Iya the Continent Eater ¶
By: Kaitlind on Oct. 24, 2024, 1:27 p.m.
Good afternoon readers. I’ve got some thoughts about the allegorical implications of “Iya, the Camp-Eater” in Zitkala-Ša’s American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings.
First, let’s do some recap on Iya. According to Zitkala-Ša’s retelling in “Iya, the Camp-Eater,” Iya is an evil spirit who swallows tribes. In this story, Iya comes to the village in the form of a baby, waiting until night time to chow down. In this rendition, Iya only has power in his trickery, and is otherwise not a threat. He is quickly defeated by the village people who stab him, thus freeing a whole village who had been hanging out in Iya’s stomach. He makes another appearance later in “The Warlike Seven” in which he, referred to as Iya “the Eater,” is summoned by a panicked Indigenous group to swallow a lake.
This is all good and well, but I wanted to dig up some more info on Iya. According to a book called “Lakota Myth” by James R. Walker as referenced on Wikipedia (I know, I know. You can stop clutching your pearls), Iya is the younger brother of Iktomi. He is a demon with an “endless appetite,” and, on top of eating villages, is known for disease, famine, and nasty winter weather. Another website called “Godchecker” calls him the “Sioux Sickness God” and “downright hideous.” Yikes.
I think it is plausible that, much like his brother Iktomi, Iya is an allegory for European colonizers. First and foremost, Iya makes me think of land displacement. He, much like European settlers, seems peaceful and harmless upon first contact. Indeed, Iya is even given a warm welcome into the tribe by its people. Iya, however, is literally out to eat their village, thus forcing the tribe to relocate. This parallels how Europeans, after having received a friendly welcome, tricked Indigenous people for the sake of their own benefit, eventually resulting in the mass relocation and displacement of Indigenous land. Europeans, in a drawn out, roundabout way, were camp eaters. And culture eaters. And land eaters.
I especially like the imagery of Iya having an “endless appetite” according to Wikipedia. This description seems highly reminiscent of Western greed, both historically and contemporarily. Truly, the Western appetite is one that cannot be satiated. We want more land. More materials. More shiny objects. More corners of the Earth to plant royal flags and bible verses, to hoist picket fences and guzzle concrete. More everything. And less indigenous people.
Anyway.
The effects of European “camp eating” are still seen and felt all throughout North America. As of 2021, only 5% of the Canadian population identified as Indigenous. Although some groups I read about have “traditional territory,” Indigenous people effectively own none of their original land. Even reservations, which make up a tiny percentage of Canada’s surface area, are not owned by Indigenous people. In addition to land displacement, Indigenous people also face a disproportionate amount of homelessness. According to stats canada (2023), “Indigenous households (29.5%) were almost three times as likely to have experienced some form of homelessness when compared with the total population... Similarly, recent point-in-time counts of homeless shelters nation-wide have found that 35% of respondents identify as Indigenous.” Due to colonization, contemporary Indigenous populations are literally without “camps,” both on large scale and individual levels.
When I recall that video we watched recently depicting the loss of Indigenous land, I picture Iya munching away at the continent in greedy haste. Then, I picture colonizers.
Tune in next time for something else.