Journal 21: Zitkala Sa

Michelle Romero
Eng. 48b
Dr. Scott Lankford

"Never pluck a single plum from this bush, my child, for its roots are wrapped around an Indian's skeleton. While he lived, he was so fond of playing the game of striped plum seeds that, at his death, his set of plum seeds were buried in his hands." Pg. 1015, bottom of the page.

This is the story of the dead Indian who was buried under a plum bush that Sa and her mother come across as they are walking. In class, we touched on a few aspects, 1) that story-telling is so much a part of their culture, and 2) it was as though the bush was a monument for a brave Indian they knew or heard of.

I want to bring up the darker side of this image. (Maybe I should lighten up, but I can do that later). I think it is important not to miss that the image of the plums carries to his death. It is the mark of something, a clue. I would say the picking of plums killed him, literally. The sentence right after this passage says, "Eyeing the forbidden fruit, I trod lightly on sacred ground..." The plums were forbidden fruit and I would say they were forbidden at the time the dead Indian was alive too. Therefore, his consumption of the fruit killed him.

Back to the Bible, it is widely known that the beginning of all evil started in the garden at the picking of a forbidden fruit, at least in the Christian perspective of things. Because this is a Christian belief, I would say that the forbidden fruit is the sweetness that the whites can offer. (Another passage describes the mother telling Sa not to believe the sweet words of the whites.) In essence, is it probably not greener on the other side.

The bush instead, serves as a reminder not to pick at forbidden fruit. It is probably not the literal grave of a dead Indian, but a symbolic one. This image is a metaphor of the luring, seducing power of the whites and their deceit and inhumane actions towards Indians.

Mexicans for a time in more recent history did not eat grapes. The grapes were symbolic of the harm that their pesticides were doing to the farm workers. The concept is the same here with the plums and the bush.