SubscribeSeptember 4th, 2009
Talk to plants and proud of it; some of them even answer back
I am in a hotel room. It’s civil twilight, just before dawn. The day of the wedding, the air is cool coming in the open windows, the sky as it lightens looks clear. This morning at 10 we will drive up to the reservation to start the visiting process.
When I crossed the Columbia yesterday and pulled off the road at the horse monument (yesterday’s posted photo) I could smell the sage brush. It’s a smell I find incredibly welcoming; I felt welcomed, like by a relative. It’s exactly the same feeling I get when I run across a friend I haven’t seen in ages, that quick glad burst of happiness, the sense of familiarity, belonging, family.
In anthropology, thinking of the non-human world as your relations is called fictive kinship. I’ve always felt a quick stab of irritation at the world that lies behind that term. I mean really, you think I don’t know that the very many different kinds of sagebrush or rabbitbrush or yarrow comes into being through a different process than human beings do? What the term fictive kinship does is establish the value system of the namers as primary and in that process it ignores the value system of the named.
When someone says “badger is my sister” she isn’t confused about who actually fell out of her mother’s human womb, she is saying that what it means to be a sister has nothing to do with coming out of the same womb and everything to do with how we behave to each other and what responsibilities we have to one another. Kinship for some people is not about biology. It is about relationship and behavioural expectations.
A term like sister-in-law, or step-son prioritizes biology. Terms like these originate in a cultural world that needs to establish biological kinship to enable practices of primogeniture. That is, it was once critically important for a land owner to know who his biological son was so he could correctly pass on his wealth at his death. Kinship terminology like daughter-in-law reflects that value system even if we no longer live as deeply inside its social mores.
So I cross the Columbia and my naming practices take a sideways step. And so, Hello Sagebrush! Damn but you smell good. Yes, it’s long-lost me Buckbrush! Care to share some leaves? Nice crop Elderberry! Wow, Rowan! Looking good! Stars Serviceberry, have you ever grown! Hey! Oregon Grape! You been drinking acid rain again? You’re looking a little like you been through the wars. Mugwort! Is that really you? Holy cow, someone stomped you but good! Going to be here next year? Yes. Oh good. See you then.
BTW, Fred Bentler has a lovely site with some really nice picture of plants from Eastern Washington.
August 13th, 2011 at 4:34 am
I feel quite at home with that idea; as a young child, I used to feel in resonance with the winds and the trees which swayed about.
August 13th, 2011 at 7:13 am
I wonder sometimes if there could be an empirical study looking at an increase in pleasure (fMRI, perhaps) through being on a first-name basis with the plants in the person’s local area. I suspect that allowing plants to be “fictive” kin would increase our sense of responsibility to the earth, and that our load of personal happiness would get heavier.
December 3rd, 2011 at 9:35 pm
I do sense that the term “fictive kin” is misleading, since in a deep way, the plants and us are related on the Tree of Life. But this sort of connection is somewhat hard to see directly, except through personal experience and the best of our understanding of the world.
December 4th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
To put in a good word here, some anthropologists are starting to abandon the term “fictive kinship” since it is apparent that not all societies structure “family” through genetic relationship. The West’s obsession with “true” children (that is of genetic relationship to the daddy and therefore with rights to his property) has been disrupted by the change in gender relations and technology with respect to childbearing, and this is showing up in theory. Still, the emotional tenacity in the idea of human separateness means that we have a long way to go before our society can encompass non-human life as “related” in a significant way. We just managed to get the notion of other humans of different colour (etc) as kin. It’s probably going to take a while before we accept the furry and feathered.
December 10th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
“We just managed to get the notion of other humans of different colour (etc) as kin. It’s probably going to take a while before we accept the furry and feathered.”
I wonder how well the indigenous peoples of North America see non-human animals as kin, as compared with the migrant population of Europeans into the United States.
I do suspect, though, that when we have a deeper understanding of our natural origins, we may also consider (as did Carl Sagan) non-living entities as kin, like the stars. It’s an interesting possibility, though.
December 11th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
That thing about how the indigenous see non-human animals is a huuuuuuuge thing. The ones I know have no simple position with regard to how the self relates to the non-self – no more than any other human being. The deal is that the patterns of relationship differ, but they kill, pollute, maim and take up space just as much as do Europeans and other non-indigenous people. At least in my experience. But on this – you know I feel some posts coming on about this. Partly this is because in the last few days I’ve been in an environment that feels so much like home (and the Rez) that I am astounded – and having a hard time leaving. Yet there isn’t an Indian in sight. Well – none that are copping to it.