Native American Poetry and History

                                       Native American Past and Present

       
         California was discovered by the European Conquerors in the 16^th Century. Before the European arrival, Native Americans had been living in California where they had formed a vast understanding of the land relying on oral history passed down through generations. California, home to Native-Americans, was thought by the Europeans as savage and needing to be “civilized.” Through the poems “Indian Cartography” by Deborah Miranda and “The First” by Gary Soto we are given an insight into the terrible injustice that Native Americans were forced to endure by having their lifestyle and land taken away from them by the Europeans. Indian Cartography gives us one man’s wistful insight through his personal memories into Native-American life whereas “The First” takes us back to the early interactions with the Europeans which were harsh and unforgivable. Both of these poems display similarities of feeling sad, remembering the past and what has been lost to form a new world in California.  Both these poems share common theme of having to cope with reality and adapting to changes in their lives while having contrasting tones and structures to describe the Native Culture.

           “The First” by Gary Soto describes the beginning of Native American contact with European conquerors which created a difficult future for Native Americans. Europeans taking control of Native American land and forcing them to move their homes and families is described vividly through the description of “Villagers undid/Their houses/Thatch by Thatch/And unplucked/The stick fences/That held grief”. Their homes and communities were destroyed by this process because they relied on one another to work and help each other. With everyone being separated the elders in their family are unable to pass down the history which will create a loss of attachment to the culture for the future generation. This suffering is also depicted in “Indian Cartography”  through the father’s memory of a past filled with “…shadows/of a people who are fluid/fluent in dark water, bodies/long and glinting with sharp-edged jewelry/and mouth still opening and closing” describing the destruction and death that likely occurred when they Natives lost their land. They were forced out of their own homes by the government “that paid those Indians to move away” and fought continuously to be given their rights and freedom back.

          This destruction didn’t just stop with the Native people but was also done to the land they held so sacred. Both of these poems describe the affect that changing the land and hurting the animals caused the Native Americans to further suffer. Watching their land being destroyed, polluted, and abused was disturbing their link with nature. The Natives believed that nature and animals were a blessing and should be treated accordingly. “The First” displays to us the wrongful treatment of animals, being used and discarded only for monetary gain, a prize for the rich,”…Iguana/Being stretched/Into belts/The beaver curling/Into handbags”. These stanzas also seem to be a sort of metaphor to the Native Indians becoming disconnected to the animals and land because they were being destroyed and unable to keep their bond strong.” Indian Cartography” similarly describes to us a scenario where rivers were being made by man like “Lake Cachuma, created when they/dammed the Santa Ynez” showing us that altering the California land was altering their culture which was closely connected to nature. The father also “traces mountain ranges, rivers, county borders” that all connected to form his ancestral history. The rivers, paths, sacred sites and villages that once were spread out all over the California coast were disappearing with only memories that are not enough to keep the Native-American culture alive. The cities whose names are familiar to us, “Salinas, Los Angeles, Paso Robles/Ventura, Santa Barbara, Saticoy” the father in the poem is remembering them being filled with Native Indians whereas as now there are very few Natives left living in them. All of these lands are connected to the past history of Native-Americans which was their “bloodline” that told their story of how California came to be and are now gone not even shown on maps for anyone to remember except those with the memories of these places.

        Both of these poems emphasize on the how the land changing has resulted in a change of Native Americans cultural lifestyles. This urbanization of California has forced a people that were born and bred on this land to conform to what Europeans wanted life to be like. The Native-American history has been over-looked and the beauty of their culture re-shaped by urbanization and assimilation to “civilized” society. It is a loss that Native-Americans have been living and struggling with for years. The pain and suffering felt in the poems is further explained in detail in Chap 30 of “California: An Interpretive History” by James J. Rawles and Walton Beans. This chapter describes how California was a very diverse state where various other minorities also suffered from discrimination but “but the mistreatment of the Indians began earliest and was by far the worst. In California, as in other parts of the United States, the history of American treatment of the Indians in the nineteenth century was too often a sickening record of racist murder and sanctimonious fraud.” This continued conflict lasted throughout the twentieth century.The government, in the 1850s, was supposed to pass treaties that would give the Native more reservation land was never ratified.  Without their homeland to provide them with stability and security the Native Indians “were left to survive as best they could on the fringes of white settlement” where most of them died. It seemed that all hope was lost for Native Americans and it was too late to rebuild from so much they had lost. But, hope slowly grew overtime as is also apparent in “Indian Cartography” where the father’s strong hold on his memorable past helps him keep it alive and will that to be possible again. The father never gave up in the poem and neither did other Native Americans.

         Although both of the poems, “The First” by Soto and “Indian Cartography” by Miranda emphasize on similar things they also have contrasting tones. This contrast between the poems shows one view of hope for future and another of defeat. “The First” is filled with lots grief and a sense of hopelessness that is apparent throughout the poem.This poem is trying hard to stay aloof and stay strong for the Natives who have their spirits completely broken with all hope lost for their future “As the day opened/A smudge of its blue /They were the first/To leave, unnoticed /Without words /For it no longer/Mattered to say/The world was once blue”. The long breaks and pauses between the stanzas help the reader to focus in on the wording and feel the impact of each word by analyzing carefully. The helps us to really feel that the Native Indians in “The First” seem to having given up an accepted that this terrible misfortune that they faced can never be overcome. “Indian Cartography” tone, in contrast, is one of nostalgia, longing and hope that someday the future will bring back all that was wonderful and meaningful to the Native Indians. The author Miranda also uses the similar breaks in her writing to convey a more powerful effect as shown through the stanza, “my father’s boyhood: days/he learned to swim the hard way/and days he walked across the silver scales/swollen bellies of salmon coming back.” The poem uses the salmon as a metaphor for Native Americans to describe how the salmons as adult fish swim back to the rivers where they were born to create new life. The father dreams that one day his people will be able to return to their homes to start over as well. He has strong hope for the future that has possibility to change as long as Native Indians like him still remember their history and hope for the better.

         “The First” by Gary Soto and “Indian Cartography” by Deborah Miranda both have similarities that help us gain a more personal understanding of the lives and hopes of the Native Americans through their common struggle to overcome the drastic changes in their lives. It helps that Miranda’s poems was more of personal view on the effects that individual Native Indians faced on a daily level because we are able to personally connect and relate to the feelings that the father is going through. This poem when contrasted with the more historically general description that Soto provides helps us understand more holistically the lives of Native Indian people. Both of these poems show us the struggles that Native Indians went through culturally, socially and spiritually and how they have learned to cope with them along with the development of California. They were the first to live and dream of California as their home and we should honor and learn about the Native History because it is all of our history.