

Was their Creator's name.

Black Raven was His messenger

To bring His word it seems.

And frog, the lesser creature,

He sent to them in dreams.

To a lowly Maid came Raven,

To plan that Holy Birth;

While Frog assured Woodcarver

Her Child would bless the earth.

An order for a potlatch

Was given in that day.

They journeyed there by dugout

Through inland waterway.

No place was found for shelter;

Except the forest wild.

Where Bear feeds on the berries;

Was born that Holy Child.

Men tending village fishtraps

Heard the Raven's song.

And ran to find a Saviour

Promised e'er so long.

Then traveling to that village

Came leaders from afar;

With gifts for a newborn Chieftain;

Being guided by a star.

Yet there were those who feared Him,

And one who wished Him dead,

But Great Chief of the Heavens

Had a plan of love instead.

So He sent Frog to warn them;

And they hid with another clan.

He would become the Great Chief

And fulfill His father's plan.

Yes, He comes to every people

No matter where they live;

Just as they are, accepts them;

His Holy love to give.

So take Him as your Chief my friend

And He shall make you whole

This fulfills the purpose

Of the Christmas Totem Pole.

See also:

The Three Nativities, Pt 1 - Introduction

The Three Nativities, Pt 2 - Lineage

The Three Nativities, Pt 3 - Matthew as Gospel

The Three Nativities, Pt 4 - Matthew and Illegitimacy

The Three Nativities, Pt 5 – Luke and the Shepherds

The Three Nativities, Pt 6 - Light Incarnate

These essays are written in memory of Judy Sparks Montgomery

(c) John C. Montgomery 2007

Cross posted on 7 Villages

Link to UMNS TV Interview:

Photos used by permission: UMNS photo by Mike DuBose Photo number 00-144, Accompanies UMNS #511, 11/13/00

UMNS photo by Mike DuBose Photo number 00-146, Accompanies UMNS #511, 11/13/00

U-tube link to Cajun Night Before Christmas: