Salt Baby

by Falen Johnson

Growing up on the Six Nations native reserve, Salt Baby never quite fit in, as a "white" looking "Indian"--fair skin and curly hair made her more of a Shirley Temple type than a Pocahontas type. Salt Baby navigates the native reserve and the city while explaining herself, as well as her blood quantum, to the world and to "Alligator" "It's always different for Indians."

Genres: Fiction

74 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2013

About the author

Falen Johnson is Mohawk and Tuscarora (Bear Clan) from Six Nations Grand River Territory. She is a writer and podcaster. Her plays include Salt Baby, Two Indians, and Ipperwash for which she received a Dora Nomination. Her writing has been featured in Brick, The Canadian Theatre Review, and Granta Magazine. She co-hosts The Secret Life of Canada (CBC Podcasts) with Leah-Simone Bowen and Unreserved (CBC Radio One). She has written for Urban Native Girl (APTN) and Merchants of the Wild (APTN) as well as for the 2020 Inspire Awards. Falen was also named one of Maclean’s “20 to Watch in 2020.”

Reviews

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salt Baby's living in the city now, but the reservation is in her blood, and she's not quite sure how to reconcile the part of her that wants things the reservation can't offer and the part of her that will always find it home. But she's trying: dating a white man, seeing how much he can understand, contemplating whether a DNA test will get her closer to her history.

I always skim the drama shelves at the library when I visit my mother, because they have so much that is so interesting and that I'd be unlikely to stumble across elsewhere—and in particular, the library is really good about stocking First Nations writers with diverse perspectives. I like the way this one is done; it's mostly straight scenes between people (even if they don't always say quite what they mean) but with the occasional drift into the unreal (conversations with ancestors, dreamscapes) because...that's a sort of thing you can do in plays and have it make sense. Would be a nice one to see performed.

[Brit J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand the character Salt Baby on a personal level. Thank you Falen for sharing this lived experience, one that I have always found difficult to put into my own words.

[Jenna Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Jane Mulkewich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salt Baby is a play (performed recently at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton) about a woman who looks white, but who identifies as three-quarters Indian (her dad is full Tuscarora, and her mom was the daughter of a hereditary Mohawk chief and a white woman). She is debating taking a DNA test to explore her ancestry, and seems particularly interested in the ethnicity percentages. Her dad is secure in the knowledge of who he is ("I'm Tuscarora that's what I know"). As someone who uses DNA to find unknown ancestry, I could say that this character does not need a DNA test (because she knows her family tree), but the play is more about this woman exploring her own identity, and also about what that means in her relationships, for example with a white man.

[val · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was too good. That experience of not feeling completely engrained in your own culture, feeling too white, not having good relationships with white people, not having good relationships with people in your own culture…

Wait a minute, is this f*cking play about us ?!???

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful! I'd love to see the play.