Hearing Others' Voices
In this volume, across eighteen lively chapters, Cécile Leguy, Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University (France), takes her readers to Mali, among the Bwa people, where she has conducted long-term fieldwork. Through a sequence of concise autobiographical anecdotes, told in simple and lucid prose, she recounts her experiences as a “naïve outsider” who, through the course of everyday interactions, encounters unfamiliar ways of thinking and speaking – oscillating between bewilderment and wonder. These successive revelations gradually lead her to become integrated into this new cultural world, for which she expresses a profound attachment. By way of such ordinary situations, the reader is invited to perceive what is truly exchanged in this society – between the lines of speech – thereby uncovering the rich complexity and subtlety of this verbal culture.
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THE BUSHMEN (SAN) OF AFRICA: More than 40,000 Years of Learning
Bushmen for San, the term many prefer) have lived in Africa for millennia. They live in tune with their harsh but complex environments. Often, they know a great deal about them. Some know more about botany and zoology than Western scientists! Bushmen today are thoroughly modern, and they have both their traditions and their modernity. The author spent many years living in the Kalahari with a Bushman group He learned their language and participated in their activities.
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When I think of grass, I think of parks, pasture and football pitches. I don’t think of rice fields, bamboo or sugarcane. I don’t think of clothing, furniture or beer. This book has opened my eyes to a new way of looking at grass. An extraordinary family of more than 10,000 grass species, it can be traced back some 50 million years. It is a family found in rain forests, deserts and mountains, from the Antarctic to the Sahara. It is a family on which most of the world’s population depends for a major portion of its diet: some 70% of agricultural crops are grasses. In an easy-to-read, well-informed style, David Campbell Callender introduces the reader to the world of grass, and its uses from agriculture to medicine, cooking to construction; its association with mythology, symbolism and the arts; its importance to our wellbeing and well just so much more. After reading this book, I am quite sure that next time you eat a bucket of popcorn, or chop up a piece of lemon grass for a Thai curry, you will stop just for a moment and contemplate on one of the most extraordinary plant families on the planet – and the significance of the colour green. I know I will.
Hilary Macmillan, Consultant Head of Communication, Vincent Wildlife Trust
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In 2014 I wrote an article called, A Fifty-Year Cartographic Journey to help celebrate the Society of University Cartographers 50th anniversary. The central cartographic theme of this little autobiographical book, Desirable Destinations, concentrates around the structure of that article. Additional text describes certain aspects of the profession such as training, changing technologies, practical aspects, specific projects undertaken and the pressures on resources and systems within organisations. Some of the text describes the minutiae of work that a cartographic draughtsman undertakes in the making of a map. Whenever anyone asks me what is the fundamental requirement for being a cartographer I say, patience. The taking part is often tedious and boring, but eventually very rewarding when you complete a piece of work. If you want to know more about contemporary cartography please see the Links section. I do mention maps that I have been involved with, such as topographic maps and those that emphasise spatial variation of human issues such as population density or prevalence of diseases. These are the maps I have been most involved with, primarily, but not exclusively, in educational settings. Life’s Journey is also about beginnings, places and learning, and highlights a myriad of experiences and surprises that add a patina to the main event. Hence the sections on early life and encounters along the way that help put my cartographic meandering into context.
Available from the author
In shamanism, there are two paths. The first always occurs involuntarily and unexpectedly when one has been chosen by an invisible entity (spirit, ancestor or master of the forest), most often during a traumatic event (illness, accident or Near Death Experience). However, the second path requires that one expresses his will to develop his powers with master shamans by means of rituals and initiation trials. For anyone who has never had the opportunity to be challenged by supernatural entities, the
second path not only allows to meet them in order to ask for a spiritual development, but also to recover shamanic powers apparently lost. This is the path that Fermín followed during seven years of dieting and learning incantations, to ‘see’ and ‘extract’ diseases of the body, and even travel as
a jaguar in unsuspected worlds.
About the Authors
Laurent Fontaine is a linguistic anthropologist who received his PhD at Sorbonne University in 2001, and has dedicated himself to the transcription, translation and study of the oral literature of the Yucuna and Tanimuca Indians in the Colombian Amazon. Fermín Rodríguez Yucuna is one of the last Yucuna-
speaking shamans, called lawichú (or brujo in Spanish), who are generally considered by Yucuna Indians as the most powerful medicine-men.
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