Humor is one of the significant elements that make up American Indian worldview. American Indians, who have a “comic spirit” (Weaver, 1997: 141), are spontaneously humorists and witty people. More than an ethnic characteristic, humor becomes a survival strategy for American Indians. Both Reservation Blues and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven are full of examples that display American Indians spontaneous humor and comic spirit. Coyote Springs is invited to Seattle to join a music contest. Victor and Junior feel delighted when they hear the one-thousand-dollar-prize for the winner and they display their exultation by dancing in a comic way: “They tangoed up and down the floor. Junior picked up a stray feather and stuck it in his teeth” (Alexie, 1995: 124).
Whereas Victor and Junior are very eager to join the contest, Chess and Checkers cannot make up their minds since they have such poor economic conditions that they have to think every single detail. As a result, they set out to Seattle although Flathead sisters Chess and Checkers are unwilling. Their journey lasts more than six hours because their blue van refuses “to go more than forty miles per hour” (Alexie, 1995: 133). Instead of getting angry because of the tiring journey, Junior just personifies the van and says in a humorous tone: “This van don’t want to go to Seattle, enit?” (Alexie, 1995: 133). Chess, who is already hesitant about their decision, answers in a similar way: “Van might be the only smart one” (Alexie, 1995: 133). Both Junior and Chess personify the van because they think that the van is older than all of them and they should respect it. For this reason, Coyote Springs has never could think to replace the van with a new one although it has always created problems for them on the roads (Alexie, 1995: 87). When they arrive at Seattle, they go to a hotel and want to reserve rooms. When the white clerk asks them:
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“And how will you be paying for your rooms?”
“With money,” Victor said. “What did you think? Seashells?”
“He means cash or credit card,” Chess said.
“Cash, then,” Victor said. “What Indian has goddamn credit card” (Alexie, 1995: 134).
Both Chess and Victor express their ideas and even anger in a humorous way. Their witty answers and making fun of the situations display that they have a penetrating sense of humor that becomes a part of their worldview. Another example that displays Chess’s good sense of humor is one of her childhood recollections. Chess remembers one Sunday morning from her childhood:
She and her sister Checkers got prepared to go to Flathead Reservation Catholic Church. They went into the room of their father Luke, who had just lost his wife and therefore consumed too much alcohol in a depressive mood. They saw that their father had passed out as usual; nevertheless, Chess wanted to let her father know that they were going to church and spoke to her sleeping father in a ridiculing way:
“Hey, Dad,” Chess whispered. “We’re going to church. Is that okay?”
Luke snored.
“Good. I’m glad you agree. Do you want to come this time?”
Luke snored.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, either. Maybe next time?”
Luke snored.
“Don’t get mad at me. Jeez. If you walked into church, everybody might die of shock” (Alexie, 1995: 105). Even though the facts that they had just lost their mother, their father was always drunk, and he never went to church were the disturbing for them, Chess just made fun of the situation.
Once, Chess succeeds in persuading Thomas, who is skeptical about God’s existence, to go to church (Alexie, 1995: 169). Upon that, Thomas goes to church early Sunday morning with Chess and Checkers. Feeling nervous and frightened, “He wondered if the Catholics had installed a faith detector at the door, like one of those metal detectors in an airport. The alarms would ring when he walked through the church doors” (Alexie, 1995: 176).
Thomas’s satirical thought about a “faith detector” signifies whites’ paranoia about everything in a humorous way. Moreover, Thomas actually does not feel himself belonging there and does things “more by habit than faith” (Alexie, 1995: 177). At the end of the religious ceremony, Catholics say “peace be with you” to each other; however, Thomas, who feels himself as an outsider and is not be able to adapt himself to the atmosphere, misunderstands: “Peace be with you,” an old woman said to Thomas, but he heard ‘pleased to meet you.” Pleased to meet you, too,” he said. The woman looked puzzled, then smiled (Alexie, 1995: 179).
This funny misunderstanding actually signifies Thomas’s not focusing on the pray. American Indians sometimes make fun of the differences between their expectations and realities. Chess, as a young American Indian woman, expresses what qualifications the Indian women look for in an Indian men: “He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. He has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice” (Alexie, 1995: 75). However, personal qualifications are so impoverished for American Indians that, eventually, American Indian women have to amend their list of qualifications: “Indian men need only to have their own teeth” (Alexie, 1995: 75). Chess is one of these women who had great expectations but has suffered a lot from unfortunate love affairs with her Indian boyfriends:
Roscoe, the champion fancydancer, who passed out in full regalia during the Arlee Powwow and was stripped naked during the night. Bobby, the beautiful urban Indian, transferred to the reservation to work for BIA, who then left Chess for a white third-grade teacher at the Tribal School. Joseph, the journalist, who wrote a powerful story on the white-owned liquor stores camped on the reservation borders, and then drank himself into cirrhosis. Carl, the buck from Browning, who stashed away a kid or two on every reservation in the state, until his friends called him The Father of Our Country. (Alexie, 1995: 75).
Instead of remembering how much she has suffered because of her irrational love affairs Chess just remembers the humorous sides of them and smiles. Whereas Chess cannot have an affair with an Indian man who fulfills her expectations, her sister Checkers always chases Indian men who are much older than herself. Once, Checkers is in love with a man who is old enough to be her grandfather and when Chess gets introduced to Checkers’s ‘boyfriend’, she satirizes by saying: “I know we’re supposed to respect our elders, but this is getting carried away” (Alexie, 1995, 105).
Instead of getting angry with her younger sister, she just caricatures the situation. An additional example of caricaturizing is Spokane Indians’ describing a crazy old Indian man whose tribe they do not know for sure: “He wasn’t a Spokane Indian, but nobody knew what tribe he was. Some said Lakota Sioux because he had cheekbones so big that he knocked people over when he moved his head from side to side” (Alexie, 1995: 11). By way of caricaturizing this old man, Spokane Indians actually make fun of American Indians’ physical appearance. Victor is a character that Sherman Alexie often uses to illustrate thespontaneous humor of Spokane Indians: Once, Coyote Springs goes to a town called Vantage to give a concert. A policeman stops them and asks for identification. Whereas Thomas, Junior, Chess and Checkers show their driving licenses as their identity cards, Victor lifts his shirt and reveals his own name tattooed on his chest. When the policeman asks whether he is serious about the tattoo, he, ironically, says: “Yeah” (Alexie, 1995: 88).
One day, Victor surprises all Thomas, Junior, Chess and Checkers for his great ability for cooking omelets. The omelet he has cooked for breakfast tastes so great that all of them like it. “Victor wanted to say something profound and humorous about eggs, but he couldn’t think of anything, so he farted instead” (Alexie, 1995: 74).
Victor and Junior talk about white women and they try to observe the reason lying beneath American Indian men’s weakness about white women. While they are talking, Junior remembers his Irish girlfriend, his first white girlfriend whom gets pregnant from Victor and gives birth. Junior begins to daydream about his ex-Irishgirlfriend named Lynn. However, he daydreams ‘loudly’ about their conversation in which Junior learnt that his girlfriend was pregnant. While he is dreaming about the moment that his girlfriend said that she was pregnant, Junior says loudly “I’m pregnant” (Alexie, 1995, 204). This is a great expression for Victor to make fun of; Victor laughs and asks “Who’s the father?” and he adds “Am I the father?”. Junior remembers the moment he asks his girlfriend Lynn whether she wants to get married and he say loudly: “Do you want to get married?”. Victor goes on ridiculing and says: “I ain’t going to marry you if I ain’t the father” (Alexie, 1995: 240). Junior says his striking sentence at this moment: “Nothing is as white as the white girl an Indian boy loves”; and Victor says: “I ain’t white. I’m lower sub-chief of the Spokane Tribe (Alexie, 1995: 240). This funny dialogue between Victor and daydreaming Junior actually shows how Junior is hurt. Junior’s girlfriend Lynn has not got married to Junior due to the fact that he is Indian. She has preferred to be a single mother to her child. The only reason Junior cannot parent his child is that he is American Indian.
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