Table of Contents
"Planting Song"
Overview
“Planting Song” is an Osage poem. Within the editorial notes, it states, “In a sound translation this song would have eleven four-line stanzas.” Therefore, Barbara Tedlock translates the poem as a concrete piece visualizing a plant instead of the linear eleven stanza piece. The poem is visually symmetrical; the stalk and leaves protrude out from the ground while the roots are equally represented below the ground. The line “I make a footprint” repeats 36 times which clearly is used to emphasize the overall theme of the poem.
Barbara Tedlock is a professor of anthropology. Her husband Dennis Tedlock is one of the editors of Alcheringa in which this poem appears.
Commentary
“Planting Song” takes on a dual meaning. The name implies that it could be a song sung while planting or it may be a song about planting. Perhaps it may even be both. The refrain “I make a footprint” is essential in understanding the piece. Who or what makes the footprint? Is it the person who plants because they have the ability to do so or the person who harvests the plants to provide for the families? Although the footprint could be an actual impression made in the dirt, it's more than likely a symbol for the role and function of the farmer who provides for the tribe.
Context
The Osage is a Native American group that primarily resided in the Plains states of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. They used the land for agricultural purposes and this poem compliments one component of their lifestyle.
Bibliography
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 36th, U. S. Govt. Print. Off, 1895, https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/annualreportofbu36smithso
Burns, Louis Francis. Osage Indian Bands and Clans. United States, Clearfield, 2001.
Osage Nation, 2021, www.osagenation-nsn.gov/.
Osage Nation. “Planting Song.” Alcheringa First Series, Translated by Barbara Tedlock and edited by Dennis Tedlock and Jerome Rothenberg, vol. 1, no. 2, 1976, pp. 35. https://media.sas.upenn.edu/jacket2/pdf/reissues/alcheringa/Alcheringa_1-2_Summer-1971.pdf.
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