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University Microfilms international 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St. John s Road. Tyler's Green High Wycombe, Bucks, England HP10 8HR 7B2462Ü WILSON, n o r m a j e a n CLARK THE SPIRIT OF PLACE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY, t h e u n i v e r s i t y of Ok l a h o m a , Ph.o., 1978 UniversiV Mkronlms International 300 n ze e b r o * d ,a n n a r b o r , m i « stœ © 1978 NORMA JEAN CLARK WILSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE SPIRIT OF PLACE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY NORMA JEAN CLARK WILSON Norman, Oklahoma 1978 THE SPIRIT OF PLACE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY APPROVED BY Ü J U À J f tttt it f / ' yr vV c- T s Z T i^ - y - i - r DISSERTATION COMMITTEE ACKNOWLEDGMENT I am grateful for the kind and helpful direction of Alan R. Velie. Dr. Velie and Dr. David Gross read my early drafts and made perceptive suggestions which have been essen tial to the completion of this work. I wish to thank Dr. Roy R. Male, Dr. Gwen Davis, Dr. A. J. Fritz and Dr. Victor Elconin, the members of the reading committee, for their time and consideration. My study has been strengthened by the friendship of Dr. Carter Revard, who made his unpublished manuscripts available to me and who has made many other contributions toward my understanding of the Spirit of Place. Most of all I appreciate the support, encouragement and insights that I have received from my husband, Jerry, who has spent much time proofreading and who has shared with me the Spirit of Place in Oklahoma. Ill TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE SPIRIT OF PL A C E ......................... 1 II. THE SPIRIT OF PLACE IN THE POETRY OF N. SCOTT M O M A D A Y ....................... 37 III. THE SPIRIT OF PLACE IN THE POETRY OF CARTER RE V A R D .......................... 85 IV. THE SPIRIT OF PLACE IN THE POETRY OF SIMON J. O R T I Z .......................... 150 NOTES ................................................ 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 215 IV THE SPIRIT OF PLACE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY CHAPTER I THE SPIRIT OF PLACE Legends, songs, chants and oratory were integral in the lives of people in the various original nations of what is now the United States. This oral literature grew out of knowledge, love and respect for this land, and it has pro vided a background and model for the literature that is emerging in what might be termed a renaissance in American Indian literature. This literary renaissance coincides with a social renaissance. Like many other ethnic minorities in the United States, American Indians are struggling to gain control of their lives. For American Indians, self determin ation means gaining control of the land and resources they need for survival and preserving and developing their tradi tions and cultures. Since Indian nations are not completely separate from, but related socially, culturally and economi cally to all the peoples now living on this continent and on this planet, their struggle is not an isolated struggle, important to them alone. Such a struggle is essential to 2 the freedom and future of all people. In terms of literature and its meaning, the at-oneness of a person and a people with the land is a pervasive theme of contemporary American Indian poetry; and this spirit of place is an outgrowth of culture, tradition and life, from which the oral literature of American Indians cannot be separated. The old stories, songs and ehants become part of an outlook. The people see the truth of their traditional liter ature affirmed in their lives. The oral literature becomes merged with the imaginations of American Indians ; so that when references to traditional literature appear in contem porary literature by American Indians, the references are more the result of associations that the mind makes naturally than attempts to point out the importance of the oral liter ature as a source. By continuing the communication of the old literature, the contemporary writer participates in the oral tradition, drawing from memory words that have meant much to his or her own life, and sharing them. Since the traditional oral literature is a part of the outlook of Amer ican Indians, it is a part of the people's and the poets' identities.^ The oral literature has grown out of the ways American Indians have defined themselves in relation to the land. It is their expression of what it means to live in their environ ment. The various tribes had songs to go along with every aspect of their lives— hunting, planting, grinding corn. 3 healing, making pottery, loving, making war. Considering the psychological reasons for and the effects of singing, one can come to some understanding of what these songs meant in people's lives. The view of the oral literature is shamanistic. To the shaman, all is one and all is many. All life is related. Gary Snyder explains the view in his book. The Old Ways : The philosopher, poet, and yogin all three have standing not too far behind them the shaman; with his or her pelt and antlers, or various other guises; songs going back to the Pleistocene and before. The shaman speaks to wild animals, the spirits of plants, the spirits of mountains, of watersheds. He or she sings for them. They sing through him .... In the shaman's world, wilderness and the unconscious become analogous; he who knows and is at ease in one, will be at home in the other.2 The shamanistic view is illustrated by this Acoma song, translated by Frances Densmore: Nicely, nicely, nicely, nicely, there away in the east, The rain clouds are caring for the little corn plants as a mother takes care of her baby.3 The basic simile in the song compares the rain clouds to a human mother. They are alike in that both give nourishment to living things, the corn and the baby. The nourishment is rain, a liquid like the milk of the mother. The brief song shows the singer's feeling of relationship to the life cycle. Such a song expresses an understanding of the life cycle and a participation in it. The Acoma are desert people, dependent on the short growing season of the desert. The relationship between rain and their sustenance is direct. The theme of the traditional 4 Acoma song is expressed in the contemporary poetry of Acoma poet, Simon J. Ortiz, in his book Going For The Rain. Writing of other desert people, the Papago, Ruth Mur ray Underhill states, "Song was not simply self expression. It was a magic which called upon the powers of Nature and 4 constrained them to man's will." According to Margot Astrov, "Healing songs and songs intended to support the powers of germination and of growth in all their manifesta tions , fairly outnumber all other songs of the American Indian."^ "The rain clouds are caring for the little corn plants" is a song of growth and germination. It acknowl edges the interdependence of human and non-human elements in the life cycle. One of the most powerful songs of healing and of the spirit of place in the oral literature is the ninth song of the Yeibichai, the Navajo Night Chant. This is Washington Matthews' translation : Tsegihi House made of dawn. House made of evening light. House made of dark cloud. House made of male rain. House made of dark mist.