Joe Pitawanakwat is on a rescue mission: to catalogue the names of birds in Anishinaabemowin, the Ojibwe language, before knowledge of these names — and what they mean in English — disappears forever.He and his collaborators, Andrés Jiménez Monge and Junaid Shahzad Khan, have already gathered about 170 names but hope to find many more and put them together in a guide book.Pitawanakwat, who now lives in Peterborough, is from Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island. Much of his knowledge of bird names comes from his travels into hundreds of communities across North America where he teaches plant medicine.
The Peterborough Examiner27 Jan 2023DREW MONKMAN DREW MONKMAN IS A RETIRED PETERBOROUGH TEACHER AND COAUTHOR OF THE BIG BOOK OF NATURE ACTIVITIES. REACH HIM AT DMONKMAN1@COGECO.CA. TO SEE PAST COLUMNS, RECENT NATURE SIGHTINGS AND HIS OTHER BOOKS, GO TO DREWMONKMAN.COM.
