The Ravenmaster by Christopher Skaife

Author:Christopher Skaife
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

17

SPEAKING IN RAVENISH

Yes, I talk to the ravens. And yes, they talk to me.

Or at least, I imitate them, and they imitate me.

I’m not exactly Doctor Dolittle, but I suppose I have developed a way of communicating with them over the years that seems to work for us all. I always say “Good morning” to them. And “Good night.” And I speak to them—in English—during the day. I’ve also developed a few raven calls and sounds, which they seem to respond to, though I don’t exactly know how—birdsong and bird communication are such complex things and I can’t pretend to fully understand it. People spend their whole lives studying birdsong. I’m merely a practitioner.

Here’s what I do know. The name of the raven, Corvus corax, comes from the Greek korax, meaning a croaker, but ravens in fact make a much deeper sound than the more familiar sound of a crow’s croaking, which sounds like “caw-caw” and which sort of rattles and clicks. That’s not the sound of a raven at all. A raven’s call sounds hoarse, but when you listen to it carefully, it’s also rather resonant—and commanding. It carries with it an authority that is entirely lacking in your common or garden crow’s croak. The Bella Bella Indians, the Heiltsuk, the indigenous people of British Columbia, revered the raven in their culture, calling him “The One Whose Voice Is to Be Obeyed.” If not to be obeyed, it’s certainly a voice to be listened to. Comparing it to a crow’s call I’d describe it as more of a “cronk” than a “caw.” I’ve read many studies in which raven calls are variously described as “pruk,” “kruk,” “quork,” “kaah,” “krrk,” “nuk,” “tok,” “cr-r-ruck,” “kwulkulkul,” and, for some reason, “wonk-wonk,” but perhaps Dickens comes closest when he describes a raven’s voice as a sound “not unlike the drawing of some eight or ten dozen of long corks.” Exactly! It’s the sound of the drawing of corks. Maybe that’s why I love it. Some of the latest research suggests that there are eighty distinct raven calls, with regional dialects and variations. I could probably identify a dozen or so calls from our birds.

Learning basic raven, what I refer to as Ravenish, involves becoming familiar with the pitch and length of the birds’ calls. Of course, each bird sounds different, though fortunately a lot of the communication is perfectly obvious: they’re often calling out in defense of their territory, for example, or in a general call of challenge. It’s also common for ravens to mimic other birds and all sorts of other sounds: car alarms, road traffic signals. In the stories and legends of the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast—the Tlingit, the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Heiltsuk, the Miwok, and many others—the raven often features as a kind of trickster figure who takes on the form of humans, animals, and inanimate objects in order to deceive others. Merlina has certainly learned to mimic some strange sounds in order to get what

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