![]() ![]() ![]() Instead, it has been saved in human memory, like all of our distant past, passing from one generation to the next as part of an oral tradition. Much that is known about my ancestors, especially the more ancient ones, is not based on the kind of documented, eyewitness accounts customary for people of historical importance. This is how I think of my family line, the root of my own life story, which I shall endeavor to trace from its first beginnings. And yet no hurricane could tear it from its native soil, no frost could wither it. It does not spread very far below ground, as the permafrost is too near. My genealogy, like the tundra root we call yuneu, the golden root, is enmeshed with its native soil. But the tallest of these “trees” will reach no more than a few centimeters above the earth. ![]() That does not mean it is lacking in vegetation, for there are certain kinds of trees: rowan, cedar, alder, and willow. The place where I was born has no forests, and no tall trees grow there. It is customary to depict one’s genealogy as a tall, branchy tree. Uelen at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century The Creation of Earth, Sky, Waters, and Men ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |