Indigenous Voices

Ray Young Bear on Meskwaki Spirituality

Ray Young Bear, a writer and member of the Meskwaki Nation, says that birds are important to Meskwaki spirituality. He says the reverence that Meskwaki culture has for birds and other living beings makes it essential to protect them and the places they live. And he wants more people to understand these aspects of animism, the form of spirituality found in Meskwaki religion and many other Indigenous traditions.

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Providing Homes to Purple Martins

In the Southeast, on the lands of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw, Purple Martins nested in dried gourds hung up by Native Americans. This relationship might have developed because Purple Martins defend their turf, says Kelly Applegate, a tribal member and Commissioner of Natural Resources for the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe. White settlers copied the practice and put up gourds and birdhouses, too. But they also cleared forests where martins once nested and introduced House Sparrows and starlings that drove them out of woodpecker holes. Purple Martins now depend almost entirely on artificial nest boxes to survive. Kelly is encouraging people to provide homes for martins.

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Learning to Sing from a Blackbird

Many years ago, when writer and musician Ray Young Bear was training his singing voice, he took a kind of vocal lesson from the blackbirds. “they have the most complicated song in the world — high pitches and low notes, and then it smooths out, then it kicks up again,” he says. “I would listen to them and try to imitate their singing.”

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Haley Scott on New York's Indigenous Landscapes

Haley Scott lives in the Bronx, where she helps other people experience the joy of New York’s wildlife as a bird walk leader. But she maintains a connection with another community of birds outside the city, on the Unkechaug Nation’s land, where she visits her dad’s side of the family. Leading bird walks in New York City with the Feminist Bird Club, Haley emphasizes the importance of recognizing the original inhabitants of the land, the Lenape. 

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A Grandchild’s Song for Robins

Ray Young Bear is a writer, musician and a member of Meskwaki Nation. He considers himself a word collector, writing poetry in both English and Meskwaki, his first language. And he enjoys taking photos of the birds around his home in Iowa. In the spring of 2021, he was spending time with his grandson, Ozzy Young Bear. He composed a song in Meskwaki about how his grandson enjoyed watching the robins hunt for earthworms. He later recorded the song for a music collection called For the Birds: The Birdsong Project. Over 200 musicians, artists and writers contributed, with proceeds going to the National Audubon Society.

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Bringing Condor Home

Tiana Williams-Claussen is a member of the Yurok Nation and Director of the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department. In this episode, she shares the story of how the California Condor, known as Prey-go-neesh in the Yurok language, went extinct on Yurok lands due to the environmental exploitation that followed the California Gold Rush. The Yurok Tribe has forged a partnership with the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring condors back home.

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Bird Names in Meskwaki

The poet Ray Young Bear writes in both English and Meskwaki, his first language. He says that the task of passing on Indigenous languages feels especially urgent now as linguistic scholars predict the loss of languages. 

The Meskwaki language is rich with bird names, like Tti Tti Ka Kwa Ha, the name for the robin, which emulates the bird’s song, he says. After decades of creating poems, novels, and songs, Ray Young Bear has dedicated himself to preserving and teaching his language and culture.

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