Although not a Native American himself, Hugo spent much of his adult life among the people of the tribes near his Montana home. He wandered onto the reservations, observed the plight of the tribal members, studied the progressive erosion of these ancient and deeply spiritual cultures. This poem, like others of his, reflect on the disappearance of language and ritual. "Every year / a few less live who know the Salish hymn." Implicitly Hugo seems to implicate the white man, especially the white man's religious institutions, in the crumbling of native pride and stature.