7 ANIMAL TALES FOR A PANDEMIC
Seven stories, old and new, about animals, people and disease
HOW DISEASE CAME INTO THE WORLD
Since Coronovirus came into the news at the beginning of this year, we’ve heard plenty of stories about the dangers of animals spreading disease to people. So it’s good to have a reminder that human beings are often the ones who destroy worlds. This is a lesson all too real for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, who were attacked by a series of deadly epidemics, brought by conquering and colonising Europeans, in the centuries following the invasion of 1492.
Five hundred years later, the descendants of the original inhabitants of Turtle Island (North America) have rich histories of storytelling to draw on in the face of the current pandemic. This one is from one of my favourite podcasts — “Unreserved” on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In this episode, host Rosanna Deerchild speaks to a number of Indigenous artists and intellectuals about “why stories matter more now than ever”. The whole episode is worth listening to, but animals are at the centre of the opening tale, told by Cherokee author Daniel Heath Justice: the Cherokee story of how disease came into the world.
