In Joy Harjo's poem "A Map to the Next World" as a reader I interpreted this piece to be about a person's journey through life. In this text she writes of crossing over to different worlds during this journey and sheds importance on using a map to guide ourselves. Ultimately in the end of the text she ends off with saying that as a person, we are in control of making our own map through this journey and that there really is no beginning or end. While reading this poem I was able find several lines that stood out to me. Below are a couple of lines, that made me raise a few questions and ideas in understanding the meaning behind them.
"In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for those who would climb through the hole in the sky."
From reading these starting lines, I asked myself " What is this fourth world? Could it be some type of spirit world?" What I loved is that Harjo mentions making a map, for who I assume are people wanting to cross over from life to death. She wants to make it an easier transition, an easier journey for the ones who are passing on.
"You will travel through the membrane of death , smell cooking from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way."
In these lines, Harjo mentions traveling through death and talks of cooking native dishes during this time while passing through the Milky Way. What is Harjo trying to do by mentioning the Milky Way? What is the significance of this reference?
"Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end. You must make your own map."
Ending with these last two lines, Harjo leaves us as readers off with saying that it's up to us to make our own map through this journey.
After reading the poem, I wanted to search more into this idea of different worlds that Harjo mentioned. I wanted to research this idea in regards to Native America culture and look at different concepts associated with these worlds such as death. From researching, I stumbled across a post that was about the Narragansett tribe in Rhode Island that connected to this idea of different worlds with the concept of death. Once a person passed on, they would transition between two different worlds; which is at the time of death, the soul leaves the body and joins with the souls of their family and friends in the the world of the dead, which lies somewhere to the southwest. After reading this post, it made me enjoy Harjo's poem even more and helped me understand this concept and it's connection between different tribes in the Native American community.
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