American Lit I response essay based on an outline for philosophy class. I don't know what to do with it. It seems like the seed of a much larger idea.
A New Eden: How Myth Shaped American Identity
Why do Americans shy away from identifying directly as Americans? Embarrassment over the current political climate aside, what makes a person in the United States identify as “German”, “Black”, “gay” or “Deaf” before identifying as American? America is a physical place yet, Americans do not identify immediately as Americans. We often identity with our sub-culture first.
Native Americans do not share our identity-crisis. A Native American is from a particular place, then a particular people, then a particular clan and then a particular family. This can be traced directly to their creation myths, in her book How It Is V.F Cordova writes, “There is an assumption among Native Americans that each group will have a different story since they occupy different ‘niches’. Each group is seen as essential to the place in which they find themselves...they fit a particular place for a reason” (161).
This certainly describes the initial reaction the indigenous people would have to the first explorers. Columbus explains in his first letter renaming places in the New World. He writes, “I gave the name San Salvador in remembrance of the Divine Majesty, Who has marvelously bestowed all this; the natives call it ‘Guanahani’.” It’s possible the Indigenous peoples saw Columbus re-naming things and decided he could call them by new names in accordance to his own myth. Why would that impact their lives at all?
Native American creation myths are also open ended, new stories are constantly being added on to the original myth. Family stories are held in equal importance to creation stories. They become irrevocably linked in a circular pattern, often involving the creation myth needing to be retold before the current story can be attached. Gossip and myth are elevated to the same level. (Silko. 161).
Americans historically are “people of the book,” our Judeo-Christian myth comes directly from Genesis. The first man and the first woman are exiled from paradise and so we are by extension exiles. “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had taken.”(Gen. 3:23) Our myth allowed us to search for a new “Eden”. We are not bound to place but free to take any “ground” we find acceptable. Indeed this mentality is present in the quote from the Columbus letter, “...in remembrance of the Divine Majesty Who has marvelously bestowed all this.” God obviously gave this land to the Christians. How could they think otherwise? Columbus is from the myth of the garden where all creation--including women--were made for man’s use. This thought would be anathema to a Native American.
Our identity is deeply rooted in our creation myths. An American comes from a myth of exiles. We do not believe we are essential to the place in which we live, we just occupy space. We are exiled Germans, Irish, Ethiopians and also this other thing, this American. We are wanderers and explorers in search of a new garden that certainly the Christian God will provide.
Works Cited
Cordova, V.F. How it Is? University of Arizona Press, 2007. Print
Silko, Leslie Marmon. “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective.” Boston: Pearson Custom, 2009. Print
New International Bible. ??? (Class handout)
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