The Sleeping Zemis

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The Sleeping Zemis The Sleeping Zemis is a very interesting poem that explores a young man and his description of some statues that he discovered and their history. It contains a lot of symbolism which creates meanings that one must look at critically. It starts off by the young man encountering them in a cave. We can tell that this person was very young when he had the statues. We know this because he kept the zemis under his bed. This could show secrecy as the youth usually hide things that are of importance and value to them under their bed. He said that he encountered them in a cave which resembled a great stone god. Maybe this is why he could have perceived the zemis as being of great importance. A simile is also used describing how the zemis were “placed like weights at the tip of its tongue”. This simile could be used to show us that this great god was made up of these three zemis and spoke through them. This could be what ancient culture believed in that time. The writer then starts to explain the history of them. It says that Arawaks hid them there when they fled. Here we are showed that these zemis were very important to the ancient culture . the Arawaks may have hidden them because they believed them to be sacred and wanted them to remain untouched and unharmed while they fled. The writer now starts describing each statue. Here the symbolism comes in. The three zemis each represented something of big meaning. The man god represented fertility, the bird god represented freedom, and the spade god represented land. These could have been of great value to the Arawaks. The writer then begins to explain the history of these ancients through the meanings of the zemis. He talks about food and crops which could mean that the Arawaks really envied their land and that is why they considered the spade god sacred. One thing about the poem is that the writer
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