Boria
Sax. Crow. Animal Series.
Reviewed
by David Scofield Wilson, Program in American
Studies,
Published
by H-NILAS (April, 2004)
The
Presence of Crow in Consciousness and Everyday Life
Crow is
the sort of monograph I treasure and seek out, a work that draws together
around a "totem animal" centuries of relevant lore, a richness of
iconographic treatments (photographs, portraits, masks, natural history plates,
cartoons, book plates, marginalia, etc.) and the best natural history and
natural science available to a lay researcher and engaged author. "Totem
animal" in this context signifies any creature that traditionally
fascinates us, stirring imagination, inviting interpretation, and generating
affect well beyond ordinary objectivity. For me, "Rattlesnake" is
such an animal and "Tomato" is such a plant.[1] On a grander scale,
Laurence M. Klauber's two-volume Rattlesnakes: Their
Habits, Life Histories, and Influence on Mankind and Peter Matthiessen's
The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Crane set the standard.[2] Between my
chapter-size treatments and Klauber's two-volume
opus, Crow and other monographs from Reaktion Books
serve to explore the variety and plenitude of perspectives evoked by particular
natural animals.
Crow is
one in a series of such monographs on totem animals published by Reaktion Books of London. The four already in print, Crow,
Ant, Cockroach, and Tortoise, are to be succeeded by forthcoming monographs on
Wolf, Bear, Horse, Spider, Dog, Snake, Oyster, Falcon, Parrot, Whale, Rat,
Hare, and Bee. All are compact (5" x 7 1/2"), perfect-bound paperbacks
printed on coated paper to better present the color plates and glossy black and
white halftones and prints. Crow boasts twenty-six color plates and sixty-nine
black and white illustrations (woodcuts, drawings, etchings, marginalia,
halftone photographs, bookplates, satirical cartoons, posters, magazine covers,
etc.). My only disappointment is with the very brief index which lists every
proper name but neglects to direct readers to such topics as monogamy, humor,
trickery, sorcery, totemism, and other themes the author introduces to ground
his interpretation. This skimping surely descends from the formula for the
series dictated by Reaktion Books.
The
author of Crow, NILAS's own Boria Sax, opens his
study with a sweeping introduction to the many ways that the natural crow
generates compelling human interpretations, including those from the
perspectives of "poetry, taxonomy, animal behavior, myth, legend and the
visual arts" (p. 9). On their gracefulness: "crows can appear to
glide over the earth ... effortlessly" like spirits (p. 13). As
tricksters: "the natural intelligence of crows is far in excess of what is
demanded for survival in their biological niche" and the "result is
that they are continually bored and make up games to amuse themselves" (p.
19). And like us, how they make and use tools. They feed on carrion and thus
may presage death: "eating of carrion has caused crows to be closely
associated with death in cultures throughout the world" (p. 28). They live
long and mate for life, signifying true and lasting love. And as they may be
bearers of prophecy, "counting crows" may predict the future:
"One for sorrow, / two for mirth, / three for a wedding, / four for a
birth, / five for silver, / six for gold, / seven for a secret, not to be told:
/ eight for Heaven, / nine for Hell, / and ten for the Devil's own sel. [self]" (p. 29). The importance
of crows in such lore "shows that crows have an intense, if subtle,
fascination for men and women" (p. 8).
The
central chapters of Crow take up the significance of crows in particular
historical-cultural contexts such as
The
final two chapters entertain and enlighten in ways relevant to current cultural
themes. "Lord of the Crows" takes on scarecrows, their purpose,
futility, and fancy as they occupy farmers' fields, almost uselessly, and
consumerist pumpkin patches and Halloween costume stores, profitably. The
Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz may be, as Sax claims, "one of the favorite
characters in children's literature," but to interpret the Scarecrow's
awakening to self-esteem as anticipating "trends of popular culture in the
latter twentieth century, in which increased self-esteem came to be presented
as the solution to a vast range of personal and social ills" takes the
reader rather far afield from corvid presence (p.
142).
On the
other hand, Sax's exploration in the final chapter, "The Twentieth Century
and Beyond," of the extra-biological meanings encoded in both the tales
and drawings of Ernest Thompson Seton and in the ethology
and sketches of Konrad Lorenz drive home some very
important caveats. Seton, a fine observer of animal behavior and a deft artist,
tells tales of animal bravery and cunning that focus on and elevate the
individual player, such as Silverspot, a crow who was
"a sort of Wyatt Earp or Wild Bill Hickok, defending a frontier community from forces of
lawlessness until his tragic end" (p. 147). Heroes in natural history may
mimic the "great man" style of history writing common before and
between the great wars. The case of Lorenz is more wrenching as his Nazi
sympathies curdle our admiration for his very winning ethological tales of
jackdaws and other birds and canids. This edge of
Lorenz will be new to many readers, for it was kept well-muffled for decades.
This last chapter of Crow reminds us how alert we need to become to our own
biases as we seek to "come into Animal presence," as poet Denise Levertov invites us to do.[3] And crows, as Sax so
abundantly reveals, seem especially to invite us humans into their presence.
Notes
[1].
David S. Wilson, "Rattlesnake," in American Wildlife in Symbol and
Story, eds. Angus K. Gillespie and Jay Mechling
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), pp. 41-72; and
"Tomatoes," in Rooted in America: Foodlore
of Popular Fruits and Vegetables, eds. David Scofield
Wilson and Angus Kress Gillespie (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,
1999).
[2].
[3].
"Come Into Animal Presence," in American
Poetry, eds. Gay Wilson Allen, et al. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp.
1128-29.
Boria
Sax, Ph.D.
Director
of Online Academic Services
555
Broadway
Email:
BSax@Mercy.edu
Phone:
(914) 674-7397
Fax:
(914) 674-7729