"The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet" by Joseph Bruchac, Illustrated by Thomas Locker (LS 5663)

Bruchac, Joseph. 1995. The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land. Illustrated by Thomas Locker. New York: Paper Star.

ISBN: 978-0-698-11647-4

Photo of cover
by L. Propes

Joseph Bruchac is a prolific Abenaki writer and performer of Native American folklore and songs.  For this collection of poems, he explores how different Native American cultures of North American view and embrace the night.  The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet is a companion volume to Bruchac's earlier book Thirteen Moons on Turtle's Back.  The twelve poems, introduced by a short prose piece, explore  what Sky Bear (also known as the Big Dipper) sees as she travels across the night sky.

Bruchac's poems were inspired by Mohawk and Abenaki tales and songs from his own childhood, as well as tales and songs from a range of indigenous cultures.  Some of the cultures reflected in this collection of poems range from the Inuit to the Pawnee and Lakota of the Great Planes to the Cochiti Pueblo, Pima, and Navajo of the Southwestern United States.  Some, like the poem "The Seven Mateinnu" are origin stories (European-based cultures might recognize the Seven Mateinnu as the Pleiades), while others like "A Summer Song" reflect the feelings of the Inuit as they celebrate the return of summer and the caribou, a staple of their survival.  Some poems are whimsical, some are romantic, and some pass down information about using the stars for navigation.  At first glance, it might seem as if Bruchac might have spread it a bit thin, by using so many Aboriginal cultures as source material.  On deeper reflection, each poem is a small gem about a particular facet of the night, and Bruchac manages to make arrange them into a cohesive timeline, beginning at twilight and ending at dawn.  Tying the poems together in a neat bow are Thomas Locker's vibrantly rich and layered oil paintings.  Each poem is illustrated with a painting that depicts part of the actions in the poem.  "Song to the Firefly" features young children chasing and catching the bright pinpoints of light of the fireflies against the velvety purple of the sky just after sunset.  In the poem "Wababanal: The Northern Lights", Locker chooses to highlight the shimmering greens and yellows of the aurora borealis, capturing their undulation across the winter night.  The paintings are far from simple, but by choosing to depict a single moment from the poem in the paintings, Locker is able to create a stunning image of a pivotal point in the poem itself.  One of the best examples of this is in "The Old Wolf's Song", where Locker has painted a manifestation of the lines: "At the break of day / I roam/ watching / I roam" where a wolf sings the secrets of his survival to the rising sun on the horizon (Bruchac 1995, 21).

The last four stanzas of
"The Old Wolf's Song"
Photo by: L. Propes

Bruchac employs figurative language to create images of things we might see once the sun sets.  In "Song to the Firefly", he calls them "small white-fire being" (Bruchac 1995, 5).  He repeats the phrase multiple times in the poem, and it mimics the twinkling of fireflies.  In "Wababanal: The Northern Lights" Bruchac (1995) personifies the aurora borealis by turning the lights into "people [wearing] rainbows as belts. / They had lights on their heads and played with a ball made of light" (11).  Another instance of personification Bruchac uses appears in "Mouse's Bragging Song" as a means to explore the amusing bravado in a mouse family who emerges once the sun sets to a world where they believe they are the only ones on earth.  Figurative language in the poems is not always straightforward, but it tends to occur organically, especially in the origin poems.  In "The Trail of the Piñon Gatherers" Bruchac (1995)  calls the stars the Chumash people use to navigate "a cord made of goose down" to evoke the image of something light and fluffy that scatters easily.  There are times when Bruchac uses repetition to create moods in the poems.  "The Old Wolf's Song" repeats the phrase "I roam" to close each stanza (Bruchac 1995, 21).  This can represent the constant movement of the wolf.  Bruchac also structures the poem to represent the wolf's movement.  Bruchac indents the last three lines of each stanza to elicit the wolf's movement across the prairie.  Each of the three lines is indented just a bit more than the one above so the lines literally run across the page.  When Bruchac begins a new stanza, he starts at the beginning so to speak, and the structure literally reflects the means the wolf uses to endure another day.  Repetition also gives the poem "Dawn House Song" a prayerful quality.  The last stanza reminds me of the Birkot Ha'Shahar, one of the morning prayers in Judaism, which also repeats a single phrase over and over, just as "Dawn House Song" does.

Before me, may it be beautiful.
Behind me, may it be beautiful.
Around me, may it be beautiful.
Below me, may it be beautiful.
Above me, may it be beautiful.
All around me, may it be beautiful.
Within me may it be beautiful. (Bruchac 1995, 23)

With the repetition, Bruchac is able to gradually bring the beauty of the dawn from the environment around the narrator of the poem to a place inside where they can carry it with them.

From the poem
"The Scattered Stars"
Photo by: L. Propes

The poems might not appeal to young children, although the ones that delve into the origins of constellations would pair nicely with other poems about space and the way other cultures depict the origins of the stars.  The K-12 school curriculum in British Columbia is currently undergoing a revision where Aboriginal content is integrated into the regular curriculum, and this book of poems, along with Thirteen Moons on Turtle's Back, could find a place in science classes studying astronomy or English classes studying poetry or folklore.  The poems should appeal to older students.  They expose students to cultures and their literature that are not routinely taught in schools.  Even with younger students, the language and ideas Bruchac uses in his poems is not so advanced that they won't be able to grasp the meaning.  This isn't to say that the language is simplistic.  The descriptive language helps bring the poems alive, and younger children can learn how to choose just the right words to create an image.  The poems are of good quality, and the images they create, more than the words themselves are what sticks with you.

Unfortunately, there are no access features in the book.  There aren't even page numbers.  Both of these things combine to create difficulty in locating a particular poem, forcing the reader to leaf through the book until you find the right one.  The layout does aid the reader in locating the poems.  Each poem is featured on a two-page spread, with the poem printed on half of the left page and the remaining pages covered with Locket's gorgeous artwork.  Bruchac does provide a bibliography of the songs and tales he used to create the poems, so readers can go to the source material and compare it to Bruchac's poems.

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Spotlight on...

"Sky Bear"

Long ago,
three hunters and their little dog
found the tracks of a giant bear.
They followed those tracks all through the day
...........................................................................
That bear was Sky Bear,
running on through the stars.
Look up now
and you will see her,
circling the sky. (Bruchac 1995, 3)

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A section of the painting from
the poem "Song to the Firefly"
Photo by: L. Propes

I would use this poem in one of two ways.  The first lesson would be in a science class to introduce astronomy and how different cultures viewed the stars.  I would ask the students to consider the characteristics of the constellation we know as the Big Dipper and why Aboriginal cultures would choose to describe it as a constellation that continuously watches over the events on Earth.  The next way I could use this particular poem is in an English class.  After reading the poem, students will compare and contrast Aboriginal folk tales and legends with another culture's, much in the way students compare Greek and Roman legends and myths to Egyptian or Norse myths.

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Works Cited

Bruchac, Joseph. 1995. The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land.
     Illustrated by Thomas Locker. New York: Paper Star.