Commercial World versus Spiritual World

The myths, or folklore, of a people are created to explain things they cannot rationally understand. According to the mythologist Joseph Campbell, spirituality is often centered on these myths. The River Mumma helped the people who believed in her to respect the water and the life that was born in the water. She may have offered these people a sense of security, as they could believe that she would always keep their water flowing and clean. To show their respect, people would bring gifts of food, music, and dance to the River Mumma. Stories about her were told to each succeeding generation, so that children would maintain the practices of respect. As Goodison's poem suggests, however, the culture is changing for the worse.

As presented in the poem, diminishing respect for spirituality is being punctuated by the rise in commercialism. The sense of the...