“Just listen”: “Listening” and landscape among the blackfeet

This ethnographic narrative explores “listening” as a cultural form of communication. The investigation examines both linguistic references to this form and its actual nonverbal enactment among Blackfeet people. Brought into view is a rich and deep way of dwelling‐in‐place: This complex way of being derives from and helps constitute cultural and physical spaces; provides a traditional, nonverbal way of being in those places; invites various cultural agents as spirited co‐participants in this communication; valorizes and intensely activates the non‐oral acts of watching, listening, and sensing nonverbally; and, offers a deeply historical way of consulting cultural traditions and places as an aid to the various contingencies of one's life. Blackfeet “listening” is thus a highly reflective and revelatory mode of communication that can open one to the mysteries of unity between the physical and spiritual, to the relationships between natural and human forms, and to the intimate links between places and persons, all the while providing protection, power, and enhanced knowledge of one's small place in the world. A cultural discourse theory focused upon terms for communicative action is demonstrated; intercultural conflicts are discussed that involve “listening” and “speaking” as orientations to place.