This poem by Leslie Marmon Silko is a very dark poem. The poem starts out by mentioning a world devoid of racial hatred disrupted by witchery. The poem then continues talking about a "witches get together" and compares this gathering to a baseball tournament (a very odd comparison, possibly a description of how crowded the gathering is?). The witches get together and compete in the art of magic. Here there are vivid images of some of the corpses the witches stored as the skin. The poet gave a very explicit description of the various human skins that were stored.
Why did the poet describe such explicit images of human body parts with blood and gore? Is it to set a mood for the danger that was fast approaching the North America? Was it a foreshadowing of the evils the people of this continent are about to endure?
I also do not understand why the poet says it was due to witch's incantation that ruined racial equality? Is it a possible that the witches are a metaphor for the fatalistic or inevitable future that was approaching them?
The poem makes a powerful allusions to Europeans and settlers taking land from the Indians and chasing them away from their homes. It also describes these settlers as swarming larvae infesting the continent. The poem further continues and repeats the word object, saying that these settlers consider everything to be objects. The term object is referring to the materialism, just massing wealth and luxury.
I do not understand what the poet is referring to when she says rocks with veins of green, yellow and black. What is the poet talking about? pillaging the supply of timber(green) and gold(yellow)?If so, then what does black stand for?
The poet also uses the word "will" in cases of the damage that will be caused by the invaders, which asserts that these events are inevitable and are bound to happen.
The poem ends in a fatalistic tone saying it can't be called back. This line is especially intriguing as it implies that the events that have happened cannot be changes or it is too late to stop the event that is about to happen. Is the poet saying that this dystopia will occur regardless of whether these invaders show up or not?
Regarding the veins of green, yellow, and black, I believe the poet is referring to the excavation of mineral wealth: yellow referring to gold, green possibly copper or turquoise, and black referencing coal (as oil though abundant wasn't considered useful in that time period).
ReplyDeleteWith respect to the fatalistic tone of the passage, the pleading of the other witches to undo the spell appears to highlight how futile resistance against the settlers was going to be. Many Indian tribes did resist the encroachment on their lands, but they could only do so much against the settlers. The inevitability the prophecy is professed with emphasizes how even the American Indians wanted anything but this future, there was nothing they could do to stop it from unraveling.