Language, one of the core human properties, connects us to the land and water, for it is through language that much of our worldview is shaped. In his book Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape, Manchán Magan explores the history of a language — in this case, Irish — and a landscape that is inextricably linked.
“Our landscape now looks like an increasingly anonymous expanse of indistinguishable fields, yet seen through the Irish language each field has its own word, depending on its characteristics and function,” Magan writes. “To a city-dweller this land may all look the same, and in English each would probably be just referred to as a field, yet to someone whose ancestors have been cultivating the land, growing grain and tending cattle for over four thousand years, and who has built up the soil over centuries by hauling seaweed from the shore and burning limestone to add alkalinity, they look very different.”
Many Native American languages contain numerous words for “water,” and these various shadings describe its different qualities and functions. It’s a level of complexity that attests to water’s cultural significance in indigenous societies. One can’t help but wonder how many words the Mississippian people had for “water” at the Bottle Creek site, a part of the Delta so complex and mysterious as to defy description in English.
In his latest novel The Promise of the Pelican, Roy Hoffman draws on Mobile Bay for inspiration. For Hoffman, the Bay is a character in and of itself, as kaleidoscopic and varied as any individual. As he tells Virginia Kinnier in this issue: “If you look at Mobile Bay every day, you’ll know that it can be like the person you live with; it’s the same person each day, of course, but that person has moods and expressions and gestures.”
Hoffman may not be coining new words for “bay,” but he is exploring its dynamics and nuances through long-form storytelling. “I once followed along with a bar pilot for an article I wrote,” he says, “so I know the eeriness of the fog in the morning and what the bell buoys sound like before you can even see them, so I was able to draw on those experiences to add more realistic elements to the story.”
It is these nuances — the “eeriness of the fog” and “what the bell buoys sound like” — that give shape to the story of Mobile Bay, and, ultimately, the story of those who live on its shores.
Cormac McCarthy once wrote that things separate from their stories have no meaning, that they are merely objects without a sense of place or purpose. It is only through storytelling, one of his characters contended, that things start to possess a history and a sense of meaning emerges.
We are losing our storytelling traditions in this country and losing them fast. Local newspapers were once a place for common ground, a forum where we could all learn about the day’s events and about each other. Our daily gazettes were far from perfect, but they were vital to the health of a community. The social networking sites we have today position users in a feedback loop that fuels tribalism and division. Controversial content is amplified and puts us at each other’s throats. All nuance is lost, and it is that nuance that gives stories their human quality and allows for empathy and understanding.
This issue tells the story of Peter Frank, a young man from Michigan who is traversing the six-thousand miles of the Great Loop in a canoe, much of it up-current. He is connected to the land in ways I cannot imagine, and I wonder how many words he has for “water” inside his head. We hope his story inspires you. If it does, please consider supporting CURRENTS and the preservation of our culture through storytelling. By doing so you’re helping preserve the waters and land that create those stories.
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Caine O'Rear 