Pima Prayer: Earth Magician shapes the world
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Photo: Hopi girls, Sichomovi, First Mesa, Arizona. ca. 1900. Photo by Frederick Monsen.
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Earth Magician shapes the world.
Behold what he can do!
Round and smooth he molds it.
Behold what he can do!
Earth Magician makes the mountains.
Heed what he has to say!
He it is that makes the mesas.
Heed what he has to say.
Earth Magician shapes the world;
Earth Magician makes its mountains;
Makes all larger, larger, larger.
Into the earth the Magician glances,
Into its mountains he may see.
(Pima Prayer)
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Source and Recommended Reading:
'The Sky Clears : Poetry of the American Indians'
By A. Grove Day (Author)
Purchase Book:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Description:
From the totem-pole makers of the Northwest to the hunters of the eastern woodlands, from the horse nations of the plains to the desert dwellers of the Southwest and the Mayas and Aztecs of ancient Mexico--from some forty tribal groups--A. Grove Day has collected examples of traditional American Indian verse. "This is a book to be read for pleasure," he writes; its purpose is "to show the variety and excellence of many kinds of authentic Indian poetry." Set in their cultural context, the selections also illustrate the major role, practical as well as aesthetic, that poetry played in the lives of Native American peoples. The translations are those of professional students of Indian languages who were also endowed with poetic powers of their own: people such as Franz Boas, Natalie Curtis, Frances Densmore, Washington Matthews, Herbert J. Spinden.
'The Sky Clears : Poetry of the American Indians'
By A. Grove Day (Author)
Purchase Book:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Description:
From the totem-pole makers of the Northwest to the hunters of the eastern woodlands, from the horse nations of the plains to the desert dwellers of the Southwest and the Mayas and Aztecs of ancient Mexico--from some forty tribal groups--A. Grove Day has collected examples of traditional American Indian verse. "This is a book to be read for pleasure," he writes; its purpose is "to show the variety and excellence of many kinds of authentic Indian poetry." Set in their cultural context, the selections also illustrate the major role, practical as well as aesthetic, that poetry played in the lives of Native American peoples. The translations are those of professional students of Indian languages who were also endowed with poetic powers of their own: people such as Franz Boas, Natalie Curtis, Frances Densmore, Washington Matthews, Herbert J. Spinden.
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