Redemption, Reclamation and a Reconstruction of Self in Tanya Tagaq’s Split Tooth

Tanya Tagaq’s debut novel, Split Tooth, captures the chaotic and tortuous life experiences of a young girl

perennially trying to find her place in a complicated world, as she grows from childhood into her early

adult years. The protagonist, a young Inuk girl of eleven growing up in the 1970s, is exposed to many

acts of violence which end up altering her worldview. Effectively deploying form and structure, Tagaq

captures the displacement of this young girl who is forced to get accustomed to violence as a way of life.

The generation before her had been displaced from their culture and the loss of identity can be easily seen

right from the first page when the young girl and her seven-year-old sister are terrified even in their own

home, and they “stop breathing” (10).

Breaking away from the western linear prose tradition, Tagaq uses non-linear storytelling punctuated by

highly emotional poetry and pictorial illustrations to clearly underscore the non-linear lives of the

Indigenous women who have had to battle sexual molestation, rape, cultural degradation and loss of

identity brought about by colonisation and Christianity. Every image of the male figure in the novel is

oppressive and domineering, except in rare situations where such males do not have the masculine

features to exert their maleness.

The boys chase us and hold us down

Touch our pussies and nonexistent boobs
I want to be liked
I guess I must like it
We head back to class
The teacher squirming his fingers under my panties
Under the desk
He looks around and pretends he’s not doing it
I pretend he’s not doing it
He goes to the next girl and I feel a flash of jealousy (13)

The young boys often chase them and touch their private parts, only for them to get back to their class and

still be molested by their male teacher. When the protagonist turns fourteen, she witnesses a rape

experience in her school hostel, as one of the male priests comes to violate an older girl who is asleep.
She wakes up to the experience and mildly cautions that the girl is in the room, which the priest

dismisses, claiming that she is a small girl and asleep (47).

Because this sexual molestation is their constant experience, they are forced to not only live with it, but to

also desire it, as that was their only way of being accepted. The female protagonist continually seeks

acceptance and validation from male figures, but her most intimate romantic experiences are with animals

and fellow girls. This distortion of sexual relations is both a redemptive tool and a clear protest against

societal expectations in a Christian-dominated society where heterosexuality and monogamy are held to

be the only acceptable forms of romantic relationships.

Another major motif in the book is the destructive effect of the Christian religion on Indigenous culture

and a total rejection of same. Christianity is presented as an intrusive, yet uninvited, guest who always

looks out for what is beautiful in Indigenous culture, only to ruin it. The protagonist informs us that her

mother is a strong woman, then takes us back to her mother’s childhood experience when everything was

blissful and beautiful because it was “unhindered by Christianity” (69). Sadly, her mother’s childhood

innocence was soon stolen from her, as the protagonist informs us:

My mother was a child of transition; government relocation, the shift into

capitalism, and the moulting of the Shaman Skin led to the generation of Christian
Rules, Blind Faith, and Shame. Christians seem to love Shame: shame on your
body, your soul, your actions and inactions. Put a cork in all of your holes and
choke on the light of God (69).
The unblemished childhood experience soon gave way to a forced relocation by the government from her

family, just like other victims of the Indian residential school system. Not satisfied with successfully

uprooting these victims from their literal families, they were also uprooted from their cultural heritage, as

they had to experience a moulting of their skin to give way to new rules governed the Christian religion.

These victims had to abandon everything that tied them to their supposedly dark past, as that was the only

way to be accepted by the proponents of the new religion.

In her poetic musical presentation, “Tongues”, Tagaq buttresses this dislocation even further:
 They took our tongues
They tried to take our tongues
We lost our language
And we didn’t
Inuuvunga (I am an Inuk)
You can’t take that from us
You can’t take our blood (Online)

Cultural identities like their names, long hair and language were shamed and treated as disdainful, making

the protagonist conclude that Christians seem to love shame. She mocks the core foundation of

Christianity, which is anchored on faith, describing it as blind faith. She further advises Christians to

choke on the light which they claim their God brings, as their own darkness brought them peace until the

light of Christianity was introduced to them. This heralds her total rejection of Christianity and all that it

stands for. In her estimation, no one can seem to claim a full understanding of Nature, as it is fraught with

inexplicable dualities that everyone must approach with a level of humility.

Throughout the novel, we see a reclamation of some Christian religious practices as totems of Indigenous

culture, which the protagonist effectively appropriates and bends to serve her own charismatic worldview.

She says, “I put my head under the water for as long as I can. I am pure. This baptism does not belong to

Christians. This baptism belongs to the Land” (112). She then goes on to proclaim herself pure,

irrespective of the fact that the Christian religion might think of such an act as heretic. In place of the

doctrine of death and resurrection, she introduces us to the Indigenous belief in reincarnation:

Upon our deaths

The Earth welcomes us into
her bosom
Turns us into plants and oil and wind
Churns us into more life (70)

If anyone ever wonders why the protagonist is desperately repudiating everything that Christianity

represents, they only need to turn to Tagaq’s “Tongues” yet again: “I don’t want your god/ Put him down/

I don’t want your shame”. Since embracing Christianity means losing her own identity and having her

Indigenous culture relegated, she would rather have nothing to do with it.