Ethno-ornithology: Birds in Jando and Nsondo folksongs among the Yawo of South-Eastern Malawi

From an ethno-ornithological perspective, this article analyses how birds are sources of indigenous ecological knowledge that can be utilised for environmental pedagogy. The article demonstrates how the depiction of birds in jando and nsondo initiation songs for boys and girls, respectively, reflect the people’s environmental consciousness. Children are ingrained in their environment and teaching them ecocentric values through birds is likely to mesmerise their interests in nature. When children grow up with informed knowledge about their environment, their likelihood of being environmental stewards is high because they have been exposed to the interrelatedness of ecological entities at a tender age. They begin to value human-animal relationships and the various ways through which they are ineluctably interrelated. Such values inform an environmental ethic that ensures not only earth-centredness, but also the restoration of the lost biodiversity. My endeavour in this article is to draw from oral literature, especially the folksong as an oral genre in order to analyse the depiction of birds and how they relate with humans. The findings reveal that birds are vehicles through which the people sight see the environment and express their experiential knowledge about nature.