Messenger birds?

[Tonguez]

Up until early colonial times it was a practice in my culture to keep pet Tui and to train them to give speeches of welcome to visitors.
I don't know if they were sent off as messengers but I don't see why it couldn't be done in a fantasy game

The bird, called by many names other than Tui or Koko, was of great importance ...they were very often kept in cages and trained to speak and even welcome people to a marae. Many of these birds were famous and even fought over...

Here is the text of a speech given by a tui recorded by Sir George Grey (formerly Governor of the New Zealand Colony)

Henry Stowell remarks, "What struck me about the speaking mode of the Tui was its silibancy ... every word the Tui spoke was clear and understandable."

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

"Corvid" is actually the name of the family of birds to which the ravens belong. The Corvidae include ravens, crows, jays, magpies, treepies, nutcrackers and choughs. The entire family is known for being bright and curious birds.

Thank you for the correction. I appreciate it.

 

[Tonguez]

Of course, in fantasy, a smarter bird is possible. I know another term for a raven is "corvid" which I plan to use to name my birds should I use them. Just adds a slightly different flavor and makes it seem like I'm not stealing "everything" from George R.R. Martin...though I'm probably going to use a lot more then just that.

Just as an aside according to Legend Odin (the god) had two Ravens who he sent out as messengers who would report back to him on what they had observed - did GRR Martin 'steal' the idea of messenger Ravens from there?

 

[Gez]

Odin's ravens are more than messengers. They are his Thoughts and his Memories. (Their names, Huginn and Muninn, mean just that.)

In Escape from Monkey Island, there are two parrots known as Huggin and Kissin. It always made me chuckle.

 

[Umbran]

Thank you for the correction. I appreciate it.

Wasn't intended so much as a correction as an attempt to put more information at your disposal. Ravens are nice. But maybe another corvid might suit your purposes as well or better. Having looked that tidbit up, I was thinking of using the magpie, myself

 

[Vocenoctum]

Now, concerning the history of such practices, I am not aware of any. I do know that, as mentioned, ravens are very intelligent birds and I remember reading about how some research proved them capable not only of using tools, but actually of being able to make them, which is on par with most primates.

Yeah, I remember the one study. A pair of corvids had a bent tool that they used to get to a food supply for the test. At some point the male decided to take the tool himself, so the female made a new tool.

Simple thing really, but something you really don't think of for birds. Outside of horror movies that is.

Corvids of one sort or another are in just about every mythos out there and giving them a sort of cultural signifigance is neat. It's just another element to the tapestry.

The problem opened up with speech is how much they would recognize what the words were. Could a raven repeat back what he heard verbatum? (a non-familiar one trained via Animal Handling) Would make neat spies.

 

[Kilmore]

This being fantasy, there's no reason for the birds not to be intelligent enough to know that they are messenger ravens, and do their work as a job. Some may be devoted to a cause, others might just do it for their paypeck.

 

[Gez]

You'll notice the existence of silver ravens (wondrous item), and also of the animal messenger spell.

 

[Tonguez]

I was thinking of using the magpie, myself

Except that magpies are evil beasts and anyone using them as messengers would be a vile deviant heading for damnantion

(or something like that )

 

[Hand of Evil]

Anyone ever see the Animal Planet show on Ravens, very interesting and funny. Raven hold rank and arrangement with the English army and one was even relieved of duty for always going AWAL, he leaned how to pick his lock and would go off on adventures, it was amazing to see the Raven bend a paper clip to slip into the lock!