Mind Of The Raven: Investigations And Adventures With Wolf-Birds (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
Mind of the Raven, by Bernd HeinrichtA great scientific study of Ravens. The observations gave me a clear picture of the animal that played a crucial role in human history, inspired trickster myths, and stirred our collective imagination. I read this book along with Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes this World, and they are excellent companions. Hyde's book is an excellent exploration of trickster mythology, but he does not credit the animals spirits themselves for enough inspiration and interplay that they gave to our ancestors and still give to us. He seems to think that our ancestors imposed allegories of our imagination onto random animal figures, but I disagree, as I discuss later, and Bernd's work supports my ideas.tAmong my favorite observations of his are that no two Raven's are alike. They are both a creative species, and creative individuals, who differ from each other as much as they differ from other species. Very little of their learning appears to be pre-programed, they problem solve and imagine solutions for themselves as they grow.tOne of their most intelligent adaptations has been to learn to lead carnivores like wolves and men to hunting grounds so that they can scavenge remains, and also to lead these same carnivores, once they trust the birds' signals, into traps so they can eat the carnivore. In this way they escape from the predator-prey dichotomy, are an agent of neither side, but remain in a constant, undefined flux. I believe that our ancestors observed this, which inspired their trickster myths, and those that learned the deepest lessons of these myths, kept their societies in flux, so as not to create any strict laws, for eventually a situation will arise where exceptions need to be made to even the laws that sound most basic, otherwise tragedy will ensue. Think “thou shall not kill” and abortion, the death penalty, doctor assisted suicide. The individual and culture that does not keep a nimble enough mind to deal with all of these situations as they arise will crumble, govern with a cold, iron hand, or worse...Some thoughts inspired by some of the observations:t132: Sharks are not fast enough to catch dolphins, so they don't try. Dogs are not fast enough to catch squirrels so they try and fail. Raven are not fast enough to catch squirrels, so they change the rules. They anticipate where one will run if chased. One Raven waits there while another gives chase, knowing he cannot catch the squirrel but also knowing that the other Raven will catch it and share it.tHawks can catch squirrels and Ravens can watch. A Raven cannot kill a hawk, but they can try hard enough to distract the hawk while another Raven, hiding and waiting, steals the squirrel.t145: We respect the Raven spirit when we are Ravenous. He leads us to meat, teaches us the tricks to hunt for ourselves. When we become too settled, we frame him differently, we see his mischievousness as a threat to our order. Our mind-forged manacles make us short-sighted.tWhile reading this book and Trickster Makes this World, refining my ideas about the trickster spirit, I had a deep personal dilemma as my ideas (or idealizations) conflicted with the concerns of my daily life. My neighbors were burglarized, and this stressed me out far more than it needed to. I was not robbed, but I stayed awake at night, listening for the tiniest noises, and researched tenants' rights during the day. This was largely because our building is not secure (the front door is not self-closing or self-locking) and our super was suspected of committing the burglary. The incident vilified a trait I admire and strive to emulate. Raven would not work hard, stockpiling his goods and believing they could never be taken from him. Beaver would, and Raven would steal from him, proving him wrong. Man thought everything was perfectly arranged, living in a tightly shut clamshell, until Raven smashed that clam, killing those who clung to the shell, but exposing the survivors to the greater world.tOf course, whoever burgled my neighbors' apartment does not live outside the system. By robbing them, the entered the criminal justice system, the policed predator-prey relationship. Thieves are not present day tricksters. They never were, with the possible exception of Robin Hoods. Still, there is something to be learned from this: it is foolish to feel too secure in ones system of order. In our culture of multiculturalism, thousands of them collide at every crossroads (in this case, the domestic (me), the criminal (my super), the capitalist (my landlord), the state (the police), under a huge umbrella of a huge fucked up system that disenfranchised the Puerto Rican that probably robbed my two white neighbors). Raven is the God of the Crossroads. Here, all interesting revelations can emerge. Questions of whose things were stolen – who has rights to a computer while others don't anyway? - arise.tMy neighbors can afford new things and if my super stole them, it is because he has HIV, two pregnant teenage daughters, and an addiction. Raven would see there are larger problems to be dealt with than theft. Dealing with them requires much more imagination than buying another lock – but no one will be truly safe until we do.tBernd's observations in the last few chapters are profound. After painstakingly documenting Raven behavior and intelligence through most of the book (which was nearly as painstaking to read) he pulls his observations together and reflects deeply on evolution, consciousness, and intelligence. His best point about animal intelligence, is that it is silly to assume animals have an entirely other sort of consciousness than ourselves because the vast majority of our intelligence developed along with/through them.tOne of his last points is that Raven, dolphin, and ape consciousness is most like our own because of their ability to predict situations – to “create memories,” as he puts it. For some reason, the most obvious, important word to describe their behavior eludes him: imagination.tRavens can accurately imagine how other animals and objects will react to their actions without pre-programming or trial-and-error. There are obvious reasons that accurate imagination would be beneficial in the evolution of Ravens – for example, they need to be able to feed among carnivors, so they must be able to imagine how certain predators such as wolves and humans will react to their presence, both as a species and individuals.tPlay has an obvious role in the development of the imagination. Bernd makes the interesting observation that 'play' is defined as activity that has no material benefits, but upon closer investigation it has vast benefits. Play often develops muscles, reactions, and reasoning that will ultimately benefit species and individuals materially. It makes individuals and species happier and more well-adjusted: 2 crucial elements to future success. And perhaps most importantly, it stimulates and sharpens the imagination.tBoth species and individuals that have accurate, active imaginations are more successful and have more to teach us, which ties into Lewis Hyde's discussion of the trickster. Hyde notes the individuals with the trickster spirit who expand our consciousness, but I think he misses the 'species' side of things. He glosses over the animistic trickster and anthropomorphizes them to say they are merely representations of human attributes like Hermes. But they are more. Like all good metaphors, they are first and foremost their physical reality. The cold, we snow that falls all over Dublin at the end of The Dead may represent death or paralysis or whatever, but it is first and foremost cold, wet snow. Joyce's clear image, crafted from his playful penmanship, can mean so much more than its material reality because of Joyce's accurate, active imagination (even if he claimed never to have one).tRaven is first and foremost a big black bird with an active, accurate imagination. Our ancestors saw the genius of his imagination. He became the hero of their stories because they saw his wisdom, and by watching him closely they learned much about their own trickster spirits and the world itself. They did not simply impose their trickster imagination on a random animal. I wish Hyde would have made this concession, but if you read Bernd's book along with it, the point will become clear.
Having recently begun a fascination with ravens and crows, I found this book to be very interesting and enjoyable. Bernd Heinrich writes of his first-hand experiences with the "wolf birds," sharing his depth of knowledge with clarity and humor and also sharing his heart for these brilliant birds. The downsides in this book are the abundance of facts and figures in certain parts that make for slightly dry reading and the infusion of Bernd Heinrich's evolutionary ideas. It is questionable how someone could believe that such amazing, versatile, intelligent animals could just come into being by chance. Bernd writes about a test that he conducted with some of his captive ravens: attaching food to the end of a string dangling from a branch and seeing what they would do with it. He outlines the complex mental steps that would be required for the birds to successfully attain the food. Amazingly, the first raven tested passed the test with flying colors, getting his treat in minutes. Bernd then explains that for the bird to just randomly figure out the steps needed was an impossibility. The bird needed to mentally work through the problem step by step in order to pull the string up inch by inch, stepping on it to keep the string from falling, and then finally grabbing it. If it is an impossibility for a raven to complete 13 mental steps (as outlined by the author)by random chance, then isn't it quite amazing to believe that our world that is so vastly creative, so abundantly diverse, and so tightly interwoven in its complexity - that all of this has come about by accident?Aside, from those two negatives, this book is very well-written and engaging. Any bird-lover will find this book fascinating. I have grown in my appreciation for ravens and for the Creator who designed them.
What do You think about Mind Of The Raven: Investigations And Adventures With Wolf-Birds (2000)?
As a child I gravitated to nature books like The Last Auk, or One Day at Teton Marsh. Maybe growing up on a farm and having both wild and domestic pets fed my interest in birds and animals. Mind of the Raven is that sort of book, a well written, interesting look as some of the creatures in the natural world. It's hard not to be interested in Bernd Heinrich's anecdotes about his long time study of ravens, although there was more scientific detail in some chapters than I needed or wanted. So, I just did some judicious skimming when the detail threatened to overwhelm. The table of contents gives some idea of the sort of topics he covers: Becoming a Raven Father; Education; To Catch and Track a Raven; Hunting and Foraging; Dangerous Neighbors; Vocal Communication; Ravens' Fears; From Wolf-Bird to Human-Birds, and so on. Each chapter is filled with Heinrich's knowledge of and affection for the birds. There are also illustrations and photographs of Heinrich's birds. His writing style is engaging enough I may try some other of his books.
—Sherry (sethurner)
Heinrich is in many ways the Jane Goodall of the genus Corvus. There are also many similarities between his observations and the work of Temple Grandin on animal intelligence. Much like the two previously mentioned authors, his writing has the captivating quality of feeling more like a memoir than an ecology text. The reader feels almost as though they are by his side through his various investigations into raven behavior. In this work, Heinrich seems less interested drawing conclusions as he is with making detailed observations, and leaving the conclusions to the reader.One also has the sense that like Goodall, he has a real affinity and respect for his subjects. In his conclusion he writes: "I have come to touch the world and travails of a totally different yet kindred being that makes me feel less alone." One senses this spirit pervading the entire book. He writes about ravens almost as a sociologist observing the behavior of a foreign people, not as a biologist dissecting a lower life-form. I noticed other reviewers have questioned the validity of his experiments based on his small sample size and lack of controls. While they may be correct to a degree, I think the job of an observational biologist is a challenging one. The most controlled environment to study animals is in a lab, but as Temple Grandin noted, laboratory conditions may completely fail to engage the unique way that an animal's brain has evolved to work. Heinrich says himself: "Throughout my studies, the goal has been to understand the birds' life in their natural environment, which provides context to almost everything about them. Almost nothing about them makes sense unless seen from that perspective, in the same way that very little about us makes sense unless seen from the perspective of our culture."One walks away from this book not feeling like they know all their is to know about ravens. Instead, it's more of an appreciation or a profound respect for the complexity and sophistication of their mental capabilities. Ravens make such difficult research subjects because every bird is such a unique individual. When faced with a situation like that, laboratory dissections can only go so far. We need naturalists like Heinrich and Goodall telling us the stories of who they are as individuals to begin to see them not merely as research subjects, but, as he says, as kindred beings.
—Andrew Frueh
This book, for some reason, took me ages to get through -- I think I started reading it in April! It was still very good, just quite dense, and a hard one to sit down and read for a long time because of all of the information contained within. Heinrich has made an exhaustive study of the habits and quirks of ravens. His biggest area of interest is the measure of their intelligence; much of what ravens do seems incredibly brilliant to humans, but how much of it is innate, how much of it is learned behavior, and how much involves actual reasoning and planning? Heinrich is also fascinated by the many behaviors ravens engage in that don't seem to have any practical purpose, and spends considerable time trying to discern whether they are truly playing, or if there is something instinctual going on. Heinrich is incredibly rigorous in his studies, and thus draws very few hard and fast conclusions, but it is fascinating to realize just how intelligent and mysterious these relatively common birds are. If you are looking for a lighter, faster read on the subject, I recommend In the Company of Crows and Ravens by John M. Marzluff, Tony Angell, and Paul R. Ehrlich; it's less rigorous in terms of the science, but it's an enjoyable book nonetheless.
—Kirsten
