Week 12: “The Smokehouse Boys”, poems for Week 12 and Yurok Tribe Official Website

Learning Goal

Your posts for this discussion board will help to cultivate and direct an in-depth analysis of Shaunna McCovey’s poems with cultural and historical contexts. 

Prompt

2 Initial posts are required for this discussion board. As indicated above, posts are due Sunday 4/21 by 11:59pm. 2 peer responses are due by Tuesday 4/23 by 11:59pm.

For reference, please refer to the Weekly Discussion Posts and Peer Responses Assignment Rubric, which is available on Canvas under “Assignment Rubrics”. 

1. Your first post should address each part of the prompt indicated below: 

For this prompt, we’re going to do something a little different! This week, we will focus on Yurok history, and Yurok religious/spiritual practices.  It is vital for us to begin the last section of this course, at the beginning, where it all began. As you view/read the materials listed below, please keep the poems assigned for this week in mind. Jot down any notes, or take mental notes, of what stands out to you, things you may have learned in school, may or may not have known, your reactions to the material, and any connections you can draw to the poems.

• Please view the maps of the Yurok Tribe’s Ancestral Territory, and The Yurok Reservation (from the Yurok Tribe’s official website). You will see the link on Canvas, under the McCovey/Smokehouse Boys module.
• Please also view the Yurok Tribe’s official website, and click on “About Us” at the top, then “Our History”. Read the “Our History” and “Today” sections carefully, keeping the poems assigned for this week in mind. When you are finished, you will see several sections/buttons under “Learn About Our History”.
• Please view/read the following sections: “Exploration and Settlement,” “Gold Rush in Yurok country”, “Treaty Negotiations”, “Revolts Against Settlers” and “Formation of Reservations”. These sections are very short 😀

In “Creation Story I”, McCovey states, “It began upriver/at Katamiin/where the people/danced  themselves into existence. This is the first poem in the book, and it is grouped under the first section titled “Upriver: Where Love Begins”. “Katamiin” and “The Dance Dress” follow suit. In contrast, “Creation Story II”, “The Fast,” “Sweathouse Wood” and “Clearing the Camp” are grouped under the last section of her book, “Downriver: Where Love Begins Again.” In “Creation Story II,” McCovey states, “It began downriver/at Kenek/where the people/sang themselves into existence”.

1. Examine the Creation Story poems carefully (Creation Story I & II); paying attention to structure/form, rhythmic patterns, repetition, theme, word choice, narrative voice, tone. How are they similar? Different? b) In your opinion, what is the significance of the placement of these poems in the book (mentioned above), based on the Yurok history you learned about on the Yurok tribe’s website? Be sure to cite specific passages from the readings to develop and support your ideas. 

1. Your second post should also address each part of the prompt indicated below:

Please also view/read the following section: “Religion” on the Yurok tribe’s website as well, under “Learn More About Our History” (Again: very short!) 

1. With this section in mind, “Katamiin” (“the center of the world”) addresses the determination of the Yurok people to continue dancing despite the government’s efforts to ban ceremonies such as the Brush Dance, and despite efforts to acquire, destruct and reconstruct their sacred ancestral lands for other purposes. In “The Dance Dress”, the speaker of the poem is a ceremonial dancer. As McCovey writes “Through this lens”, what can we learn through this dancer’s perspective, about her experience being in ceremony, in that deep, spiritual state that transcends time and space? b) How does McCovey craft this poem so it captures the rhythms and feeling of a song and dance?