"Letter No. 31" by George Catlin is one of his letters about the Native Americans, this one being about his observations about buffalo. He compares the buffaloes and the Native American as sharing the land, headed for extinction, and calls both species, "beasts." Catlin fears the day when the buffalo will "live only in books or on canvass." He says their "melancholy" species extinction will leave "fields, a vast and idle waste." Their biggest enemies are man and the white wolf, with the men using them for their "sustenance." Catlin seems to be both sad and accepting of the buffalo's fate, seeing that the other species such as the wolf and man need them in order to survive. Catlin also feels the Native Americans are "wasting life" by killing and hunting the buffaloes. In John Wesley Powell's "Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries," he describes a river rafting trip down the Colorado River and describes a series of events leading him and his crew to a peaceful stream as their final destination. He calls the unknown journey, "great," and say the crew all approach the adventure with "eagerness, anxiety, and misgiving." He is an awe of the "distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore," making it seem like he believes this will be the greatest adventure he has had so far. He feels the river makes him lose control of what is happening to them, as they have a lost of vision, "scarcely able to determine" what their next move is. He describes the good and the bad of the river, as well as the weather conditions, their camping during the night, and how all of these particular elements affect him and his crew. He definitely makes it seem like all of these unknowns and enjoyments were worth the journey in the end.
I hadn't read anything by George Catlin or John Wesley Powell before this assignment, so I didn't know what to expect. I found their writing to be more captivating than the previous assignment, because their writing was more fast paced and more exciting, because they put themselves in the story as either the narrator or one of the participants. Before reading Catlin's "Letter No. 31" essay, I didn't know that buffalo were "timid" towards man, until they feel they are being attacked, and then the animals strike back viciously, to defend themselves. Their survival antics make sense, because the buffalo probably feel threatened by the advances of the hunters, such as man or the white wolf, on a daily basis. If I were a buffalo and saw other members of my species being slaughtered, I would hide too and defend myself to the fullest in order to survive. I went river rafting in Moab several years ago, so I could relate to Powell's panic and excitement he felt due to the conditions in his "Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries" essay. River rafting was probably the most scary and most exhilarating experiences I have ever had. I haven't had the opportunity to go river rafting again, but it will remain one of the best experiences I have had with nature. I first went in a raft that I had to paddle, sitting on the side, feeling like I was going to fall out of the raft and drown at any moment. During the next part of the trip, I was in a raft where only the guide had to paddle, while we just gently floated, with nothing to do but gathering twigs out of the river. The second part wasn't nearly as exciting at the first raft.
George Catlin calls himself, not a "visionary," yet describes in one instance, that he was "lifted up upon an imaginary pair of wings, which easily raised and held be floating in the open air." For someone who claims not be visual, he sure does know how to accurately describe a metaphor for a scene. I found it interesting in Catlin's essay, how he documents the buffalo dipping themselves in both mud and water to become a "mortar, which changes [their] color." He uses a ton of great descriptions which makes us readers feel like we are there with him in the moment he is observing them do the mud ritual. Catlin also says the buffalo "are rapidly wasting away at the approach of civilized man- and like him and his character, in a very few years, to live only in books or on canvass," making me wonder if his intentions of painting the buffalo are way for him to personally try and preserve the species from extinction by making people more aware of this important species. In John Wesley Powell's "Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries," I love how he describes the river as dashing "its angry waves against the walls and cliffs that rise to the world above; the waves are but puny ripples, and we bug pigmies, running up and down the sand or lost among the borders." Powell makes it seem like people seem small in comparison to the mighty river, being powerless when it comes to nature's grip and it also show how dangerous river rafting can be. He shows the loss of control he feels from guiding the boats as "we can neither land nor run as we please. The boats are entirely unmanageable; no order in their running can be preserved; now one, now another, is ahead, each crew laboring for its own preservation." Powell's passage is a perfect way to summarize the fight for survival, one might feel, when every element of the world is pushing people in a different direction.
I thought it was interesting that George Catlin's introduction to "Letter No. 31" essay tells us he spent years, "painting [Native American] portraits and depiction scenes of tribal life," which is evident in his writing as detached observation, without writing about his own interactions with the buffalo and the Native Americans. He sees the people and the buffalo in action yet he doesn't call himself a "visionary." Like Catlin, I am also an artist, who paints and draws, mostly by observation. I know in order to be a painter, you have to notice colors, forms, space, balance, light, and proportions, in order to get a full sense of what is going on in the scene you're observing. He must be a visual person in some way, to be able to capture every detail of his scenes in his essay. I also think these elements of art help him with his stunning description within the letter. John Wesley Powell's introduction to his "Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries" essay, tells us he is a "characters as well as an author," making it seem like he made a great impact on Natural literature by including himself as the narrator of this adventure story. I was surprised to learn he was a "one-armed Civil War hero," which I would think would make paddling a raft on a river rafting trip a bit harder for him. I'm always interested in stories with underdogs rising above his or her physical or mental limits with challenges to overcome them. Powell's introduction shows us his experience through listing his credentials, such as being the "director of the U.S. Geological Survey" and "America's director of the Bureau of Ethnology," which show he knows what he is talking about as an explorer and a conservationist.
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