Mobility, Home, and Cat Stevens

Black Elk reminds me of themes we talked about during first semester while reading "Landscapes of the Sacred" by Belden C. Lane.  He compares white settlement to Native Americans' idea of place.

Settlers were mobile, moving to wherever offered the most opportunities and security.  Even today we are increasingly mobile, moving for jobs, school, and other commitments.  Yet we as Americans can feel that we're not at "home".  With railroads in the 1800s and our current highway system, we are able and willing to move.  Yet, home doesn't have to be just where you grew up.  Home is wherever you are in the world, with whoever you've made the most meaningful connections.  One looks for opportunity, expansiveness, a freedom of space, but also safe enclosure, or security of place (Lane 221).  Aldo Leopold criticizes our country's sprawl and misuse of resources when he asks, "Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?' 9Lane 219).  Nature can help us feel at home wherever we are.

In general, Native Americans have a different view of landscapes and nature.  During the debut of railroads, many groups were nomadic and moved to areas that offered the most resources, like the settlers.  However, reservations brought about settlement and a change in native culture relatively quickly.  Even after settlement, the Santa Clara Pueblo people of New Mexico retained their beliefs and values.  Their most "important relationship is with the land" (56), writes Rina Swentzell in "Conflicting Landscape Values".  Black Elk describes how some of his people willingly join up with the whites in the towns (105).  Eventually most of the people in his group decide to go out of necessity - they were starving and cold, exhausted by a hard winter (109).

I always thought of Native Americans as being more mobile and settlers being more rigid.  Really, we all move around to find a place to call home, whether it be for a long winter or for four years of college.



Also, over break I listened to way too much of my parent's vinyl from the 60's.  Like an unhealthy amount.  Here's part of a Cat Stevens song called "On the Road to Find Out".  I really like it and it reminds me of what it was like to move away and start college.

Well, I left my happy home
to see what I could find out.
I left my folk and friends
with the aim to clear my mind out.

Well I hit the rowdy road
and many kinds I met there,
many stories told me
of the way to get there, ooh.

So on and on I go,
the seconds tick the time out,
there's so much left to know,
and I'm on the road to findout, ooh.

Well in the end I'll know,
but on the way I wonder
through descending snow,
and through the frost and thunder,

I listen to the wind come howl,
telling me I have to hurry.
I listen to the robin's song
saying not to worry, ooh.