Wisdom Sits In Places Chapter Summary

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Quoting the Ancestors, chapter one of Wisdom Sits in Places, is about the idea of place-making, a process by which the Apache people constructed pieces of history in each place they visited. Each destination has its own descriptive name, such as Water Lies With Mud in an Open
Container, which tells the story and history of the location. In this chapter, Basso is taught by a wise Apache, Charles Henry, that by saying out loud the names of different places, one is quoting Apache ancestors who named the land. Charles revealed to Basso that the
Apache are not interested much in when but rather where events occurred, and that the place serve to remind people of the past and to teach them important lessons they can use in the present and apply to the
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According to Dudley Patterson, Basso’s long-time friend and a particularly wise man, wisdom is the ability to foresee danger when no signs of it are visible, and to avoid the danger. Wisdom is obtained by making one’s mind smooth, resilient, and steady so that no outside forces can distract someone when they are thinking under the threat of danger. Because people aren’t naturally born with this type of mind, they have the capability to obtain it by studying the histories of many different places and using the knowledge that they gain from them in their own experiences. Hence, wisdom sits in places.
Dudley also gives an example of how important it is to listen to wise people by telling several stories, one of them including the story of
Coyote Pisses in the Water, a tale about people who drank water too hastily without waiting for a wise man to make sure it was safe, and ended up getting sick because the water was contaminated. The chapter also talks about the sense of place, and how it connects people together and provides them with a shared identity.

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