Indian Reservation – Caughnawaga by A.M.Klien Poem summary, Post-Colonial Literature in English II: Canadian Literature, B.A English Literature, 3rd Year 6th Semester

 Unit-3: Poetry

3.1.  Indian Reservation – Caughnawaga by A.M.Klien

Where are the braves, the faces like autumn fruit,

who stared at the child from the colored frontispiece?

And the monosyllabic chief who spoke with his throat?

Where are the tribes, the feathered bestiaries?-

Rank Aesop's animals erect and red,

with fur on their names to make all live things kin’-

Chief Running Deer, Black Bear, Old Buffalo Head?

 

Childhood, that wished me Indian, hoped that

one afterschool I'd leave the classroom chalk,

the varnish smell, the watered dust of the street,

to join the clean outdoors and the Iroquois track.

Childhood, but always, -as on a calendar,-

there stood that chief, with arms akimbo, waiting

the runaway mascot paddling to his shore.

 

With what strange moccasin stealth that scene is changed!

With French names, without paint, in overalls,

their bronze, like their nobility expunged,-

the men. Beneath their alimentary shawls

sit like black tents their squaws; while for the tourist's

brown pennies scattered at the old church door,

the ragged papooses jump, and bite the dust.

 

Their past is sold in a shop; the beaded shoes,

the sweetgrass basket, the curio Indian,

burnt wood, and gaudy cloth, and inch-canoes-

trophies and scalpings for a traveler's den.

Sometimes, it's true. they dance, but for a bribe;

after a deal don the bedraggled feather

and welcome a white mayor to the tribe.

 

This is a grassy ghetto, and no home.

And these are fauna in a museum kept.

The better hunters have prevailed. The game,

losing its blood, now makes these grounds it crypt.

The animals pale, the shine of the fur is lost,

bleached are their living bones. About them watch

as through a mist, the pious prosperous ghost.

'Indian Reservation: Caughnawaga' Poem Summary: 

Abraham Moses Klien was a Canadian poet, journalist, short story writer and a lawyer. He is renowned for his poems.  Yet he is a Jewish Canadian writer, he talks about the Indians. He is an insider as a Jewish who suffered in the hands of whites. His poem “Indian Reservation: Caughnawaga” is about the story of the Indians which starts with a melancholic tone about the fall of an Indian and what happened after he fell. It narrates who is responsible for the fall which is basically a ‘sense of fear’. 

Through this poem, Klien advocates preservation of traditions. Those who alienate themselves from the traditions are dismissed by him as mere ghosts. Klien depicts the corrosive impact that the western culture has effected on the Red-Indian's traditional life style.    

The lamenting tone is dramatic with an abrupt beginning to captivate the attention of the readers. It means a sense of loss. Men were of different kinds like warriors and chieftains, wherein brave means warriors which has two semantic differences “where and brave”. It tells us that they are no more brave. The early natives lived in a bound state having a vast land. Being colonised they lost their identity and their mind power. They were not able to express themselves as the sons of the soil and were treated like animals to be tamed. The autumn fruit stands for the possession of ripe wisdom by Red Indians. 

The child here refers to the poet himself who feels nostalgic about the flown away bravery of the Indians. It has two perspectives – the child’s and the adult’s. The child looks at the “coloured front piece” which is the front-page of a book. It has the picture of the braves and the “monosyllabic chief” who has dignity and never wasted time in speaking; compared to the Indian God Manito, known for courage, grandeur and greatness which is seen in the coloured front piece. He is standing arms akimbo showing his self-esteem, dignity and pride which is now only an analepsis.  The poet is very eager to meet the 'monosyllabic' chief who spoke briefly in a gruff and guttural voice. He calls the Red Indians affectionately as 'feathered bestiaries', because they with their fur and feathers resemble mythic animals such as Chief Running Deer, Black Bear, and Old Buffalo Head featured in the fables of Aesop, a Persian story-teller. 

 In the second stanza of the poem, Klien records the strong feeling he had nourished for the Red Indians, when he was a child. He wished to escape from the class room chalk, the varnish smell, and the watered dust of the street and paddle to the shore where the chief lived with his followers so that he would enjoy the clean out doors and the Iroquois track of the Red Indians. He wanted to enter a life of naturally; an escape from the problems of reality and goes to nature. He mentions the Iroquois which was the chief tribe invaded by French. He was very eager to meet the chief, 'with arms akimbo' with his hands on the hip] whom he had seen only in a calendar. In the picture, the chief was looking like a mascot or a person bringing good luck. The child did not know that the Red Indians are non-existent and are to be seen only in pictures. The chief stands his arms akimbo who awaits “the runaway mascot” which is a symbol of good omen and luck changing. 

Klien then proceeds to describe the degradation of the Red Indian Civilization. The Red Indians have given up their traditional life style being lurred by the commercial western culture. They adopt modern French names. They neither daub themselves with paints nor wear bronze jewels. The Red Indian 'Squaws'[wives] no longer cover themselves with vegetables outfit which puffed like a tent. The Red Indians now a days wear overalls. They grow very commercial and degrade themselves by adorning themselves with bedraggled feathers and dancing their traditional dance to please a white Mayor  after receiving a bribe. Their children 'bite' the dust to pick up the brown pennies thrown by the tourists at church doors. 

Later, a drastic change has happened where moccasin, a shoe without heels which protected the feet of Indians and made no sound is now used by the robbers which was vulnerable and had a glorious past. Feeling is one way of learning in the lap of nature. He wanted many adventures by taking different paths. There he can see what others have not seen and experienced like the Indians. He says that Indians are dying, what we see now is the remembrance of the chief, living in the world of illusion and experiencing reality. The change of western culture is visible in the names we choose and the dress we use. When the names change, the identity also changes. Still braves are there by it not with the indianess, completely changed to western culture. 

He says that Indian has become pale, lost his colour of health and nobility and vulnerable nature. He is ironic. The women were inside the “elementary shawls’ being inactive who also have lost their identities. Children were playful but now they have become least worthy. Tourists, white men had pleasure in throwing money to those children “at the old church door” who had been defeated. 

            Klien laments in the last stanza that the relics of Red Indian Civilization have become saleable commodities. He mourns that 'their past is sold in the shop'. The things once used by them such as the beaded shoes, the sweet grass baskets, the burnt wood by which they drew designs on their bodies, gaudy clothes, and inch-canoes are affordable for sales now. 

Their tradition is lost because of the colonisers. They fell on the ground, dust. The old church door symbolises love, giving and brotherhood but now has become the sight of cultural humiliation. Children being transformed to beggars. In the poem “The Dying Eagle”, man fell internally in his mind, spiritually. But here it is visible through tradition. 

It is the selling of the character of an individual amongst the selling of a tradition. They are made by sell themselves and white men make themselves sold. Exploiting Anand can also be done by destroying a land. Man is the cause of exploitation as well as the judge and becomes the top predator in food chain. Justice not denied but deranged. 

Nature is shrinking as we are expanding, thereby by killing tradition and make momentous out of it which is an insult to the Indians. The worst was the white men selling Indian tradition. White men scalped Indian’s tradition and we live with dead things. We have become savages of civilisation. The irony is made to generate the Indians.           

The last stanza is very pathetic, ironically presents the promises made and the betrayals, illusions and realities, the desires of Indians as a “grassy-ghetto”, an oxymoron. 

There is a composition of both freedom and bondage. They were promised freedom but bound in bondage. The entire poem seems to be about reservation. A “ghetto” is a synonym for reservation. Through a positive commotion of the culture, the white men destroyed them and used them. “And these are fauna on a museum kept”. Fauna is associated with the animal like Indian; the savage is now imprisoned in museum. The irony is that the hunter has now become the hunter. “The better hunters have prevailed”. The Indian has transformed from a golden position to a civilized poverty and humility. The poet calls the hunting as a game which is a very significant statement. He says that both are hunters, the Indian hunts for his survival, but the white men hunt for the destruction in one way. Indians lose their blood which empathetically means “passions and emotions” that “makes the grounds it’s crypt”, “bleached are their living”. Indian is dead, in becoming the subservient servant of the whites. He has lost his life and lives like a “living vegetable”. The whites are referred to as “pious prosperous ghosts”, an oxymoron which means they are materially prosperous. 

The poet concludes by saying that the ruler and the ruled, higher and lower, the rich and the poor are the marginals. He uses the metaphor “hunting” to show their lives. The analogy is that the individual hunts for the sake of survival whereas whites do it for fun and sport. ' Indian for his sake of survival has lost his identity. If Indian is the dead living, then the white man is the living dead, concludes the poet.

 The 'grassy ghetto' is no more their home and are preserved as relics in the museum. Hunting occupies no place in their life. The fauna or animals hunted by them at the risk of their life, are also kept in the museum with their pale and bleached bodies. They have abandoned their native religion and converted to christianity. They become pious and prosperous, but Klien rejects them as ghosts of their vital original selves as there is nothing original in them. He says : 'About them watch as through a mist, the pious properous ghosts.'

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