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The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World (The CBC Massey Lectures) Paperback – October 13, 2009

by Wade Davis (Author)

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Every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive? Anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis leads us on a thrilling journey to celebrate the wisdom of the world’s indigenous cultures.
In Polynesia we set sail with navigators whose ancestors settled the Pacific ten centuries before Christ. In the Amazon we meet the descendants of a true Lost Civilization, the people of the Anaconda. In the Andes we discover that the Earth really is alive, while in the far reaches of Australia we experience Dreamtime, the all-embracing philosophy of the first humans to walk out of Africa. We then travel to Nepal, where we encounter a wisdom hero, a Bodhisattva, who emerges from forty-five years of Buddhist retreat and solitude. And finally we settle in Borneo, where the last rainforest nomads struggle to survive.
Understanding the lessons of this journey will be our mission for the next century. For at risk is the human legacy a vast archive of knowledge and expertise, a catalogue of the imagination. Rediscovering a new appreciation for the diversity of the human spirit, as expressed by culture, is among the central challenges of our time.

Print length

280 pages
Language

English
Publisher

House of Anansi Press
Publication date

October 13, 2009
Dimensions

5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0887847668
ISBN-13

978-0887847660
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Wade Davis is professor of anthropology and the B.C. Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Between 1999 and 2013 he served as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and is currently a member of the NGS Explorers Council and Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Named by the NGS as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” In 2014, Switzerland’s leading think tank, the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute of Zurich, ranked him 16th in their annual survey of the top 100 most influential global Thought Leaders.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ House of Anansi Press; First Edition (October 13, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0887847668
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0887847660
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 0.75 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #471,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #549 in General Anthropology
- #812 in Ecology (Books)
- #1,724 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)

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Wade Davis (born December 14, 1953) CM is a Canadian anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author, and photographer whose work has focused on worldwide indigenous cultures, especially in North and South America and particularly involving the traditional uses and beliefs associated with psychoactive plants. Davis came to prominence with his 1985 best-selling book The Serpent and the Rainbow about the zombies of Haiti. Davis is Professor of Anthropology and the BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia.

Davis has published popular articles in Outside, National Geographic, Fortune, and Condé Nast Traveler.

Davis is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. Named by the NGS as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” In recent years his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia, Colombia, Vanuatu, Mongolia, and the high Arctic of Nunuvut and Greenland.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by [Cpt. Muji] (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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As described

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2024

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As described and in good condition, really looking forward to reading this ex

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2012

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Davis seems to have been EVERYWHERE, but never loses that sense of awe and wonder that pushes the reader to genuinely think about human experiences beyond his/her own. He notes that cultures and languages are being lost at a rate greater than biodiversity loss, and the wonders of human achievements and resilience are being wiped out. Culture is a funny thing: It can unite societies, but it is immensely fragile. Thousands of years of adaptations, oral history and knowledge, can be be wiped out within a single generation of ignorance and neglect.

The book explored the various ways different cultures found their way in the world. Some examples: Aborigines practiced environmental stewardships for TENS of thousands of years, although they have no need for the concept of linear time. Polynesian navigators became human supercomputers in order to find specks of land across the vast Pacific Ocean without compasses, sextants, and GPS's. Nomadic tribes in Northern Kenya accrued huge herds of cattle as an adaptation to a land of recurring drought. These practices were all woven elaborately into the customs and traditions of each unique culture; it's all very fascinating stuff.

In modern times, we have a tendency to dismiss these incredible and ingenious achievements that allowed indigenous people to survive and thrive. Sometimes it's unintentional; other times it's outright disturbing. Heyerdahl of the Kon-Tiki fame, ignited the public's imagination with his voyage across the Pacific, but dismissed the reams of evidence that pointed to this great achievement was of Polynesian origins. An Australian politician in the 20th century declared that "there is no scientific evidence the the aboriginal is a human being at all", a commonly held notion that led almost to the extinction of one of the oldest and continuous ways of life in the world. Development agencies, with the noble intentions of helping nomadic tribes settled, destroyed a culture that was developed around surviving drought.

All of these intriguing insights address the central question of the book: Why are cultures worth saving? I'll leave with one of the most powerful passages of the book:

"Were I to distill a single message from these Massey Lectures, it would be that culture is not trivial. It is not decoration or artifice, the songs we sing or even the prayers we chant. It is a blanket of comfort that gives meaning to lives. It is a body of knowledge that allows the individual to make sense out of the infinite sensations of consciousness, to find meaning and order in a universe that ultimately has either. Culture is a body of laws and traditions, a moral and ethical code that insultates a people from the barbaric heart that history suggests lies just beneath the surface of all human societies and indeed all humans. Culture alone allows us to reach, as Abraham Lincoln said, for the better angels of our nature. (p. 198)"

Powerful stuff.

I highly recommend this book. As modern Western culture continues to grapple with issues of depression, meaning, and what it means to become an adult human being, I can't help but feel that there are things we can learn from other

21 people found this helpful

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maudieJ

Fascinating reading

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2011

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Proabably a little premature to review this when I am only up to chapter 4 .... but I am very much enjoying this book. Not only am I finding it hard to put down but am also reading out paragraphs to my husband. I often feel that we have more than proven ourselves as incredibly intelligent but that along our way to proving this we have lost our wisdom. Davis puts this focus of ours into a cultural context as he shows ways in which non-western peoples have focussed their own intelligence in ways that have had just as incredible results as our own with our focus on technology. From the navigational expertise of the Polynesians to the spiritual memories of the Aborigines of Australia, Davis shows us that every population across the worls has something uniquely miraculous to contribute to the story of human intelligence. Now we just have to learn to repect others and be a littlw more humble about our own .... hopefully he will cover some of that by the end of the book.

4 people found this helpful

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Austin Hagwood

A Fascinating Constellation of Cultures

Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2016

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Birdcalls echo in the rainforests of Borneo as the Penan hunter crouches before a kill. Inuit glide across the wind-scoured ice. Kogi priests traverse Colombian coral reefs and cloud forests to learn contours of the landscape entrusted to their care. In the published edition of his five Massey Lectures, Wade Davis seeks to answer the question “What does it mean to be human and alive?” with portraits of culture spanning centuries and terrain. It’s a rare work of anthropology illustrating the vitality of human imagination from Himalayan peaks to the southern sea; Davis brings new attention to peoples still practicing ancient arts and writes with the voice of a lyrical novelist. Anything but a detached textbook, it remains a work as fascinating as it is beautiful to read. And in depicting new dreams of the Earth, Davis presents one of his own.

Why do we speak the languages we do? How did humanity journey out of Africa millennia ago and come to settle every corner of the habitable world? In examining the planet’s constellation of cultures, Davis argues that thousands of languages and millions of lifeways are as threatened as species comprising the biosphere. The loss of either has equal significance for the flourishing of our world. To read his book is to discover a love letter to our species and develop a new understanding of the diversity of human endeavor. The images are robust: San sipping water from ostrich eggs beneath the sweltering Kalahari sun, a steadfast wayfinder aboard the open-decked Hokule’a crashing through waves on a journey across the Pacific and into the Polynesian spirit, travels into the jade canopy of the Amazon rainforest - realm of the jaguar shaman. A former National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Davis writes from firsthand experience based on decades of fieldwork and creates a sense of eyewitness any travel writer would envy while never deviating from scholarly precision.

As a historical text, the book is exhaustively researched and includes an annotated bibliography with years of reading material for those interested in anthropology and natural history. While acknowledging Western culture’s triumphs and contributions, Davis also explores the consequences of colonialism. Losing connection with other ways of living carries environmental and psychological costs, and the character of culture is inextricably linked to the spirit of place. The Tendai marathon monks of Japan, Andean pilgrimages, or Songlines of Aboriginal Australia represent exquisite achievements in human thought, and Davis interrogates the extent to which a singular culture produces a singular mindset. Yet the book remains hopeful. Why does Davis have faith in our ability to mend ages of destruction? Because of the tenacity and ingenuity of the human journey he himself celebrates. An unforgettable read both for the energy of its author and the poetry of its language, The Wayfinders inspired me to pursue anthropology more than any other text.

18 people found this helpful

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Xd

Magnifico

Reviewed in Mexico on April 6, 2021

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Magnifico libro que recomiendo mucho a los que les interesa la historia de las culturas en el mundo

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I’m particularly interested in worldviews and how they can change over time and this book describes in wonderful detail how indi

Reviewed in Canada on May 2, 2016

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This was an incredibly thought provoking and fascinating read. I’m particularly interested in worldviews and how they can change over time and this book describes in wonderful detail how indigenous cultures express the "human spirit," as Davis says. What is perhaps most incredible about these cultures is that despite unbelievable odds -- including the theft of lands, language, culture, and even children -- many have managed to persist even today. Wade Davis' book is important for so many reasons but for me it is particularly salient given our current trajectory toward annihilation -- fuelled by our addiction to endless growth on a finite planet. A change in worldview (here in the west) that incorporates ancient (and current) indigenous knowledge and honours our relationship with the living world will be essential in order to reverse the damage we've already done. This book is essential reading if you're interested in a livable future.

3 people found this helpful

Tessie Humble

Changed my global perspective

Reviewed in Germany on March 5, 2016

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This is the second time I bought this book. I have it away immediately after reading it the first time, as I think everyone should read it, but I actually mourned not having it. First time thats happened. It completely changed my perspective on humanity in this world and priorities of the planet. If I could meet Wade Davis in person, I would thank him profusely.

Magnus Johnson

Powerful and beautifully written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 31, 2013

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This is a wonderful book. I found it was so beautifully written and thought provoking I could not put it down. Wade Davis has distilled years of research and interest into a single volume. The book demonstrates why we should not dismiss all traditional practices as mere superstition and why we should pay more attention to wisdom that has evolved socially over thousands of years. He highlights the travesty of the disappearing cultures and languages which far exceeds (and is related to) the rate of biodiversity loss. I am a scientist and a rationalist but I was utterly convinced by his explanations of how seafaring Polynesians navigate by skill and instinct and the intimate relationships that various peoples of the forest, desert and ice have with their worlds. The western worldview is only one among many and does a lot of harm when imposed on cultures that it doesn't fit.

9 people found this helpful

blair

Eyes wide open

Reviewed in Canada on February 26, 2023

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Great read, excellent source for the high school course used in.

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