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TOPIC: A dream I have regarding Native languages, native trees
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/dfa63f79449c286b?hl=en
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Date: Sun, Oct 28 2007 8:11 am
From: "Grace Nichols"
Good Morning, Friends:
When I hiked on the Mohawk Trail (I have not yet found Dunbar Brook
-- so you see I am a newbie), I thought about how in old growth
spots, these trees had grown up hearing their original names in the
Mohawk Language, maybe Abenaki or other Algonquin languages.
They must miss it, hearing their original names.
So I have long wanted to have a project which would give the Mohawk
name for the tree, the other two or so names for the tree, the
linnaean name and the English popular name on a little sign next to
the tree.
I know that Jake Thomas has an herbarium where they known the names
of many trees and plants....I would imagine that Ndakinna Center
might know sources for Algonquin tree names.
I do not know these languages at all. But I'd like to gain
familiarity and I'd like the ordinary hiker to be reminded of the
beautiful relationship between humans and trees that predated this
one.
What I see is a bunch of us in a room with pieces of wood and
woodburning tools and polyurethane (or more green alternative)
making little attractive multilingual labels. Then getting
permission from the Massachusetts department of conservation
(whatever their name is) to put them up here and there. Perhaps if
we learn to pronounce these names and whisper them to the trees, it
will make them happy.
In a good relationship, the humans try to make the trees happy as
they give to us in so many ways.
Well, that's my idea.
Grace Nichols
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