Birds through Indigenous Eyes: Native American Understanding of Birds of the Eastern Woodlands

(Hardback)

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An intimate and personal account of the profound role birds play in Native American life and spirituality

For many hours over a period of years, anthropologist Dennis Gaffin recorded his conversations with two Native American friends, Michael Bastine and John Volpe, about a shared passion: the birds of upstate New York and southern Ontario. In these lively, informal talks, Bastine, an Algonquin and Ojibwe healer and naturalist, and Volpe, an Ojibwe naturalist and animal rehabilitator, shared their experiences of, and beliefs about, birds, describing the profound spiritual, psychological, and social roles and meanings of birds in the lives of some Native Americans. Birds through Indigenous Eyes presents highlights of these conversations, placing them in context and showing how Native understandings of birds contrast with conventional Western views.

Bastine and Volpe bring to life Algonquin, Ojibwe, and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) beliefs about birds. They reveal how specific birds and bird species are seamlessly integrated into spirituality and everyday thought and action, how birds bring important messages to individual people, how a bird species can become associated with a person, and how birds provide warnings about our endangered environment. In these conversations, birdsincluding the house sparrow, Eastern phoebe, Northern flicker, belted kingfisher, gray catbird, cedar waxwing, and black-capped chickadeeemerge as spiritual and practical helpers that can teach humans how to live well.

An original work of ethno-ornithology that offers a rare close-up look at Native American views on birds, Birds through Indigenous Eyes opens rich new perspectives on the deep connections between birds and humans.

Author Bio

Dennis Gaffin is professor emeritus of anthropology at SUNY Buffalo State University and the Great Lakes Center for Environmental Research and Education. Michael Bastine is a healer and naturalist of Algonquin and Ojibwe descent and a member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation of Ontario. John Volpe is a naturalist and animal rehabilitator of Ojibwe descent and a member of the Nipissing First Nation of Ontario.