In this poem the narrator seems to be speaking to a mass of
people, which I will assume is his tribe, or what remains of it. In the speech he
is addressing the crowd repeatedly starting with, “I am told by many of you
that I should forgive…” I believe that he is the rebel in the group, the one
who has not forgotten of the generations of tradition of his tribe. In addition
he may be the one that is causing trouble for the whole because he is the one
individual who refuses to let the issues of the past go. The damming of the
river is like ending the life of the river, the creatures that inhabit it, and
the people who depend on the river – not only for food, but for wisdom. It
seems that the river and the salmon are important symbols in his tribe. By the intensity
of his speech and the repetition he uses, he refuses to be the person to succumb
to the new ways by forgiving the people who have destroyed a part of their
culture. One could look at this as an element of a dystopia. It is like he is trying to make
the “brainwashed” people remember how much importance this has in their life by not forgiving.
By the closing of the dam, the story and lesson of the salmon cannot be taught,
which can be presumed as a vital element in their tradition.
A question that I have is:
Are they asking him to forgive the people because they know not what they do or because they've actually sent out an apology to the tribe?
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