Lopez says, “If you want to know more about the raven: bury
yourself in the desert so that you have a commanding view of the high basalt
cliffs where he lives. Let only your eyes protrude. Do not blink—the movement
will alert the raven to your continued presence.” A fine recommendation! I’m
not sure I have the time to bury myself in the desert, and certainly not for the
span of time that Lopez recommends (“Wait until a generation of ravens has
passed away”); but I’ve got an afternoon to kill, a rickety Schwinn, and the
Rio Vista Natural Resources Park, beside the Rillito River bike path, is a
short ride away. I’ll just bike on down and, when I get there, sit still.
Surely, then the ravenspotting will commence.
Of course I realize that a riverbottom isn’t exactly a high
cliff with a commanding view, but there is precedent for the observation of
ravens in this less likely location: the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum’s webpage
on ravens includes an anecdote by naturalist Peggy Larson which begins, “The
folklore of more than one group of native Americans includes stories about
coyote and raven interactions. I witnessed such an encounter early one morning
while walking the banks of the Rillito River near Tucson.” Only I missed that
key word—near. The park and adjacent well-traveled
bike path, on this overcast Sunday afternoon in January, may boast native flora
and fauna, but its location is still urban. Joggers, cyclists, walkers,
strollers; all of Tucson seemed to be out, enjoying their active lifestyles and
using their outdoor voices. My stillness would go unnoticed amid all this
motion and noise. I had no hope of seeing a raven.
“Ravenous” means “rapacious,” or “very eager or greedy for
food, satisfaction, or gratification.”
There is something uncanny about ravens. This is not all Poe’s
fault, though I think it’s fair that he take some of the blame for the way we
associate this bird with the gothic, the supernatural, or the downright creepy
in the popular imagination. Barry Lopez reaches back farther than Poe for his
treatment of the raven; his depiction is mythic, certainly influenced by tribal
lore. His essay is a fable, telling how once there were crows in the desert,
but now only the silent, cautious ravens remain. After the crows’ gruesome
demise, “Finally, there is this: one morning four ravens sat at the edge of the
desert waiting for the sun to rise. They had been there all night and the dew
was like beads of quicksilver on their wings. Their eyes were closed and they
were as still as the cracks in the desert floor.
“The wind came off the snow-capped peaks to the north and ruffled
their breath feathers. Their talons arched in the white earth and they smoothed
their wings with sleek, dark bills. At first light their bodies swelled and
their eyes flashed purple. When the dew dried on their wings they lifted from the
desert floor and flew away in four directions. Crows would never have had the
patience for this.”
This image, of the four ravens flying in four directions at
dawn, haunts me. I think that I want to see a raven (“Can’t you just go to the
zoo?” A friend asks, helpfully. No.) in its natural habitat as a kind of
affirmation. If a raven looks at me, and says nothing, then I will know, and I
will feel, that I belong in this desert, too.
Ravens are omnivorous and opportunistic.
Craig Childs is typically not so fantastic in his sketches
of a lifetime’s worth of “Uncommon encounters in the wild,” which could hardly
be called fabulist, but in his treatment of ravens, he moves in a different
direction. He practically gets mystical talking about the raven, saying “I am
always prepared for the impossible from ravens. Animals of omens and
nevermores, they rule the desert, able to reach every crack and ledge while I
am restricted to the ground as if wearing chains.” Childs then narrates an
unsettling scene, explaining how, on a hike in Southern Utah, he follows a
raven into a canyon and finds there a congregation of the birds who demonstrate
loud, flapping agitation at his intrusion. Describing the encounter, he gives
the ravens dialogue:
“‘Listen to
us!’ cried the ravens.
“‘I don’t speak
your language!’ I called out, exasperated.
“Hearing my
voice, the ravens became only more infuriated. I was disoriented, watching them
dive around me, and I could barely stand. Flashes of sky showed through ragged
wings. I stumbled and found myself on my knees in the sand.
“‘Listen to
us!’ they kept crying. ‘This is not your place!’”
Childs concludes his raven tale with the acknowledgment that
“Anthropomorphism is generally frowned upon. It is said to be improper to see
animals the same way we view ourselves.” But in his admiration for the ravens’
intelligence, their ingeniousness, he notes “It seems just as odd, though, to
sequester ourselves in a cheerless vault of sentience, sole proprietors of smarts
and charm . . . I do not want to be a lonely species set adrift from all the
rest. I want the ravens that we saw to have been performing a ritual, animals
of sensibility. I envision a righteous murder performed by birds living in a
moral universe. I yearn for them to have societies, secret handshakes and
knocks, associations and enterprises.”
Ravens belong to a family of birds called corvids, which includes
crows, magpies, and jays. These are considered to be the most intelligent of
birds. They “employ more adaptations and innovations than any other bird,” Childs
says, and he is not alone in his desire to believe that this intelligence could
have a moral component. Blogger Dan Dreifort’s essay, “Corvus corax’ exemplarycognitive umbra vis-à-vis de Waal’s Pongidae ignoratio elenchi” examines the ways in which ravens’ demonstrated cognitive abilities suggest “their
potential membership in the morals fraternity” (with a note that primatologist Frans
de Waal declined to be interviewed for this piece; I can’t imagine why de Waal
wouldn’t want to be associated with a blog called “the Dirty Rag”). Dreifort
concludes that “Ravens use logic to assess and solve problems and they have a
concept of past and future. They can mull over what they know and apply it to
new situations. Ravens communicate relative concepts and emotions and share
food. They recognize individuals across species and recognize and react to
knowledge of others. . . . I cannot argue that ravens are more deserving of the
moral agent tag than primates, but I’ve presented a wealth of recent evidence
to suggest that a moral raven is not entirely impossible and certainly not
significantly less likely than a moral chimp.” Is this why the raven is so
uncanny? Do we see ourselves in their blue-black feathers, in their beady dark
eyes?
A group of ravens is called an unkindness.
On that cloudy Sunday afternoon, after wandering the banks
of the Rillito River among the active Tucsonans and scanning the skies for the
better part of an hour, I parked myself on a bench beneath a ramada at Rio
Vista. The concrete bench is enclosed on two sides with high, sheer walls, and
I tucked myself into this corner, tried to imagine myself in a canyon, my back
pressed to a high basalt cliff, only my eyes protruding. I tilted my head up
and enjoyed the novelty of the winter sky in Southern Arizona, certain that
this grey, gothic afternoon would naturally produce a visit from an
otherworldly bird. Bare mesquite branches stretched black fingers in my field
of vision, and I waited, quietly. Loud children came to play in the ramada and
regarded me with curiosity. I saw no raven. Eventually, I tired of waiting and left
in disappointment.
Ravens are awesome. Nevertheless, I will be cheering for the
49ers in the Super Bowl.
Melanie Madden is an MFA student at the University of Arizona.
Melanie Madden is an MFA student at the University of Arizona.
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