Langscape Magazine is an extension of the voice of Terralingua. . nature . language . culture . It supports our mission by educating the minds and hearts LANGSCAPE MAGAZINE about the importance and value of biocultural diversity. VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2, Winter 2016 We aim to promote a paradigm shift by illustrating biocultural diversity Voices of the Earth, Part 2 through scientific and traditional knowledge, within an appealing sensory context of articles, stories, and art. Table of Contents

Contributors...... 4 To the Golden Mountains of Action Altai, Southern Siberia: Editorial...... 6 A Journey of Language and Soul Like Growing Flowers: The Work of Saving Special Feature: Joanna Dobson...... 39 Endangered Languages Voices from the Field: Ajuawak Kapashesit...... 64 Biocultural Diversity at 20 African Rural Women, Custodians ABOUT THE COVER PHOTOS Flourishing at Twenty: of Seed and Traditional Knowledge Louder Than Words II Front: Dr. Rimberia Mwangi, Sacred Site Custodian, Meru, Kenya. On Context and Foundations in the Rise Kagole Margret Byarufu...... 43 Cherokee Voices for the Land of the Concept of Biocultural Diversity Clint Carroll and Cherokee Nation Photo: Jess Phillimore/The Gaia Foundation, 2012 Ken Wilson...... 10 Louder Than Words I Medicine Keepers...... 68 Protecting Biocultural Back: Two fishermen on Lake George, Western Uganda. Ideas Diversity in Dakshinkali, Yamani: Voices of an Ancient Land Maintaining the Linguasphere a Sacred Grove in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal Faith Baisden, Thomas Dick, Carolyn Photo: Hal Rhoades/The Gaia Foundation, 2016 in the Anthropocene Sheetal Vaidya and Asha Paudel ...... 46 Barker, and Kristina Kelman...... 74 Peter Bridgewater...... 16 Dispatches II Web Extra The Earthlings Are Invading! Linking Language and the Land: Giving Nature a Critical Voice: Radical Language and Dialogue A New Approach to Nature Conservation? at the United Nations How Words, Stories, and Ceremonies Can Inform Decision Making among Katherine Dominique Lind Joseph Lambert...... 21 the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw of British Columbia, Canada Reflections View this Web Extra at Andrea Lyall...... 51 “No one said a word”: http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/ Terralingua thanks the Logan and Kalliopeia Langscape Magazine is a Langscape/Volume_5/lind.pdf Foundations for their generous support. Children Give Voice to the Fullness Māori Oral Tradition, Terralingua Publication of Language, Landscape, and Life Ancestral Sayings, and Editor: Luisa Maffi Patrick Howard...... 25 Editorial Assistants: Christine Arpita, Indigenous Knowledge: Coreen Boucher Language, Landscape, Learning from the Past, Web Developer: Phil Rees Looking to the Future Graphic Design: Imagine That Graphics and Custom: Hemi Whaanga and Priscilla Wehi..... 56 A Synthesis for Memory Learn about Terralingua www.terralingua.org Marilee K. Gloe...... 30 Doña Dora and Receive Langscape Magazine by subscribing or Her Tehuelche Animals: by purchasing single copies. Dispatches I Stories of Language Revitalization Details at: www.terralinguaubuntu.org Jaqin Uraqpachat Amuyupa: in Southern Patagonia Learn about Langscape Magazine The Aymara Cosmological Vision Javier Domingo in conversation with Dora Manchado...... 60 www.terralinguaubuntu.org/langscape/home.htm Amy Eisenberg...... 34 ISSN 2371-3291 (print) ISSN 2371-3305 (digital) © Terralingua 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 3 Marilee K. Gloe Andrea Lyall Contributors Marilee K. Gloe has a Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability. Andrea Lyall is a registered professional forester working with Working with Indigenous cultures, she focuses on cultural Indigenous forestry initiatives in Canada and the USA. She capital resources, natural resource preservation, and teaches Aboriginal Forestry at the Faculty of Forestry at the Faith Baisden The Cherokee Nation biodiversity. In the Caribbean she assists in the development University of British Columbia, Canada. She is working on of ecologically sustainable small-scale aquaponics to reduce her PhD dissertation, with a focus on Indigenous perspectives Faith Baisden is from the Yugambeh community south of Medicine Keepers coral reef degradation and ensure food security. on forests and culturally relevant forest governance. She is a Brisbane, Australia. She is an artist, photographer, curator, The Cherokee Nation Medicine Keepers are a group member of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw Nation. and composer. Faith is Director of Binabar Projects, an of Oklahoma Cherokee elders who have incorporated Indigenous consultancy involved in business planning; Patrick Howard to perpetuate Cherokee ethnobiological knowledge Indigenous language, cultural, and artistic project Asha Paudel for future generations. As fluent Cherokee speakers Patrick Howard is associate professor in the Education management; and book production. Faith has been Department at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, Asha Paudel is an assistant lecturer at Amrit Campus, conversant with the ties between language, knowledge, involved for over twenty years with Indigenous language Canada. A former public school teacher for over twenty Tribhuvan University, Nepal, teaching about climate and the environment, they seek to strengthen these projects both at the community level and in consultation years, his research explores the intersection between change and biocultural diversity in the high Himalayas. for state and national policy in support of languages. connections by promoting tribally led land education language, literacy, phenomenology, and ecology. An accomplished field scientist, her interests also lie in and conservation. His article “Inspiring the Bioregional Imagination: pollination biology as well as plant systematics of the Carolyn Barker Deepening the Connection to Place through Reading, alpine regions of Nepal. Thomas Dick Writing and Ecology” was published in Green Teacher. Carolyn Barker is a producer, contemporary jeweller, and Sheetal Vaidya facilitator of community cultural development projects. Thomas Dick is an independent producer and researcher Ajuawak Kapashesit When she isn’t head down at her bench or playing in the who is currently completing his PhD. He has produced Sheetal Vaidya, PhD, is an associate professor of Botany wild with family, Carolyn works with creative Indigenous two documentary films with communities in Vanuatu, Ajuawak Kapashesit, of Cree and Ojibwe heritage, is a at Patan Multiple Campus, Tribhuvan University, Nepal, language workers through First Languages Australia and the and is an associate producer of the Australian film non-profit communications consultant, freelance writer, specializing in plant systematics. With over 27 years of Queensland Indigenous Languages Advisory Committee “Yamani.” He is an investigator on a project funded by and researcher. He graduated from Macalester College in teaching experience, she has done research on diverse subjects on an array of national projects, including Yamani: Voices the Australia Research Council, which explores music, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, with a degree in Linguistics such as molecular biology, floriculture, and biocultural of an Ancient Land; Warra: Building Teams, Building mobile phones, and social justice in Melanesia. focusing primarily on endangered languages, and has diversity of Indigenous communities of the Kathmandu Valley. Resources; and Gambay: Australian Languages Map. been working in this field ever since. Joanna Dobson Priscilla Wehi Kristina Kelman Peter Bridgewater Joanna Dobson lives on the North Norfolk coast, England, Priscilla Wehi is a conservation biologist at New Peter Bridgewater is a visiting fellow at the Australian where she is writing her book To Altai, which describes Kristina Kelman is a highly accomplished choral director, Zealand’s government terrestrial ecology institute, National University’s Centre for Museums and Heritage, her experiences of living for a decade with the Indigenous having directed some of Queensland’s best performing Landcare Research Manaaki Whenua, and also parents a visiting professor at Beijing Forestry University, and an People of the Altai Republic. During that time she worked choral groups. Kristina’s choirs have won several local, three children. She is a 2014‒2020 Rutherford Discovery state, national, and international competitions. She holds Fellow with interests in human‒nature relationships and adjunct professor at the Institute of Applied Ecology at as a translator in the field of biocultural conservation. a PhD in Music Education and a Master of Music in Jazz stable isotope ecology. She affiliates to Tainui, Tūhoe, and the University of Canberra, where he pursues an interest Voice and Choral Studies. Ngāpuhi through marriage. in the links between biological and cultural diversities. Javier Domingo Javier Domingo hails from Bariloche, Argentina, and is Joseph Lambert H mi Whaanga Kagole Margret Byarufu working on a revitalization program for the Tehuelche ē language of Patagonia. He holds masters’ degrees in Joseph Lambert does research and communications Hēmi is a research fellow in Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao Kagole Margret Byarufu, from the Hoima region of work for the Gaia Foundation, where he has been at the University of Waikato, Aotearoa/New Zealand. He Comparative Languages and Literatures and in Italian Uganda, is a custodian of seeds and of a sacred natural particularly involved in facilitating the 2016 United has worked as a project leader and researcher on a range Language and Culture for Foreigners from the University of site. Under the shadow of oil mining and land-grabbing, Nations’ “Harmony with Nature” Dialogue. He lives in of projects centered on the revitalization and protection she has gathered her clan and elder women from other Bologna, Italy, and a master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology Brighton, England, and is also studying for a master’s of Māori language and knowledge. He affiliates to Ngāti communities to reaffirm their knowledge, revive and Ethnolinguistics from the University of Venice. degree in Environmental Law. Kahungunu and Ngāi Tahu. indigenous seeds, and rehabilitate the land. Amy Eisenberg Katherine Dominique Lind Ken Wilson Clint Carroll Amy Eisenberg is a botanist and associate scholar with Katherine Dominique Lind hails from Colorado and is Dr. Ken Wilson grew up absorbed by both the cultural Clint Carroll is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the Center for World Indigenous Studies. She received her currently living in Bloomington, Indiana, where she is diversity and biological diversity of Central Africa, and an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at PhD in Arid Lands Resource Sciences (Ethnoecology) and working on her dissertation at Indiana University. She committed to integrate them despite an excess of English the University of Colorado, Boulder. His work with Cherokee American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona. studies documentary film, environmental justice, and education. He enjoyed trying that at Oxford, the Ford communities in Oklahoma focuses on tribal environmental She conducted collaborative research with the Aymara wildlife conservation advocacy. She teaches rhetoric courses Foundation, and The Christensen Fund. Retiring to governance, health sovereignty, and the revitalization of people of Chile through USAID and the International focused on public advocacy, animal communication, public Borneo in 2015, he remains involved with the African traditional ecological knowledge and practices. Cooperative Biodiversity Group Project. memory, and social movements. villages of his youth.

4 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 5 Editorial In what is now coming to be known as the “Reflections” story. She ponders a past event Anthropocene—the epoch of global human impact through which she gained deep insights into on Earth—Peter finds the linguasphere to be as people and place in a foreign land whose language relevant a concept as ever. Maintaining the diversity she didn’t know. Chance and quasi-dream of languages within the linguasphere along with the encounters in Petra, Jordan, unexpectedly allowed worldviews they embody, he argues, is key for us to her to break through the language barrier by surviveOn a andrelated thrive note, in the Joseph Anthropocene. Lambert points to sheer immersion in the flow of sights and sounds reverberating from and molded by that particular place. In her captivating prose, Marilee weaves TakingTaking language as “both a reflection and an agent—a language, landscape, and custom together as th e mirror and a maker” of societal attitudes and inherent shapers of intuition and memory. th e perceptions toward Mother Earth. Reflecting on a series of “Harmony with Nature” dialogues that the The thread of language, culture, and land also United Nations has been conducting for a few years, runs through the six essays in “Dispatches,” Joseph finds that the dialogues—propelled by the which take us zig-zagging from South America Luisa Maffi Dance UN’s “‘brute-force’ ability to bring language, and the to southern Siberia, East Africa, the Pacific Dance associated social change, into the global psyche”— Northwest, Oceania, and then back to the m I ever so lucky! As Langscape you a second article in our Special Feature may have the potential to shift mainstream southernmost tip of the American continent. The Aeditor, I sit in my Salt Spring Island discourseas fundamentally about humans separate and from nature and awaydominant from first three stories share a focus on Indigenous Ken Wilson, prevailing anthropocentric views of humanity worldviews and the ways in which the sacredness “Biocultural Diversity at 20.” The guest of life that is imbued in the landscape, and officecoastal and, rainforest looking all out around of the window,me, I also I notget writerand a close for this Terralingua issue’s feature friend is of many years. over nature. That is especially the case, he argues, especially in sacred natural sites, is upheld by local Amy Eisenberg only get to see the stunning beauty of the biocultural diversity champion extraordinaire insofar as the dialogues bring to the fore a diversity people through reverence, reciprocity, and respect. of voices, including Indigenous voices, to share introduces us to the to see the entire world in its full biocultural A visionary in the world of philanthropy, Ken alternative ideas and radical language that can help cosmological vision of the Aymara people of glory. I see it vividly through the eyes of recognized early on the value and promise steer global society onto a more sustainable Earth- northern Chile, who live in one of the world’s the revolving cast of diverse, thoughtful, of the nascent idea of an “inextricable link” centered, bioculturally focused path. most forbidding environments, the Atacama and eloquent contributors whose poignant among cultural, linguistic, and biological The links between language, landscape, and Desert. Their vision is “one in which humans, words and images grace the pages of our diversity. In a fond retrospective look at the custom—and the way in which those links shape environment, and the entire cosmos work magazine. What a privilege it is to listen to birth of biocultural diversity out of several understanding, identity, and memory—are the together simultaneously and cooperatively within thisreaders! chorus of voices of the Earth, and what decades of intellectual gestation, he skillfully object of both essays in the “Reflections” section. a network of reciprocal relations.” Through the a joy to share those voices with you, our traces the ideological and political changes that made it possible for the concept to InCanada, a heartfelt Patrick and Howard poetic recollection of his years performance of their agricultural practices and of emerge and take off when it did. As he puts it, as a teacher in Newfoundland on the east coast of their rituals to Pachamama (Mother Earth) and to againIn the travel second across of a two-part continents series to devoteddrop in he was fated to throw his life “into loving this brings us the world and the ancestors, the Aymara strive to maintain that to the theme of “Voices of the Earth,” we golden child.” So, too, was he bound to throw words of children from that rugged land sculpted by spiritual balance against the age-old challenges his support (and that of the foundations he wind and waves, which was once home to a thriving of their environment and the new challenges of on some of the myriad peoples and places was involved in) behind that child. And the cod fishery. That fishing way of life, gone now for contemporary “development” in the Andes. They that, like weft and warp, form biocultural world, I might add, is a farPeter better Bridgewater place for it. over three decades after the fishery’s collapse, still believe that only through constant dialogue with diversity’s tightly woven fabric. And we formed an essential element of the children’s sense bothgood theplace human for all. and the more-than-human world again hear stories of connectedness and In the “Ideas” section, of belonging, which for them was inextricably and can conflict be resolved and the world be made a resilience, challenges and struggles, re- also pursues some historical musings about powerfully tied to water. The classroom allowed Joanna Dobson emergence and resurgence. But first we the rise of ideas that, like that of biocultural Patrick’s students to give voice to that sense of travel for a while through the more rarified diversity, intimately link the cultural with belonging. That experience taught Patrick that “it is takes us along as she revisits world of ideas and reflections—through the biological. He revisits the concept of to language that we can turn to better comprehend one of her first trips to the Russian republic of a tapestry of thoughts that help us delve “linguasphere”—a concept that he and the relationship between our defining human Altai, in southwestern Siberia—a region that deeper into a concept that, intuitively his linguist daughter proposed nearly two capacity—language—and the living Earth.” would become her home for a whole decade. appealingdiversity. as it may be, is often hard to decades ago, on the model of Teilhard Her memory goes back to encounters with three define and comprehend: biocultural de Chardin’s idea of the noosphere, or But how can a language teach us about the extraordinary members of the Altai Indigenous Earth’s “thinking envelope.” Similarly, the relationship of humans and the environment people: a knowledge keeper and sacred site linguasphere can be seen as a planetary even Marileewhen we K.may Gloe lack the ability to understand custodian with a profound capacity to listen to To start off, in this year that marks “envelope” of languages and cultures that the language itself? That is the conundrum the voice of the Earth; a young poetess with an Terralingua’s twentieth anniversary, we bring overlays and interacts with the biosphere. that confronts in the second innate ability to see and express human kinship 6 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 7 with nature; and a throat-singing storyteller Good stewardship, of course, depends crucially JavierWhatever Domingo parts are left of the “story” of the If there are challenges in language whose voice and music flowed and permeated the on maintaining or reviving nature-centered Tehuelche language of Patagonia, Argentina, revitalization, none of them seems to have landscape as if “ceremoniously blessing all that it values and traditional knowledge. You can’t care Dora Manchado is at work to help rescue and been daunting enough to the six Australian encountered.” In Joanna’s perceptive words, each for what you don’t know and respect. The next revitalize them. Working closely with elder Aboriginal women who launched the “Yamani: of these remarkable figures brings us closer to three “Dispatches” stories chronicle efforts to , one of the last speakers of VoicesFaith of an BaisdenAncient ,Land” Thomas project Dick celebrated, Carolyn an emotional understanding of the spiritual link reawaken and reinvigorate Indigenous languages this language, Javier seeks to recover as much Barkerin the final, and photo Kristina essay, Kelmanwhich is brought to between people and place and of the sense of and the place-based knowledge and wisdom as possible of the language “in order to return us by reciprocityKagole Margret that resides Byarufu at the root of that link. that they embody. These efforts also aim to bring some depth to the identity” of this Indigenous . Those six those rich stores of knowledge and wisdom community. To him, that is “the nicest job on forces of nature (and culture) came together , a member of the to bear on recreating interconnectedness and earth”—and it shows: his is an at once deeply around the idea of using contemporary song Bagungu tribe of western Uganda, is another interdependence between people and nature, tender and humorously unglamorous account to re-instill pride in Indigenous languages and sacred natural site custodian, who inherited that reaffirmingIndigenous identity. traditional ways of sustainably of the daily ins and outs of the work of salvaging cultureslanguages, and a rebuildcompanion the strengthvideo, and of identity.rousing role through her family lineage. That inheritance managing the environment, and rebuilding and reasserting a language. His story is a loving The outcomes are a CD of songs in five different comes with a strong responsibility to protect and Andrea Lyall portrait of Dora, sitting in her kitchen as she care for such places of special cultural and spiritual strives to remember words in Tehuelche that live performances. The photo essay gives us significance, which often are also of great importance , of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw First Nation she hasn’t uttered in ages—because to whom? an intimate glimpseView additional of the process—and online content the at for nature conservation. “These sites,” she explains, of coastal British Columbia, Canada, recounts her It’s hard work, but when surprise greets them video and other audiovisual resources are not “are instrumental in promoting co-existence and personal journey to gain fluency in her ancestral at the local kindergarten, they both realize it’s to be missed. living in harmony because they help in protecting language, Kwak̓wala, and to compile a dictionary all worth it. http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/ Volume_5/yamani.Langscape the spiritual connections between us, the people, and of plant names and related ecological knowledge. The topic of language and knowledge Katherine Mother Earth.” And that is the task that she and other Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw knowledge of forest trees and revitalization continuesAjuawak with Kapashesit the “Action” article goes DominiqueThis issue ofLind available continues at online with women have dedicated their lives to. In so doing, plants is of special relevance to her work as a and the remaining two “Louder Than Words” some “Web Extra” content. The essay by these intrepid women are also helping preserve forester. That knowledge reveals not only “how the photo essays. ( http://www. traditional seeds, wild foods, and medicinal plants— forest works,” but also what the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw straight to the nuts and bolts of documenting terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/Volume_5/ often working against the tide of religious conversion have considered sacred in their relationship with and reinvigorating “vanishing voices.” What lind.pdf) tackles a different approach to “listening and acculturation that leads local people to abandon the land—a bond that has been traditionally does it mean for a language to be “endangered”? to the voice of the Earth”: the approach taken ancestral beliefs as pagan and backward, and to then upheld through the performance of stories, songs, How many levels of endangerment are there, by Conservation International with its “Nature damage or destroy sacred sites for which they no and ceremonies. As Andrea and other researchers and what kind of situation does each level Is Speaking” video campaign. A critical look at longer have respect and care. learn more about age-old Indigenous management correspondintergenerational to? And transmission what can of be language done to this campaign leads Katherine to conclude that . practices that were successfully applied along the reverse endangerment and re-establish the it misses its target and may actually end up being Sometimes, though, a sacredand natural site can Sheetal Vaidya Asha Paudel coast, the importance of learning from Indigenous counterproductive, obfuscating “the stark truth be as popular as ever and yet become degraded knowledge for wise environmental decision making fluency? Ajuawak gives useful answers to about ecological collapse.” That is what andSimilarly, stewardship Hēmi becomes Whaanga ever and more Priscilla apparent. Wehi such practical questions, while warning that find in the case of the Dakshinkali sacred grove the work is indeed difficult and slow. But the We do live in times of ecological collapse— and temple in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. In reward, he says, is like that of growing a flower: and of rising social unease and uncertainty. The the first photo essay of a two-part “Louder than delve into their Māori oral traditions in search withClint the Carrollright care, you see itCherokee bloom. Nation tide appears to be pushing us in the opposite Words” section, they illustrate the transformation of gems of ecological and cultural wisdom Medicine Keepers direction from all that advocates of diversity that this site, traditionally cared for by the local whose meaning had become lost to the younger and the in nature and culture stand for. But we need to Newar and Tamang peoples, has undergone since generations, but which is now re-emerging from in Oklahoma, USA, take a longer view and heed what Ken Wilson road building has made it easier for worshippers the past to illuminate the future. Ancestral sayings understand the challenge of restoring in his opening essay urges us to do: “Take the to get there—leaving behind non-biodegradable in the Māori language offer clues to ecological intergenerational transmission—especially at a dance”—the joyous and life-affirming dance waste and polluting the sacred water in the knowledge while metaphoricallytīpuna conveying time when youth’s attention is captivated (and of biocultural diversity. And so I hope you will. temple’s pond. The road has also been a boon for observations and precepts about human behavior. distracted) by a “dazzling array of technology.” Step onto the biocultural dance floor, tune in to the illegal trade of rare and endangered species The wisdom of their —their ancestors— Mindful of that, the Cherokee elders chose to the music, and enjoy. The more of us who sway harness video technology to create a documentary to that rhythm, the greater our hope will be for found in the grove. Construction of the road itself, emerges vividly from Hēmi’s and Priscilla’s Bioculturally yours, without proper environmental assessment, has examples. That wisdom suggests, as they put it, in which they convey their views and values a truly sustainable future. damaged the grove’s biodiversity. With limited that at a time in which “humankind is at a cultural, about language, land, and health. Their photo means, some of the local Indigenous youth are linguistic, biological, and spiritual crossroad,” essaycommentary. presents The full a series video can of be stills seen fromon Vimeo the atdocumentary, along with excerpts from the elders’ Langscape seeking to restore respectful stewardship of we need to resort to all forms of knowledge in all Luisa Maffi the site. Sheetal and Asha issue an urgent call languages to address our real-life problems. “As Terralingua http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/ Editor for larger-scale and long-term interventions to Indigenous Peoples have realized,” they add, “all Volume_5/cherokee_voices_for_the_land. Co-founder and Director, address the situation. parts of the story matter.” 8 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 9 Ken Wilson globally that embraced freedom and pluralism. We still live in the wake of the 1960s. The 1970s were mostly spent arguing about what all this meant politically and culturally. Meanwhile, and on an Flourishing infinitely finer scale, some wayward intellectuals wandered into human ecology and ethnobotany and pointed out that Indigenous knowledge was very significant. Then came the 1980s and the TWenTy explosion of new thinking that at contemporaryhad been seeded concept in the of Gaia 1960s. in On Context and Lovelock had proclaimed the 1979, and the term “biodiversity” Foundations in the was coined in 1980. The early Rise of the Concept of 1980s saw an astonishing flowering of attention to such areas as to development and resource management. At Biocultural Diversity environmental history, Indigenous knowledge, landscape ecology, holism, community- Langscape the end of the decade, two themes then suddenly based resource management and community overwhelmed the public mind: globalization with I forestry, common property theory, conservation n the last issue of , Dave Harmon the fall of the Berlin Wall, and climate change traced the emergence of the field of biocultural biology, ecosystem health, agroecology, eco- propelled to attention by the summer of 1988. diversity as a call for engagement with the agriculture, organic food, and so forth. In fact, For many that year it was Chico Mendes who beautifully rich complexity of life. In this second contemporaryapart from “biocultural struggles around diversity” diversity itself, and the represented the connection between the bottom- take on “biocultural diversity at twenty,” I ponder 1980s seem to have generated all the themes in up struggles that motivated us and the increasingly the emergence of the concept (and field) from visible planetary environmental crisis. It was only the perspective of the history of ideas and idea most of the terminology. making. The concept took off when it did, quickly “"The concept of biocultural diversity took later that more of us heard about the founding of flowering and bridging to the mainstream after off when it did… because deep global the International Society for Ethnobiology and the centuries of marginalization, because deep global intellectual and political changes that “inextricable link” between cultural and biological diversity framed by the Declaration of Belém. termintellectual to take androot. political changes that embraced European colonies, civil rights in the US, feminism, embraced diversity and complexity created diversity and complexity created conditions for the and global student movements that rejected a top- conditions for the term to take root.” From 40,000 feet, the decade of the 1990s appears down hierarchical and mechanistic world. It was a as one of “win-win” and “stakeholders” rather than time when discussions of cultural difference began Let’s start in the 1960s. Western thought had been intercontinental connections emerged among radical intellectual movements, dominated by the to elicit more listening by the mainstream. When captivated for centuries by the Cartesian separation birthing of the Internet, biotechnology, and a time of of “nature” and “culture” and Newtonian physics I was part of that movement, and we certainly massive global economic expansion and integration of linear causation. Although Indigenous and other IndigenousAbove: Sungai movements. community fish Whentrap on thea generationKinabatangan Riverarose intended to be deeply subversive of the Western under neo-liberalism. But while all that was in Sabah (Borneo). One of the main ways that activist scholars more holistic ways of knowing were still entirely were awakened to the concept of biocultural diversity was in their academic canon and neo-colonial global happening, the new thinking of the 1980s flowed marginalized, it was in the 1960s that systems encounter with Indigenous ecological knowledge. Not only did development practice. People like me caught up unstoppablyAbove: Sacred site towards in a forest describing in Bhutan. Sacred a different sites in world.culturally thinking, interdisciplinary explorations, and of such communities have extraordinary knowledge of fish diversity in the academy fought for these ideas because managed landscapes proved to be a particularly powerful way and ecology, but also their knowledge was grounded in their own to convey the biocultural diversity concept to new audiences, course ecology emerged in the Western canon, languages, cultural values, and institutions and was expressed in of human connections we had with grassroots in particular because numerous field studies showed how they opening the door to complexity and diversity. This ways that were crafted to be beautiful. Photo: Ken Wilson, 2013 struggles and Indigenous Peoples. Indeed, it was at contained higher biodiversity. Photo: Ken Wilson, 2014 was all wrapped up with how the 1960s brought this time that “participatory” and community-based about independence for most of the remaining approaches emerged as the “alternative” approach 10 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 11 From my perch at the Ford Foundation, I It is hardly surprising, then, that the different witnessed closely how it was in the 1990s threads we needed to name “biocultural diversity” that all of these struggles and the potential to came together in the 1990s (and not earlier succeed began to find traction with foundation, or later), albeit with the alignment of the right private, and even bilateral government funding. mavericks and with the dogged creative energy Most important of all, individuals, mostly North of Luisa Maffi. I see these threads as being the Americans of wealth (for better or worse), maturing of multiple parallel academic fields increasingly chose to back these communities that valued diversity; the recognition of trans- and their advocates. Most of these radical donors disciplinary connections and holism; an ever- had come of age in the 1960s and embraced stronger voice for Indigenous ways of knowing; the new and different. They were not afraid of and a constituency ready and able to ground a complexity and were ready to back the feminine. multiple-syllable concept in the deliciously complex Josh Mailman—one of them—once referred to daily reality of peoples and their struggles. I believe this as the “the rise of the female donor”: the era counter-cyclical thinking is often most potent when women (typically widows and daughters) when the mainstream is most confident. But was there really the possibility that the deliciousness of To explore this, Yang Tan, then a volunteer with Furthermore, when looking from underneath, it got their hands on significant philanthropic biocultural diversity and related thinking could take The Christensen Fund, helped me search keywords turns out that it was in the 1990s that most of the moneys for the first time. Alongside these donors, on the global cultural and financial juggernaut? in the abstracts of the Science Citation Index institutional structure that now underlies our field I also saw in the 1990s the impact made by the Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)—1900 to present; emerged, symbolized perhaps by the 1992 Rio intellectuals who had come of age in the 1980s, Along came the 2000s. These biocultural ideas the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)—1956 Conference on Environment and Development and and who by the 1990s had begun to have the from the margins, now with some institutional to present; and the Arts & Humanities Citation the achievement of Article 8(j) of the Convention capacity to influence how things worked. grounding, pressed forward surprisingly relentlessly. Index (A&HCI)—1975 to present. Most striking on Biological Diversity, with its reference to the is how 1990 emerges as the pivotal year for importance of traditional knowledge. The work academic articles with keywords for every kind done in the 1990s becomes especially clear when of “diversity”—a whole decade after the coining we look at the emergence of institutions working of “biodiversity” and thirty years after “cultural at the interface of Indigenous, environmental, diversity” entered the official discourse. Some terms and human rights. Examining a sample of such are far more prominent than others: biodiversity institutions worldwide from the Wiser Earth (and its cognate biological diversity) is present database, I found that a full quarter had their roots one to three orders of magnitude more frequently in the years 1990–94, and nearly as many forming in these journal articles than any of the terms in the next five years, although this obviously associated with biocultural diversity. Yet, when varies by region of the world. The decade of we plot the rates of expansion in the use of these the 1990s was when “fortress conservation” terms (see graph), we find a further astonishing took a wobble; when the Indigenous movement result: namely, that they all show a very similar and went global; and when sacred places were first unstoppableAbove Left: MaiJabu, exponential leading member growth of afterthe Muonde 1990. Trust, at a discussed in official venues as places of significant community workshop under a muonde (fig) tree atop a granite outcrop at the home of Trust Chairman Takura Moyo in south- biodiversity and cultural importance. All this central Zimbabwe. Across the planet, community institutions like reflected the growing capacity of social movements Muonde have found much benefit in deploying the concept of the to organize and take on the establishment, and biocultural. Photo: Ken Wilson, 2016 how the cacophony of ideas generated in the 1980s Above Right: Director of the Muonde Trust, Abraham Ndhlovu was honed and deployed to create a discourse the (right) provides the son of Chief Mapanzure (left) a digital copy of a video of the installation ceremony of his ancestor taken by mainstream could understand. Integral to this colonial administrator J.D. White. As part of his nearly forty-year was how Indigenous intellectuals increased in association with the communities of south-central Zimbabwe, Ken number and started to be heard. Across the world, Wilson continues to bring social and ecological history back into Above: The rate of growth of journal articles citing biocultural diversity and other related concepts since 1960, the hands of the community. Photo: Ken Wilson, 2016 Indigenous Peoples won landmark land rights as charted by Yang Tan for The Christensen Fund (TCF). Source: TCF, 2009 struggles in the 1990s, from Mabo in Australia to the San people in South Africa. 12 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 13 pioneers and advocates for intellectual, cultural, political, and institutional. In my experience, the recognition of Indigenous Peoples and the need to build the foundations that could carry it— to support them on their terms and through the biocultural paradigm, and their own institutions and partnerships. It was in It is also clearly “at twenty” because of how it the leaders of the struggles 1999 that International Funders for Indigenous flourishes so beautiful, lithe, and invincible. with which it is associated, Peoples (IFIP) was founded in a gathering of just Too insignificant as yet to have been fully tested overwhelmingly elected to fight a dozen people; by 2009, IFIP had 51 members, by the powers that be, but old enough to be the tofor succeed their causes and independent irrespective and hundreds would attend its conferences. determined and beguiling idea for the future. of whether they were likely Although reliable statistics are hard to calculate, And the only optimistic way to prepare for the re- it is clear that foundation giving to Indigenous organization, restoration, and revitalization that of whether they had funding causes domestically and internationally probably will follow the collapse and crises that are bound suspiciousor other and support. contemptuous Coming increased 10-fold over that decade, especially to dominate the twenty-first century. As one of from the margins and often around the intersection of environmental and the many individuals apparently fated to throw Indigenous work. As funders, we did not cause my life into loving this golden child, and in the of the mainstream in equal this global shift, rooted as it was in the unfolding spirit of my retirement, I commend him and her measure, they were an unlikely of the 1960s, but it would be hard to argue that to you with all my love. Take the dance. group to make the strategic we did not accelerate and deepen change. It is shift from protest, creative also clear that we helped close gaps and build disruption, and quiet labors of relationships between the intellectuals and The Quark and the Jaguar: love toward strategies that could policy makers and the grassroots activists and Adventures in the Simple and the Complex. community stewards. Bioculturalism was a Gell-Mann, M. (1994). recognitionalso facilitate and “storming mainstreaming of the Further Reading powerful connecting concept. New York, citadel” as opportunities for NY: Holt Paperbacks.Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Biocultural Diversity is, of course, not “at Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice diversity, and is a concept fundamental to most Hawken, P. (2007). arose. Part of the way that twenty.” It is as old as biological and cultural and Beauty to the World evolution of strategy happened . New York, NY: Viking Press. Ironically, it was perhaps in part because we were was the engagement of social justice funders who if not all pre- (or non-) Cartesian cultures. But, at Declaration of Belém in the era when economics was supposed to solve knew something about building institutions and the same time, viewed as a formal idea, a mantra, International Society of Ethnobiology. (1988). everything. What had been in the 1980s mere movements and who could resource strategic or a rallying cry, it is clear that it is now very . Retrieved from http://www. treaties,workshops, academic direct actions, recognition, and wish and lists universitybecame in change. Again this is a story I know because I much “at twenty.” It is this age because, in order ethnobiology.net/what-we-do/core-programs/global- the 2000s mainstream conferences, international lived it. Indeed, it was while I was still at the to launch, biocultural diversity needed the three coalition-2/declaration-of-belem/ Bio-cultural Ford Foundation in 2001 that I learned about decades from the explosive freedom of the 1960s Diversity and Indigenous Peoples Journey: Report for McIvor, A., Fincke, A., & Oviedo, G. (2008). programs. The United Nations (UN) Permanent Terralingua from linguist Michael Krauss, for the 4th IUCN World Conservation Congress Forum, 6‒9 Forum on Indigenous Peoples Issues was launched I was planning a program around Indigenous October 2008, Barcelona, Spain and in 2007 achieved the UN Declaration on the language revitalization. That was actually the Rights of Indigenous Peoples after decades of . Retrieved from http:// first time I heard the term “biocultural diversity,” grueling struggle. Lin Ostrom won a Nobel Prize cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/bcd_ip_report_low_res.pdfUnderstanding Christensen’s despite it having stalked me all my life, and a for attention to the commons. Biocultural diversity mission Wilson, K. B. (n.d.). and its associated values appeared regularly in the rather surprised Luisa Maffi received a fateful . Retrieved from http://www.christensenfund. declarations of UN agencies and at the International phone call. Then in 2002, as I was now involved org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Christensen_ Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with The Christensen Fund, the foundation’s Mission_Explication.pdf especially in the second half of the decade. Soon we Board agreed to make the concept fundamental to its new mission and so unleash new levels of ran out of places to get it declared and had to turn to Left: “Preserving biodiversity and our cultural heritage”: the WIAD theAbove: harder Women’s task group of getting in the Rasht things Valley implemented. of Tajikistan cooking support to the nascent field. Conservation Area in Papua New Guinea. While the Indigenous and a traditional noodle dish. The connections between foodways, Community Conserved Areas movement had diverse roots in the agro-biodiversity, and traditional agricultural landscapes not only In the 2000s, a growing number of funders Indigenous, environmental justice, and community-based natural powerfully illuminated the concept of biocultural diversity, but also allied with the passionate struggles of place- resource management areas, the concept of biocultural diversity linked the concept with the mushrooming food movements across added potency to that enormously important development over the the planet. Photo: Ken Wilson, 2015 based peoples taking on the Homogecene and last ten to fifteen years. Photo: Ken Wilson, 2015 Anthropocene. The rise in funding for biocultural work is thus connected to the increasing 14 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 15 Peter Bridgewater in the earth sciences. Yet his ideas feed into the genomes that shape the rest of biodiversity. The question rethinking of human impact on the biosphere that is no longer “can we preserve the wild from people’s has led to notions of the co-evolution of cultural and actions?” It is “can we sustainably shape a world we seem biological diversity—or biocultural diversity. unable to stop changing?” The Anthropocene suggests Maintaining the a worldview in which humans are not just relevant but During the 1990s, I had the privilege of working entirely responsible for the fate of the planet. There’s with Aboriginal people in two national parks in a sense of epic impatience about viewing ourselves in Linguasphere Northern Australia. Through those people and their the midst of the Anthropocene: we want the potential language skills, deep knowledge of the landscapes that disasters or glories of the future to be visible now. were their homes, and profound sense of spirituality, in the I learned that not only did the noosphere exist, but In the epoch of the Anthropocene, it is especially Anthropocene also there was an allied concept, the linguasphere. In a important to recognize the linguasphere as a key 1999 article, building on the concept of the noosphere, component of human activity and potential indicator of ne of the books that most influenced my linguist daughter and I developed the idea of the landscape health. The Convention on Biological Diversity Ome as a young student was The linguasphere, which combined language and culture (CBD) already uses the “Index of Linguistic Diversity” Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de as an important means for people to interact with (developed by Terralingua, http://terralingua.org/our- Chardin, a Jesuit priest who trained as a the environment, as well as with one another. At the work/linguistic-diversity/) as an indicator of success in paleontologist and geologist. His work on same time, the concept of biocultural diversity was reaching its Target 18 by 2020. CBD Target 18 mandates evolution, though not uncontested, remains developing, likewise stimulated by language studies. that “By 2020, the traditional knowledge, innovations and some the most important in the world of As with the linguasphere, biocultural diversity has practices of indigenous and local communities relevant paleontology. In The Phenomenon of Man, not only a scientific base, but also a spiritual base. for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, he writes: “The present zoological era… is and their customary use of biological resources, are positively renewing the face of the earth. … We respected, subject to national legislation and relevant must go further and declare that ‘within this “The idea of the linguasphere… international obligations, and fully integrated and human era we are actually passing through a combines language and culture as reflected in the implementation of the Convention with singular critical epoch.’ It is our wish to seek in an important means for people to the full and effective participation of indigenous and that supreme manifestation of biological forces interact with the environment, as local communities, at all relevant levels.” well as with one another.” surrounding us, a final and direct reason for The concept of linguasphere resonates importantly admitting the distinct existence and believing But the phrase in single quotes in the Teilhard de with the environment—and with human management in the certain future of a noosphere.” Chardin passage above shows that there was another of that environment. People have helped shape existing Without a doubt, Teilhard de Chardin’s idea forming in the great scholar’s mind. We now biodiversity, and through positive feedback biodiversity singular contribution was this concept recognize that we are indeed passing through a plays a major role in shaping cultural memory—especially of a noosphere—the “thinking envelope” “singular epoch,” the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene through the medium of the linguasphere. Twenty years that overlays the biosphere, which in turn is about to be accepted as the newest geological epoch— on since the concept was proposed, and reinforced by the overlays the geosphere and hydrosphere, although not without argumentation. As the word twentieth anniversary of Terralingua, it is time to revisit all interacting to sustain life. In developing suggests, the Anthropocene has been proposed as the the linguasphere and see if we can make good use of the this idea (probably alongside the Russian geological epoch distinguished by the global influences concept in our navigation of the Anthropocene. Vladimir Vernadsky), he was also identifying of humankind. At its heart, the Anthropocene embodies The linguasphere can define both the envelope of the special place of people in nature. Despite a concept that appears radical to many: that people and human communications and the envelope of human the impact his writings had on me, he was nature can no longer be seen as separate. There is no cultural exchanges. Many authors have described how poorly regarded both by the hierarchy of the more nature that stands apart from people. There is languages decline due to destruction or change of the Catholic Church and by many academics no landscape or species that people haven’t affected or habitats and ecological bases of the speakers—creating changed. As people, we are now affecting the cycle of endangered languages in parallel with the more familiar Left Top & Bottom: Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory. Traditional burning from roadside, using modern methods. weather and seasons, changing the boundaries of species, case of endangered species (and, less often identified Photos: (T) Parks Australia, n.d.; (B) James Hunt, n.d. ecosystems, and bioregions, and daily manipulating the but equally critical, endangered spaces or ecosystems).

16 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 17 Indeed, postulated extinction rates for languages How, then, does this noosphere/linguasphere local biodiversity and resource management practices. parallel those for species over the next century—and the manifest itself? Language and culture act in synergy Using this idea, Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific forces for extinction are essentially the same, biotic and to form unique worldviews containing a wealth of and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has cultural homogenization of people and landscapes. knowledge. These worldviews and knowledge systems published a range of ecological calendars, essentially are best accessed through the languages that are based on aspects of the linguasphere. Endangered ecosystems are often said to be in need associated with a particular culture. This realization is of preservation, yet that is the wrong word. They should beginning to dawn in many places around the world. As the first European explorer to travel through far be conserved, that is, used and managed in a responsible In Australia, as the wider community truly embraces Northern Australia in the mid-nineteenth century, way, not kept in metaphorical glass cases. The inherent the realities of multiculturalism, there is growing Ludwig Leichhardt recorded in some detail the extent dynamics of ecosystems, coupled with the increasing awareness that traditional Aboriginal languages of burning he saw being undertaken by Aboriginal unpredictability of living in the Anthropocene, reinforce can enrich everyone with a bounty of linguistic and people on the floodplains of the South Alligator this view. Similarly, maintaining an ecosystem should cultural diversity. On Norfolk Island in the South River. Such burning was (and still is) carried out for a not imply it cannot be changed, used, or developed by variety of utilitarian purposes, particularly in relation people, just as maintaining a language should not imply Pacific, the islanders (descended from the Mutineers to hunting activities and the gathering of vegetable the language cannot change or develop. A language, like of the Bounty) have maintained their own traditional foods. But there is also a cultural dimension, indeed an ecosystem, is dynamic in nature and will change and Above: Norfolk Island National Park. Entry sign in Norf’k language, language, a unique mixture of eighteenth century Platt reading in translation: “Come and have a look, everyone.” imperative, expressed in the activity of arri wurlhge, a adapt to new situations as they arise—as Indigenous Deutsch, Tahitian, and West Country English. Norf’k, Photo: Peter Bridgewater, n.d. term describing the burning/cleaning of country from languages have done for millennia, and as today’s as the language is called, has its own words for plants Below: Ngan’gi Seasons Calendar from the Daly River, and animals of the island, the bounty of the sea, and the early-mid dry season. This dimension relates to the dominant languages such as Spanish, Arabic, and Northern Territory. Source: Commonwealth Scientific and timing of burns in connection to likely rainfall and the English are also doing, ever more rapidly. Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), 2009. the ways in which people intersect with these aspects Reproduced with CSIRO permission. of the environment for food and shelter. Again this emphasizes the role of language in linking even modern “To maintain a diversity of living to the environment people find themselves in. worldviews and knowledge systems we must maintain cultural diversity, To maintain a diversity of worldviews and knowledge systems we must maintain cultural and to access these worldviews diversity, and to access these worldviews and and knowledge systems we must knowledge systems we must maintain linguistic maintain linguistic diversity.” diversity. “In recognizing our roots and recovering consequent growth of particular species, which in turn the language, we reclaim part of our identity, too,” promote population increase in a range of animals used wrote Cristina Zárraga in the last issue of Langscape. for food. It also allows the landscape to become very “We won’t be the same as in the old days, but with the heterogeneous in texture, lessening the potential for new energy of hybridity, we will be able to recreate extensive wildfires to develop from lightning strikes, our history in the present and into the future.” Her thus making for safer and more resilient living. While article doesn’t explicitly mention the linguasphere or living in a very different ecosystem 2,000 km away, the the Anthropocene, but her powerful writing takes us traditional owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park there all the same, and serves to underline my message. in central Australia also practice burning as a landscape The linkage between languages, cultures, and management tool, mediated through language, art, the landscapes/seascapes in which they developed dance, and tradition—all elements of the linguasphere. poses the question: “Is the maintenance of cultural And so the linguasphere includes not only language and linguistic diversity really comparable to the but also law/lore. maintenance of biodiversity?” The answer is clearly To sum up, a final comment from Nipper Kapirigu, yes. While knowledge about the natural world may Traditional Elder in Kakadu National Park, Australia, be encoded in an Indigenous language, that same from a conversation recorded in 1984 about when, knowledge is not retrieved easily through other why, and where to burn country: languages that lack specific vocabulary to describe

18 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 19 Joseph Lambert EarthlingsThe Are Invading! more radical—Earth-centered and holistic—it can be redolent with Radical Language platitudes and token compromises (so “sustainable development” can mean “sustaining our current consumption”). But this does not and Dialogue at have to be the way. We can co-opt establishment discourse, make the United Nations it listen to Mother Earth, and magnify the voices of those most “There is an urgent need for society to in harmony with nature. In doing so, we can affect how society replace the current anthropocentric worldview actually and meaningfully acts in relation to the rest of nature. with a holistic system of governance, in which humanity plays a different role in how it The United Nations (UN) has been hosting dialogues on “You start burn’im in banngerreng [end of the wet perceives and interacts with the natural world.” “Harmony with Nature” since 2012, but this year was the first season], then proper in yegge, wurrgeng [cool time, Further Reading time the event was opened up significantly, through a two- Bridgewater, P. B., & Bridgewater, C. (1999). Cultural – Experts Summary, United Nations’ mid dry season]… ‘e won’t burn much. But that anrebel month online dialogue that brought together 127 experts landscapes: The only way for sustainable living. In P. Kovář “Harmony with Nature” Dialogue, 2016 (Eucalyptus tetrodonta) and that andjalen (E. miniata) (Ed.), Nature and Culture in Landscape Ecology: Experiences bin finish flowering, in gurrung proper [hot time, late for the 3rd Millennium (pp. 37–45). Prague, Czech Republic: I am, and have always been, fascinated by dry season] that fire can travel day and night, all week. Karolinum Press. the place of language and art in listening to, You gotta be careful, that’s important. Then after, when Bridgewater, P., Russell-Smith, J., & Cresswell, I. (1998). respecting, and protecting Mother Earth. I that first storm come, ingunumeleng , you can burn’im Vegetation science in a cultural landscape: The case of imagine I am not alone in holding fascination. again. Good story that one? That’s the law.” Kakadu National Park. Phytocoenologia, 28(1), 1‒17. In changing societal attitudes and global Convention on Biological Diversity. (2010). Generic and perceptions towards Mother Earth, language is So by maintaining and using all the languages specific indicators for assessing progress in the attainment of both a reflection and an agent—a mirror and in the linguasphere and their stores of traditional the Aichi biodiversity targets, including an assessment of their a maker. The language of the establishment, knowledge, law, and lore, human societies can main characteristics. Retrieved from https://www.cbd.int/ whether it be mainstream media, politicians, or continue with ecological management at many doc/strategic-plan/strategic-plan-indicators-en.pdf global bodies (including the United Nations), different scales, from local to global, helping us CSIRO. (2016). Indigenous seasons calendars. Retrieved is often reflective and protective of dominant survive, if not prosper, in the Anthropocene. from http://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Environment/Land- management/Indigenous/Indigenous-calendars language—anthropocentric and perpetuating Acknowledgments. Celia Vuckovic has been a the myth of a fundamental distinction between Teilhard de Chardin, P. (1959). The Phenomenon of Man. great stimulus for these ideas as they developed since New York, NY: Harper. Retrieved from http://www. humanity and nature. For example, if our 1996. I am grateful to many folk in Parks Australia, laws talk of “land rights” and “property,” then heavysideindustries.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ Above: Lorenzo, a young Ifugao farmer, looks over a mine in Didipio, Nueva both staff and National Park Board members, for phenomenon-of-man-pierre-teilhard-de-chardin.pdf that will affect how we relate to nature; it will Vizcaya, Philippines. Language can be what legitimizes environmental help in sourcing and gaining permission for the make us treat nature as something we have destruction. In Nueva Vizcaya, the very mountains have been renamed by mining Above: Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park. Fire management: timing companies as “Dinkidi One,” “Dinkidi Two,” and so on. Dinkidi is Australian slang illustrations—and in the 1990s for providing the guided by the Linguasphere, action using modern techniques. no obligations toward, only rights over. Even for “the real thing,” referring to the potential monetary gain represented by these environment that stimulated the linguasphere idea. Photo: Parks Australia, n.d. where the language of the establishment is ancient and sacred hills. Photo: Jess Phillimore/The Gaia Foundation, 2016

20 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 21 from 33 countries. Sorted loosely by discipline, the other, and this realization has been central to all Raiser drawing on the word “Earthling” and participants all piled in with their thoughts and international relations since. The UN and other how it emphasizes that we are “inseparably recommendations on transforming our society from establishment bodies played a vital role in bringing related to, and dependent on, the being destructive and anthropocentric to being about what was a change in the global psyche. This community of all created life.” holistic and Earth-centered. As one of the discipline power to thrust new language and its accompanying Even with the language limitations, the facilitators (for the humanities), I attempted to draw set of ideas onto the world stage, or to support their dialogue brought in several Indigenous together the dialogue into discipline summaries and rise, applies just as much for language around nature, persons, as well as academics who an overall dialogue summary, the latter of which Mother Earth, and biocultural diversity. work with Indigenous language and was presented at the 71st Session of the UN General We have already seen the UN Harmony with worldviews. Those of us who work Assembly in September 2016. The dialogue was Nature dialogues achieve this to some extent. In the to preserve biocultural diversity are limited in language; awkward in dubbing the mix 2015 dialogue, the term “Earth Jurisprudence” was always keenly aware of the centrality of of academics, Indigenous Peoples, and activists as brought up, which refers to a practical philosophy Indigenous communities, and Indigenous “experts” (technocracy and “expertise” were issues describing how humanity is a subject in communion language often paints our task in clear strokes. Drawing on the Andean heritage “The UN… does have a certain with the rest of nature and how we must derive our laws and governance systems from Mother Earth. of the Harmony with Nature programme ‘brute-force’ ability to bring “Earth Jurisprudence” was then picked up by the (initiated by the Plurinational State of language, and the associated social General Assembly, and a resolution was passed to Bolivia), Natalia Greene spoke of the power change, into the global psyche.” make it the centerpoint of this year’s dialogue. As an of the Kichwa notion of Sumak Kawsay—a Earth-centered re-appropriation of the traditionally “full life,” which she explained as “a model frequently brought up during the dialogue); and quite anthropocentric term “jurisprudence,” having such of development based on cooperation and possibly over-ambitious or, rather, underfunded. That a term and its surrounding language and worldview reciprocity” and one that held no place for being said, it was an impressive gathering of voices of get a spotlight at the UN is, while not a revolution, endless consumption. The Afro-Brazilian those at the forefront of trying to change humanity’s certainly the sowing of some quite powerful language. sociologist Bas’ilele Malomalo spoke of relationship to Mother Earth—a sharing of language Ubuntu, the word and philosophy common and ideas and a forging of alliances across continents What has come and taken root already is all well and to many Bantu peoples that indicates a and disciplines. What did we do and what can we do? good, but during the course of this dialogue I watched strong variety of communalism. How can our ideas and language take root in the UN, Earth-centered language collide and swirl together. and why should we want them to? Participants and groups brought with them all the As well as Indigenous language and neologisms, sayings, Indigenous thought, and wisdom neologisms, there was much re- The first thing to bring up is that the UN, like of their lives, study, and work. All this spectacular appropriation of what one might international establishment bodies more generally, language is what helped make the dialogue so powerful, consider to be “establishment” terms. does have a certain “brute-force” ability to bring and it is certainly worth drawing some of it out. Obviously this is most clearly seen in language, and the associated social change, into the “Earth Jurisprudence” itself—making global psyche. A prime example of this is the word Much as with Lemkin and genocide, many of law something that emerges from nature genocide (the height of neologisms: using both Greek us take delight in the self-aware creation of new rather than being directed toward it. and Latin roots), which was first coined in 1944 by language or in finding new meaning in old language. Other re-appropriations of language that Raphael Lemkin and then gained full force in the Neologisms abounded in the dialogue—such as emerged in the dialogue were highly UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention, the Nuremberg Glenn Albrecht’s use of the term “sumbiology” from Trials, and other regional and international fora. the Greek sumbios (living together) to indicate the Originally it was “a crime without a name,” as study of humans living together with the totality of Top: An anti-fracking protest in London. Environmental activists wage a Churchill described the mass slaughter enacted life. Another term that found its way into the final linguistic war, charging industrial terms such during the German occupation of Russia. When the summary was “Symbiocene”—looking beyond the as “fracking” with connotations befitting the environmental impact of the activity. word arose and then permeated the global human Anthropocene (the epoch of humanity’s impact upon Photo: Hal Rhoades/The Gaia Foundation, 2015 consciousness, it fundamentally altered humanity. the Earth’s geology) to envisage an epoch of humanity Bottom: A Zulu (Bantu) village in We came to understand the full extent of our ability symbiotically living among the rest of nature. Other KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, performs a ritual to systematize and scale up the destruction of each participants re-read old words, with theologian Konrad dance during a feast. Photo: Jess Phillimore/ The Gaia Foundation, 2016

22 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 23 prevalent among those discussing the discipline of to hear dozens of voices, coming from vastly different Patrick Howard law—with the traditional “duty of care” going beyond places in all meanings of the word, sharing the ways the producer-consumer nexus to the duty of care we can transform from an anthropocentric society owed between all members of the Earth community. to an Earth-centered one. We all had a spectacular opportunity to bolster each other’s language; to These examples are the tip of the iceberg in the critique and challenge each other; to develop lasting radical, inspirational, critical, and Earth-centered and profound relationships in our collective and language brought out in the dialogue. Much of it made connected journeys. It was as though a hundred its way into the final summary that was disseminated rivers converged in one place, and you could not help “No one at the General Assembly in September 2016, and may but be swept into new ways of thinking and seeing— well appear in a Resolution—with all the potential to and new ways of listening to the Earth. sink into establishment discourse and the world psyche, said a as “genocide” did 68 years ago. Yet, we are giving the Further Reading word”did not seem conscious, planned, or deliberate. On UN too much credit here, or perhaps placing too high reflection many years later, it was the type of choice to Albrecht, G. (2016). Sumbioculture in the Symbiocene. a burden on it. Among its many problems, the UN is Children Give Voice to which writer Annie Dillard refers in her observation, Retrieved from https://glennaalbrecht.wordpress.com/ an institution that is chronically underfunded in many “We choose where we live.” Our lives bring us to many 2016/02/06/symbioculture-in-the-symbiocene/ areas, often cripplingly tokenistic, and fundamentally the Fullness of Language, places; some we can call home, others we simply tied to twentieth century state-oriented politics. These United Nations. (2016). Harmony with nature. cannot. Most often, the choosing feels as if it is has very issues were brought up repeatedly during the Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_ Landscape, and Life been done for us. But, ultimately, on some level, we doc.asp?symbol=A/71/266 choose to stay, to live in a place. The reasons are as dialogue. It is important not to rely on the UN or e don’t like to think of our lives as predictable, United Nations. (2016). 2016 virtual dialogue on harmony varied as our lives. other global bodies alone to achieve the radical work as being mapped out, but our connections to with nature: Theme earth jurisprudence. Retrieved from W of re-orienting our language to an Earth-centered people and place and how they shape who we become http://www.harmonywithnatureun.org/knowledgenetwork/ I felt comfortable on that rocky peninsula jutting mode. While I, and many of those in the dialogue, will are most often undeniable. Much to the surprise of dialogue-inputs/ into the North Atlantic swept by the Labrador work with the UN for the language friends and family, on graduating from teacher’s Current. It is a place of rugged cobble beaches with to become policy and the policy to college, I chose to take a position in a small coastal black tumbles of seaweed knotted with fragments of have bite, we are not so naïve as to community in Newfoundland, on the east coast of lobster traps, abandoned nets, rope and buoys, red put all our hope there. As much as Canada. I remember justifying that decision to raised plastic shotgun shells, and pieces of old wharves. we can work through the UN, this eyebrows and incredulous stares. And yet the choice Driftwood lays bleached and bony white, heaved above the wrack line by great storms and tides. dialogue is also a perfect exercise of Below: Longliner on mooring, Louisbourg, Cape Breton. how we can work around it. Photo: Patrick Howard, 2016 Onshore gusts and salt spray prune the forests; the

The dialogue called for experts, and we brought on board those who often listen to the Earth more than many academics do— Indigenous voices and activists. The UN structure provided limited opportunity to submit in languages other than English, so we helped translate submissions and broaden the input. This is the power of dialogue. Whereas the UN hosts Above: An eco-map made at a gathering of Indigenous communities in Venda, South these dialogues largely for a “report Africa. The Gaia Foundation works with Indigenous communities around the world to help to resolution to dialogue” cycle, revive their cultures, ecological governance systems, and languages. A key part of this is encouraging the communities to “ecologically map” their territories, with the traditional I value the power of the dialogue names for places, animals, and so on, as a means of re-asserting their control and itself. It was quite an achievement traditional knowledge. Photo: Jess Phillimore/The Gaia Foundation, 2010

24 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 25 wind sculpts coastal trees, nipping exposed needles As the ocean was plundered and communities I was struck by the numerous references in my writing, and responding to what we’ve read opens a and buds. This place where my wife and I were going decimated, the school children dutifully categorized students’ writing to “the water,” the term used by so space of transaction between reader and writer and to raise a family was a good fit. the natural resources and diagrammed the food many of them instead of “ocean” or “sea.” The word draws a particular power from an inherently organic, cycle. A way of life that had sustained communities “water” seemed to elicit a proximity, a primordial, sensorial matrix—an interconnected reality. We bought a home overlooking the ocean. The for almost two centuries was no longer available to elemental character. These were children whose backyard led into endless stands of spruce and fir Understanding language this way called me to the young. Hope and promise were on the wane. surnames place them, who “belong” to a particular forest. The teaching staff was close-knit; the children identify writers who reflect our place back to us, who Many children grappled with the prospect of leaving community. People along that coast ask, “Where warm and friendly. The years spent there were not lead us into the unseen depths so we may immerse the place that was their home. do you belong?” not “Where are you from?” My without challenge. Coming from homes without classroom allowed for a safe space to explore this ourselves in the living world around us. There are a tradition of the literacy and the skills valued And yet, it was in this place and through language, belonging, discovered through story and poetry. writers of place who allow us to be open, in degrees, by the mainstream economy and culture, many specifically my students’ personal, expressive writing, to a sentient landscape—whether it be river valley, children found the classroom difficult and required that the children’s stories and poems spoke to me of The children provided intimate details of their own desert, lakeshore, prairie, mountain, or coastline. consistent, thoughtful care and attention. struggles in a rapidly changing reality. “Storytelling,” and their families’ involvement with the land and the As a teacher, I scanned the horizon for those writers writes the novelist Barbara Kingsolver, “is as old as our sea. They wrote of berry-picking and wood-gathering, and led my students towards them. But it was my need to remember where the water is. It’s as persistent of garden plots and cabins, of favorite beaches and punts, students’ writing that initiated my search to find “People along the North Atlantic as our desire to teach our children how to live in this and of “cooks” in sheltered coves. I looked for ways writers who give voice to the essential fullness of life to take up the written word, to do as eco-philosopher and landscape. For when we attend to these voices coast ask, ‘Where do you belong?’ place that we have known longer than they have.” In these words, Kingsolver touches on something at the David Abram counsels, to nurture children in the craft we come to know our place in a different way; the not ‘Where are you from?’ ” core of what it means to be human and to live fully in of freeing their words to respond to the language of words lead to a tacit, implicit awareness that our the Earth itself. In his book The Spell of the Sensuous, lives are part of an intricate web of perceptions and this world. Language—words spoken, written in story, Abram reminds us that words, stories, and poems can sensations, of a tidal flow that makes up a living, prose, or poetry—points to experience, allowing us “to For the better part of two decades, I lived with slip off the printed page to inhabit the tide pools, the dynamic environment. remember where the water is.” Children’s writing, their children in a region once home to the greatest beaches, the meadows, and whispering bushes of our stories and insights, are often dismissed as too naïve to be biomass on the planet. The incredible diversity and lives. In letting language take root, in planting words like In his poem “On the Full Tide,” Newfoundland poet taken seriously. Yet, when children connect experience numbers of fish species that swam the nutrient-rich seeds, we take up the rhythm and cadence of our place. Tom Dawe reflects on his childhood and offers a deep waters of the North Atlantic stood as testament not and place through narrative and poetry, it offers a way of sense of the participatory, reciprocal interaction with only to the miracle of the life-generating power of thinking about language and experiencing language that Pointing to our inherency in language as our his place. In the poem, the speaker desperately seeks the Earth, but also to the unfathomable depths of situates it, as ecopsychologist Andy Fisher says, “Within defining human ability and a fully embodied the recognition and approval of an old fisherman; yet human avarice and the capacity to destroy that same this world, as an expression of it.” It is to language that experience, the French phenomenologist Maurice miraculous fecundity. The collapse of the cod fishery we can turn to better comprehend the relationship Merleau-Ponty believed that languages are different Below Left: Low tide, Louisbourg Lighthouse, Cape Breton. in the early 1990s had a profound effect on families between our defining human capacity—language—and “ways for the human body to sing the world’s praises.” Photo: Patrick Howard, 2016 and on children, dispersing them throughout the living Earth. Neuroscientist Humberto Maturana Speech and thought are, according to Merleau- Below Center: Beach bric-à-brac, Main à Dieu, Cape Breton. Canada, undermining self-reliant communities with emphasizes that the phenomenon of language does not Ponty, “the perceptible world’s explosion within us.” Photo: Patrick Howard, 2016 This understanding of language offers a relational, strong traditions of intergenerational knowledge and occur in the brain; it occurs “in the flow of interactions Below Right: North Atlantic late summer combers crashing systems of mutual support. and relations of living together.” deeply interconnected vision. It reveals that reading, on the rocks. Photo: Patrick Howard, 2016

26 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 27 smoking ritual the participants murmur, “We are The poetic process, the effect of language on us, makes and stories of writers who are able to give voice to all related.” In First Nations’ traditions, according new phenomena possible. Inherent in this process is the essential fullness of life and landscape may to Highwater, tolerance, ethics, duties, and rights the tension between stability and change, and it is this allow children, wherever they live, to be sensible to become unnecessary, for our relationship with all creative activity that makes things visible to us that we the essential truth of our earth-centeredness, to be others is predicated on “the experience of the self as might not otherwise perceive. The poem lifts us out of present to the great mystery of our being, and to be part of others. ‘We are all related.’” the ordinary. For Jamie, longliners are commonplace, oriented to a mindful attitude of questioning their but the poet instills wonder so that what was ordinary place in a cosmological whole. This sense of relationality, of coming to fully is, in a sense, being seen for the first time. and honestly know our place, requires openness, attunement, and engagement with the others, both A true sense of wonder is captured in Jamie’s Further Reading observation of the setting sun: “Everyone couldn’t Berry, W. (2000). Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern “Language has the capacity to inspire help but just stare at it. No one said a word.” Fishing Superstition. Washington, DC: Counterpoint. boats, a setting sun, a harbor in a small coastal Borgmann, A. (1992). Crossing the Postmodern Divide. a deeper sense of connectedness to community occur as commonplace. But even the Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. the world, and to that which may commonplace can shift so I recognize that possibly appear as wonder-full.” never again will the world give me this in the same Harris, M. (1998). Lament for an Ocean: The Collapse of way. In Jamie’s situation, it is a moment shared by the Atlantic Cod Fishery – A True Crime Story. Toronto, the human and the more-than-human, who share others who do not speak, who “couldn’t help but just Canada: McClelland and Stewart. our place. Language and story which lead out into stare at it.” Language has the capacity to inspire a the world in an imaginative, experiential engagement deeper sense of connectedness to the world, and to Primavesi, A. (2003). Gaia’s Gift. London, England: Routledge. can allow children to turn to the articulated-ness of that which may appear as wonder-full. Snyder, G. (1990). The Practice of the Wild. New York, NY: things, to their groundedness. Perhaps it is possible North Point Press. to return to the conditions of human fulfillment Language can nurture and cultivate an attunement and embeddedness in the life-world of their place. for the awesome, the numinous, and wondrous in Just maybe we can confront our place with awe and our lives. The experience of engaging with the poems admiration, respect, and wonderment. Below: Lobster traps, Main à Dieu, Cape Breton. After reading Enos Watts’s poem “Longliner at Photo: Patrick Howard, 2016 Sunset,” fifteen-year-old Jamie recorded this brief this recognition is projected onto the land and the sea response in his writer’s notebook: in which as a child he, too, is deeply invested. The poem “Longliner at Sunset” is a poem that I can I always felt that relate to. I know what it is to watch a longliner inch he smiled at me then above the horizon heading towards the wharf, to see “a as the pure surf smiled at me, halo of saddlebacks riding the sun.” I’ve seen all of this as the ringing cliffs and it fills me with feelings for my home... There are as the sea-birds times when I have been amazed by what I see around as the children smiled at me me. I remember this past summer when the sun seemed And it was good. to be a perfect red ball dipping below the ocean. We There is something here that transcends mere place were out in boat and the sun was going down. Everyone attachment. There is an element of incorporeality—a couldn’t help but just stare at it. No one said a word. deeply felt relationality that, when attended to, serves I love this poem and I think everyone, especially to bind us to place. The experience of place that sees people who make a living on the water, should read our connection to and dependence on all other life it. It reminds us of what is awesome around us. in the region. Writer Jamake Highwater beautifully describes this notion in Indigenous traditions. Enos Watts’s poem elicits the wonder-full, a Highwater says that at the end of the communal recollection of an experience that at first glance appears mundane: “the harbour,” “a little longliner,” Above: Colorful buoys on the Newfie Lady, Cape Breton. “gulls,” “the sun.” Yet, the poet renders the wondrous, Photo: Patrick Howard, 2016 the instantaneous, the entire experience visible at once.

28 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 29 Marilee K. Gloe six years old, stood alone on a stone bluff; hands clutching a baby doll, she was still as stone. All that moved was her mouth, calling out what I thought was a song but realized might be a prayer. Language, It was mesmerizing. Conveyed against the backdrop of the landscape, in the sun and wavy heat, the little voice emptied its purpose out across the rock. It was unrushed, in the way of children who live in the moment. Landscape Without a doubt, for the little girl, mountains were a normal part of her ecology. But whether she might have a cultural association between mountains and prayer, I do not know. Nor do I know whether the and ustom place she chose had any special significance for her— C or it was just by happenstance that she had stopped A Synthesis for Memory to sing there? All I do know is that particular spot ne February day I made my way through afforded her the freedom to sing. OJordan’s al-Siq at Petra. Jutting skyward, the granite walls were shades of orange, peach, brown, Just as environment shapes our human biology, and beige, whipped into curvatures and sharp edges making allowances for difficult conditions, so can by the passage of wind and water over time. The a listener grasp the interpretation of an unknown magnitude of the walls dwarfed all human presence. language by absorbing its pace, its degree of force, or The winter air was cool, the sun visible only if you its softened notes. Here, the human words of a little peace, akin to the way a child feels when seduced by looked all the way up. As the passage ended, the area girl spoken toward rocks eons old seemed to float over the cadence of a lullaby, whether sung in the mother’s opened to reveal the place where the ancient Nabetean edges cut by wind and sand. My ear heard beauty, as tongue or a foreign one. peoples lived, secreted away, having left their mark if beckoned by a gentle soul. Yet, the same language, where the landscape opened wide: a spectacular if spoken with force or anger, might ricochet over Once she finished, she scampered away, surefooted carved rock façade now dazzling in the sun. and swift.

Curious to climb a long rocky path to the top of the “Just as environment shapes I stood a moment, fixated to my spot. I became granite mountain, my feet stepped one after the other, our human biology, …so can a very warm, then very hot. I took off my cape, tied it scaling a hundred steps upon flattened orange rock. around my waist. I had been careful enough to bring Gradually, the heat of the sun reflecting off the rocks listener grasp the interpretation a hat and was grateful I had not left it behind. But had me shed my cloak and then my sweater. Leaning of an unknown language by oh, was I thirsty. Images of people crossing deserts, against the rock, aware that I had made only half the lips parched, seeing mirages… these floated across journey, I greedily consumed what remained of my absorbing its pace, its degree of my mind as I realized how ill prepared I had been, bottled water. No one else was around; not a sound force, or its softened notes.” feeling like a foolish tourist. There was no one around. was heard other than an occasional drift of wind. I the same rock with jarring sharpness. Here, all the I decided to keep going up. leaned my head back and considered my options to linguistic rules of understanding evaporated. What either continue or descend. It was then that the sound remained was what I could absorb by sight and When I finally planted my feet at the mountain’s peak, of a young human voice floated mysteriously upon I presumed someone would be selling something to the air, snapping my mind into seeking its source. sound, and it was the landscape that accentuated my interpretation of intent. Without purposeful drink. Surely, the need for water would be anticipated? The voice sung out. Not a melody, and yet melodic, thinking, evaluation, or prolonged concentration, the But alas, the realization set in that there would be no such the voice carried on in a language of antiquity. It landscape led the recesses of my mind to associate the convenience. I leaned against a stone, dizzy. After nearly Above: Entering the Siq, Petra. The floor of the tall, narrow passage floated; it ricocheted, hiding its origin. I climbed the girl’s sounds to prayer, linking her softened voice with Above: The Treasury, Petra. Carved in relief majestically stands the unreachable by the desert sun leaves it a corridor of coolness. rock now, searching for it. Around a bend, up some aural images of monks intoning notes of invocation “Treasury.” People are dwarfed in size against the backdrop of this Photo: Marilee K. Gloe, 2004 more, and then, there she was. A little girl, perhaps near rocky promontories. It recalled a feeling of Nabetean stone architecture. Photo: Marilee K. Gloe, 2004

30 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 31 penetrating, looking my way. He came closer, Over a lump of charred wood inside a dilapidated own language, as when comprehension is affected signaled me with a wave of his hand, beckoning me metal frame, the man who welcomed me worked by dialect or slang; other times they are between to come hither… to enter the cave. I pondered the to heat a dented pot. In a few moments, he brought different languages, each of which is unknown to the invitation, concerned whether it was a good idea. A me a small cup, the size for espresso. His dry fingers other party. And then there are gestures: frequently lone woman, entering an unknown place… a cave? lifted it near my mouth; then he nodded, as though to animated for emphasis, they offer a non-verbal, With a stranger? I can’t explain, but… he signaled say, “Here, drink this.” And I did. And it was a sweet, universal way to negotiate language barriers. At the again… and I followed as he turned and went inside. hot something like tea. It slipped down my throat, cave, a wave of a hand invited me in; with the cup, a nod encouraged me to drink. Immediately, the coolness of the air was an enormous relief. My eyes were slow to adjust. He waved me “For the entire journey down All these attempts at comprehension rely on codes of forward, then slowly, as though not to alarm me, he the mountain, I reflected upon understanding, but what if there is no direct person-to- reached for my elbow and guided me forward. person exchange involved in a given experience? How this happenstance where I does one reach understanding when merely a bystander, Inside this rocky place, under a ceiling dark from understood tradition without distanced from any intended exchange? In the evaluation the soot of fires, lounged several mature men. comprehending the vocabulary.” of differences in landscape and culture, it is often in They leaned against the rug-draped cushions set the children that we find our greatest similarities. The in random order around the inside, some releasing reviving me. My eyebrows involuntarily crinkled into little girl, seen from afar, had an unintentional impact misty swirls of hookah smoke from their mouths. an expression of gratitude. No one spoke to me, and in cultivating my perception of language and place. At once, upon seeing me, they cast their eyes away. I knew to remain quiet. Unsure where else to look, I That’s perhaps where comprehension best comes from Angry-sounding words were barked at the man who gazed upon a faded poster of the current Jordanian immersion: from the impact of the natural or manmade had guided me in. Ignoring them, he led me to a King that was tacked at an angle on the wall. landscape and the way it shapes understanding when cushion and then beckoned me to sit near the wall. language alone offers resistance. The coolness of the stone penetrated my cotton shirt. I felt better. A lot better. And then he brought me a refill. Surprised by my own weakness, I tried to focus, Language, landscape, custom: these three Before heading out again, I turned to him and but my mind acted oddly slow. I felt a weak beat of components will forever remain powerfully offered the only thing he would accept: my smile. my heart in my temples. I wanted to lie down, but embedded in my memory. instead just sat still. For the entire journey down the mountain, I reflected upon this happenstance where I understood Further Reading tradition without comprehending the vocabulary. In this place, a country covered in jutting, unforgiving Burenhult, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Language and rock and shifting sand, undulating between extremes landscape: A cross-linguistic perspective. Language Sciences, of heat and cold, I experienced voices that, like the 30(2/3), 135‒150. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.028 an hour’s climb to this point, I had landscape, ranged from gentle and forgiving, to overheated; my palms were hot, and jarring and brisk. Each granted an opening toward Cronin, M. (2000). Across the Lines: Travel, Language, Translation. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press. all I could think about was water. intuitive understanding. Inside the cave, despite the initial harsh-sounding exchange of words, I felt the Ilari, B., Chen-Hafteck, L., & Crawford, L. (2013). Wearily, I looked up, and there warm gesture of cultural kindness that sought no Singing and cultural understanding: A music education across the way, a wall crevice compensation as it met a universal human need. Old perspective. International Journal of Music Education, revealed the narrow opening as the landscape itself, surpassing histories of conflict, 31(2), 202‒216. doi:10.1177/0255761413487281 of a cave. A man stood at the riveted into their being was the unaltered custom to misshapen entry. His patterned honor others with hospitality. Higgins, K. M. (2012). Biology and culture in white and red scarf, his white musical emotions. Emotion Review, 4(3), 273‒282. tunic and trousers cut a crisp Language is our human call system, the primary doi:10.1177/1754073912439762 silhouette against the darkness way for us to communicate, whether spoken, sung, inside. His squinted eyes were or written. Linguists and travel writers have talked Sagie, H., Morris, A., Rofé, Y., & Groner, E. (2013). Cross- at length about the disorientation and stress visited cultural perceptions of ecosystem services: A social inquiry Above Left: Monastery climb, Petra. In the intensity of the desert Above Right: Child singing, Petra. Clutching her dolly, a Bedouin upon people when they encounter barriers with others on both sides of the Israeli–Jordanian border of the Southern heat, I pause to set my self-timer to capture this photo as I ponder girl discovered alone. Her foreign melody captivated my heart as it they are unable to comprehend through language. Arava Valley Desert. Journal of Arid Environments, 97, whether to turn back. Photo: Marilee K. Gloe, 2004 rang sweetly across the stone walls. Photo: Marilee K. Gloe, 2004 Sometimes the failed attempts are within one’s 38‒48. doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2013.05.007

32 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 33 ceremonial activities are strongly associated with social and is a cornerstone of Andean culture and serves as medicine economic phenomena. The Aymara give wax’ta (offerings), and as a way of communicating with the supernatural. Amy Eisenberg wilancha (llama sacrifices), and ch’alla (libations of Coca is used at all fiestas and ritual occasions to promote alcohol) to the Earth for the achachila (protective spirits goodwill. At these ceremonial events, people beg one of the family and community) and to Pachamama (Mother another’s pardon, as ill feelings are believed to destroy Earth, Mother Cosmos, or Mother Universe). the efficacy of the rite. Kuka is invariably part of every ceremonial offering, and akhulli is the ceremonial sharing “The Aymara cultural landscape of coca leaf. By chewing coca collectively, one calls for is alive with vitalizing energy and unity and communication within the community, and one’s infused with powerful spiritual beings body is united spiritually with the earth. Currently, the Jaqin whose presence the people must coca leaf is being condemned, threatened, eradicated, and persecuted because of drug trafficking. Yet, for the Aymara acknowledge in all their activities.” kuka is the symbol of life and hope. Pachamama is the spirit of the uncultivated earth, who For Andean people, economic, spiritual, and social occupies a very privileged place in Aymara culture because life is inextricably tied to land and water. The Aymara she is the intermediary for production and the generative of Chile are struggling to maintain their sustainable Uraqpachat Uraqpachat source of life. The achachilanaka are the grandfathers: and traditional systems of irrigation water distribution, ancestor spirits that reside in preeminent places and agriculture, and pastoralism in one of the most arid outstanding objects and exercise a constant influence over regions of the world, the Atacama Desert. Interviews people. The mountain peaks are wak’anaka—places of with Aymara people reveal the social and environmental spiritual power, shrines to the personified forces of nature dimensions of the larger conflict between rapid economic that influence human destiny. The ancestors help the Aymara growth and a sensitive cultural and natural resource base. orient themselves within their holy land. They are masters The Aymara help us grasp their cosmological vision and Amuyupa of the clouds, water, snow, and hail. If they are not fed and understand Indigenous issues. feted, they will bring disaster to fields, canals, pastures, We are human beings; hence we must communicate. and animals. The achachilanaka control meteorological We are obliged to dialogue, and through communication, phenomena by sending rain, hail, or frost, but winds are sent we also face and resolve all the conflicts in which beings whose presence the people must acknowledge in by spirits that inhabit volcanos. Every extraordinary element humans take part. The Aymara believe in the unity of The Aymara all their activities. The Aymara are socially enmeshed in in nature contains a spiritual essence that plays an active role humankind and that only as one we can make this earth their environment and share a perpetual dialogue with the in the existence of all that surrounds it, including people. a good place for us all. Cosmological Vision supernatural beings that govern the forces of nature. The Aymara yatirinaka are wise ones, Aymara cosmological vision is one in which humans, “K’utarapxiw quqanakasxa, ukatxa phichantapxarakiw, leaders in ritual and wisdom. They environment, and the entire cosmos work together know intimately each of nature’s quqa tunu lawanaks jik’irapxi, ukatsi janipu-niw jik’supkit simultaneously and cooperatively within a network of qhuya tunu saphanakasxa.” features within their sacred landscape reciprocal relations. The spiritual dimension in Aymara and recount the unique history that “One should take pride in one’s land and culture. There is a culture penetrates every sphere of life. is inscribed there in great depth. The popular saying in Aymara: ‘They cut our branches, they burn yatirinaka feel the life forces that Aymara people respect and maintain the knowledge and pervade the physical world, and they our leaves, they pull out our trunks... but never could they way of life of their ancestors, which is a continuum of their overtake our roots.’ This was addressed to the Spaniards.” are the cultural guardians of the people. social responsibility, solidarity, and reciprocity. Aymara They determine what belongs to Aymara – Aymara yapuchiri (farmer) of Chile scholar Vicenta Mamani stated, “The sacred permeates culture and what is intrusive. Yatirinaka Aymara culture. We manifest our religiosity through Jaqin Uraqpachat Amuyupa is the Aymara make offerings to the achachila, asking ceremonies.” In the Andes, Aymara rituals are grounded in for their blessing and protection in times cosmological vision—Aymara people’s thinking about the daily and seasonal activities and realities of life—living the world. The Indigenous Aymara of the northern of struggle. Recognized as mediators on the land, planting, irrigating, weeding, and harvesting— between the supernatural and human Chilean region of Arica y Parinacota, who for centuries hence the people’s very existence involves ritual. Aymara beings, they intercede with the invisible have lived in one of the most extraordinary landscapes forces of nature. In trance, they look into on Earth, amid glaciated peaks and active volcanos, Above: Tapaka, mountain achachila overlooking and protecting the numinous world of spirits. have developed and continue to sustain a relationship Puxtiri—the Aymara toponym for the Spanish place name Putre (an Aymara village that was a reducción created by the Spaniards of mutual respect and exchange with the earth and one to control the Indigenous population). According to Aymara linguist Yatirinaka use kuka (coca) leaves another. The Aymara cultural landscape is alive with Manuel Mamani Mamani, Puxtiri is the sound or voice of water (Erythroxylum coca Lam.), an oracle of Above: Fiesta de San Andrés with coca leaves in Pachama, a remote vitalizing energy and infused with powerful spiritual flowing or tumbling down. Photo: John Amato, 1999 the earth, in divination. This sacred leaf Aymara village of the Andean interior. Photo: John Amato, 1999

34 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 35 Development in the Andes must respect the individual and collective needs of the Aymara people, in their own terms. Environmental transformation must be grounded in a careful understanding of the Aymara and their way of life. Our parnership with the Aymara Marka (Aymara Nation) attempts to contribute to that understanding. Aymara people of each Andean community study the climate, soil, and plants of their respective altitudinal zones. Elders read signs in nature to determine when to plant and harvest in areas where it freezes two hundred days of the year. The Aymara have garnered a holistic understanding of their cultural landscape The Aymara always ask permission of Pachamama before Aymara medicine is rooted in the life of the Andean through many generations of living in this area, working the soil or planting a seed. As the principal Aymara community and reflects an expansive knowledge and since pre-Columbian times. Aymara farmers deity, with the achachilanaka, Pachamama is the guardian and understanding of nature, whose classification was continue to be active agents in conserving the caretaker of the Andean people. She is an elderly mother who developed according to their cosmological vision. material base of their Andean agricultural legacy protects the Aymara and provides them with all that is necessary Today, the Aymara of Arica y Parinacota recognize and have been successful in the cultivation, for life. Pachamama is the mother of Aymara culture because that by working together with organization and unity selection, and adaptation of many plant species, existence itself is made possible through this inexhaustible to revalue and revitalize their medical system, they can while possessing an acute awareness of specific source of life. With Pachamama are all the generative spirits benefit the whole community. Their work is advancing ecological constraints within the vast mosaic of connected with the animals and crops. Vincenta Mamani through the Taller de Salud (Health Workshop) in Arica. their environment. elaborated: “We believe the land is for all people—that it is meant to be shared and not used only for the benefit of a At the Taller, Aymara elders discussed their traditional Minimal transformation of the Andean medicine: “We all participate in gathering our medicinal environment is necessary for the subsistence few. Land is life, because it produces all that we need to live. ... Water emanates from the land as if from the veins of the plants. We are all interested in having good health and of the Aymara communities of northern Chile. recovering when we are sick. Together, we can exchange Agricultural fields are located on terraces medicines with others for healing. We understand illness. that cover steep valley walls like great “For Andean people, economic, There are some Aymara who know a great deal about staircases and have been carefully filled with spiritual, and social life is medicine. They learned this from their parents and earth to prevent erosion. Open areas are left inextricably tied to land and water.” grandparents. We respect our yatirinaka, wise ones and undisturbed to ensure the survival of the native leaders in wisdom and ritual. They know nature very flora and fauna and the continued maintenance well. The medicine of the city has caused us to forget of domesticated animals. Thus Aymara people human body. There is also the natural wealth of minerals, and pastures grow from it to feed the animals. … Pachamama is our own. It is very good to learn new things but without must be regarded as an integral part of their forgetting what is ours.” environment. There is no such thing as natural, sacred... she is like a mother who nourishes us with the milk untouched landscape in the Andes. Indigenous we need. She is not meant to be exploited, or to be converted Aymara perceptions of a person’s health embrace self presence during the millennia has intimately into merchandise. She is there to be cared for. ... Respect for and body and include the community. Aymara medical shaped and molded the environment and its Pachamama is respect for ourselves, after all she is life.” practices are grounded in their cognitive, cultural, biotic resources; hence biodiversity in the The Aymara Indians have perhaps one of the largest ecological, economic, geographic, physiological, ritual, Andes is as much cultural as it is natural. materia medica of any Indigenous people of our world. and social systems. There is an analogous association Aymara medicine is highly specialized, possessing many between their bodies, land, water, and social organization. It is in the awesome, frigid, windswept expanse Aymara healers employ medical techniques that have of the high plateau that traditional Aymara ways categories of practitioners, and their medical botany is comprehensive, with a great number of remedies been tried and tested through time for promoting the of life remain superior; the Aymara are the spiritual and psychological wellbeing of the patient. An experts in this formidable environment. Aymara derived from plants. Some Aymara herbalists are expert botanists with an elaborate system of plant classification understanding of Aymara healing is a prerequisite for culture endures admirably in one of the most people who wish to improve health conditions in the challenging environments on Earth. that is comparable to the Linnaean system of binomial nomenclature. They gather by hand without the use of knives and are careful not to injure the plant. They offer Above: Juqhu (Spanish: bofedales) wetlands with Aymara camelids. Juqhu are high-plateau bogs rich with cushion plant that absorbs Top: Water is the creation place of Aymara camelids. prayers to Pachamama, the earth mother, thanking her for water from an elevated water table. In this semi-arid region, this Photo: John Amato, 1999 providing them with healing medicine. The Aymara strive pastureland, which is the natural habitat and creation place of Bottom: Puxtiri pastoralist and newborn animals. to maintain a reciprocal and harmonious relationship llamas and alpacas, is essential for all herbivores because of its Photo: John Amato, 1999 with nature. They do not harvest more than they need. high-quality forage. Photo: John Amato, 1999

36 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 37 Joanna Dobson To the GoldenGolden MountainsMountains of Altai, Southern Siberia A Journey of Language and Soul

traveled to Altai for the second time in 2002. On my first I visit there two years back, the landscapes of this small republic in southern Siberia made such a profound impression on me that I felt I had to return. When I recall this second Above: Amy with an Aymara awatiri (pastoralist) and her beloved qarwa (llama) on the Chilean Altiplano. Photo: John Amato, 1999 journey, I find that I am left with photographic clarity ofa few defining moments, and absolutely no memory of anything Andes. From reflecting on nature within their lands, the in between. Three images stay with me to the exclusion of all Further Reading others. They are the faces of a knowledge keeper, a poetess, and Aymara understand their bodies and are aware that the a throat-singing storyteller whose voices spoke to me, calling laws governing nature apply to all life systems. Eisenberg, A. (2013). Aymara Indian Perspectives on Development in the Andes. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of me to the land that would subsequently become my home. Reciprocity is the guiding principle of Aymara society Alabama Press. to the extent that it has become institutionalized. Aymara The Knowledge Keeper people depend on one another to a large degree and create Mamani, M. (1994). Antecedentes míticos y ecológicos We stopped at the entrance to the sacred valley as one would and maintain lasting social relationships in various ways; del significado del vocablo Chungará. Revista Chungará, naturally do before knocking on the door of any great residence. hence reciprocity is one of their core cultural values. In the 26(1),117–124. The indigenous nature park was relatively young and had Aymara cosmovision, the social order of humans is linked Mamani, M. (1996). El simbolismo, la reproducción y been created only with much anxiety and discord among local with the natural order of the universe. A disturbance in la música en el ritual: Marca y Floreo de Ganado en El inhabitants. Many people did not wish tourists to enter the valley the equilibrium calls for all means to restore the broken Altiplano Chileno. In M. P. Baumann (Ed.), Cosmología y at all. Our guide, Danil Mamyev, called us to be mindful of our balance. Family and community are sacred; thus one’s Música en Los Andes (pp. 221–245). Frankfurt, Germany: behavior and asked us not to take offense if some of the local people were to give us strange looks or ignore our greetings. commitments concerning them must be honored. The Biblioteca Iberoamericana. performance of each member of the community affects the When queried as to why he had chosen to share his knowledge wellbeing of the whole. Health, productivity, and survival Mamani, V. (1993). Popular religiosity and evangelism of the sacred valley with outsiders, he said, “I made the decision depend on an enduring vision of reciprocal relations in Aymara culture. International Review of Mission, prepared to take responsibility for the consequences.” Looking 82(327), 391–400. among humans, nature, and the supernatural, whose roots Left: Knowledge Keeper Danil Ivanovich Mamyev, reach deeply into the past. The Jaqin uraqpachat amuyupa Yapita, J. de D. (1994). Aymara: Método Fácil 1. La Paz, Director of Uch Enmek EthnoCultural Nature Park, on pilgrimage serves to keep our world in balance. Bolivia: Ediciónes ILCA. in the Karakol Valley. Photo: Irina Jhernosenko, 2014

38 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 39 invisible, hearing more than the sounds of bird calls and mare stove, waiting to be entrusted with holding plates and bells. He was a knowledge keeper—and, when he listened to bowls as food was ladled into them. the music of the valley, truths inherent in the land seemed to rise up through the soles of his feet, to be considered in the If at that time I had spoken the Altai language, I would heart and then expressed in words. have understood that while I was eating my soup the girl had whispered to her mother, “Eje (mother), look at that English Danil talked more about the relationship that the local Altai girl. Look at her eyes. They are so bright and alive! Look at people shared with the valley: “I remember when I was very her necklace. Do you think those are real diamonds? Eje, young, the elders would say: ‘Kajhyl la nememing uchury, can I speak to her?” “Balam (my child),” came the answer, kemi, oyi bar,’ which in Altai means: ‘To all things there is a “wait until she has finished eating and we serve the tea.” meaning, a measure, and a time.” We consider these things to And so it was that, as I took my last spoonful of rice, the girl keep our human actions harmonious with nature. As you walk strode toward me in a manner of correctness that transcends in the natural world, keep vigilant. Take note of anything you shyness and, without a moment’s hesitation, introduced see that seems to stand out without becoming too attached to its herself to me in perfect English: “Hello, my name is Aiaru. meaning. This is nature’s way of talking to you, small signs that Would you like to see our domestic animals?” you keep inside and carry with you into the following day.” Above: Bronze Age standing stone, Karakol Valley. We wandered up the path past the potato plants to the farm Photo: Joanna Dobson, 2012 Sometimes, when he was speaking, I thought I could sheds, where we sat down and leaned up against a haystack. detect a cautiousness beneath the veneer of resolute calm. He The conversation quickly turned to language. Aiaru jotted a little abashed, he added more quietly, “My cup is full. If I seemed to study our faces, wondering how much to share. down the Altai words for ‘yurt’ and ‘cow’ in my Moleskine don’t share from it, there will be no room for anything new.” He would turn to catch a glimpse of Uch Enmek over his notepad, demonstrating the correct pronunciation of the shoulder as if on the distant mountain top there stood a being letter ‘j’ in the Turkic alphabet and explaining that in the We drove slowly along a winding track that ran parallel Altai language stress always falls on the last syllable. to the river, passing villages of wooden houses and powerful and wise, whose thoughts he sought to gauge. haystacks. Small herds of wild horses were grazing and “It is important to travel,” he said. “An integral sacred Then she said that she would like to read me her poem, playing between the villages and the forest edge. A huge knowledge has been dissolved over the course of human “Flower People.” This is the essence of that poem as I black kite circled low, accompanying us as we moved history into many separate parts. In life we must be like remember it: A small community of wildflowers grows further through the valley towards the mountain. We pilgrims searching the lands for these scattered pearls of peacefully in an alpine meadow. Every flower on the stopped at points along the way to admire rock art, kurgan knowledge to piece them together again in our own lives.” mountainside has its own unique personality, just like sites (prehistoric burial mounds), and Bronze Age standing people do. In the morning, as they set about the day, the stones. Each place inspired our guide to share some aspect There was a profundity to our guide’s words that gained flowers call out to their neighbors with a cheery ezen! of the Altai worldview or other profound thought. power because they were inspired by this specific spot, on (‘hello’). May we all learn to live together with the same this particular day, perhaps because the wind had blown in mutual respect and friendship of the meadow flowers. Turning a corner, we emerged onto a high plateau that such a way on his face, or the grazing herd had wandered Perhaps something is lost in my account of Aiaru’s widened out to reveal a magnificent view of the snowcapped in our direction giving their approval. Perhaps there was peaks of Mount Uch Enmek, shining brilliantly against the poem, but I remember that her poem breathed and opened something he had chosen not to share because Mount Uch a window onto a world I did not know existed. There was blue summer sky. In the Altai language, uch means ‘three’ Enmek had veiled her highest peak with clouds saying, and enmek the ‘soft spot’ or ‘fontanelle’ on the top of a no doubt that the flowers truly greeted one another as the “Not yet.” This was the voice of the Earth, the ultimate day began, just never when I had been looking. baby’s head. Uch Enmek was a replacement name. It was conductor of our conversation with a knowledge keeper at taboo to speak the mountain’s true name aloud, except in the foot of a mountain peak—majestic and eternal. Aiaru’s poem reminded me of a few lines by the Christian special circumstances of prayer and ritual. mystic, Jakob Boehme: “The flowers of the earth do not Here, Danil spoke more openly, feeling perhaps stronger The Poetess grudge at one another… but stand kindly by one another, now that he stood at the foot of Uch Enmek. I studied our guide The table in the cozy ail (traditional Altai six-sided and enjoy one another’s virtue.” I looked at the girl beside more carefully. He wore smart casual Western-style clothing: wooden yurt) where we had stopped for a meal was laden me and noticed that in an act of teenage expression she had jeans, a white shirt, black leather shoes, and a blue Adidas with ceramic bowls filled with chunks of homemade soft drawn stick-like rock art figures in white paint all over the raincoat. His black hair hung long and loose down his back white cheese and small balls of fried dough, the names legs of her dungarees. Aged just sixteen, the young poetess like the mane of a wild animal and was cut into a rough fringe of which sounded as scrumptious as the buckwheat honey had captured the nature metaphors worthy of a seventeenth at the front. He had a wide forehead, large round cheekbones, in which they were dipped: byshtak, borsokh. Two Altai century theologian in a language that was simple and and heavy Asian eyelids. He was totally still and unhurried, his women were standing over a gas stove that took up one happy. Aiaru belonged to the Maiman clan, the last Turkic face remaining expressionless while he spoke. I could imagine side of the wall. Marina was gazing intently at the ritual clan to fall to Genghis Khan’s army. Hers was a beauty Top: Young Altai poetess Aiaru Tokhtonova from the Maiman Clan. him climbing in the mountains, hand and foot searching for soup kocho, which she had made from barley grains, characteristic of her clan: rare, formidable, hidden on a Photo: Anon., n.d. each new hold, learning humility through the limits of the high lamb, and garlic. Her teenage daughter had short, black scroll deep inside, which her pen would unravel with time. Center: Wild flowers in an alpine meadow. Photo: Joanna Dobson, 2014 How I wished that I too had the perceptivity and courage places, integrating nature’s pulse into his very skeleton. Here hair and a round face, open and pale like the moon. She Bottom: Altai kaichy (throat singer and storyteller), to see a brother in a rock, a sister in a meadow flower. in the valley, he was always listening, attuned to something sat quietly on the single bed that stood to the left of the Arjhan Kezerekov. Photo: Stanislav S. Jhernosenko, 2011

40 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 41 Kagole Margret Byarufu Danil Mamyev listening to the voice of the Earth in the Karakol Valley. Photo: Aleksey Korchagin, 2013 Voices from the Field African Rural Women, Custodians of Seed and Traditional Knowledge The Throat Singer satiating the atmosphere, as if ceremoniously blessing all that it encountered. It was as if all of nature, every cedar, here and guard our sacred site. Sacred sites are areas with As we entered the mouth of the cave, a throat-singing special spiritual significance to us, the custodians, and also storyteller, a kaichy, moved slowly toward the fire that bird, and rock had been animated in the night and set our communities. Here many sacred natural sites are areas burned at the center. He had the awkward gait of an old trembling and reverberating until fused into a single chord: man and leaned slightly forwards over a topshur, a wooden the performer and the listeners, the cave and the valley’s of great importance for the conservation of biodiversity. string instrument he kept sheltered close to his body. He distant past, the heroes of the ancient tale. All matter and These sites are instrumental in promoting co-existence wore a fur hat and a thick, tawny-grey suede coat crossed memory were united in the present moment by this unique and living in harmony because they help in protecting the over at the breast. The edges of the front and wrists were voice charged with guiding the people into the future. spiritual connections between us, the people, and Mother decorated with white hare fur, a run of gray patterned silk, To find out more about Joanna’s work, visit Earth. When people visit these sites and humbly worship, and wide gold and silver trimmings. The coat was tied at the they get cleansed of their misfortunes, and then peace is waist with a thick band of bright, yellow fabric. From a fine www.altaipilgrim.com. restored in their families or communities. This gives us leather strap slung over the shoulder hung a plump, black responsibility and courage as custodians to keep caring horsehair whip. The flames of the fire ran to caress his cheek Further Reading as he approached and, lighting up his face in the darkness y name, Kagole, was given to me upon my birth. for and protecting the sites. of the night, revealed the figure to be a young man no more Dobson, J. (2013). Letter from: A journey to the heart of MIt initially belonged to my father’s aunt who had Russia’s Shangri-La. The Calvert Journal. Retrieved from died a few months before I was born. She was herself The names you use for the sites and in rituals depend on than thirty years old. He crouched down on one knee before what Giver you want to worship and what you want the http://calvertjournal.com/articles/show/1708/letter-from- a custodian of the sacred natural site cared for by my the fire, now holding his instrument out towards the flames gods to give you when you visit the sacred site. Different and speaking a blessing meant only for the ear in the coals. altai-journey-heart-russian-shangrila family, so the other members of my clan in the Bagungu tribe of Uganda were so excited when I was born. They sacred sites have different roles. Some are for the main Arjhan, the young kaichy, turned to us, now sitting on a Dobson, J., & Mamyev, D. (2010). Sacred Valley, conservation named me after her and initiated me to become her community rituals for seeds, harvests, and rain. Others we low stool. Holding his topshur in his hands, he began to sing. management and Indigenous survival: Uch Enmek Indigenous successor in regard to this traditional responsibility. go to for healing people or the land. A huge guttural sound emerged from within his chest. O-oh- Nature Park, Altai Republic, Russia. In B. Verschuuren, R. Wild, J. Our ancestors and forefathers are many, and they have oh! Then he began strumming the topshur, interweaving A. McNeely, & G. Oviedo (Eds.), Sacred Natural Sites: Conserving Receiving the name of your forefathers or lineage interconnected power, but their names are unique. For the drone sounds of the strings with the growing strength Nature and Culture (pp. 244‒354). Washington, DC: Earthscan. ancestor is a great investment in protecting the Earth’s of his vibrating voice. Then as he broke into lines of poetic nature and its rules: it means the ancestors are still living instance mine is called Wandyeka, meaning the giver Sacred Land Film Project. (2012). Golden Mountains. Retrieved rhythm, he told an ancient tale, at times mixing the low in you through their names. Having such a name means of peace, food, and wealth. Others take care of different resonant note with an overtone melody and, to this, adding a from http://www.sacredland.org/golden-mountains/ you must do what your ancestor did and protect nature in parts of nature. For example, there is a site called high-pitched whistle. It was hard to believe that this mix of Shodoev, N. (2012). Spiritual Wisdom from the Altai Mountains: order to not disturb their peace. Tikimu-titytyalo, who is one of the biggest spirits and is three vocal sounds could be the song of one man. Altai Bilik (J. Dobson, Trans.). Winchester, UK: Moon Books. responsible for solving all the problems moving in the air Today I am the custodian of the Wandyeka sacred The music gripped us as it flowed in waves through the UNESCO. (1998). World heritage list: Golden Mountains natural site in Kisyansya, Bulisa District. My role is to Above: Kagole Byarufu, Custodian of the Wandiyeka Sacred Natural cave, down the mountainside, and to the raging river below, of Altai. Retrieved from http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/768 lead the worship of our lineage of ancestors who reign in Site in Western Uganda. Photo: The Gaia Foundation, n.d.

42 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 43 them, what they were telling you about when the rains When I go to the sacred site, I kneel and call all the would come or if there would be a drought. Also the names of gods I know, depending on what I want them moon cycles and the stars, they all have signs which tell to do. Because there is a rain-giver, a wealth- and life- you what is happening. Everything speaks to you if you giver, and the god of food. Then I meditate with the Earth know their language. because, unlike other religions, our tradition tells us the Since I grew up, things have changed a lot. People today eat spirits live with us on Earth, but easily connect with us new foods, which are not from traditional seeds, and because through custodians and only when they appear in sacred of this, our seeds have slowly disappeared. This affects our sites. So that way, gods of this sacred site will restore sacred sites because we cannot do rituals with foreign seeds. health. The weather will change back to normal, epidemics will go; but, most importantly, such changes show the Also, people have lost interest in traditional ways. community that protecting these sacred sites of Mother Many follow Christianity and do not agree with the rituals Earth is the best hope for their lives and that destroying in the sacred natural sites. They say this is backward, and them will bring severe punishments from the ancestors. our sites have suffered because people no longer respect them. Many have been destroyed. The trees have been Further Reading chopped down for agriculture. But then these farmers complain that their new crops do not grow. They do not Rhoades, H. (2015, November 20). Our roots, our responsibility: understand that if you destroy sacred sites, there is a cost, Indigenous custodians call for recognition and protection of not only to those who do it. This has pained me a lot. sacred natural sites. Intercontinental Cry. Retrieved from https://intercontinentalcry.org/our-roots-our-responsibility/ I am so passionate about reviving our ancestral knowledge before it is lost forever. Our generation has a The Gaia Foundation. (2012, September 7). Sacred voices huge responsibility. The next generation will not be able [Video file]. Retrieved fromhttps://vimeo.com/49006743 to survive without this knowledge. But it is also about our heritage, our identity, our confidence in who we are. And Wild, R., & McLeod, C. (Eds.). (2008). Sacred Natural Sites: to keep this, it is so important that we keep working with Guidelines for Protected Area Managers. Retrieved from Above: Dr. Rimberia Mwangi, Sacred Site Custodian, Meru, Kenya. Photo: Jess Phillimore/The Gaia Foundation, 2012 the sacred sites. http://www.sacredland.org/PDFs/SNS_Guidelines.pdf space. There is another called Mutyoome, which means these seeds, he or she recites words such as “May you “spiritual winds.” If you transgress against the Mutyoome send uncountable luck like these millet grains. May they gods, they hit you hard and you fall down. germinate in plenty to feed all your people.” One of the major tasks of a custodian is to visit the There is a very close link between Mother Earth, shrine embedded within that sacred natural site and ask sacred sites, seed, and food. When I grew up, I learned the Earth to forgive her people, for example, after crop with my mother and aunts how to prepare the traditional fields are attacked by pests and too much sunshine. We go dishes. I also learned about the different varieties of and hold a traditional prayer near the lake so rain comes. seeds, when to plant them, and how to store them. At A crucial part of this ceremony is that we take seeds harvest time we would first select the best seeds, before there and use them to ask for multiplication of food in we harvested for food. the coming season, pouring them into the water for the ancestors to receive and multiply them. I remember we had seven different varieties of cassava and many types of millet, sorghum, beans, sweet potatoes, Many varieties of seeds are needed in our sacred site and others too. They all had names which explained rituals, to give thanks and to ask for them to be strong them. One sweet potato was called Kansegenyuke, and productive when we plant them. We normally use meaning “I make as many as I can”; another was called simusimu (millet), and enkoore (pigeon peas), but other Kanyerebalye, which means “let me grow and people will seeds, including potato and banana, are also used for eat”; and then there was Ndabirisoha, meaning “grow me other ceremonies. and you cannot finish me.” When administering the rituals, we normally prefer When I was young, I also learned about the medicines the small seeds, because they are so small and too many and the wild foods and where to find them. You had to to count. When the custodian is performing rituals with study the plants and animals carefully, to be able to read Above: Two fishermen on Lake George, Western Uganda. Photo: Hal Rhoades/The Gaia Foundation, 2016

44 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 45 Protecting Biocultural A Sacred Grove in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal Diversity Sheetal Vaidya and Asha Paudel Top Left: In the Hindu tradition, accepting tika (red splotches prepared by mixing Top Right: The Seshnarayan pond within Dakshinkali is imbued with deep cultural vermillion powder, rice, and yoghurt and applied on foreheads) from holy elders in a and historical significance. The holy complex was built by one of the Lichhavi kings in Dakshinkali of Nepal (400 to 750 CE) to guard the Kathmandu Valley below. The sacred water of sacred area is one way of showing deep spiritual respect. Puja (the act of showing akshinkali is a sacred grove located at 1550 m respect to a deity with rituals and prayers) is performed by worshipping the deity, the pool is believed to be the milk that flowed down from the udder of the holy cow of altitude about 22 km south of Nepal’s capital, which includes offering flowers, fruits, foods, and retrieving the blessed tika. Kamdhenu. This udder is now represented by a cluster of stalactites hanging from a cliff just above the main temple of Seshnarayan. Photo: Asha Paudel, 2016 Kathmandu. It is a local symbol of divinity, devoted medicinal plants into rituals by the Indigenous people has People believe that if they pray to the goddess and offer sacrifice, she will assure to the Goddess Kali. Hindus consider Kali to be the played a huge role in their conservation. their success and vanquish evil. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2015 Bottom: Water from the pond is piped down or carried in water tankers to Top Center: Dewaki Tamang, 66, seen here traveling to Dakshinkali by bus provide drinking water to the households of Lalitpur District. People can be supreme,during religious dark female festivals power and marriagewhose role ceremonies, is to destroy and seen coming to the pond carrying their gagri pots to fetch drinking water from D The forest patches of Dakshinkali, however, are no from Dhading (around 100 kms away), says: “I awoke early in the morning and evil. Therefore, people worship her as a mother figure the water source. Water is also carried in buckets that are then emptied into longer free from anthropogenic pressures. Several changed three buses from Dhading to reach Dakshinkali.” She is carrying a the tankers for commercial water supply. Students from nearby hostels and political, economic, and social issues often challenge healthy-looking rooster as an offering to the Goddess Kali. “I wished for my two whenever they seek solace. The Indigenous dwellers monks from the gompa (Buddhist monastery) do their laundry here as well. management through the traditional system. The sons’ safe return from Saudi Arabia, and it came true.” Thus, she believes that Water was tapped from here to construct Nepal’s first hydropower plant in of two nearby villages—Pharping, inhabited by Newar abandonment of sustainable practices in favor of the the goddess blessed her sons and that the prosperity they brought home is a 1911, only 29 years after the world’s first hydropower project was realized in people, and Chaimale, inhabited by Tamang people— conveniences brought about by development—such as result of this blessing. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2016 Wisconsin, USA. Photo: AshaPaudel, 2016 have traditionally been involved in careful and respectful road construction, non-biodegradable waste pollution, stewardship of the grove. The grove as well as the and illegal harvesting of rare and endangered species— Seshnarayan pond located within it have long been closely is among the causes of loss of the sacred grove’s pristine integrated into the lives of people living in the neighboring features. Biodiversity loss is an ongoing problem, districts, Lalitpur and Khatmandu. creating a serious need for long-term revitalization and The grove supports rich aquatic and terrestrial flora sustainable management efforts. Awareness programs and fauna, as well as abundant water resources that for local people about the value of rare and endangered surrounding households access through tap water. species as well their importance for the very existence of Everywhere around the world, traditional ecological the Dakshinkali deity are essential steps to be undertaken urgentlyAcknowledgements. to ward off the We ongoing are thankful devastation to the of high-spirited the area. knowledge and spiritual beliefs teach people to treat people in Dakshinkali who shared with us information, sacred natural sites with respect. In Dakshinkali, people anecdotes, cultural references, and traditional knowledge hold a strong belief that the grove’s vegetation is under of this sacred grove. We highly value and appreciate the protection of the Goddess Kali. Hence, they deem many plant species found there to be holy. The belief the time they gave us to explain their values and beliefs. that plants are manifestations of the gods restricts their exploitation, and traditional taboos protect rare and threatened plants from extinction. Integration of many Left: The main temple of the Goddess Dakshinkali is surrounded by a lush sacred grove encompassing an area of 56 hectares. Upholding traditions and beliefs helps protect and conserve the uniqueness of the forest. Plants found here that are protected because they are considered holy (and several of which are endemic and have no English names) include: Aegle marmelos (wood apple), Artemisia indica (Asian mugwort), Buddleja asiatica (bhimsen pati), Betula alnoides (Himalayan birch), Cannabis sativa (hemp), Castanopsis indica (chestnut), C. tribuloides (chinkapin), Cynodon dactylon (Bermuda grass), Datura stramonium (thorn apple), Emblica officinalis (Indian gooseberry), Engelhardtia spicata (mawa), Ficus religiosa (sacred fig tree), F. benghalensis (banyan tree), F. benjamina (weeping fig), Michelia champaca (champak), and many more. This place is perhaps the last refuge for many such plant species. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2015 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 47 Top Left: Economic pressure and lack of awareness are responsible for the local Previously they had to walk hours to transport beans, pears, and hog plums to the exploitation of threatened plants, such as orchids, whose trade is banned under nearest center of commercial activities. Yet, road building is being done without the CITES international agreement. The possible consequences of illegal trade do previously conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment, which in Nepal is not deter harvesting them for economic gain, even more so due to the lack of a required by law before undertaking such development projects. As a consequence, monitoring system to prevent illegal plant gathering. Here, a man is seen selling the construction of roads traversing the grove has been threatening its biodiversity. plants that are protected by law. It is urgent to put a system in place to control the Biodiversity is also endangered by a lack of facilities for proper waste management. gathering of herbs, preserve biodiversity, and plan for future. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2016 Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2016 Top Right: People from all over the country come to worship Dakshinkali. Top Center: A recently built highway not only minimizes the distance between Here, large crowds of people carrying offerings stand in line outside the main Kathmandu and Terai region of Nepal, but also gives worshippers from other parts temple. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2015 of the country easier access to Dakshinkali. Furthermore, it has brought some Bottom: The line-ups go on for hours, with people waiting patiently to enter immediate benefits to the people of Chaimale and the surrounding villages the main temple and seek Goddess Dakshinkali’s blessings by touching her. because they can now more conveniently transport their agricultural products. Photo: Asha Paudel, 2016

Top: An Indigenous Newar of Dakshinkali, Radhe Shyam Kapali, 58, makes tamala (Indian bay leaf). Here she is seen removing the skin from rhizomes of a living in a small corner of the Seshnarayan pond by selling ritual butter Bergenia ciliata (hairy bergenia) to prepare a tonic to be given to her daughters- lamps that his wife prepares. Photo: Asha Paudel, 2016 in-law who are in their post-partum period. “I lost my home during the recent Bottom Left: Locally famous as Jaributi Baje (“Herbal Grandpa”), earthquake,” she says. “I now live in a small hut in the field while my sons with their Sanu Manandhar, 75, prepares various Ayurvedic medicines from indigenous families have rented separate houses. But that does not stop me from taking care of plants, which he sells in bottles labeled with local names. He holds the knowledge their wives, at least when they are at this stage. The women have to take care of their of numerous plant species used in special rituals of the Newars and Tamangs, health properly at such a time.” Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2016 the two Indigenous communities of the surrounding area. “I have been doing Bottom Right: Offering the indigenous biodiversity at the Dakshinkali market this for 40 years,” he says, adding that he has the power of curing disease not only brings smiles to local women but also contributes to wild germplasm by chanting holy mantras. He believes that the Goddess Kali has bestowed him preservation. Pear (Pyrus communis) and Nepali hog plum (Choerospondias axillaris) with this healing power. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2016 are the main fruits of commercial value cultivated in local farms and sold in Bottom Center: Prem Maya Balami, 64, sustains her livelihood by selling Dakshinkali. The women prepare juice, jam, and dried pickles to sell locally as medicinal forest products, such as dried flowers of Bombax ceiba (cotton tree) and well as to export. They do, however, face challenges in continuing to secure the Rhododendron arboreum (tree rhododendrum) and dried leaves of Cinnamomum economic benefits from these fruits, due to the lack of a reliable storage system. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2015

48 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 49 LinkingLinking Andrea Lyall LanguageLanguage and the LAND How Words,

Top Left: Management of non-biodegradable waste left behind by devotees is a major problem. Plastic litter negligently discarded by worshippers is scattered Stories, and Ceremonies everywhere—such as the plastic packaging that incense sticks come in, seen on the ground here. Cleaners are in charge of managing such litter, but the Dakshinkali Management Committee, the administration established in 1951 to look after the Can Inform Decision Making temple, is understaffed. Previous attempts to ban plastic, provide bins, and prohibit Economic Review, 18 littering have failed. Photo: Asha Paudel, 2016 among the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw of British Columbia, Canada Adhikari,Further D. (2006). Reading Hydropower development in Nepal. , 70–94.Nepal Biodiversity Bottom Left: Basu Dev Balami, 38, is in charge of the Dakshinkali Management wak̓ wala is the Indigenous language of the in the late 1990s by the U’mista Cultural Society, a Committee. He has authored articles about the cultural and historical significance Strategy and Action Plan 2014–2016 Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw on the mid-coast of present- Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw-led organization in Alert Bay. I was Government of Nepal. (2014). of Dakshinkali. “We have observed a noticeable decrease in natural waterspouts K in the surrounding forest as a result of climate change,” he argues. day British Columbia. It expresses a connection to the an undergraduate student at the University of British . Kathamndu, “Among the eight, four have completely dried up, which is a serious problem.” land through words, stories, and ceremonies, which Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry, learning the plants Nepal: GON, Ministry of Forests andNepal Soil Population Conservation. and He was not aware of the need for the revitalization of biodiversity lost during describe the patterns of the seasons, traditional use, and trees in English and Latin. Reading The Living Housing Census 2011, National Report road construction. Photo: Sheetal Vaidya, 2016 important places, and cultural and spiritual values. World, I saw trees, plants, seaweeds, and animals of Government of Nepal. (2012). Right: A bright Indigenous young man, Ashish Basnet, 35, is involved importance to the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw, but could not read Secretariat, Central Bureau of Statistics.. Kathmandu, in a local youth club called Naulo Abhiyan (New Venture), which volunteers for the When I was young, I remember walking in the woods the Kwak̓ wala orthography. Nepal: GON, National Planning Commission management of waste in the Dakshinkali area. He and fellow club members have with my mum and her teaching me which berries to been striving for sustainable management, but their efforts are often stymied by pick and which ones not to pick—and she remembered A way to decolonize my own knowledge about the lack of funds and the indifference of municipal authorities. “The youth would be ̓ ̓ Protecting Sacred Natural Sites of Indigenous and the Kwakwala names! This was unique because she forests was to begin to learn Kwakwala. Two years highly motivated if the government supported their conservation activities by providing forgot, or decided to forget, her first language at ago, as a part of my graduate studies, I completed a TraditionalOviedo, G., Peoples: Jeanrenaud, An IUCN S., &Perspective Otegui, M. (2005). financial rewards as well as the logistic support they need,” he points out, adding, residential school, St. Michael’s in Alert Bay. Yet, plant dictionary in Kwak̓ wala to build upon the work from “There are large groups and families who gather for picnics and leave behind non- . Retrieved biodegradable waste like plastic. Very few participate in the clean-up campaigns. The while berry picking, she would exclaim, “Tsa̱ g̱ a̱ ł!” completed by U’mista and The Living World book and to add to the First Voices online archive of First Nations https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/import/ most important steps to be taken are better sanitation, dustbins in appropriate places, (thimbleberry, Rubus parviflorus) and other plants indigenous.pdf and billboards to raise awareness about the health hazards of litter.” At present, the names, too. These were happy times walking in the languages. In collaboration with Kwakwk’wakw downloads/sp_protecting_sacred_natural_sites_ best hope for conserving the grove lies in making the public aware of how the woods because I shared my mum’s excitement of her fluent speakers and U’mista Cultural Society, 300 . Glimpses of Nepal ecological functions of such a grove benefits people and in bringing the area into remembered Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw ecological knowledge additional words and phrases for plants in Kwak̓ wala Nepal’s protected area network. Photo: Asha Paudel, 2016 ̓ can now be found in the First Voices Kwak̓ wala section. Sangal, N. C., & Sangal, P. (1998). and Kwakwala. My interest in linking language and the land was rekindled when reading The Living World: New Delhi, India: APH. Plants and Animals of the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw, published Above:Tsag̱ a̱ ł̱ (thimbleberry). Photo: Andrea Lyall, 2016

50 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 51 In addition to audio and U’mista orthography, the plant A small example of the wisdom that the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw words are complemented with a picture of the plant for hold in the Kwak̓ wala language can be demonstrated by identification purposes. The dictionary has audio files of the word a’agala, a small, rare wintergreen plant. The A Selection of Words over 5000 words and 1000 phrases so that people who English translation of a’agala is “it grows in the shade.” Related to Western Red Redar in Kwak̓wala cannot read the orthography can hear fluent speakers say This and other literal translations of words taught me that the Kwak̓ wala words. Now, almost 20 years after reading the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw have an in-depth knowledge of the The Living World, I am taking a class with linguist ecology and ecosystems around them. da̱nas - inner bark of red cedar łatatła̱nu’x̱w - we are going Patricia Shaw and a fluent Kwak̓ wala speaker from the to make cedar shingles What is most important to the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw is da̱ntsa̱m - cedar bark hat First Nations and Endangered Languages Program at the demonstrated by what has been given the most extensive łi’we’ - cedar bark mat University of British Columbia. vocabulary. In Kwak̓ wala, not all plants have names, if da̱nyas - inner bark they were not of use for food, medicine, ceremonies, “Our language expresses a or structures. The plant for which Kwak̓ wala has the da̱nas’ma̱s - small tree pat’sa - splitting cedar apart connection to the land through words, largest number of words is Western red cedar: at least sa̱ng̱as - place where you go stories, and ceremonies, which forty-one words. The words describe every part of the da̱w̓ix̱ - branch tree and its multiple uses. to strip cedar describe the patterns of the seasons, g̱wa̱lxm̓a̱s - sapling, 4’ to 5’ feet traditional use, important places, sa̱nḵa - to strip cedar bark and cultural and spiritual values.” kadza̱kw - cedar bark, softened kasa - cedar bark, softening ta̱x̱a̱m - withes As a graduate student, my research interest is in understanding an Indigenous Peoples’ perspective on k̓a̱myala’stu - chest with key made t̓łabad - cedar bark basket forests. This interest stems from my career as a forester, of cedar or oak during which I have lived in Indigenous communities t̓łag̱a̱kw - cedar bark, red and heard their concerns for the lands and resources— k̓uba̱kw’a̱nala - wearing cedar concerns that stem from the impacts of industrial bark blanket t̓łag̱a̱k̓wa̱x̱a̱ma’yi - cedar bark headband resource extraction on traditional ways of life, as well as from access issues, unsustainable harvest rates, and k̓ułatsa̱m - cedar chest t̓łag̱a̱k̓wa̱x̱a̱wa’yi - cedar bark lack of local benefits. What often seems to be lacking is a neck ring cultural fit, as well as equity in decision making. k̓wa’x̱tłu - large cedar tree or log Realizing the interconnectedness between Kwak̓ wala, ḵ̓wa̱xtlaw̓i - wood or log t̓łag̱a̱k̓wsila - cedar bark, Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw, and nature, the next step in my make anything out of red research is to understand how words, stories, ceremonies, k̓ubaw̓a - cedar bark blanket and cultural and spiritual values could inform discussions t̓sap̓ax̱ - leaves around local decision making. la̱xe - basket of cedar twigs and spruce roots x̱a̱tsa̱m - cedar bentwood box Words’ Connection to the Environment Literal translations from Kwak̓ wala clearly Stories’ and Ceremonies’ “The ceremony to tell our stories and to show social demonstrate that the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw have a complex Connection to the Land changes such as birth, marriage, name giving, standing and intimate knowledge of land, ecology, and forests up a new chief and death is called a Potlatch. In the and of the interconnectedness between plants, animals, “Potlatch: a strict law bids us to dance. We dance Chinook language it means ‘to give.’ The people we environment, people, and spirituality. Kwak̓ wala to celebrate life, to show we are grateful for all our invite are not only guests. They are also witnesses of our describes “how the forest works” by explaining what treasures. We must dance to show our history, since our Potlatch and we give them presents for being a witness.” a place or plant looks like and what places or plants can be used for. Looking deep into a word can also history is always passed on in songs and dances. It is This quote from the U’mista webpage signifies the reveal something about the history of interaction and very important to tell the stories in exactly the same importance of songs, stories, and ceremonies to the trading with neighboring Indigenous Peoples. To way. We put our stories into songs and into dances so Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw culture and governance system. Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw, plants and animals are more than they will not change. They will be told the same way The language in our stories and ceremonies contain things: they hold spirits, and some plants and places every time. We use theatre and impressive masks to tell teachings and protocols—and if you listen and watch are considered supernatural and important spiritually Above: A plant that grows “where the sun never goes.” our ancestors’ adventures so the people witnessing the carefully, through the stories and ceremonies of the for our ceremonies. Photo: Bryan Kelly-McArthur, 2012 dance will remember it. Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw, you will understand our connection to

52 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 53 the land. Our creation stories link us to specific places. Indigenous Knowledge & Decision Making Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw are responsible to on the land and in Acknowledgements: Gilakas’la (thank you) to the The ’namima (clan) is regarded as the fundamental the waters. As Kwak̓ wala holds our kinship structures Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw elders and fluent speakers Audrey social structure of the Kwakwa̱ ka’wakw. Each clan In the last couple of decades, many biologists and and history, it can describe who we are as a people like Wilson, Douglas Scow, Hazel Dawson, and Annie Joseph has descended from animals or supernatural beings conservationists have recognized that we can learn no other language can. While some of this knowledge for your invaulabe work with the audio files for the plant represented by family crests. Our family crests, now from Indigenous knowledge and practices. For instance, would need to be protected, so can the teachings held researchers at the Hakai Institute are celebrating that for dictionary; Drs. Pat Shaw and Mark Turin from the First expressed in regalia and button blankets, link us to our within the stories and ceremonies be used to inform what ancestors, who are worthy of respect and care. Clans feast millennia the Indigenous Peoples of present-day British Nations and Endangered Languages Program for your needs to be protected. Looking at words, stories, and together and have titleholders, who hold names, songs, Columbia lived in the forests without degrading them, advice and assistance with the Kwak̓ wala orthographies; and crests. Traditionally, clans had access to resource but actually made them more productive by the way they Sarah Holland, U’mista Cultural Centre; and to Alex sites in clam beaches, herring spawning grounds, berry used them. Indigenous management practices included “For millennia the Indigenous Wadsworth and Barb Malitipi, First Peoples’ Cultural patches, halibut banks, clover-root fields, and rivers. developing clam gardens, creating perennial root gardens Peoples of present-day British Council for all of your work on the First Voices project. During winter potlatches, dancers channel supernatural in estuaries, and using fire to enhance berry patches. The Columbia lived in the forests forests grew taller and faster from the nutrients in clam Further Reading “Looking at words, stories, shells and fire. This is a positive trend suggesting that without degrading them, and ceremonies is a way to find Indigenous knowledge and practices are being valued but actually made them more Compton, B., & Pasco, J. (1998). The Living World: Plants and a cultural fit that is missing in as something that can contribute to land and resource productive by the way they Animals of the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw. Alert Bay, Canada: U’mista management. state-led ‘solutions’ that are used them.” Cultural Society. As well, in present-day Canada, in particular British failing to provide permanent Holm, T., Pearson, J. D., & Chavis, B. (2003). Peoplehood: Columbia, Indigenous rights are becoming recognized. ceremonies is a way to find a cultural fit that is missing social and economic benefits A model for the extension of sovereignty in American Indian to Indigenous Peoples.” Indigenous Peoples are in the process of rebuilding their in state-led “solutions” that are failing to provide governance institutions. While the approach, challenges, permanent social and economic benefits to Indigenous studies. Wicazo Sa Review, 18(1), 7‒24. and goals vary depending on the unique characteristics of spirits and animals when they put on their masks and Peoples living surrounded by the forests. After some Kovach, M. (2009). Indigenous Methodologies: transform into their ancestors. To prepare for ceremony, each community, there are common themes that emerge time given to rebuilding governance structures and in these conversations, including ensuring cultural Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts. Toronto, Canada: it is important to use hemlock, Western red cedar, and to resurgence of cultural practices, we will be able to continuity, assertion of greater decision-making authority University of Toronto Press. medicinal plants to cleanse for this transformation. In revitalize our words, stories, and ceremonies so that Kwak̓ wala, our ancient stories and songs describe what over lands and resources, and increased social and they will have a much wider applicability once again. Turner, N. (2014). Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: lands we are responsible to uphold. economic autonomy. ̓ Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples A resurgence of traditional decision making is The First Voices Kwakwala archive is found at Stories and songs also hold messages on the importance of Northwestern North America. Montreal, Canada: McGill- important because the Kwakwa̱ ka̱ ’wakw are surrounded http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Kwakwala of traditional practices and foods, such as the importance Queen’s University Press. of women cultivating clam gardens, shamans picking by forests and waters. Our language, stories, ceremonies, and practices are interwoven and dependent medicines, relationships with the animal kingdom, and Turner, N., & Bell, A. (1973). The ethnobotany of southern sharing of wild salmon and seafood. on one another. Each is important and speaks to what Above Left: Bighouse at G̱wayasdums on Gilford Island, British Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia. Economic Botany, Columbia. Photo: Ana Paula Fernandes, 2015 27(3), 257‒310. Above Left: Elder Chas Coon wanting Andrea to pick some blackberries for him. Photo: Andrea Lyall, 2015 Above Right: Gwayasdums̱ on Gilford Island. Photo: Ana Paula Above Right: Andrea at G̱wayasdums. Photo: Keith Atkinson, 2016 Fernandes, 2015

54 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 55 Hemi Whaanga and Priscilla Wehi endangered birds crumpled in my pocket—that is, in the and chasing the other males away from its territory of form of the colonizers’ banknotes with which I would go flax nectar, I am reminded of “our” tūī. buy bread and milk at the local shop. The details of tūī’s life are recorded in whakataukī, My father would share the blueprints of his memories ancestral sayings that act as a repository of ecological and those passed to him by his parents and their parents— knowledge, and in the many names that describe the by my ancestors, my tīpuna. Our physical and cultural changes in their body shape, form, and behavior. landscape had dramatically changed since the time of Maori my tīpuna. Our trees now lined the walls and halls of our He ua kōwhai Maori “A kōwhai shower” colonial houses. I would watch and listen, yearning to see through his mind’s eye and that of my tīpuna, to feel (A saying that describes a spring shower, at the time of and hear their stories, the songs, the poems, our history, the kōwhai blooms, and signals the appearance of the tūī our ancestral sayings, my Indigenous language. as well as the availability of some food sources) OralOral Koia tēnei: ko te toroa noho au, e tangi **** ana ki tōna kāinga; e mihi ana “This is a fact: I live like an albatross, crying out to its Fast forward 40 or so years to the present, and our nesting place and greeting (you in sorrow).” journeys and blueprints have changed drastically, as have the blueprints of the communities we grew up in and the (A saying used to refer to the confiscation of lands and cultural blueprints of this land. The history, language, TraditionTradition the displacement of Māori from their homes) songs, and wisdom of our tīpuna are no longer lost to us. We appreciate and value our place between Ranginui Cilla: (Sky father) and Papatūānuku (Earth mother). Working The tūī was my friend growing up. I was lucky enough closely with like-minded scientists, friends, colleagues, to spend a lot of time in our forests when I was a child, respected leaders, elders, experts, and practitioners has Ancestral Sayings and particularly in the summers, and that was where my love for allowed privileged access to the knowledge and science, the world around me grew. We would walk past the filmy to the many stories, songs, poems, history, and ancestral ferns, glittering with water after rain, and feed the parrots sayings of our tīpuna, and has brought a deeper respect Indigenous Knowledge or kākā outside our house on sugar water, similar to the for collaborations and collaborators. honeydew that they love to lick in the forest. My godfather could mimic the calls of many of the birds, like the Whāia te mātauranga hei oranga mō koutou. chattering of the parakeets or kākāriki overhead. But even “Seek after learning for the sake of your well-being.” Learning from the Past, gabbles of the kākā (Nestor meridionalis), the coos of living in a small city during the rest of the year, there was the kererū (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae). They were as opportunity to observe and interact scarce as a kōtuku of a single flight: with some of our native birds. Looking to He kōtuku rerenga tahi i te tau Once, a baby tūī fell from “The white heron of a single flight in the season” its nest in our garden, and we couldn’t put it back. The nest, the Future (A familiar saying used for a rare visitor, and its tree, was too high. So, we often one of importance) E koekoe te tūī, e ketekete te kākā, e kūkū te kererū fledged the baby tūī; it lived in “The tūī chatters, the parrot gabbles, Our kin, the birds, now fly with a new plumage, a new our house, and we spent the early the wood pigeon coos.” label, new names, and a new meaning for us. They are summer hunting for grubs to feed it. I tried to teach it to talk, (A saying for “It takes all kinds...”) often mentioned in the same breath as “under threat,” “rare,” “endangered,” “at risk,” “prohibited.” These were but lacked the skills of previous Hēmi: not the words I grew up with when I listened to my father generations of Māori who taught As a young child, I often sat at the window of my recalling his childhood—hunting, interacting with, and these birds to speak, with their house peering out at the roses, manicured lawns, and gathering the descendants of Tāne (the god of the forest) magnificent powers of mimicry. and Rehua (the star also known as Antares, the deity of Finally, we took our pet to a hedges, listening to introduced birds like the sparrows wildlife sanctuary to be a wild and blackbirds as they fluttered through their days. wisdom, medicine, and well-being and the sign of summer and its many species). As a child I carried many rare and bird once again; it was illegal These first memories of nature were blueprints that have for us to keep our tūī, as with all remained ingrained in my mind’s eye as an adult. I rarely other native birds. I never saw it saw and experienced things Indigenous. I rarely heard Above: An adult tūī vocalizing with feathers fluffed out, Te Puke, North Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Photo: Raewyn Adams, 2012 again. Yet, every summer when I the chatters of tūī (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae), the (from "New Zealand Birds Online"; reproduced with permission) see the male tūī puffing its chest, Above: Cilla Wehi with her pet tūī . Photo: Hamish McAllum, circa 1982

56 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 57 When we now hear the chattering of tūī, we recall its role and now we collaborate to seek solutions to these global Much of the elders’ wisdom in whakapapa (genealogy) and mythology, the many names issues. Where can we seek answers to these global issues about the ethics, philosophy, and it carries: its male form kōkōuri, kōpūrehe, kōkōtaua, and tute to guide future directions, future generations, future straightforward tactics for how best and female form kōkōtea and kouwha. We associate it with blueprints? Can the teachings of the past provide guidance to live in a dynamic balance with the star Rehua, and Tāne’s ascent to seek knowledge and in our quest for solutions to local and global problems? the environment, plants, and animals understanding for his kin. We see the whetū (star) affixed to its Are there clues in Indigenous knowledge, in our oral is rapidly being lost through the neck that brought tūī a voice: a gift from Rehua to remind us of traditions, in our ancestral sayings? combined impacts of urbanization, the origin of tūī and other birds. We cast our minds to kōkōuri abandonment and/or prohibition and kōkōtea, the celestial sacred pools of the Magellan Clouds For the past 10 years, we have sought to unpack some of customary uses of plants and of the critical messages in oral tradition, in whakataukī. that have the same names as the male and female tūī. animals, and the depletion of These sayings contain a wealth of material about ecosystems. Humankind is at a Tūī are highly prized birds in Māori society. Along Indigenous science, ecological knowledge, and the ways cultural, linguistic, biological, and with the kererū and the kākā, they were harvested in in which our tīpuna formulated, tested, and modified their great numbers, sometimes tamed and taught to speak, to knowledge according to ecological, environmental, and spiritual crossroad. The many paths recite mihi (formal speeches), karakia (incantations), and societal changes over the past 600 years. These sayings to our future are riddled with choices. whakataukī (ancestral sayings), hence the whakataukī: remain an important method for transmitting critical Ahakoa whati te manga, e takoto intergenerational information about all aspects of life, ana anō te kōhiwi Me he korokoro tūī including traditional knowledge, tribal memory, historic “Like the throat of a tūī” “Although the branch is broken events, behavior, and personal achievement. off, the trunk remains.” (Said of a gifted orator or singer) Ehara i te mea poka hou mai, nō Hawaiki mai anō (The loss of a branch does not destroy Words like ecosystem, biodiversity, global warming, “It is not something of recent origin a tree whose trunk consists of solid climate change, and extinction are now part of our but a tradition from Hawaiki.” heartwood. Misfortunes will not vernacular, our everyday language. They now form (This saying refers to the source and destination of life. ruin an individual or group if the layers in our blueprint of understanding—our mind’s eye. In some traditions, Hawaiki is perceived to be a physical foundations are strong.) Thus, many human questions are now no longer framed place from which the Māori people first emerged before In order to solve real-world problems, we have to engage inwardly, focused on individualism, on small things. We arriving in Aotearoa/New Zealand). have a deeper appreciation of our impact on ecosystems, with all forms of knowledge, language, and science to control deforestation, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, adapt to climate change, and halt ecosystem degradation. We need to work closely with the local communities that Further Reading are most affected to devise new observations and new whakataukī that embrace these local and global concerns. Berkes, F. (2012). Sacred Ecology (3rd ed.). New York, We also need to foster the kaitiaki (environmental NY: Routledge. guardians) of the future, our kaitiaki wherever they may live, with the principles of sustainability in mind. In our Cajete, G. (2000). Native Science: Natural Laws of changing world, we need kaitiaki in urban areas and on Interdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light. farms, in global fora and in our homes. Mead, S. M., & Grove, N. (2001). Ngā pēpeha a ngā tīpuna: The Sayings of the Ancestors. Wellington, New Zealand: “Humankind is at a cultural, linguistic, Victoria University Press. biological, and spiritual crossroad. The many paths to our future are Mistry, J., & Berardi, A. (2016). Bridging Indigenous and riddled with choices.” scientific knowledge. Science, 352(6291), 1274‒1275. Salmón, E. (2000). Kincentric ecology: Indigenous perceptions Stories are like ecosystems, with a community of of the human-nature relationship. Ecological Applications, meanings, interpretations, and systems interacting with their physical, cultural, and spiritual environments. As 10(5), 1327‒1332. Indigenous Peoples have realized, all parts of the story matter. The observations in whakataukī may change, but the principles beneath endure. Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua. “People pass on, but land remains.” Above: A kauri tree. Photo: Simon, Steinberger, 2005 (Pixabay) Rehua (Antares) reflecting in Lake Tarawera with Mount Tarawera in the background, North Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand. 58 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Photo: Erica Sinclair, 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 59 We go on with the sheep: “Qampen… This one is easy, but there are no more qampen in the Doña Dora Cañadón. Who knows why there and her are no more qampen, why they no longer let people keep qampen. What are people going to eat?” I show her a guanaco: “Nau. That’s what the goolen eats, but if the nau sees it, mainoshkk (off it goes), the nau! And no way that TehuelcheTehuelche the goolen can grab it then.” We continue: “This other one is a ttashel (cow), but there were none of these in the Cañadón. Qampen milk was all we drank.” Javier Domingo in conversation AnimalsAnimals I make an effort to use the few Tehuelche words I know, I run out of drawings, so now we’re left with going with Dora Manchado but she almost always answers in Spanish. Sometimes over the Tehuelche dictionary. I try to pronounce kkanter it’s hard for her to remember her language: with whom? (lizard), but Dora recoils: “Yuck, that’s disgusting, the Today I need to put together a list of animals, and it pains kkanter! It reminds me of a neighbor who always went me to ask her to repeat. How many times must she have around with a kkanter in his pocket to frighten me. ‘Would done it? “Doña Dora, how did one say ‘cougar’?” you like a candy?’ he would ask, picking out the kkanter. Easier to start with dogs: there’s more than enough The kkanter would fall asleep with the heat of his body, uachen in this house. The one called Peque barks, wanting becoming torpid. That’s how one day he was left with attention. “Kkom (enough), Peque, I’m not giving you the kkanter’s tail in his hand.” Dora teaches me that an anything!”—but then she slips him some ham under the effective remedy for the (admittedly rare) Patagonian heat Stories of table. There’s a surfeit of cats, too, but for ‘cat’ “there’s is rubbing a kkanter on one’s forehead. Will have to try. no pronunciation.” Yet, the dictionary I carry with me lists the word pel—but Dora says: “That’s another cat, a Language bigger one, so big that it once ate a cat I had, which liked to go wandering. I went out to look for it and only found its hind parts, that was it. I told my husband: My cat! I Revitalization don’t know what ate it! And he told me that it was one of those cats that go around at night. A pel had caught it.” in Southern Patagonia Clear enough to me now that the pel is a different kind of cat (a wild cat, perhaps the pampas cat or Geoffroy’s cat?) There are no more animals in the house at this point to etting to Doña Dora’s home on foot is no picnic. her: “Uáinguesh, Dora! Kenk mpe?” (Hello, Dora! How add to my list. My workspace is Dora’s kitchen, with a GIt’s a long way, and stray dogs can be a serious are you?) No matter the aches and pains in her shoulder, window that opens onto the patio. I don’t have many more threat. But it’s all part of my job with the Intercultural or her knee, or her stomach, she invariably answers: options than to show her some drawings, such as that of Bilingual Education System of Santa Cruz, coordinated “Uáinguesh, kketo!” (Hello, fine!) the cougar, and Dora tells me: “This is the goolen, I think by anthropologist Marcela Alaniz. It’s what I call “the it is. There used to be goolen up there in the Cañadón nicest job on earth”: seeking to recover what’s left Out of my backpack come the tape recorder, ham, (gully), now I don’t know. They say there are some on the of the language, in order to return some depth to the yogurt, fruit (as much of it as can be had around here), other side of the river. They go around hunting guanacos identity of the small community at the southern edge of and dark bread—Dora needs to eat more fiber. I try to and sheep, but they hide; you can’t see them.” Patagonia that is known as Tehuelche (and that today start a conversation: “How’s your new granddaughter? self-identifies as Aonekko). Today Myrta came by the office. In the morning it was Above: “Doña Dora, how did one say ‘cougar’?” Dora Manchado colder; they say it may snow tonight.” working on revitalization efforts with her granddaughter Hillary (R) and Viviana Bull of the Intercultural Bilingual Education System. While slipping and sliding on mud, I rehearse the scene Photo: MEIB, 2016 of my arrival. The house has no bell, but there are seven Above: Javier Domingo with children displaying the Aonekko Right: The Cañadón, in the Territory of Camusu Aike—once a or eight dogs that bark so loud that Dora, way in the flag, which represents Mount Chaltén and the Southern Cross “reserve,” now a “community”: the land where Dora Manchado back, knows to come open the door. I step in and greet constellation. Photo: José Kopolke, 2016 was born and grew up. Photo: Javier Domingo, 2016

60 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 61 like the keshkesh (another unidentified bird), which is they leave so soon. Luckily it won’t one that sings up there in the sky. Not now, but later be long before they arrive. As soon as on you can hear those sing. You never see them; up in the cold is gone they will come. From the sky they sing: keshkeshkesh! they sing; they call out here I can see them that way, where their own name: keshkesh! In spring I listen to them, pools of water form sometimes, but but they’re unfriendly, those ones; they always stay far now they’re building a house there, so away. They’re unfriendly like the chamberrot (a kind of maybe this time they won’t come.” plover?), the one that has long skinny legs, which is why I call Viviana that way.” I go back to the dictionary: “Qaldak (ibis), Doña Dora?” “There aren’t “And at night, Doña Dora?” I ask. “There’s the amen any of those here, either. In Laguna (eagle owl). Sometimes I see it fly by. And then there’s the Azul there are many.” She promises kokoo (barn owl), which is smaller than the amen, but it’s that if I take her there she’ll show a bad omen. When they sing in front of a house, you can them to me. It’s hard for her to walk, be sure a neighbor is going to die.” but she loves to go on car rides. In I search my mind for more birds, but I don’t know that winter, though, Patagonian roads The tcheeper (beetle), too, is yucky for Dora. And it many. Lucky me, she volunteers: “Those of which there are difficult—and there are no birds. makes her angry, because it was the tcheeper that asked are many are the che’ (sparrows), those brownish ones We go on: does she know the bolan Elal, the one who created the world, for there to be death. that are so abundant.” I tell her that my grandmother ate (Patagonian negrito)? “Bolan! I had “‘There’s going to be a lot of people, and they’re going to them with polenta,* and she laughs at the implausible idea forgotten about the bolan! It’s a black step on me,’ said the tcheeper.” In revenge, Dora always that one can eat a che’. “The ieperpar (falcon?) are the birdie. Those arrive for the New Year. squashes the tcheeper whenever she sees one. They fly around there all the time, the little birdies… Bo- a community member is giving them a chat about their lan… it has a red tail… Bo-lan… First comes the guy, people. When the “surprise” arrives, they receive her with I read out “qam,” but Dora asks: “And what’s that?” “It’s enough to look at Dora’s eyes ‘cause it’s a rascal. It comes to see what the weather is a loud “Uáinguesh, Dora!” Hearing that brings tears to I read the translation to her: “Cuis (southern mountain for me to realize that yes, all this work like here, and then comes the wife.” She keeps smiling my eyes—and it’s enough to look at Dora’s eyes for me to cavy),” and then Dora remembers: “A cuis! It’s that and repeating the name again and again: bo-lan… bo- realize that yes, all this work really is worth it. one forgets, you know, here alone. But of course! That’s really is worth it.” lan… Her delight melts away the embarrassment I came why I call ‘qam’ that little dog that Diana has, which is Translated from Spanish by Luisa Maffi small like a qam. And I no longer knew why I called the ones who eat the che’, but they aren’t coming yet either. in with, and I can almost hear Doña Dora’s kitchen fill up dog that way…” It’s a small skinny one that always goes after other birds. with trills. I’d like to keep asking, but she can remember Further Reading Once I chased after one to grab the bird away from it, no more. “I used to know more, but have forgotten. All The pajer (Patagonian mara, or Patagonian hare) is but it flew high and took the bird with it. Those that are the creatures around here had names in Tehuelche, and Comunidad de Camusu-Aike. (n.d.). Comunidad Tehuelche. easier for her to remember. “Earlier on, Peque would run nice are the seelak (swallows). They come here and leave now they don’t anymore, they’re ancient words.” Retrieved from http://camusuaike.com/ after the pajer, when he would still go run outside, but he right away, though, like soldiers… Seelak… they’re black, would never catch them, because he has short legs. Karen shiny they are, how lovely they are! But what a pity that Dora knows I visit her because of the language; that’s Consejo Provincial de Educación de Santa Cruz. (2016). says that they come by at night, but I don’t see them, as I why she had a CD on the table. She wants to listen to it Educación intercultural bilingüe. Retrieved from http:// don’t have a window to that side.” to see whether she can remember more animals. We hear educacionsantacruz.gov.ar/index.php/presentacion-eib the voice of an old woman, and Doña Dora translates a It’s true: the window of Dora’s kitchen, the room few sentences for me, interrupted by Peque who wants Kopolke Territorio. (n.d.). In Facebook. Retrieved from where she spends most of her time, opens to the other more ham: “The fox farted… the ostrich stepped on https://www.facebook.com/kopolke side. Looking that way, she tells me: “The qalderoo the mara’s tail… someone grabbed the cougar’s balls.” (southern lapwing) must be just about to arrive, by The naughtiness brings out laughter: “Sometimes when Fernández Garay, A. (2004). Diccionario Tehuelche-Español the 15th they will. They arrive first at a farm back I’m alone I listen to those stories to get a laugh.” The / Índice Español-Tehuelche [Indigenous Languages of Latin here, and from there, they come this way singing. recording ends, and she wants to listen again—and again: America, 4]. Leiden, Netherlands: University of Leiden. ‘I’ve arrived!’ sings the bird. They come almost at the “The fox farted… the ostrich stepped on the mara’s tail… Rodríguez, M. E. (2010). De la “Extinción” a la same time when that other one with a small red beak someone grabbed the cougar’s balls.” And so again until Autoafirmación: Procesos de Visibilización de la appears too, the sheet (unidentified bird). Who knows the sun goes down, the mud hardens with frost, and I Comunidad Tehuelche Camusu Aike (Provincia de Santa where it comes from… from the north, must be. Of those return home, kicking garbage and worried that someone Cruz, Argentina). (Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown sheet, you can see many… others you can only hear, might mug me and steal the recorder with Doña Dora’s University). Retrieved from https://repository.library. voice saying that the fox farted… georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553246/ Above: “I look like an old Indian woman.” Dora at home, wearing Several days later, I go along with Dora and her rodriguezMariela.pdf a scarf she received from the Chibcha community of Colombia. * [Ed.’s note: Originating from the northern Italian region of Veneto, Photo: Javier Domingo, 2016 Javier’s grandmother would have eaten polenta e osèi (polenta and birds), a granddaughter to a kindergarten where a group of Right: Dora looking out of the window: When will the seelak traditional cornmeal dish served with a variety of small wild birds including children chose the name chelelon (butterfly) and another Above: Kindergarten #15, Río Gallegos: the patten and the chelelon arrive this year? Photo: MEIB, n.d. sparrows, which would have been roasted on skewers or pan-fried.] patten (fox). The kids are sitting around on the floor, and surprise the “surprise.” Photo: Paulo Hidalgo, 2016

62 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 63

Levels of Language Endangerment Level Description The language is used by all children in Unsafe limited domains. Like The language is used mostly by the Definitively Endangered parental generation and up, but not the children. The language is used mostly by the Severely Endangered grandparent generation and up; parents Growing and children do not use the language. The language is used by very few elderly Critically Endangered speakers, typically of the great- grandparental generation. There are no remaining first language speakers of the language and the Extinct Flowers language is considered ‘dead,’ ‘sleeping,’ The Work of Saving or ‘dormant.’ Endangered Languages *adapted from UNESCO’s*adapted scale fron of UNESCO’s language scalevitality of language vitality

We can see in this table that there are a lot of different stages of language endangerment. Ajuawak Kapashesit Because of this variation, different languages will need different kinds of support to be Organizationsrevitalized. like That UNESCO is why andit is crucial the Summer to assess eachunderstanding language’s thesestatus languages. as accurately Some as languages are Institutepossible of Linguistics to create have the created most effective guidelines plan to to revitalizehighly documentedit. In defining whereas the state others of a are less so; the guide a language,classification it is importantof endangered to consider languages. other variables,more documentation such as speaker you population can find, theand better. the language’s status in society. Based on the state of the language, the appropriate anguage endangerment is a growing issue the language such as the household, the office, schools, In a nutshell, the guidelines break endangered revitalization methods must be identified. DifferentIt is revitalization also highly important methods can to learnbe about related around the globe. Of the less than 7,000 and spiritual gatherings. The expression “registers languages down into five categories, based on the implemented for languages at different levels oflanguages, endangerment, or sister working languages, backwards that stem from from the languages spoken today, many are not expected and speaking styles” describes the use of different work of renowned linguist Joshua Fishman, as the most extreme to the least extreme level. same original language (e.g., Italian and Spanish to survive into the next century. Because of this vocabulary for different social groups or settings. For summarized in the following table. growing threat to our planet’s linguistic diversity— example, the way you speak to your family may be different stages of language endangerment. Because are sister languages coming from Latin). Through L The process of reviving an extinct, or dormant, language is trickier than others. The most something that should be cherished as much as different from the way you speak to your friends and is We can see in this table that there are a lot of sister languages, one can learn about how the important step is to locate any and all informationlanguages on the havelanguage. changed Things over like time grammar to find patterns our biological diversity—many language activists quite likely to be different from how you speak to your and linguists have taken on the important task of of this variation,texts, letters, different recordings, languages interviews, will linguistic need noteof changes, and archives that can often be make replicated up the across the boss. Finally, “stop passing it on to the next generation” backbone of the resources for understanding these languages. Some languages are highly documenting and reinvigorating these vanishing different kinds of support to be revitalized. That is language. It is also possible to find words missing references the natural transmission of languages from documented whereas others are less so; the more documentation you can find, the better. voices. What steps can be taken to save languages why it is crucial to assess each language’s status as from your language by comparing the related one generation to the next. languages’ words for objects and concepts. around the world? Through case studies and by language,accurately it as is importantpossible to to create consider the most effective It is also highly important to learn about related languages, or sister languages, that UNESCO’s definition can help determine plan to revitalize it. In defining the state of a endangermentreviewing the literaturein every community from experts facing in theit. field, stem from the same original language (e.g., ItalianIt and was Spanish through are sister this languages method that the whether a language is endangered or not. But other variables, we can better understand how to combat language coming from Latin). Through sister languages, Wampanoagone can learn people about howin Massachusetts, the languages USA, have how do we define exactly how endangered a such as speaker population and the language’s been able to revitalize their language, not spoken “A language is have changed over time to find patterns of change that can be replicated across the particular language is? For example, a language status in language.society. Based It is onalso the possible state of to the find language, words missingin over from ayour hundred language years, by comparingbased on the tireless endangeredThe first when question its speakers is: What cease is to an use endangered it, use it in that is no longer being used in government implementedthe appropriaterelated for languages’ revitalizationlanguages words at different methods for objects levels must and beof concepts. efforts of the staff of the Wampanoag Language fewerlanguage? and fewer According domains, to use UNESCO, fewer of its registers and though is still strong in the community is in a identified. Different revitalization methods can be Reclamation Project. Through their work, which speaking styles, and/or stop passing it on to the next different position from a language with only a few It was through this method that the Wampanoagincluded people incollecting Massachusetts, old letters USA, andhave books in the generation.” elderly speakers remaining, even though both fit endangerment,been able working to revitalize backwards their fromlanguage, the most not spokenWampanoag in over a hundred language years, and based comparing on the them to our definition of an endangered language. extreme tirelessto the least efforts extreme of the level. staff of the Wampanoag Languagespeakersister Algonquian inReclamation over a century. languages, Project. there Through are now many Let’s dissect this definition. ”When its is a spectrum of endangerment for languages. their work, which included collecting old letterslearners and books of the in thelanguage, Wampanoag including language the first native speakers cease to use it” is a direct reference to two Much as in the plant and animal kingdoms, there importantThe process step ofis revivingto locate anany extinct, and all orinformation dormant, and comparing them to sister Algonquian languages,Critically there endangeredare now many languages, learners of asthe you may potential scenarios: a) all of the speakers of a given Above: Elder Melda Lambert shares her art and hymns translated language is trickier than others. The most into her first language, Arikara, a Native American language language pass away; or b) speakers of a language spoken in North Dakota. Photo: Ajuawak Kapashesit, 2016. decide to stop using that language and shift to using Reproduced with permission on the language. Things like grammar texts, letters, recall, are the languages with very few speakers another language. The next part of the definition recordings, interviews, linguistic notes, and archives who are of the great-grandparent generation. references “domains.” Domains are areas of use for often make up the backbone of the resources for These languages are in a dire position, and the 64 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 65 work of documenting and revitalizing them can “teaching” the language, only with using it as one aspectcommon of words any revitalizationsuch as computer, plan, cell in phone,order orto they overcame them. There are plenty of useful be the most pressing of all to prevent more cases normally would. After all, your parents never gave Facebook! Creating words for these is an important resources that can help you on this journey (see of language extinction. A method for helping you formal lessons in your first language, you just some examples in Further Reading). to revitalize these languages that has grown picked it up. The goal of these language nests has expand domains and make it easier and easier in popularity around the world is the Master– been to recreate this natural learning situation for speakers to continue using the language to Remember that this work is slow. Nobody learns Apprentice training method. This method takes with the target language of Māori. These nests reference aspects of their everyday lives. Further, a language overnight, and no community will an elderly speaker of the language and partners have been shown to be quite successful in the work it is important for both Māori and Irish to work to either. Like flowers, only with constant care and them one on one with a younger learner of the of getting“Much youth asto usein the the plant language. and animal ensure that the revitalized language is not just the the right environment will these languages grow. language for extended periods of time. During this kingdoms, there is a spectrum of language of the school. To guarantee its survival, linguisticMuch as itdiversity. is the case with our plant and animal time, the elder speaker (Master) will use only the endangerment for languages.” children need to use it on the playground as well relatives, it is up to all of us to save our world’s target language to communicate with the student as in the classroom. It is up to adults to show (Apprentice) as they learn to navigate everyday youth that the target language is appropriate in all Reversing Language Shift. situations. It’s like how Yoda trains Luke in the Star domains, not just the required ones. An important aspect of this system is the Wars original trilogy. This process, first launched Fishman, J. A. (1991). cultural reinforcement that occurs concurrently So now that we’ve defined endangered languages Further Reading The Green Book in California, has proven to have some success whanau, Philadelphia, PA: Multilingual Matters. with language learning. Māori culture includes an and learned about how some communities have of Language Revitalization in Practice in language revitalization if both Master and aspect of a kinship community, known as revitalized them, what are some of the most Hinton, L., & Hale, K. L. (Eds.). (2001). Apprentice are faithful to the system. . San Diego, CA: which is importantwhanau both for cultural practices and important things to save a language in your We still live here Academic Press. A shared aspect between definitively and language nests. The speakers and staff who work community? First, learn and collect everything you (Âs Nutayuneân) severely endangered languages is the idea of a in the nest are the of the children involved. can about it: dictionaries, grammars, recordings, Makepeace, A. (Director). (2011). [Documentary]. United States: language being moribund. Moribund means that It is because of these ties that the language nest and any information on current speakers of the Language Makepeace Productions. the speakers of the language are adults; children model works to become self-sufficient as speakers language. These are the resources you will need vitality do not use the language. This was the situation and staff work together to ensure the success of to learn to best understand the language. Second, Summer Institute of Linguistics. (n.d.). . Retrieved from http://www.sil.org/about/ of Māori in New Zealand. In the 1970s, most of the nests. The program became wildly successful in understand and define as thoroughly as possible Language Vitality and endangered-languages/language-vitality the fluent Māori speakers were forty or older, the country, leading to further education through what is lacking for the level of language vitality you Endangerment which worried many about the language’s future. the medium of Māori that has created many more want to help attain, and define some reasonable UNESCO. (2003). young speakers of the language. goals you can work towards. Examples of this . Paris, France: UNESCO. Because of this, there was a movement in the Project history Māori community to reinforce Māori language can be getting kids to learn some of the language Te Kohanga Reo, Unsafe languages are used by children and adults Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. (n.d.). and culture. One of the things that came out of this or growing the domains that it is used in. Each alike, but are not used in every language domain; . Retrieved from http://www.wlrp.org/ movement was the creation of language will be different. Then, create a plan project-history.html thus, there is a level of erosion of the language. One which translates as “the Language Nest.” The nests to reach those goals. Read examples of language language facing this level of endangerment is the Irish communities that faced similar issues and how are designed for children ranging in ages from language. The Irish people have had great success one to six. These children are put in a daycare- in recent decades with revitalizing their language like setting with speakers who are not tasked with through making it an official language of Ireland as well as making it mandatory in school. Though not all Irish people consider themselves fluent speakers creatingof the language, a space formost a language are familiar community with it. outsideThe work of of several Irish radio stations has been dedicated to

established speaking communities. One of the main tasks that come with this tremendous work has been the creation of new tovocabulary discuss many for theof today’s Irish language. most pressing As a issues. news- distributing structure, Irish radio needs to be able Above: Arikara elder Melda Lambert records narratives about her life and experiences for her family to have. Economic development, political campaigns, and Two generations of Hidatsa and Arikara speakers remember their childhoods and their languages. From left: Victoria Elk, Melda Lambert, Shirley Photo: Ajuawak Kapashesit, 2016. Reproduced with permission military actions are just some of the concepts Grady, Eleanor Hale Sorenson, Martha Birdbear, Mary Elk, Mary Gachupin. Photo: Ajuawak Kapashesit, 2016. Reproduced with permission often discussed today; few endangered languages have terms to discuss these—let alone for more 66 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 67 land and health

the themes of . They decided that the goal of whom Carroll had previously interviewed individually. the project would be to promote conservation of tribal lands At this first meeting in October 2008, the group agreed and resources within the Cherokee Nation through images that they represented perhaps the last generation to have and voiceovers that convey their concerns about current been reared with a significant amount of plant knowledge, land use and community health in northeastern Oklahoma. and that now was the time to reverse its decline. They discussed how plants and Cherokee ancestral knowledge Native peoples have long transmitted knowledge through were mutually dependent: when plants are threatened by stories, and storytelling continues to be a powerful means development or other activities, so is the knowledge of of communicating information in tribal communities today. those plants; conversely, when Cherokee knowledge fades Photovoice is one way of employing recent technology in through lack of transmission, so does the significance the service of these rich storytelling traditions. A Photovoice continued protection. project distributes cameras to individuals, asking them of wild plants in Cherokee culture—and therefore their “Plants and Cherokee ancestral Cherokee Voices for the Land knowledge are mutually dependent: when gives voice to the elders’ plants are threatened by development perspectives on land and plant conservation, while also or other activities, so is the knowledge guiding tribal policy toward this urgent end. The film integrates the individual photos and voiceovers of the of those plants; conversely, when Medicine Keepers and serves as a platform for their collective Cherokee knowledge fades through lack voice on land and health issues in the Cherokee Nation. It of transmission, so does the significance also emphasizes how the Cherokee language intersects these issues as a key component of cultural vitality and place-based of wild plants in Cherokee culture—and knowledge. Ranging from childhood stories about growing therefore their continued protection.” up on the land to commentary on contemporary land use and the effects of industrial pollution, the video presents critical Cherokee perspectives on the connections between language, knowledge, and the environment. It is a call for Cherokees— and all people—to “honor the earth” by recognizing the spirit to photographically document places in their community thatFurther resides in Reading all life and that connects us all. Cherokee Voices related to a defined topic or question. With participants’ Text by Clint Carroll guidance, a researcher compiles the photographs into a Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany presentable format that conveys the community’s voice and Cherokee Environmental Governance. Minneapolis, Carroll, C. (2015). for the Land in a visual form—a slideshow, collage, or still-image documentary. Through the power of imagery, and through Cherokee Voices for the Land MN: University of Minnesota Press. Photovoice film by the Cherokee the eyes of community members themselves, Photovoice Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal promotes critical dialogue and new knowledge about Nation Medicine Keepers is a still-image documentary Jennings,and Indigenous D., & Lowe,Community J. (2013). Health, Photovoice: 11 Giving voice film that displays the perspectives of the Cherokee Nation community-defined issues. to Indigenous youth. Medicine Keepers in relation to land, language, and health The establishment of the Cherokee Nation Medicine (3), 521–537. A and broadcasts their mission to conserve tribal lands and Keepers marks a critically important time in Cherokee mid the ever-present concerns throughout Jernigan, V. B. B., Salvatore, A. L., Styne, D. M., & perpetuate Cherokee environmental knowledge for future history and affords a unique opportunity to confront Indigenous communities over the health and vitality Winkleby, M. (2012). Addressing food insecurity in a generations. The Medicine Keepers are an incorporated pressing questions about land conservation and its Health Education Research, of our people, lands, and ways of life, our elders represent Native American reservation using community-based group of fluent-speaking Cherokee elders in Oklahoma, USA, relevance to human health. The group formed in 27 sources of knowledge and wisdom that we rely on for participatory research. and they work closely with the office of the tribal Secretary tandem with Carroll’s previous work on a tribally-led guidance and direction. Yet, increasingly, traditional ways of Natural Resources in advancing this mission. In May (4), 645–655. ethnobotany project through the Cherokee Nation Office of passing down knowledge through person-to-person 2015, they met with facilitator Dr. Clint Carroll (University diversity. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, of Environmental Protection from 2004 to 2007. A number relationships and kinship bonds have to compete with of Colorado, Boulder) to design a Photovoice project around Maffi, L. (2005). Linguistic, cultural, and biological Above: The Cherokee Nation Medicine Keepers, with staff and Cherokee Nation of cultural roadblocks inhibited the ethnobotany project— 599–617. dispersed tribal populations and the dazzling array of officials. Standing L to R: Clint Carroll, Pat Gwin, Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin, technology preferred by today’s youth. In this context, how Jr., David Crawler, John Ross, Roger Vann, David Scott, Durbin Feeling, Ryan from taboos surrounding discussions of plant medicine Wang, C. C., & Burris, M. A. (1997). Photovoice: can our elders effectively communicate their knowledge Mackey, Ed Fields, Kevin Daugherty, Deputy Chief S. Joe Crittenden. Seated L to to skepticism about placing such knowledge in a tribal needs assessment. Health Education & Behavior, and perspectives on pressing issues to tribal officials, R: Glenna Smith, Crosslin Smith, Anna Sixkiller, Nancy Rackliffe. Photo: Cherokee database. In response, Carroll and Cherokee Nation Natural 24Concept, methodology, and use for participatory Nation Communications Department, 2014 youth, and the general tribal population? How can media Resources Supervisor Pat Gwin called together numerous technology be harnessed in the service of this goal? elders who had expressed interest in the project, and (3), 369–387. 68 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 69 Film Details

Title: Cherokee Voices for the Land Medium: Digital still image video with voiceover (in Cherokee and English), music, and nature sounds Running time: Approximately 30 minutes URL: http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/ Volume_5/cherokee_voices_for_the_landFor more information about the Medicine Keepers and “Cherokee Voices for the Land,” you can contact Prof. Clint Carroll at the University of Colorado, Boulder: clint. [email protected].

Inset Top - John Ross: “My father used to tell me that in all the plants that we see is medicine. …Every plant was important to Cherokees.” Photo: John Ross, 2015 Inset Center - John Ross: “The language goes along with our culture. We’ve got names for all these plants…and if we don’t protect that, we’re going to lose it all.” Photo: Crosslin Smith, 2015 Inset Bottom - Bonnie Kirk: “Our plant medicine doesn’t just cover the illness up [like Western medicine], it heals you from the inside out.” Photo: Bonnie Kirk, 2015 Below - Bonnie Kirk: “[The] medicine you take from the woods—you do not take all of it, just what you need.” Photo: Bonnie Kirk, 2015

Top Left - Crosslin Smith: “We need to honor the “Native peoples have long transmitted earth. The ancestors said the Creator put a spirit in the earth.” Photo: Crosslin Smith, 2015 knowledge through stories, and Inset Top - Ed Fields: “They’d talk about… a long storytelling continues to be a powerful time ago [when] there were so many trees that you couldn’t see the sky.” Photo: Ed Fields, 2015 means of communicating information Inset Bottom - Ed Fields: “[The forest] was like in tribal communities today. a big Wal-Mart… So, they lived off the land, Photovoice is one way of employing in other words.” Photo: Ed Fields, 2015 Bottom Left - Anna Sixkiller: “Health comes from the recent technology in the service of land, and how we take care of the people and the land.” these rich storytelling traditions.” Photo: Anna Sixkiller, 2015

70 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 71 “The Photovoice video presents critical Cherokee perspectives on the connections between language, knowledge, and the environment.”

Top - Phyllis Edwards: “When we were growing up there used to be a lot of cane, but now there’s not that much.” Photo: Phyllis Edwards, 2015 Inset Top - David Scott: “This is what Cherokees like to see—undeveloped land. There’s medicine out there.” Photo: David Scott, 2015 Inset Bottom - David Scott: “If we could all learn to use what’s out there, we would be a lot healthier than what we are today.” Photo: David Scott, 2015 Below - Nancy Scott: “I think if we take better care of the land, it will take better care of us.” Photo: David Scott, 2015

Top Left - Roger Vann: “To everyone else, that ain’t nothing but a thorn, but man it’s useful to the Cherokee people.” Photo: Roger Vann, 2015 Top Right - Roger Vann: “See, this stuff needs loving—just as much as me and you need loving.” Photo: Ed Fields, 2015 Above - Crosslin Smith: “Everything that they had at that time, and that we have at this time, comes from the soil—comes from the earth.” Photo: Crosslin Smith, 2015

72 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 73 Faith Baisden, Thomas Dick, Yamani Carolyn Barker, and Kristina Kelman Voices of an Ancient Land F Yamani: Voices of an Ancient Land, or tens of thousands of years, the rich and beautiful The film, also titled sounds of hundreds of different languages washed can be viewed at the link provided below. It illustrates across Australia. Over all of the continent it is believed the power of language, the strength of identity, and the there were more than five hundred languages at one time. way in which pride in Indigenous cultures can be shared Around two hundred years ago, a new language began to through contemporary song. The Further Reading / replace them, sweeping across the land with such force Viewing / Listening list below includes links to two other that some parts of it could no longer hear the voices that films, one that shares Ethel Munn’s story and another told its stories and held its secrets. A deep silence seemed from Joyce Bonner. These two films help to provide some to be looming. background to the Yamani project. “Yamani means ‘rainbow’ in the Warrgamay language, and as Then, finally, a change began. As the volume of the old theWarrgamay name for this elder, group Bridget it reflects Priman, the comingexplains: together of words faded to a whisper in some places, the people who different people and languages in a rainbow of song.” are their custodians began to take action, calling for respect, for the rights to speak and be heard in their traditional tongues, while stirring everyone to appreciate the treasury of knowledge held in the first languages of Australia. “Yamani: Knowledge holders from other communities joined Voices of an Ancient“Language Land” is partcultural of that identity call. with Bridget to create this musical rainbow. They are encapsulated by song.” Ethel Munn (Gunggari), Leonora Adidi (Kalaw Kawaw Ya), Joyce Bonner (Butchulla), Faith Baisden (Yugambeh), and Melinda Holden (Warrgamay). They have come is an innovative together to produce eleven songs in five different Top: L to R - Leonora Adidi, Faith Baisden, and Joy Bonner on Yugambeh languages to share the many voices of Australian country. Country in 2014, after the song gathering at which the project was conceived. “Yamani: Voices of an Ancient Land” As this process empowers each language community Photo: Liz Warning, 2014 collaboration between the Queensland Indigenous through the opportunity to share Australia’s ancient Inset Top Left: Joy Bonner writing up “Mumma Warrunno,” Languages Advisory Committee (QILAC)—an Indigenous knowledge, so too does it empower these “Voices of at the first song session. Photo: Faith Baisden, 2014 language advocacy organization—and the Wantok Musik the Earth”: the people who continue to speak and share Inset Bottom Left: Ethel Munn recording with Solua Middleton. Foundation record label. More than just a recording, the Photo: Faith Baisden, 2014 Australia’sThe Yamani project first artists. languages. From L to R: LenoraForming Adidi (KalawQILAC Kawaw a decade Ya), Ethel ago,Munn results of this project include a fully-mastered CD with ten (Gunggari), Melinda Holden (Warrgamay), Faith Baisden (Yugambeh), Bridget Priman Inset Above: Bridget Priman and Ethel Munn at the first recording session. andsongs a rangein five of different performances. languages, a short film highlighting (Warrgamay), Joy Bonner (Butchulla). Photos: Faith Baisden, 2014 Photo: Faith Baisden, 2014 the impact that this project has had on the participants,

74 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 75 thestronger six women for many have years been to collaborating come. with the vision of making Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages

While some of the women were nervous at the start of the project, believing that they couldn’t sing or read music—let alone write music—that didn’t stop them. Committed to strengthening the many Indigenous languages of Queensland, they found that music was an excellent tool for learning one another’s languages. The film portrays the women’s journey and shows how the different stages of the language-learning, storytelling, and music-making process were significant to the women in

different ways. Joyce found that just writing down a song on paper was special, whereas Ethel was finally able to witness an old and sentimental songbook come to life at 84 years of age. The power of collaboration is portrayed especially though Leonora’s workshop with the other women, in which she turns a poem about her grandmother into a song. Bridget wrote a song about the Warrgamay creator and shared her cultural knowledge“We each of shared her region. songs in our languages with the others. We sing together in five languages, so we had to teach our language and learn the other four language,” . “It has been a wonderful, Top Left: Front cover of the Yamani CD. Credits: Liz Warning and challenging, and joyful experienceexplained which truly shows the Faith Baisden (photography), John Faunt (design), 2015. Top Right: Bridget Priman, Ethel Munn, and Joy Bonner at the first recording QILACpower ofChairperson music for sharing Joyce language.”Bonner Bottom Left: CD inside cover. Credits: Faith Baisden (photography), session. Photo: Faith Baisden, 2014 John Faunt (design), 2015. Center: The Yamani artists at the second rehearsal. Photo: Tom Dick, 2015 Top Right: Yamani CDs at the official launch performance during the Queensland Music Festival 2015. Photo: Leah Donovan, 2015. Above Inset: Faith Baisden, Joy Bonner, and Ethel Munn at the second recording All of the women participated in music and technology session. Photo: Carolyn Barker, 2015 Bottom Right: Yamani film screening at the State Library of Queensland, training for twelve months, proving that it is never too on the occasion of the official launch performance during the Queensland Right: Queensland Music Festival launch performance, 2015. late to learn new skills. With the assistance of a singing Photo: Leah Donovan, 2015 Music Festival 2015. Photo: Leah Donovan, 2015 coach, Kristina Kelman, the women learned how to use muscles and deep breathing to develop harmonies and 76 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 Volume 5 Issue 2 | 77 . nature . language . culture . Bottom: The Yamani Vocal Group running a song-sharing session for 80 other language workers at the Puliima: National Indigenous Languages and Technology Forum. L to R: Melinda Holden, Bridget Priman, Ethel Munn, Leonora Adidi, Joy Bonner and David Bridie. Photo: Katherine Soutar, 2015 Left: Pictured with the banner on display are QILAC members Leonora Adidi, Bridget Priman, Faith Baisden, Joy Bonner, and Melinda Holden. Photo: QILAC, 2013

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KEEP THE PRESSES ROLLING! LANGSCAPE MAGAZINE is an entirely not-for-profit publication and is made possible by your subscriptions as well as by your generous donations to Terralingua. Subscribe to Langscape Magazine www.terralinguaubuntu.org/subscribe Further Reading / Or Donate to Support Langscape Magazine find notes that they never knew they could reach. They Viewing / Listening www.terralinguaubuntu.org/donate then learned how to use new technology throughout Or Sponsor an Issue! the recording process, working with“Language award-winning is cultural First Languages Australia First languages composer David Bridie and Wantok Musik Foundation Australia http://firstlanguages.org.au/ www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/langscape-sponsorship identity encapsulated by song,” . (n.d.). to produce a CD. In David’s words, First Languages. Retrieved Australia from Gambay: Australian and Yamani illustrates languages map http://gambay.com.au/ that it is never too late to share this cultural identity by . (n.d.). . learning new languagesYamani: Voices and of new an Ancientsongs. Land video, go to: Queensland Indigenous. Retrieved Languages from Advisory Committee Banma Kiya https://vimeo.com/140554259 http://www.qilac.org.au/ Terralingua To view the UNITY IN BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY To view more images of the Yamani project artists and (n.d.). . Retrieved from Yamani: read their testimonials about their ancestral languages, VoicesQueensland of an ancient Indigenous land [CD Languages Advisoryhttps:// Terralingua n 1: the languages of the Earth, the many voices of the world’s diverse peoples. 2: the language of the Earth, the voice of Mother go to http://www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/ wantokmusik.bandcamp.com/album/yamani-voices-of-Committee and Wantok Music. (2015). Nature. 3: an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to sustain the biocultural diversity of life – a precious Volume_5/yamani. an-ancient-land ]. Retrieved from heritage to be cherished, protected, and nurtured for generations to come. ¶ From Italian terra ‘earth’ and lingua ‘language’

www.terralingua.org 78 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2016 "Stories are like ecosystems, with a community of meanings, interpretations, and systems interacting with their physical, cultural, and spiritual environments. As Indigenous Peoples have realized, all parts of the story matter." - Hēmi Whaanga and Priscilla Wehi