Momaday Response

In “ A First American Views His Land” Momaday tries to reach a general public interested in the environment. His purpose is to expose the moral relationship that Native Americans had with the earth and the natural world. Momaday structures his essay in such way that the reader can understand the difference between the “occidental” way of relate to the environment and the Native American approach. He introduces the “occidental” way by describing the hunting scenario, and then making the contrast between the opposing perspectives that each vision of the nature presents. He exposes the Native-American way of hunting as a much more sophisticated way of get from the earth, contrasting it with the less sophisticated Paleo-Indian way to hunt to the extinction. He continues to describe the Native American form of society, the moral approach to the nature and finally the importance of this type of approach to “shape our efforts to the earth and natural life within it.” A very important characteristic of the structure of this essay , are the poems that contribute to change ideas between paragraphs and summarize in the form of a poem each talking point. But most important they repeat ideas that have a resonance in the whole essay.