Lit211J

February 19, 2012

Wk 5 Silko Annotation

She retraces the mountain of her ancestry every single day quietly. In the wind she can smell the scent of her ancestors made from crushed pale blue leaves of the mountain. The smell is coming from up the mountain side from which her ancestors descended from, where the mountain lion laid down and ate their deer. It is better to be where she once came from, where her ancestors came from, up on that mountain watching nature. The elderly that remember it once are all gone, the old songs of ancestors are forgotten, and the story where it all began died with its memory. The memory of the culture dances in the snow frost moonlight, swam in the freezing mountain water, went through the narrow mossy canyon down and out of the mountain, out of the deep canyon stone, becoming a memory spilling into the world.

The theme of ancestry is seen in this poem. Ancestry to the protagonist can be felt in all of her days and smelt in the wind that comes from the mountains. It is the main reason for this poem and it is very important to the protagonist. The ancestry of her people was once rich in a time before and is now lost but she can still sense it in nature. Ancestry is important to her in her every day dealings and she remembers it in all the aspects of her life. She knows where her culture came from and where she came. Her people are from the mountain and she will never forget where she came from.

Disinheritance is another theme that can be found in this poem. The protagonist feels a connection with ancestry but describes the memory of it being lost. To her, the world has forgotten where they came from, symbols of the past, and many of their ancestors’ ways. She describes the memories as dying with the ancestors. The people cannot see, smell, or feel their culture the way she can. People have forgot where they came