Author Archive for:

A rural scene featuring a handmade sign that says "Meat Shoot" with the list of dates in January, February, March and April

What Gets Passed Down

Seth R. Merritt

|

This piece tells a story of rural Southern Missouri through the forms of knowledge inherited when the state offers nothing: no direction, no infrastructure, no recognition. The author is from Douglas County, where his family still hunts and welds and buries its dead. Electricity came late. Broadband still hasnโ€™t come at all. Seth comes from the Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri, a tribe erased not just by settler removal but by federal recognition itself.