The Spiraling Conception of Time
Erdrich’s repeated use of the spiral places her poemeo in conversation with spiraling conceptions of time and, in doing so, demonstrates the inextricability of the present from the past. Literary scholar and historian Lisa Brooks underscores the mental and physical multiplicity of temporalities within the spiraling conception of time; the image of the spiral depicts the way that time spirals through each new generation of Indigenous people, enabling a simultaneous embodiment of the past and present:
This spiral is embedded in place but revolves through layers of generations, renewing itself with each new birth. It cannot be fixed but is constantly moving in three-dimensional, multilayered space. It allows for recurrence and return but also for transformation. Its origins lie in ancient worlds, but it moves through our own bodies in the present, perhaps with a sense of irony (Brooks 309)
Erdrich draws on spiral imagery from the first lines of her poemeo, which are transcribed in a spiral as the camera spirals with them on the screen:
River, river, river,
I never, never, never
Etched your spiral icon in limestone
Or, for that matter,
Pitched a tent on cement near your banks
(0:25-0:43)
Clip from Erdrich's "Pre-Occupied," (0:25-0:43)
These lines indicate the recurrence of previous interactions with the river through Erdrich in the present-day. Erdrich demonstrates the inextricability of the experiences of ancient and contemporary Indigenous peoples two-fold in this stanza. First, she parallels her own spiraling words with the etchings of pre-contact Indigenous peoples. As her words spiral on the screen, Erdrich recalls the act of “etch[ing] [the river’s] spiral icon in limestone.”
Then, Erdrich visually displays the connection between ancient Indigenous inhabitation of the valley with the present-day Indigenous inhabitants of Minneapolis. She interjects Ojibwe wigwams into footage of the 2011 Occupy Minneapolis movement, which is a local demonstration within a global justice movement. Importantly, as the scene switches from Ojibwe wigwams to modern-day tents in a cityscape, there is a brief moment where the urban-scape is in the background of the wigwams before the wigwams melt into modern-day tents one by one from back to front:
Screenshot from Erdrich's "Pre-Occupied," (0:41)
Screenshot from Erdrich's "Pre-Occupied," (0:44)
Erdrich emphasizes continued colonial violence against Indigenous peoples in the Upper Mississippi River valley. She overlays the words “Pitched a tent” over both Ojibwe wigwams and the modern-day Occupy tents, indicating that Indigenous peoples have a long tradition of making homes within the valley landscape by “Pitch[ing] a tent” on the river’s banks, though over time this has shifted from traditional wigwams to modern tents. Erdrich symbolically denotes a transformation by altering the text in the different scenes: the line “Pitched a tent” is reflected from right-side-up in white text on the wigwams to upside-down in black on the tents. This textual formatting suggests that, though pre-contact Indigenous people inhabited the valley, their lifeways were metaphorically and literally turned upside down as their existence was deemed illegitimate and illegal by colonial forces.
As Erdrich visually indicates, this reflection in the present is rooted in the past, and this return exposes the irony of the connection between the original Indigenous occupation and the Occupy Minneapolis movement: While the U.S. government considers participants in the movement to “occupy” public lands in protest, to Indigenous people it is the U.S. government that occupies Indigenous lands. Thus, Erdrich understands her present connection with the river in terms of this historic and continued Indigenous presence in Minneapolis.
Instead of a linear conception of time, “Pre-Occupied” draws on a more dynamic connection with place that, because multiple temporalities can overlap in a locale, necessitates understanding the present in terms of the past. Erdrich’s “Pre-Occupied” underscores that, rather than being left in the past, colonial violence continues to shape present Indigenous social conditions.