Anniversary (Historical Context)

Historical Context

Throughout the documented history of mankind, human beings have handed down creation stories from generation to generation, from the writings of what would become major religions to the lesser-known mythologies and legends passed through small sects of ethnic groups and tribes of native peoples. How much the story of the universe told in “Anniversary” was influenced by Harjo’s Creek Indian heritage is not readily apparent, but it is likely that the Native American connection to nature and to the past, as well as the present and future, play a key role in the poem’s composition.

Creek Indians belong to any of nineteen tribal groups that once occupied what are now Alabama and Georgia. Today, there are around 20,000 Creeks, most of whom live in Oklahoma, where Harjo was born. Like other Indian tribes in the early days of American history, the Creeks wound up in a region different from the one in which they had settled because of force, not choice. Since at least the mid-1500s, they had been successful farmers, dividing their land and members into about fifty settlements in the deep south, called Creek Towns. Eventually, a Creek Confederacy was formed, and it began to grow in power as Indian tribes that had been chased from their home-lands by Europeans joined the Creeks. During the early 1800s, the Creeks battled Andrew Jackson’s troops but were outnumbered and worn down over the years. In the 1830s, the government forced the Creeks to move to Indian territory in what is now Oklahoma. There, they faced poverty and starvation as they struggled to develop crops and farming methods that agreed with their new land and climate. It was a struggle that many of their descendants still live with today.

The population of Native Americans in the United States has increased by more than 40 percent in the past twenty years, although this group still comprises less than 1 percent of the total U.S. population. More than half all of Native Americans live in major cities, particularly New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but most reside in the poor sections of those towns. Traditionally, many Native Americans travel back to their reservations each year and some return permanently. All too often, they find the natural environment of the reservation disrupted by industrialization. From oil well drilling and natural gas extraction to coal mines and hydroelectric plants, once sacred grounds now bear the resource burdens of energy-seeking consumers and corporations.

Despite the intrusion of industry onto Indian reservations, recent years have seen an increase in sympathy for Native American causes from both the general population and the government. In the late 1970s, the American Indian Policy Review Commission campaigned for greater Native American sovereignty in the United States and for the past two decades that sovereignty has been growing. The number of federally recognized tribes reached 547 by the mid 1990s and more than 100 other tribes were petitioning for recognition.

Although the increase in self-governance and a greater support for Indian issues have been beneficial to this population in general, Native Americans are still the poorest ethnic group in America. In the early 1990s, 31 percent lived at the poverty level, and, on reservations, the typical yearly income for a household was $13,000, with unemployment sometimes reaching as high as 80 percent. The establishment of gambling casinos on many reservations has helped bring capital to the participating tribes, and there are now more than seventy Indian nations running casinos on their land. Today, the Native American gaming industry is worth some six billion dollars. It is a mistake, however, to think that gambling is the only form of economic enterprise occurring on Indian reservations. Other endeavors include building and selling mobile homes, growing cotton, assembling parts for automobiles, and maintaining resorts, to name just a few.

While many Indian students attend high schools and colleges among the general population, there are now more than twenty-five Native-American-run colleges and junior colleges, most in the northern Great Plains states. Over 13,000 students attend these tribal colleges where the emphasis is on Indian traditions and values, as well as training for jobs in today’s world of technology, industry, and communications. Of course, a young Indian does not have to attend classes to learn about or to appreciate his or her own heritage, for respecting one’s origins is a built-in part of Native American culture. Harjo was schooled at both the Institute of American Indian Arts and at public universities, but her work consistently reflects the values of Native-American culture. The origins she addresses in “Anniversary” are not personal, but universal — an issue that has likely caused greater upheaval in non-Indian populations than within tribes whose belief systems can account for spirituality and naturalism without turmoil and controversy.

The old rift between creationists and evolutionists has closed slightly in recent years. Many proponents on each side have begun to accept that the two seemingly polar-opposite ideologies may not be so far apart after all. Often called “scientific creationists,” these folks in the middle of the road tend to agree that there is a supreme being responsible for the very beginning of energy, matter, and life, and they also agree on two points concerning evolution: 1) there has been “change through time” in certain lines of organisms, and 2) organisms do undergo changes during their lifetimes. But there is disagreement among scientific creationists concerning major groups of organisms giving rise to other groups, known as “macroevolution.” Some claim that macroevolution violates the Biblical notion of “kinds,” which has been loosely interpreted as “species.”

Questions regarding the origins of the universe and life itself will likely remain unresolved, but that does not mean the human mind will stop pondering them. For even though “The question mark of creation attracts more questions,” it seems inevitable that human beings were made — by whatever means — to keep asking.