Stay Put

Naturalist Gary Ferguson tells the story of a group of eastern scholars who went on an anthropological expedition in the 1920’s to study northern California’s Pit River (Achumawi) Indian tribe.  During an exchange with a member of that band, one of the researchers asked what was the word in the Achumawi language for a recent arrival, such as himself - a newcomer.  Reluctant to answer, the man to whom the question was put looked toward  his elders for guidance.  After the researcher repeated the question, an older Indian responded.  The word is inalladui, he said softly.  It means “tramp.”  The label was applied because the native people couldn’t understand why whites traveled through a place without ever stopping long enough to learn something about it, without ever binding the land to their hearts.  “We think a part of your must be dead inside,” the old man said sympathetically. 

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What is the real difference between a “house” and a “home?”  The former, a physical structure, satisfies our most immediate need for physical safety and comfort.  But for a house to become a bona fide home the occupants must be embedded in a larger community that provides companionship, occasions for mourning and celebration, and the promise of mutual care.  Houses are more or less interchangeable, but homes are not.  “Merely change houses and you will be disoriented,” Scott Russell Sanders writes.  “Change homes and you will bleed.”