Solomon Island...

I recently read a passage that said natives of the soloman islands could literally yell at trees that they wanted to chop down. these trees would subsequently die.

words will break our hearts...

There is an interesting sequence in the movie 'Taare Zameen Par', when Aamir talks about bringing down trees by just screaming at it . Curiousity got the better of me, and i decided to google for it. Here's what i could find.

The following is a chapter from the book "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum. Thought that many of you out here may also find something in this:
quote:

In the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific some villagers practice a unique form of logging. If a tree is too large to be felled with an axe, the natives cut it down by yelling at it. Woodsmen with special powers creep up on a tree just at dawn and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They continue this for thirty days. The tree dies and falls over. The theory is that the hollering kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works

The Solomon Islanders may have a point. Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. It's hard to believe, but i feel there is a lot of truth in it.

Some experiments seemed to indicate that 'stressful' sounds have negative effects on the health of plants, but the yelling at trees thing sounds farfetched. According to the article I found online, the villagers use this technique when a tree is too large to be felled by an axe, and the tree "eventually dies and falls over." Too large to be felled by an axe? I've seen some pretty large trees in my time, but none that an axe couldn't handle, given enough time and determination. 

As for stressing a tree to death with noise, I think the presence of trees in cities can effectively discount that idea.

But still, i believe.....Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts...