IndianCountryMarch2008

March 2008

Muscogee Nation News

Joy Harjo

Though I landed two weeks ago, I am still returning from a two-week trip to India, where I spent time primarily in Kolkata (or Calcutta). When traveling it can take awhile for the spirit to catch up to the body. Imagine stepping out into a population density of 15,475 people per square mile. This is the population density of Kolkata. It’s grown since. The population density of Okmulgee is 1004 people per square mile. The extremes between poverty and wealth are as dramatic.

One image stays with me as I was being driven in heavy traffic through the city. The traffic included ox-driven carts, motorcycles carrying whole families, bicycles hauling stacks of goods, buses, trucks, tankers, and small motor taxis. We are stopped at a light. To the left on a concrete island is a shantytown of families. A proud father holds his infant daughter carefully on his knee. She wears a crisp, yellow dress. Behind him his wife and her sister visit. They are going about their life in one small room with dignity, while just inches away the traffic surges, punctuated by honking horns.

India also revealed to me another possibility of imagining Indian country… like India we could be a land of thriving native languages and cultures.

So I took a look at how we got into this mess, and I found Rabbit:

In a world long before this one, there was enough for everyone until somebody got out of line. We heard it was Rabbit, fooling around with clay and the wind. Everybody was tired of his tricks and no one would play with him; he was lonely in this world. So Rabbit thought to make a person. And when he blew into the mouth of that crude figure to see what would happen, the clay man stood up. Rabbit showed the clay man how to steal a chicken. The clay man obeyed. Then Rabbit showed him how to steal corn. The clay man obeyed. Then he showed him how to steal someone else’s wife. The clay man obeyed. Rabbit felt important and powerful. The clay man felt important and powerful.

And once that clay man started he could not stop. Once he took that chicken he wanted all the chickens. And once he took that corn he wanted all the corn. And once he took that wife, he wanted all the wives. He was insatiable. en he had a taste of gold and he wanted all the gold. en it was land and anything else he saw. His wanting only made him want more. Soon it was countries, and then it was trade. Any thought, action or dream. Rubs up against everyone else.

The wanting infected the earth. We lost track of the purpose and reason for life. We began to forget our songs, we forgot our stories; we could no longer see or hear our ancestors, or talk with each other across the kitchen table. Now Rabbit couldn’t find a drink of fresh water. The forests were being mowed down all over the world. The earth was being destroyed to make more and Rabbit had no place to play. Rabbit’s trick had backfired. And now his clay man was too consumed to run with him. Rabbit tried to call the clay man back, but when the clay man wouldn’t listen Rabbit realized he’d made a clay man with no ears.

COMINGS AND GOINGS