“The friendly and flowing savage. . . .  Who is he?

Is he waiting for civilization or past it and mastering it?” (71)

 

These lines by Whitman were remarkable to me.  I don’t know this to be fact, but I’d imagine that our fuller understandings of the complexities of Native American culture came after Whitman.  The fact that Whitman poses this question about their “civilization” seems way ahead of his time!  After all, the excuse for taking over Native Americans’ land and for the attempts at bringing Christianity to them was always that they are “uncivilized.”  Whitman, here, calls this very excuse –  that would be used for many years in North America – into question. 

Language studies show us the power of words such as “savage” for Native American, “enemy” for and Iraqi soldier.  These words dehumanize the people in order to better serve the ends of the “colonizing” forces.  Whitman immediately humanizes the “savage” with “Who is he?”.   

By breaking this traditional frame of Native American as savage – and posing a question about the very identity of his humanity, Whitman is introducing a new way to talk about and think about the Native Americans.  While this is largely “typical” for Whitman (emphasis on the humane), it is not “typical” for his time. 

Beyond humanizing the “savage”, Whitman also questions his level of “civility” (in terms of civilization).  “Is he waiting for civilization?” – I think most of Whitman’s time would say yes.   Immediately, however, Whitman poses the other possibility, “or is he past it and mastering it?”  To pose this question seems hugely revolutionary to me.  Is a “savage” past civilization and mastering it?  Should we look to Native Americans to see how we should live?  Are they not only civilized, but beyond our own civilization?  The implications of these questions are quite expansive. 

After this moment, he continues to ask questions about the “savage” – delineating various ways that Native Americans can be described beyond “savage” – “southwesterner”, “Canadian”, from “Mississippi”, “Iowa”, “Oregon”, “California”, “mountains”, “Prairie life”, “bush-life”, the “sea”.    Without wondering about the details of their tribal life, Whitman shows that they’re already far more complicated than given credit for – and that they aren’t “savage”  but human.

While I don’t think that these questions are out of the ordinary for Whitman –  I think they may have been considered quite radical in his day.   I could understand if Whitman preferred Native American culture over American culture because of the simplicity of Native American cultures (and the emphasis on the land and the importance of it). 

The man does it again.  The questions Whitman posed in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass are still being assessed and answered today.  The complexities of tribal relations, languages, and the advanced ways of life of Native Americans are still being analyzed and assessed.  Undoubtedly, they’re far more complicated, more civilized, than anyone in early America had ever presumed…except maybe Whitman.