Oh, thank you for that wonderful link! I’d never known that about the alphabet. This reminds me of a time when I was working out at the saguaro harvest with the Tohono O’odham and a group of medical anthropologists came out to study all the native names for the desert plants. Many of the original O’odham names for these held little secrets about the plant or mineral, like how they were used medicinally, practically, or ritually. One of the anthropologists had just been in the Brazilian Amazon trying to record all of the indigenous plant names before they were lost to history, since so many of those languages are going extinct. She mentioned that there are probably thousands of medicines we may never know because the indigenous wisdom held in their names had been lost to time.
Eric, this is wonderful. This is my favourite poem from what you’ve shared. Thank you for spreading the love, the home and the belonging.
I came across this a day or so ago and thought you might like the way it speaks about the land (my adopted homeland)
https://read.nxtbook.com/trees_for_life/caledonia_wild/caledonia_wild_spring_summer_2025/a_gaelic_view_of_coexistence.html
Oh, thank you for that wonderful link! I’d never known that about the alphabet. This reminds me of a time when I was working out at the saguaro harvest with the Tohono O’odham and a group of medical anthropologists came out to study all the native names for the desert plants. Many of the original O’odham names for these held little secrets about the plant or mineral, like how they were used medicinally, practically, or ritually. One of the anthropologists had just been in the Brazilian Amazon trying to record all of the indigenous plant names before they were lost to history, since so many of those languages are going extinct. She mentioned that there are probably thousands of medicines we may never know because the indigenous wisdom held in their names had been lost to time.