Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions

by Tomson Highway

Brilliant, jubilant insights into the glory and anguish of life from one of the world’s most treasured Indigenous creators.

Trickster is zany, ridiculous. The ultimate, over-the-top, madcap lunatic. Here to remind us that the reason for existence is to have one blast of a time and to laugh ourselves to death.

Celebrated author and playwright Tomson Highway brings his signature irreverence to an exploration of five themes central to the human condition: language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death. A comparative analysis of Christian, classical, and Cree mythologies reveals their contributions to Western thought, life, and culture—and how North American Indigenous mythologies provide unique, timeless solutions to our modern problems. Highway also offers generous personal anecdotes, including accounts of his beloved accordion-playing, caribou-hunting father, and plentiful Trickster stories as curatives for the all-out unhappiness caused by today’s patriarchal, colonial systems.

Laugh with the legendary Tomson Highway as he illuminates a healing, hilarious way forward.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, Essays, Canada, Memoir, Humor, History

200 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2022

About the author

In the six decades since he was born in a tent in the bush of northernmost Manitoba, Tomson Highway has traveled many paths and been called by many names. Residential school survivor, classical pianist, social worker and, since the 1980s, playwright, librettist, novelist and children's author.

He is fluent in French, English and his native Cree. In 1994 he was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada -- the first Aboriginal writer to receive that honour. In 2000, Maclean's magazine named him one of the 100 most important people in Canadian history.

He currently resides in Toronto.

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laughing (and some Crying) at Life and Death
Review of the House of Anansi paperback edition (September 2022)

It was not long into his childhood education at an Indian Residential School that author Tomson Highway began to perceive that there was something wrong with the teachings of the monotheistic religion which the Catholic priests were promoting in class:

As have, surely, my mother and father. No one deserved entry into heaven more than they, except that my father was an accordionist not a harpist, as I inform the priest in class that day.
"Will God let my father in?" I ask this Father Cheepootaat*-which-rhymes-with-eemataat (which is what I sometimes call him to myself).
"No," snaps Father Cheepootaat. "Sorry, Accordions are not allowed in heaven."
Distraught that my father might have to change instruments or go to hell, I vow to help him keep his accordion.

In Laughing with the Trickster, Highway examines the history and humour of the Cree language, and especially its reliance on jokes and laughter based on its central mischievous Trickster character. This thesis is built around the theme of pantheistic Indigenous mythology, where God is in everything whether it be a ray of sunshine, a blade of grass, an animal, a rock or a human being. This is in contrast with other pantheistic mythologies such as those of the Greeks and Romans where mostly the only non-serious exceptions were the messenger god Hermes/Mercury and the revelry god Dionysus/Bacchus. It is especially in contrast with the mythology of the monotheistic Christian God where no humour exists at all.


Photograph of author Tomson Highway delivering the 5th and final lecture of 5 in the "Laughing with the Trickster" series as part of the CBC Massey Lectures on September 23, 2022 at Koerner Hall, Toronto, Canada. Photograph by Karan Aquino sourced from Twitter.

Laughing with the Trickster covers this wide-ranging set of themes with Highway's personal anecdotes of his upbringing and life interspersed with various Trickster stories and jokes. The overall subject matter is actually more serious than the title of the lecture series might suggest. HIghway delivers it all with his trademark zest for life and humour which leaves you both enlightened and entertained. I also had the pleasure to attend the finale of the lecture series at Toronto's Koerner Hall.

Trivia and Links
* Cheepootaat was the closest equivalent that the Cree children knew from their own language, in order to pronounce the name of Father Thiboudeau at the residential school where Tomson Highway was sent in his childhood.

Author Tomson Highway was interviewed on CBC Radio on the subject of his 2022 CBC Massey Lectures and you can hear the interview on CBC Metro Morning with Ismaila Alfa.

Massey College, along with CBC and the House of Anansi Press, co-hosts the Massey Lectures, widely regarded as the most important public lectures in Canada. Established in 1961 by the CBC to honour the former Governor-General of Canada, the Right Honourable Vincent Massey, the College’s Founder and first Visitor, these annual lectures are given by a noted scholar or public figure. They are broadcast by the CBC from cities across Canada, and published at the same time by House of Anansi Press.

[Krista · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes our parties doubly unruly, and therefore doubly spectacular, is the fact that a clown god lives inside us. A spirit half-human and half-god, as is the case with all superheroes in all world mythologies. The difference is that our Trickster has a sense of humour and a concupiscence that know no limit.

I chose to read Laughing with the Trickster — a contribution to the CBC Massey Lectures series by noted Indigenous author and playwright Tomson Highway — on the occasion of Canada’s second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and it was perfectly suited to the occasion. Over five chapters — examining language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death — Highway shares personal stories, Indigenous mythology (particularly focussed on Trickster tales), and compares how language and creation myths from around the world set the tone for how a society decides to live within these five areas; easily making the case that colonialism (and the imposition of English and Christianity on Indigenous peoples) not only separated colonised people from their own culture and history but also forced them to adopt a more restrictive and frightening worldview. Thomson lays out these truths with a generosity of spirit and good humour, and this is the sort of informative and accessible book that should be widely read and widely taught as we seek reconciliation with our First Nations. Very highly recommended. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

For me, after having pored through every single word and syllable of its verbal fecundity, and comparing it to the many other languages I have tried on my world travels, I find English to be the world’s quintessential language of the intellect. It’s brilliant. When I need money, I speak English faster than the speed of sound. And generally get it. When I try to make money in Cree, by comparison, I go hungry. Cree is terrible when it comes to making money. But laughter? Hysteria unzippered, unbound, uncorked? That’s Cree’s genius.

Highway’s comparison of Cree and English (and how one’s native tongue informs mindset) was my most profound learning: Apparently, in Cree, there are no “bad words”; everything is on the table for joking and teasing and laughing about — even the way that words are formed is half a smile, and whether a person is talking (at a mile a minute) or listening, people engaging in a conversation in Cree are always ready to start laughing. This mindset contributes to and is the product of Cree mythology — from creation myths to hilarious tales of the Trickster — and also extends to the afterlife: as they believe that the spirit does not survive death (and the body returns to nourish the earth), traditional Cree peoples enjoy life, and laughter, and the pleasures of the body in the here and now. Comparing that to compulsory English and forced conversion to Christianity (with its inherent misogyny, sexual taboos, and fear of judgement in the afterlife), Highway makes the point that the First Nations weren’t just forced to live life in translation after first contact but compelled to change their entire view of reality; and I don’t know why I never considered it that way before. For this learning, I am grateful.

If the marriage between the sky god Zeus and his wife, the Earth goddess Hera, was violent, then it was nothing in comparison to the moment when the one Christian God met Mother Earth on these shores and the aggression was total — he almost killed her. But didn’t. The culture could have disappeared. The figure of the Trickster could have disappeared forever. The culture came close to disappearing. The figure of the Trickster came close to disappearing. But it didn’t. It hung on by a hair. And hung on and hung on and hung on, if by one spark. And that is the spark that Indigenous artists stoked to life. Not least of which did these Trickster stories they tell make us laugh, and laughter is medicine. In fact, never before has laughter saved an entire race of people in quite this manner.

Languages go extinct all the time (a quick Google search tells me that one dies every two weeks with its last speaker) and I can be a bit blasé about that fact: it's objectively sad, but globalisation and the free movement of people and the internet can make homogenisation feel like progress towards some Star Trek future where we’re all equal Earthlings. So I am grateful for what Highway taught me here about what’s at stake when a language — and its attendant culture and worldview — is under threat of extinction; this world would be a lesser place without the Trickster and they who share his tales and I am enlarged for having been on the receiving end of this learning.

[Dasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It is such a thoughtful and unique linguistic and cultural analysis. Highway has such skill with the English language it makes reading this book in a sitting such a pleasure. I think this was eye opening in the way linguistics shapes our worldview, which seems obvious, but the way Highway lays out it is different than I've read before. The humour imbued throughout this book (I laughed multiple times reading this) has given me a new perspective on Indigenous Creation stories - not that they aren't serious or important - but that there is a new level of appreciation I got a glimpse of through Highway's writing.

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no doubt Tomson Highway is a trickster. Brilliant, hilarious, a rascal who’s stories weave sharp insights into the critical differences in our ways and customs. I want to practice Cree in a mirror so I too can feel the rise of the laughter from within, see it spread across my body and let it escape into the world around me.

[Brittany Fritsch · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book really captured my attention: comparative analysis of Christianity, Greek, and Indigenous mythologies and how they inform our perception of gender, death, creation, language and humour. So fascinating! However, very quickly, I realized that the book is less of a comparative analysis in the strictest academic sense and more one man's opinion of how the three worldviews compare. It would be dangerous to use this book as a reliable primer of Christianity (I would assume the same for Greek mythology as well but I'm less certain on this pt). Instead, the book was Highway's interpretation of the limitations of Catholicism (and the particular brand of Catholicism he encountered at a residential school in Canada) in contrast to the benefits and wisdom of the Cree worldview. I was hoping he'd go a little deeper into the ethos of the three mythologies, and found his depiction of Christian monotheism and Greek polytheism superficial. Taken w a grain of salt and the knowledge that Highway is a story teller and a playwright, I found his commentary on Cree mythology to be more reliable and informative than anything else. Mostly, though, I was left w the desire to learn Cree.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this set of five sequential and inter-related essays — in fact, lectures, as they were broadcast in 2022 — Tomson Highway endeavors to define the essential differences between the worldview of indigenous peoples and that of our Eurocentric society. He approaches his topic first off from the standpoint of language and, more pointedly, mythology and how contrasting mythologies penetrate every aspect of a society. The notion of mythology and its influence is the theme that ties all the five lectures together. He starkly compares the pantheistic indigenous mythology with both the monotheistic Christian mythology and the polytheistic mythology of classical Greece and Rome.
There is much to admire, even enjoy in his discussion, especially in his take on language, humor and creation. But of course, Highway is nothing if not serious and determined to drive home his message; he becomes increasingly hard-edged and accusatory as he delves into his final two topics, gender and death. It’s thought-provoking stuff — as is to be expected in a Massey Lecture series; entertaining in many ways but toward the end he attempts to cover a bit more breadth of subject matter than the lecture format will readily accommodate.
It’s quite appealing to an agnostic like me but likely to be dismissed by some as an anti-Catholic rant, in spite of his focus on humor. In fact, his notion of the total lack of humor within Christian teachings is perhaps the most salient idea that one is left with; the reasons for that absence is deeply unsettling and seems to me to go right to the heart of his message.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What could have been if this worldview, this ideology, this collective subconscious, this pantheistic Indigenous mythology, had been listened to, if it had been respected?”

Perhaps humans would have a better chance of surviving. And as Thompson indicates, living joyfully, laughing till we fart, laughing till we die. Brilliant insights in this book.

[Emily Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

He is the Cree Kurt Vonnegut.
Even his rants are lyrical.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliant, jubilant insights into the glory and anguish of life from one of the world’s most treasured Indigenous creators.

Trickster is zany, ridiculous. The ultimate, over-the-top, madcap fool. Here to remind us that the reason for existence is to have a blast of a time and to laugh ourselves silly.

Celebrated author and playwright Tomson Highway brings his signature irreverence to an exploration of five themes central to the human condition: language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death. A comparative analysis of Christian, classical, and Cree mythologies reveals their contributions to Western thought, life, and culture—and how North American Indigenous mythologies provide unique, timeless solutions to our modern problems. Highway also offers generous personal anecdotes, including accounts of his beloved accordion-playing, caribou-hunting father, and plentiful Trickster stories as curatives for the all-out unhappiness caused by today’s patriarchal, colonial systems.

I heard several of the chapters on CBC radio when they rebroadcasted the Massey Lectures of 2022. Then I borrowed this book and read them all.

Laugh with the legendary Tomson Highway as he illuminates a healing, hilarious way forward.
3 stars

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite being raised Catholic, it always seemed to me that the world was more likely governed by a clown than a Lord. In Laughing with the Trickster Tomson Highway interrogates language, monotheism, gender and so much more using the Trickster his Anchor.

Profound, insightful and clear as the wind, Highway generously provides insights into indigenous knowledge from Pacific to Atlantic, emphasizing the inherent value of indigenous language and the humour embedded within it.

I couldn't put this bad boy down.

[Christopher Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alot of interesting observations and ideas in this book, but the writing is unfortunately poor and the project as a whole is disorganized. Also, there are some statements that grossly misrepresent facts about Christianity, mythology and language.

Notwithstanding, there is wisdom in this and its great to hear perspectives from Cree mythology.

[Penn Kemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, Tomson Highway Trickster!

[Mary Oxendale Spensley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't an easy one to review. It's not a novel. If I try to explain it, you'll think it's dry as dust. But once I picked it up, I was unable to put it down. It's as though a really smart, wise, fascinating person is talking really fast. He tells you about three cultures, Northern European descendents in North America, Roman and Greek mythology and North American Indigenous beliefs and how they compare and contrast. Awful, hey?

But he pulls it off. He's hysterically funny and insightful. It's well worth the read, and informative too!

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tomson Highway knows how to tell a story. He takes big topics like language, gender, creation and death and leads us through Greek, Christian and Indigenous mythologies to try to get us to some sort of truth and understanding. The book was very good. I'd like to go back and listen to him lecture as I imagine there is something lost without him actually delivering the content. I did very much enjoy the book - though by the end, I felt a little hammered with the message that everything I grew up with (Greek and Christian mythologies) was wrong.

Many thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing a digital ARC for review!

[Karan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was sobbing when I was reading the final pages on death, the indigenous pantheistic understanding of death and the circle of life, his brother's death, their joy, his joy. Despite having heard him read the final chapter On Death in the final Massey Lecture at Kroener Hall on September 23. I remarked to a friend (one who wasn't present for the lecture) afterwards that though the subject was death, I thought it was about joy, and life. And so it is. Tomson Highway.

[Anne Smith-Nochasak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomson Highway takes us through analysis, tears, and laughter to an appreciation of the power of laughter in the Indigenous world. The laughter might seem at times outrageous, but it is always kind and delightful. There is such deep feeling and understanding of the human condition. We need books like this at this point in history. It is a book of wisdom and healing, and ultimately a book of joy.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There's a major fault in Western society. It makes room for only one god, and in only one gender. There's no balance, no co-existence, no partnership.”

Thomson Highway explains language, creation, sexuality, and death with humour. Our purpose on the earth is to laugh and be filled with joy. He is a conduit to that joy!

[Stanley Townsend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book that stretches your mind.

[Magdelanye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theology is a discourse on gods only. Cosmology is a discourse on the universe only. And Mythology is a discourse on both gods and the universe. p9

To mythologize, that is to weave a web of magic. p27

Having enjoyed many of his previous books, I was expecting the laconic, penetrating humour. In this CBC Massey lecture, Tomson Highway goes much farther, outlining the fundamental foundational and nuanced differences of outlook and organizing principles of classical, Western Christian, and Indigenous Cree societies. In examining the five themes of language, creation, sex & gender, humour and death there is accordion music in the background and enough laughter that the reader can make the shift from despair to gratitude and something like hope that the wisdom found here will ultimately prevail.

it's been a dark and lonely road...filled with pitfalls that almost killed us, as, indeed, it did for some of us. All the more reason, then, to bring on the clowns, the language, the stories that saved laughter for the pleasure of generations, past, present, and future. p101

[Judy Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading Tomson Highway's book "Permanent Astonishment" I read this book that describes his 2022 contribution to the CBC Massey Lectures. Interesting insight. There are many similar themes in the two books. I believe that Tomson Highway is a linguist, talented in so many ways. However, I took exception to some of his assumptions and statements in this lecture series. Was he trying to create controversy? Was he trying to be a Trickster? How much was tongue in cheek or how much does he truly believe in what he said? For instance, he attributes much of the ills in the world to not just Christianity, but to a colonial belief in a monotheistic God.

I found the book to be rather one-sided, as is his privilege as an author and an invited Massey lecturer. The book certainly made me think!

[Pankaj · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a pleasure to listen to Tomson speak at Massey College and introduce the subject of his CBC Massey lectures for 2022. A linguist, he confided that he had visited India but could not learn any of the 22 official Indian languages! I quipped that's what stood us two Indians apart!

This book offers a brilliant synopsis of monotheistic and polytheistic Greek, Roman and Christian mythologies as opposed to a pantheistic Indigenous mythology that goes beyond the narrow confines of she/he and embraces nature holistically.

[Lubna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Kiss of the Fur Queen, Tomson Highway’s semi-autobiographical novel several years ago and I loved it. It’s one of my favourite books of all time. And I also enjoyed his memoir, Permanent Astonishment. This book however is his weakest. Laughing With the Trickster is a bit of a mess. The book lacks coherence and it’s like disjointed essays or journal entries.

If you want to read a book by Tomson Highway, I highly recommend Kiss of the Fur Queen, which is beautiful. I don’t recommend Laughing With the Trickster.

[Kit Pangman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A joy to again sit and receive stories and teachings from the sensational Tomson Highway. A favourite author of mine for over a decade and an inspiration as an aspiring Indigenous author, he encourages an exploration of Indigenous ideology in a digestible format, while being meticulously well researched to contrast our teachings to those not our own. A welcome new widening of perspective on language, gender and humour.

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is joyful and poignant. Tomson Highway beautifully weaved personal experience with a holistic analysis of Christian, Greek and Indigenous mythology, representing monotheism, polytheism and pantheism. The book describes the destructive force of colonialism on Indigenous peoples, the cultural resilience and benefit of incorporating Indigenous perspectives into social, economic and environmental policy

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

"For the sake of future generations, will we let the patriarchical God of monotheism continue destroying the planet with his straight line of aggression? Or will we let his wife, the Mother Earth of Indigenous pantheism, preserve it for her children, for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with her womb, with her great, never-ending circle?" I really enjoyed reading this - what a thoughtful and unique cultural analysis! 4.5

[MM · Rating 3 out of 5]

- exploring three mythologies, representing polytheism, monotheism, and pantheism respectively (classical/Greek, Christian, Indigenous)

- Sapir-Whorf - language shapes our culture and personality. e.g. Cree is a funny language, more tolerant of vulgarities, even the way it is spoken involves more light hearted, open mouthed sounds

- no laughter / humorous person in the myth of Christ

- the Trickster figure (weesaa-geechaak) involves myths explaining the origination of things (e.g. sexual differentiation) in humorous stories

[Lindsay Christina]

I don’t know how to rate this book! I had the pleasure of seeing Tomson Highway speak about it and tell a lot of these stories in person, and while the book was funny and interesting and moving in different parts, the author really brings those stories to life in a way the book can’t quite. So—interesting read. But go listen to Tomson Highway instead if you can!

[Crystal Sissons · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an intellectually stimulating and hilarious book that addresses some very important and profound themes! I couldn't put it down and I know I will read it again - in fact I read it in two days!

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, funny, and thought provoking. A comparison of three major belief systems leaving no question as to which is the path to save humanity. A joyful exploration of the meaning of life. I'll probably read it again....and again...

[Tova Cranford · Rating 4 out of 5]

"They [Tricksters] are here to remind us that the reason for existence on planet Earth is not to suffer, not to wallow in guilt, not to apologize for a crime we did not commit, but to have one blast of a time, to laugh ourselves to death."