Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, novelist, essayist and an associate professor at the University of Colorado. She is traveling there to search out her Chickasaw roots according to elders. She explains how in traditional native American thought everything on the land has value and is considered sacred; everything is living .She says “the mud people of the first creation did not endure; when it rained, their bodies grew soft and dissolved”. “In the next creation, humans were lovingly carved of wood. These prospered and multiplied. But in time, the wooden people forgot to give praise to the gods and to nurture the land. They were hollow and without compassion. They transformed the world to fit their own needs. They did not honor the sacred forms of life on earth and they began to destroy the land, to create their own dead future out of human arrogance and greed” (Creations 95). She also goes on to say “And it would mean we become the corn people who are givers of praise and nurturers of creation, lovers of life. This statement agrees with the fifth principle of deep ecology which states “present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening (The Anarchist
Hogan is a Chickasaw poet, novelist, essayist and an associate professor at the University of Colorado. She is traveling there to search out her Chickasaw roots according to elders. She explains how in traditional native American thought everything on the land has value and is considered sacred; everything is living .She says “the mud people of the first creation did not endure; when it rained, their bodies grew soft and dissolved”. “In the next creation, humans were lovingly carved of wood. These prospered and multiplied. But in time, the wooden people forgot to give praise to the gods and to nurture the land. They were hollow and without compassion. They transformed the world to fit their own needs. They did not honor the sacred forms of life on earth and they began to destroy the land, to create their own dead future out of human arrogance and greed” (Creations 95). She also goes on to say “And it would mean we become the corn people who are givers of praise and nurturers of creation, lovers of life. This statement agrees with the fifth principle of deep ecology which states “present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening (The Anarchist