The Eighth Continent: Life, Death and Discovery in the Lost World of Madagascar, Peter Tyson
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1mirrani
This was an incredible book, not because it was some kind of awesome writing or amazing adventure, but because it captured the experience. The preface talks about what it was like to see some of the local tribespeople react to an outsider who doesn't think twice about picking up a snake. (Locals won't touch them, no matter how harmless.) The end of the preface sets up the book perfectly...
In this book, I will address each of these questions in depth. At the same time, I hope to give you a taste of what it's like, among other things, to watch a group of Bara tribespeople go wild over a snake.
You really have to read it to get the full impact, but I wasn't going to let this comment go unnoticed. I had made a note "I hope all of this book is as entertaining and friendly" and it was. It had me looking up everything from Indri song to giraffe beetles to cave entrances and sharing all of it on facebook. The best way to make someone feel for a place is to make them feel the place itself and this book certainly does that.
Behave like the chameleon: Look forward and observe behind. p15
This book has a different Malagasy proverb at the beginning of each chapter. Some are more striking than others.
Last night I spotted a bright-green gecko high on a palm leaf and began suggesting all manner of surely doomed ways to catch it. Almost in a whisper, Raxworthy said, "Let's just let him come along here," as he effortlessly ushered the fleet creature into his hands. He might as well have coaxed a squirrel into his lap.p25
I think this was my favorite of all the people the author worked with.
There is a point in the book where the author is trying to explain "fady" which is like taboo in Malagasy culture. There are lots of things that are fady and it's hard to explain and keep up with, but he retells a story from Raxworthy that sets everything straight very quickly:
"He wasn't getting it, so I said there are lots of fady in the States, only we don't call them fady," Raxworthy says. "He said, 'no, there aren't.' I said, 'Yes, there are. There are a lot of things you don't do because it's fady.' He said, 'Like what?' I said, 'Like if you wanted to take a pee in the classroom or the girls bathroom, it would be fady. And he sort of thought about it for a second and said, 'Yeah.'" p30
See, I said I liked this guy.
In the midst of luxuriating in silence, I've found myself thinking, all in the space of seconds, Hmm, it's so quiet, it's really /quiet/, how come it's so quiet, why is it so damn LOUD? before realizing that the sicadas have got me again. You forget about them until suddenly you realize the whole forest is shaking with the intensity of their noise, and your head with it. p42
Excellent experience sharing here!
These unnamed ancestors are still revered, but it's the recent dead, particularly those who were deemed most wise or noted during their lifetimes, whom the Malagasy consult, just as the Christians consult God or Muslims Allah. p110
I had a problem with this because God and Allah are the same.
"We're the last generation that has the freedom to implement conservation policy on Madagascar," Raxworthy says. "After about the next twenty years what is left outside of reserves probably won't be worth saving." p126
It's true and it hurts, but it needs to hurt for people to realize what's going on and how important everything is.
Bullock in a crocodile's jaws: Willing, or unwilling, he must go.
Another proverb that I liked quite a lot.
Some of these creatures fell into or got trapped inside the cave and died over the past several thousand years. p129
Um... did I read that right? I ended up going back over it a few times, but it still sounded like it took several thousand years for the hippos to die.
There is a lot of repetition in this section in search of the Pygmy Hippo. I wasn't at all fond of it, which is a shame because I would have enjoyed being on the hunt with the author and this new team of people looking for what was once on Madagascar. It was an annoying thing to have to put up with. I appreciated all the descriptive stuff, but change up how you write it or don't include it. The whole writing style was totally different.
How long have people been coming here? Did they just make offerings or did they ever live here? (Burney found two postholes in this part of the cave.) What would they have thought to see how fascinated I am by their measly old fireplaces and smashed pots? p174
I often wonder what people from the past would think of our being so fascinated with their junk. We know in modern times about why archaeological stuff is important, but do we even think about it? Like this... probably when they were building parts of New York City they knew archaeology is important, but did anyone cutting the log pipes and putting them in the ground think that over a hundred years later, after a hurricane, someone would dig up those pipes and be amazed that /this/ was where their water had come from? What are others going to think hundreds of years from now when the same thing happens again? It's cool to think about, at least for me.
Finding any bones is exciting, but there's something about looking into eyes, even if they're just gaping holes where eyes once were. Bones appeal to the mind, but eyes stir the soul. p177
See, this could have been technical and it wasn't. Nice to read. It was little things like this that really threw you into the area and made you experience everything.
It's wrong to say there's a bridge, and yet be afraid to cross it." p239
Another proverb I took to.
Perhaps that's why I feel so uncomfortable with this tour. Here's this venerable old man, infinitely more knowledgeable than any of us of the ways of the world, not to mention bare survival, opening his house and sharing his most sacred customs with a crowd of total strangers. Was this, too, forced on him by poverty? Even if he chose this willingly, how long will it be before he becomes jaded, before he can't take the lack of respect shown by tourists like that punk kid? And what happens to his most cherished traditions when he shares them with people like that? How soon will they erode in the face of the juggernaut of modernization that we all represent? p322
There wasn't a lot to quote at the final 1/4 of the book, but what was really made you think.
"I do have this notion," Richard told me at Bemanevika, "that if everybody contributes a drop, there will eventually be an ocean." p333
Just loved this idea. And it keeps popping up for me recently.
I loved the ending, but I won't share it with you. Instead, I'll throw down some links in the next post and a review will follow that.
In this book, I will address each of these questions in depth. At the same time, I hope to give you a taste of what it's like, among other things, to watch a group of Bara tribespeople go wild over a snake.
You really have to read it to get the full impact, but I wasn't going to let this comment go unnoticed. I had made a note "I hope all of this book is as entertaining and friendly" and it was. It had me looking up everything from Indri song to giraffe beetles to cave entrances and sharing all of it on facebook. The best way to make someone feel for a place is to make them feel the place itself and this book certainly does that.
Behave like the chameleon: Look forward and observe behind. p15
This book has a different Malagasy proverb at the beginning of each chapter. Some are more striking than others.
Last night I spotted a bright-green gecko high on a palm leaf and began suggesting all manner of surely doomed ways to catch it. Almost in a whisper, Raxworthy said, "Let's just let him come along here," as he effortlessly ushered the fleet creature into his hands. He might as well have coaxed a squirrel into his lap.p25
I think this was my favorite of all the people the author worked with.
There is a point in the book where the author is trying to explain "fady" which is like taboo in Malagasy culture. There are lots of things that are fady and it's hard to explain and keep up with, but he retells a story from Raxworthy that sets everything straight very quickly:
"He wasn't getting it, so I said there are lots of fady in the States, only we don't call them fady," Raxworthy says. "He said, 'no, there aren't.' I said, 'Yes, there are. There are a lot of things you don't do because it's fady.' He said, 'Like what?' I said, 'Like if you wanted to take a pee in the classroom or the girls bathroom, it would be fady. And he sort of thought about it for a second and said, 'Yeah.'" p30
See, I said I liked this guy.
In the midst of luxuriating in silence, I've found myself thinking, all in the space of seconds, Hmm, it's so quiet, it's really /quiet/, how come it's so quiet, why is it so damn LOUD? before realizing that the sicadas have got me again. You forget about them until suddenly you realize the whole forest is shaking with the intensity of their noise, and your head with it. p42
Excellent experience sharing here!
These unnamed ancestors are still revered, but it's the recent dead, particularly those who were deemed most wise or noted during their lifetimes, whom the Malagasy consult, just as the Christians consult God or Muslims Allah. p110
I had a problem with this because God and Allah are the same.
"We're the last generation that has the freedom to implement conservation policy on Madagascar," Raxworthy says. "After about the next twenty years what is left outside of reserves probably won't be worth saving." p126
It's true and it hurts, but it needs to hurt for people to realize what's going on and how important everything is.
Bullock in a crocodile's jaws: Willing, or unwilling, he must go.
Another proverb that I liked quite a lot.
Some of these creatures fell into or got trapped inside the cave and died over the past several thousand years. p129
Um... did I read that right? I ended up going back over it a few times, but it still sounded like it took several thousand years for the hippos to die.
There is a lot of repetition in this section in search of the Pygmy Hippo. I wasn't at all fond of it, which is a shame because I would have enjoyed being on the hunt with the author and this new team of people looking for what was once on Madagascar. It was an annoying thing to have to put up with. I appreciated all the descriptive stuff, but change up how you write it or don't include it. The whole writing style was totally different.
How long have people been coming here? Did they just make offerings or did they ever live here? (Burney found two postholes in this part of the cave.) What would they have thought to see how fascinated I am by their measly old fireplaces and smashed pots? p174
I often wonder what people from the past would think of our being so fascinated with their junk. We know in modern times about why archaeological stuff is important, but do we even think about it? Like this... probably when they were building parts of New York City they knew archaeology is important, but did anyone cutting the log pipes and putting them in the ground think that over a hundred years later, after a hurricane, someone would dig up those pipes and be amazed that /this/ was where their water had come from? What are others going to think hundreds of years from now when the same thing happens again? It's cool to think about, at least for me.
Finding any bones is exciting, but there's something about looking into eyes, even if they're just gaping holes where eyes once were. Bones appeal to the mind, but eyes stir the soul. p177
See, this could have been technical and it wasn't. Nice to read. It was little things like this that really threw you into the area and made you experience everything.
It's wrong to say there's a bridge, and yet be afraid to cross it." p239
Another proverb I took to.
Perhaps that's why I feel so uncomfortable with this tour. Here's this venerable old man, infinitely more knowledgeable than any of us of the ways of the world, not to mention bare survival, opening his house and sharing his most sacred customs with a crowd of total strangers. Was this, too, forced on him by poverty? Even if he chose this willingly, how long will it be before he becomes jaded, before he can't take the lack of respect shown by tourists like that punk kid? And what happens to his most cherished traditions when he shares them with people like that? How soon will they erode in the face of the juggernaut of modernization that we all represent? p322
There wasn't a lot to quote at the final 1/4 of the book, but what was really made you think.
"I do have this notion," Richard told me at Bemanevika, "that if everybody contributes a drop, there will eventually be an ocean." p333
Just loved this idea. And it keeps popping up for me recently.
I loved the ending, but I won't share it with you. Instead, I'll throw down some links in the next post and a review will follow that.
2mirrani
http://www.visualphotos.com/image/1x5070718/anjohibe_cave_madagascar
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fuserpage.fu-berlin.de%2Fgkaufma%2Fc...
http://www.natgeocreative.com/photography/1370514
http://www.wildherps.com/species/Z.madagascariensis.html
http://franslanting.photoshelter.com/image/I0000_3WbDaoVbhg
I am seriously captivated by this section of my book, which is about Malagasy language and culture. Some samples for you:
Miala mandry - Made up of miala (leave, go away) and mandry (lie down, go to sleep) means "to spend the night away from home and yet be back in the early morning as if never having been away" when put together.
Words for tastes
tsy bani-mpandova - not to be eaten by an heir
mampiteny ny moana - making the dumb to speak
mitsatoka amy ny tranon' aina piercing into the house of life
(take from those translations what you will about what the taste is actually like)
One of my favorites is the following:
fihatsarambelatsiby - hypocrisy, literally translated: "the becoming good by spreading a mat." This comes from the cultural practice of hiding the every-day, worn sleeping mats when guests visit the house and putting out fresh, new ones.
And that's your read with me today.
Oh, and for all my friends and family in school... the word for taking a test is translated to "fight at writing."
http://fw.to/kIlCXoR
That's all of my facebook stuff. :)
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fuserpage.fu-berlin.de%2Fgkaufma%2Fc...
http://www.natgeocreative.com/photography/1370514
http://www.wildherps.com/species/Z.madagascariensis.html
http://franslanting.photoshelter.com/image/I0000_3WbDaoVbhg
I am seriously captivated by this section of my book, which is about Malagasy language and culture. Some samples for you:
Miala mandry - Made up of miala (leave, go away) and mandry (lie down, go to sleep) means "to spend the night away from home and yet be back in the early morning as if never having been away" when put together.
Words for tastes
tsy bani-mpandova - not to be eaten by an heir
mampiteny ny moana - making the dumb to speak
mitsatoka amy ny tranon' aina piercing into the house of life
(take from those translations what you will about what the taste is actually like)
One of my favorites is the following:
fihatsarambelatsiby - hypocrisy, literally translated: "the becoming good by spreading a mat." This comes from the cultural practice of hiding the every-day, worn sleeping mats when guests visit the house and putting out fresh, new ones.
And that's your read with me today.
Oh, and for all my friends and family in school... the word for taking a test is translated to "fight at writing."
http://fw.to/kIlCXoR
That's all of my facebook stuff. :)
3mirrani
Also, the indri song was mentioned and I had to go look it up because I wanted to hear it...
http://youtu.be/ihgTKxAEoYM
http://youtu.be/ihgTKxAEoYM
