A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [80]
I looked at Jeannette. Her face was hard. Bruce continued, "To be kaitiaki is crucial to our existence. So while I am in agony for the whole planet, what I can do is become kaitiaki right here. This can spread, as people see this and say, 'We can do that back at home.' Perhaps then everyone can, as was true in our Maori culture, become caretakers of their own homes. Children will say to their parents, or to others, Tm sorry, but you can't do that here.'
"I'm more of a practical man, so rather than write papers about being kaitiaki, I just do it. I don't trust words. I'm frightened of the intellectualism that can insulate us from action and turn the problems and solutions into puzzles or fantasies. As Maori we already have the words, the concepts. But we can't rest on what our ancestors gave us. The work has got to be done." I thought about the question I ask myself each day, about whether I should write or blow up a dam, and asked, "Where do writers fit in?"
"Part of this work must be done by artists, philosophers, educators, and others who can articulate and perpetuate the Maori way of living, people who can help us untangle ourselves from the pakeha, the Europeans. And as a pakeha yourself there are many important things that you, too, can articulate. From your knowledge and from where you live. But I hope to think any piece of art spurs us into action. I want to believe in sustainability. Now. Not in the future. Not some distant day. Now. Great artists, such as Witi Ihimaera, describe that way of life and help us live it."
He stopped, stared at me intently, then said, "I'm sixty, so I only have ten or twenty years left. I don't have time for a lot of words; I want to use those years for action."
He looked away, then continued, "I hope before I die that I can hear kiwi again. Thousands of people come here, and I ask them, 'Hands up those of you who've heard a kiwi in the wild.' A bit less than one percent raise their hands. Kiwis have not always been so rare. Years ago I heard hundreds of kiwis all around me, in parts of Fjordland where predators hadn't reached. Because people hear the ruru in television advertisements, or kiwi on the radio, they think these birds are still common; it's not until they stop and listen that they realize they haven't heard a living ruru for a long time. The truth is that New Zealand has the most endangered birds in the world. The birds can't handle the rats, opossums, and cats—the worst of the introduced predators. People must begin to feel the responsibility of that very quickly."
He paused, then began again to speak, at first slowly, then with greater urgency, "We need different heroes. One day in the native bush in Fjordland I stumbled across a tombstone. Scraping off the moss I made out 'William Doherty, 1840.' Doherty died trying to save birds. Seeing that rats were making their way into Fjordland he started to move some of the birds onto an island where they could be safe, and he died rowing back. He deserves to be recognized as a hero, as a man 150 years ahead of his time."
Bruce was on a roll now, and spoke so quickly I could barely understand his New Zealand accent, "Actually, he wasn't ahead of his time. That was the time, then, and he could see it. I want to create a monument for him, do a garden in his honor using endangered native plants. We need heroes who leave threads for the rest of us to follow."
He looked out the window, and his speech slowed. "We also need patches of native bush