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Crow Testament

Sherman Alexie's poem "Crow Testament" uses biblical metaphors and symbolism to summarize the hardships faced by Native Americans since European contact. It depicts the crow as representing Native Americans. In the first stanza, Cain and Abel's murder symbolizes the betrayal of Native people by white settlers. The second stanza describes a white man stealing a salmon from the crow, representing how settlers took Native lands. The poem goes on to reference other biblical stories as allegories for colonization and its devastating impacts, such as alcoholism on reservations. It concludes with the crow riding a pale horse into a powwow, implying the current state of reservations is close enough to death not to surprise Native people.

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3K views

Crow Testament

Sherman Alexie's poem "Crow Testament" uses biblical metaphors and symbolism to summarize the hardships faced by Native Americans since European contact. It depicts the crow as representing Native Americans. In the first stanza, Cain and Abel's murder symbolizes the betrayal of Native people by white settlers. The second stanza describes a white man stealing a salmon from the crow, representing how settlers took Native lands. The poem goes on to reference other biblical stories as allegories for colonization and its devastating impacts, such as alcoholism on reservations. It concludes with the crow riding a pale horse into a powwow, implying the current state of reservations is close enough to death not to surprise Native people.

Uploaded by

SONA
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Evolution

About the author


Sherman Alexie is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and
filmmaker. he uses his Native American background as inspiration for
his poetry. throughout Sherman Alexie’s work, despair and hardship
caused by European influences among Native peoples is a common issue
that seems to be a reoccurring element in his work.
Introduction:
“Crow Testament” by Sherman Alexie presents a picture of the
hardships suffered by Native Americans through the metaphorical image
of a crow.  The poem travels from the first murder and the first contact
with Europeans, to the Apocalypse and current suffering of reservation
Indians.
Summary
Sherman alexie begins the poem by putting an image of Cain killing his
brother Abel committing the first murder. Cain and Abel symbolizes
betrayal in brotherhood which happened in the case of the white settlers
and the Indians who were brothers according to Christianity but the
White settlers killed their brothers out of greed. Alexie uses the “crow”
as a symbol which represents the Native Americans
In the second stanza, Alexie describes how a white man disguised as a
“falcon” stole a salmon from the crow’s talons symbolizing how the
white settlers  first came to the shores and shook hands with the Indians
with one hand and took everything from them with the other.
 If Crow could swim, such as Salmon swims, he would have left the land
to the whites long ago, but Indians just can’t get up and leave which
symbolizes helplessness and how the Natives did try to escape but they
didn’t have a choice. The poem continues on   including other events
from the bible, such as the Battle of Jericho.  In Alexie’s narrative, the
city stands in for the entire population of native people who were
decimated by the arrival of the white man.
Crow can pick up bottles, one-by-one, but he can’t do it alone; it must be
a tribal effort to stop the crisis of alcoholism. The alcohol was provided
by early European traders and was often used to facilitate better
agreements between white traders and Indians, and later between
Government officials and Indians.
  Alexie finishes up with Revelation, the final book in the Bible. The
poem concludes with Crow riding into a powwow on a pale horse.  To
the Indians at the PowWow, the reservation is close enough to death that
the Horseman does not worry them, nor even surprise them. The tragedy
that is the current state of most Indian reservations is deplorable, but
Crow can’t change it alone.

Biblical Allusions:
Crow Testament” is a poem full of biblical allusions, which Alexie has
used to puncture the Christian beliefs and norms and also throughout the
poem he questions the very act of killing by European settlers, in the
name of religion.
Tone, satire
Mood, feeling of betrayal
Repetition:
"Damn, says Crow..."

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