For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, a tribe who once lived in the Southeastern part of the United States from Tennessee to Florida. Under President Andrew Jackson they were forced out of their ancestral territory in a march that would later be known as the Trail of Tears. Along with other Native American tribes, the Creek settled in the territory now known as Oklahoma. Three generations later, Joy Harjo continues to draw on the Creek people’s historical memory and the culture and history they retained after the Europeans removed them from their original land. In “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet” Harjo refers to both a personal and cultural past, as well as to the mythology of original Creek people.

The speaker addresses the reader: “Let your moccasin feet take you” (Line 8). Moccasins are a type of shoe that indigenous people wore before the Europeans arrived. The speaker is addressing other indigenous people, or at least using indigenous terminology to address the audience.

Similarly, the speaker says: “Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters” (Line 9). The term “postcolonial” refers to the European colonization of the Americas, when Europeans displaced indigenous peoples from the land.