To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Sunday, May 8, 2016

From Technicians of the Sacred (expanded): Genesis One

[In the course of expanding & revising Technicians of the Sacred, still in progress, my attention landed on the following – one of the opening poems in the original book – which had appeared there in a shorter version of my own devising.  Nearly fifty years later my new strategy is to give it in Pliny Earle Goddard’s full 1909 version (more than twice the length), & I would add even more, if I ever felt free to do so.  The additional quote from Gertrude Stein, not in the original edition, puts it even more firmly in place, for now as well as for then. (J.R.)]

Genesis I

Water went they say. Land was not they say. Water only then, mountains were not, they say. Stones were not they say. Trees were not they say.  Grass was not they say.  Fish were not they say. Deer were not then they say. Elk were not they say. Grizzlies were not they say. Panthers were not they say. Wolves were not they say. Bears were not they say. People were washed away they say. Grizzlies were washed away they say. Panthers were washed away they say. Deer were washed away they say. Coyotes were not then they say. Ravens were not they say. Owls were not they say.  Buzzards were not they say. Chicken-hawks were not they say. Robins were not they say. Grouse were not they say. Quails were not they say. Bluejays were not they say. Ducks were not they say. Yellow-hammers were not they say. Condors were not they say. Herons were not they say. Screech-owls were not they say. Woodcocks were not they say. Woodpeckers were not they say. Then meadowlarks were not they say. Then Sparrow-hawks were not they say.  Then woodpeckers were not they say. Then seagulls were not they say.  Then pelicans were not they say.  Orioles were not they say.  Then mockingbirds were not they say. Wrens were not they say.  Russet-back thrushes, blackbirds were not they say. Then crows were not they say. Then hummingbirds were not they say. Then curlews were not they say. Then mockingbirds were not they say. Swallows were not they say. Sandpipers were not they say. Then foxes were not they say. Then wildcats were not they say. Then otters were not they say. Then minks were not they say. Then elks were not they say. Then jack-rabbits, grey squirrels were not they say. Then ground squirrels were not they say. Then red squirrels were not they say. Then chipmunks were not they say. Then woodrats were not they say. Then kangaroo-rats were not they say. Then long-eared mice were not they say. Then sapsuckers were not they say. Then pigeons were not they say. Then warblers were not they say. Then geese were not they say. Then cranes were not they say. Then weasels were not they say. Then wind was not they say. Then snow was not they say. Then frost was not they say. Then rain was not they say. Then it didn’t thunder. Then trees were not when it didn’t thunder they say.  It didn’t lighten they say. Then clouds were not they say. Fog was not they say. It didn’t appear they say. Stars were not they say. It was very dark.
                                                                       (Cahto [Kato] Indian)

     Source:  From the complete literal translation in Pliny Earle Goddard, Kato Texts (University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology [Berkeley, 1909]), vol. 5, no. 3: 71–74.  After the Kato narrator Bill Ray.

     What’s of interest here isn’t the matter of the myth but the power of repetition & naming (monotony, too) to establish the presence of a situation in its entirety. This involves the acceptance (by poet & hearers) of an indefinite extension of narrative time, & the belief that language (i.e., poetry) can make-things-present by naming them. The means employed include the obvious pile-up of nouns (until everything is named) & the use of “they say” repeated for each utterance. In Cahto (Kato), this last is a quotative [yaєnɪ], made from the root -nɪ-n, “to speak,” & the plural prefix yaє. (Cp. use of Japanese particle -to; of tzo = “says” in Mazatec. While yaєnɪ is undoubtedly less conspicuous in Kato than “they say” in English, it still gives the sense of a special (narrative or mythic) context. The editor’s use of Goddard’s literal over his free translation is based on such considerations; also from a feeling that “they say” plus other repetitions add something special to the English &/or American tongues. In brief: there’s something going on here.

      Summary & Addenda.  (1) Repetition & monotony are powers to be reckoned with; or, as the lady said to M. Junod after having heard the tale of Nabandji, the toad-eating girl, “I should never have thought there could be so much charm in monotony.”
Charm, in the old sense.

(2) “There is the important question of repetition and is there any such thing. Is there repetition or is there insistence. I am inclined to believe there is no such thing as repetition. And really how can there be. … And so let us think seriously of the difference between repetition and insistence. … It is very like a frog hopping he cannot ever hop exactly the same distance or the same way of hopping at every hop. A bird’s singing is perhaps the nearest thing to repetition but if you listen they too vary their insistence. That is the human expression saying the same thing and in insisting and we all insist varying the emphasizing. …  When I first really realized the inevitable repetition in human expression that was not repetition but insistence …”

—  Gertrude Stein, “Portraits and Repetition,” in Lectures in America, pp. 166-169

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