The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

Wade Davis

House of Anansi, 2009 - Social Science - 262 pages

Many of us are alarmed by the accelerating rates of extinction of plants and animals. But how many of us know that human cultures are going extinct at an even more shocking rate? While biologists estimate that 18 percent of mammals and 11 percent of birds are threatened, and botanists anticipate the loss of 8 percent of flora, anthropologists predict that fully 50 percent of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world today will disappear within our lifetimes. And languages are merely the canaries in the coal mine: what of the knowledge, stories, songs, and ways of seeing encoded in these voices?
In The Wayfinders, Wade Davis offers a gripping and enlightening account of this urgent crisis. He leads us on a fascinating tour through a handful of indigenous cultures, describing the worldviews they represent and reminding us of the encroaching danger to humankind's survival should they vanish.

Contents

• 1 Season of the Brown Hyena: 1
• 2 The Wayfinders: 35
• 3 Peoples of the Anaconda: 79
• 4 Sacred Geography: 116
• 5 Century of the Wind: 162
• Annotated Bibliography: 224
• Acknowledgements: 245
• Index: 250

About the author

WADE DAVIS is the bestselling author of several books, including The Serpent and the Rainbow, Light at the Edge of the World, and One River. He is an award-winning anthropologist, ethnobotanist, filmmaker, and photographer. Davis currently holds the post of National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and divides his time between Washington, D.C. and northern British Columbia.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World; Massey lectures series
• Author: Wade Davis
• Contributor: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• Publisher: House of Anansi, 2009
• ISBN: 0887847668, 9780887847660
• Length: 262 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural; Social Science / Anthropology / General