9781422274989

I N T R O D U C T I O N

This great green macaw, also known as a Buffon’s macaw, wears a cap of downy feathers ending at its cere in a tuft of brilliant red. A native of Central America, it has, unfortunately, been added to the list of en- dangered birds.

T he long, interwoven history of parrots and humans goes back at least as far as the middle of the first millennium b . c ., when these birds were first kept in captivity. Before that time, they appeared as wild birds in the folklore, religion, and poetry of ancient cultures. About 3,400 years ago, the oldest surviving piece of Indian literature, the Rigveda , assigned parrots the early morn- ing role of guardians of the fading moon. Much later in India, they appeared as talking companions—jesters and wits—the prized pos- sessions of princes and noble people. Teaching them to talk became part of the Indian nobleman’s mastery of the sensual, as spelled out in the Kama Sutra , soon after the beginning of this millennium. Parrots arrived in Europe in 327 b . c ., when one of Alexander the Great’s sailors brought some back from a campaign in India. Soon after, parrots became accessories to the niceties of Greek civ- ilization; by the time of the Roman empire, a parrot that could mimic a few Latin phrases was worth more than a slave. Unfortu- nately, the parrot’s verbal ability did not always act in its favor. In classical times, a diet of parrot tongues was prescribed for those who lacked eloquence and had trouble speaking. During the Middle Ages, the parrot’s ability to speak won it admiration from devout Christians. The Vatican accorded talking parrots special status and a closer place to God than nonlinguistic animals. By the late 15th century, parrots were associated with more Earthly concerns. Many of the explorers of this period were convinced that where there were colonies of parrots, there was also gold.

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