Anasazi (Themes)

Themes

Humans and the Environment

Gary Snyder the poet is inseparable from Gary Snyder the anthropologist. He has a distinct interest in studying human life not in isolation, but as an integral part of everything that is natural. The need to recognize the earth itself as a living being — along with all its trees, rocks, plants, and animals, including humans — is a major theme in much of Snyder’s work, and such is the case for “Anasazi.” Throughout the poem, there is interplay of humans, animals, plants, even sandstone and rock canyons. While many of us may not visualize living in the crags of a mountain as a very comfortable existence, here the lifestyle is portrayed as almost cozy. The Anasazi are “tucked up” in the cliffs, a phrase usually reserved for a softer, warmer form of protection or comfort. Along the same lines, “sinking deeper and deeper in earth” may not evoke a pleasant image, and yet in this poem, it is a wonderful experience, one that moves people closer to a spiritual (as well as a physical) oneness with the land. They are up to their “hips in Gods” because the supreme beings live in the earth that surrounds them. During their religious dance rituals, there is again a mixture of natural beings. Humans, eagles, and pollen seem to celebrate together.

In the essays contained at the end of Turtle Island, Snyder points out that many Native Americans, the Sioux in particular, consider things other than human beings as “people” too, such as insects, trees, birds, and fish. Snyder, too, believes that all of nature should be given a voice on our planet and tells us that “what we must find a way to do is incorporate the other people — the creeping people, and the standing people, and the flying people, and the swimming people — into the council of government.” In “Anasazi,” this incorporation is evidenced in the humans sharing the cliffs with bats, as opposed to killing them or driving them out, and in the “flavor” of sandstone, implying such a closeness to their surroundings that they can taste it. Even one of a woman’s most intimate moments is intertwined with her environment. There is no complaint about giving birth at the foot of a ladder on a cold, dark night. Rather, this kind of childbirth is merely a part of the natural course, just as the “trickling streams” and “rolling desert” nearby. There is no resentment toward the natural surroundings here. The mother simply places her new baby in the basket she has brought with her and totes him home. We must understand that the child is only one of the living organisms in her presence, for she is also among streams, canyons, trees, rocks — all a part of the living earth.

Understanding Place

A theme related to humans and our relationship with the environment that Snyder touches upon in “Anasazi” is that of the need for human beings to have a thorough understanding of the place we inhabit on earth. By “place,” he does not mean our own country, our own state, nor even our own city, but, instead, our own land. Whether that encompasses a backyard, a field on a farm, or thousands of acres surrounding a close-knit village, without a knowledge of the animals, insects, wild berries, soil types, and prospering crops that share our small piece of the planet, we really do not know the place where we live. In his 1977 collection of essays called The Old Ways, Snyder claims that we will one day “reinhabit this land with people who know they belong to it” and we will “learn to see, region by region, how we live specifically — in each place.” Living specifically in a place means knowing your surroundings completely. It means understanding the plants and animals indigenous to a region, the crops that will grow best, the wild foods that are edible and the ones that are poison, and the best means of preserving the natural resources available. It means truly knowing how to live off the land and how to do so without destroying it.

In “Anasazi,” the people live “specifically.” They are able to grow “strict fields of corn and beans” because they know just how to tend the crops in order to gain the best yield from the desert land. They know “the smell of bats” because they live with them, and they know “the flavor of sandstone” because they work the rock into utensils, into pottery, and into walls for their homes. They know, too, the sound of streams in the canyons, even though the water may be only “trickling” and even though the canyons may be “hidden.” In truth, nothing in the environment is hidden from the Anasazi, for they genuinely know the land they inhabit.

Religion

A discussion of Snyder’s general themes in this poem (and in many others) would be incomplete without mention of his belief in and practice of Zen Buddhism. Whether we view Buddhism as a religion or as a philosophy, or both, its tenets are very similar to that of most Native American beliefs. Buddhism maintains that every being in the universe is interrelated, and that nothing can exist separately from other beings. The world is essentially a network of all creatures and all natural objects, and each lives in relation to another. Examples from “Anasazi” that demonstrate this theme would simply be the same as those addressed above, illuminating the philosophy of environment in Indian culture, as well as that within the poet himself.

Topics for Further Study

• Consider all the environmental issues that have come to the forefront along with technological advances — from the invention of the gasoline-powered engine to space modules landing on Mars. Select one issue in particular and write an essay on its pros and cons for both human beings and for the environment.
• Choose one Native American tribe and research its beginnings in North America through to its sudden end or to its gradual dispersion into other tribes. Write an essay that concentrates on what happened to the tribe when the Europeans arrived and how the members’ lives changed.
• Write a poem about the natural environment that surrounds your home. Try to pattern your poem after “Anasazi,” using strong descriptive words and brief phrases.
• Gary Snyder’s introductory note in Turtle Island states “The ‘U.S.A.’ and its states and counties are arbitrary and inaccurate impositions on what is really here.” Write about what you think he means by this statement and why you agree or disagree with it.
• Many architects today are designing homes that “respect” the natural environment. If you were going to build an unconventional home on any type of land, describe what it would be like and how/why you would make your choices.