How I Imitate Nature’s Voices | Snow Raven | TED

(Sakha) Neruen-Nerguy.

(English) This is the way Indigenous Sakha people greet one another.

This phrase has no exact English translation,

but it means "I greet the universe in your person."

My name is Snow Raven,

and I'm from the Republic of Sakha Yakutia

in Arctic Siberia,

the most cold settled place on Earth,

where winter’s temperature can drop

as low as negative 96 Fahrenheit.

Brrr.

So after six years being away from Sakha Yakutia,

I returned this summer

to see my family and also visit our ancestral home.

The first thing I did when I arrived

was drop into silence and listen.

Listening is one of the powerful gifts

the universe has given humans to connect with nature.

(Vocalizing wind)

(Vocalizing raven calls)

It is by listening that I have learned how to mimic nature.

I listen with my imagination

and become an animal that I hear.

I move like it moves.

I seek what it seeks.

I cry with its cry.

(Vocalizing owl calls)

The owl, khakhan, for instance.

It has night vision.

It can see all around him,

and it also flies without making a sound.

The elie, brown kite,

soars on heated air

and with joy, announces the arrival of the summer.

(Vocalizing elie calls)

When I hear the loon,

I feel its longing for its partner

alongside its love of the baby it carries.

(Vocalizing loon calls)

The crane, the dance of this beautiful bird

is so stunning and divine

that Sakha people believe that happy are the eyes

who even once witnessed the dance of a crane in a wilderness.

(Vocalizing crane calls)

The ehe, the brown bear.

It's so mighty

and it terrifies everything all around him

while even he eats but little berries.

(Vocalizing bear grunts)

The reindeer, taba, are lords of tundra,

and they run thousands of miles in huge herds.

To restore and recover their energy,

they have a special breath.

(Vocalizing reindeer breathing)

Bërë.

In a wolf’s cry, I can hear the loneliness of the hunter

and its yearning for freedom beyond the body.

It sees the moon and wants to join it in the sky.

(Vocalizing wolf howling)

So the superpower of listening

is that it leaves the room for imagination

to dance with sound.

Let’s listen,

ignite our imagination

and summon our animal superpowers

here and now.

(Drumming)

(Vocalizing bird calls)

(Vocalizing animal calls)

(Cheers and applause)

(Sahka) Makhtal. Thank you.

(Applause)