Nicholas Colt

Humanities 1100 Period 6

Mrs. Hardy
Journal

1. The author of this work is Leslie Marmon Silko

2. The title of the work is Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination. The significance of this
title is to give the reader an idea about what the work is about.
3. The work was written in 1986. The author wrote this work to give an insight about ancient Pueblo
traditions. She is part Pueblo Indian, which influenced her decision to write this work greatly.
4. The intended audiences may have been for historians, or everyone on Earth, because Silko talks
about how nothing is wasted and when something is wasted, the gods of that particular thing are
angry. This can be a connection to our modern society, where Americans waste more now than
ever before in history.
5. Everything that is on the planet, whether organic or inorganic, will return to dust at some point in
time. Ancient Pueblo people buried their dead in collapsed houses because the adobe house, even
when destroyed, meant a lot to the people at that time. Animals that are hunted have consent with
the hunter to be killed, so that the hunter does not starve. The dead return to dust, and join with
the Mother Creator (Earth). The Pueblo people considered humans to be a part of the landscape,
everything was connected. Stories were passed on to children, and they had to recite the story
whenever asked because there was no written language. The Pueblo people encouraged
arguments of truth in the stories, because it formed as entertainment for the others. The stories
may be used as a map, because the key landmarks used in the story were precise and could be
used to guide lost gatherers. (155)
6. The work makes the point that everything will return to dust at some point in the future. This
meant that nothing was wasted in the Pueblo culture, including stories. The dates of the stories
were less important that the locations, which meant that whenever the locations were passed, the
stories would be remembered and told again. (56)
7. My overall assessment of the work is that I found the way the Pueblo people focused on not
wasting anything was very interesting. If people in developed countries lived with just a fraction
of that mentality that nothing should be wasted, then the world would become a cleaner and an
environmentally friendlier place.