Hunter gatherers

[kyser_soze]

So native american peoples weren't socialised into the methods, philosophies and religious beliefs of their tribes? That they could freely move between tribal groups? That there were never any wars between tribes? That there were no hierarchies? Most North American tribes practiced some form of gerontocracy as a general mode of government, and while none of them had strict hierarchies in the way we recognise them, all h-g groups had rules, regulations and disciplines to ensure their survival.

 

[paimei01]

Of course they had rules. Yes they had wars. With other tribes. Not like our wars. But no rulers. Can you understand that ? No chief could order and Indian around. It was a rude thing to tell another what to do. Why weren't they falling apart as a tribe if everybody did what they wanted ? Because they wanted to be part of something and be appreciated for what they brought to the tribe. And they were friends. When you grow up with some people you don't go around stealing from them or whatever else we do in our cities.

Read "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. Link is somewhere above, search on Scribd. If we continue this way I will have to quote the entire book.

The record of Native Americans in California is similar. Kroeber reported that their fighting was "notably bloodless. They even went so far as to take poorer arrows to war than they used in economic hunting."Wintu people of Northern California called off hostilities once someone was injured. "Most Californians were absolutely nonmilitary; they possessed next to none of the traits requisite for the military horizon, a condition that would have taxed their all but nonexistent social organization too much. Their societies made no provision for collective political action," in the view of Turney-High.Lorna Marshall described Kung! Bushmen as celebrating no valiant heroes or tales of battle. One of them remarked, "Fighting is very dangerous; someone might get killed!". George Bird Grinnell's "Coup and Scalp Among the Plains Indians"argues that counting coup (striking or touching an enemy with the hand or a small stick) was the highest point of (essentially nonviolent) bravery, whereas scalping was not valued.

They are agile, he says, and can swim long distances, especially the women. They are not completely peaceful, because they do battle from time to time with other tribes, but their casualties seem small, and they fight when they are individually moved to do so because of some grievance, not on the orders of captains or kings.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Daniel Quinn says a lot of things, many of them thought provoking and insightful, but many others misguided.

Let me tell you about another h-g tribe that the Portuguese discovered in sub-Saharan Africa. They had given up child-rearing in order to dedicate themselves to a life of warfare. They replaced their number with the enslaved children of conquered neighbours, who would graduate to the tribe by the act of killing an enemy.

Such a tribe's mode of existence almost certainly wasn't very sustainable, but it came about nonetheless. Furthermore, many tribes around the world have considered only fellow members of the tribe to be fully human, an attitude that permits all kinds of acts against others.

It's simplistic to idealise hunter-gatherers. As our behaviour has become governed as much by cultural norms as by inherited 'nature', humans have found extraordinarily diverse ways of relating to one another, and did so long before the coming of agriculture. Agriculture has been a homogenising force on cultural development, and certain cultural characteristics, not least hierarchy, seem ubiquitous to it, but there is very little ubiquitous about pre-agricultural humans.

 

[ToothlessFerret]

Most Native Americans were not hunter-gatherers. Most of them were farmers with class structures. They farmed maize, potato, peppers, tomatoes, tobacco, etc. Choose again.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I would compare the differences to the differences between killer whale pods today. Some pods hunt only fish. Others prefer seals. Still others hunt whale calves for sport. The 'nature' of the killer whales socialised into these different pods is very different – the cute orcas in seaworlds come from fish-eating pods, not whale-baiting ones.

 

[ToothlessFerret]

Daniel Quinn says a lot of things, many of them thought provoking and insightful, but many others misguided.

Let me tell you about another h-g tribe that the Portuguese discovered in sub-Saharan Africa. They had given up child-rearing in order to dedicate themselves to a life of warfare. They replaced their number with the enslaved children of conquered neighbours, who would graduate to the tribe by the act of killing an enemy.

Such a tribe's mode of existence almost certainly wasn't very sustainable, but it came about nonetheless. Furthermore, many tribes around the world have considered only fellow members of the tribe to be fully human, an attitude that permits all kinds of acts against others.

It's simplistic to idealise hunter-gatherers. As our behaviour has become governed as much by cultural norms as by inherited 'nature', humans have found extraordinarily diverse ways of relating to one another, and did so long before the coming of agriculture. Agriculture has been a homogenising force on cultural development, and certain cultural characteristics, not least hierarchy, seem ubiquitous to it, but there is very little ubiquitous about pre-agricultural humans.

I agree that it is easy to idealise the life of hunter-gatherers (and for that matter, prehistoric peoples), but could you possibly supply a link to that tribe? Were they genuine hunter-gatherers as opposed to farmers? Sounds a bizarre economy. Giving up child birth (or did they allegedly kill their own children??).

One of the best arguments that I have heard against hunter-gatherers, that in the absence of virgin territory to expand into, they need to control population. The wilds rarely can sustain high populations of humans. I have heard of some hunter-gatherers doing this by the killing of female babies.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I agree that it is easy to idealise the life of hunter-gatherers (and for that matter, prehistoric peoples), but could you possibly supply a link to that tribe? Were they genuine hunter-gatherers as opposed to farmers? Sounds a bizarre economy. Giving up child birth (or did they allegedly kill their own children??).

One of the best arguments that I have heard against hunter-gatherers, that in the absence of virgin territory to expand into, they need to control population. The wilds rarely can sustain high populations of humans. I have heard of some hunter-gatherers doing this by the killing of female babies.

It's in a book at home – I'm at work, but I'll look for it tomorrow. The source is admittedly a bit dodgy – early Portuguese explorers. I believe that they did indeed kill their own children at birth. Like I said, such a society (if it can be called that) was almost certainly unsustainable, and they did settle down and become farmers soon afterwards. I don't remember their name, sorry, but I will try to find it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I agree that it is easy to idealise the life of hunter-gatherers (and for that matter, prehistoric peoples), but could you possibly supply a link to that tribe? Were they genuine hunter-gatherers as opposed to farmers? Sounds a bizarre economy. Giving up child birth (or did they allegedly kill their own children??).

One of the best arguments that I have heard against hunter-gatherers, that in the absence of virgin territory to expand into, they need to control population. The wilds rarely can sustain high populations of humans. I have heard of some hunter-gatherers doing this by the killing of female babies.

The Norse were known to kill new-borns in times of hardship. I see that as more a form of post-natal abortion than anything else.

 

[kyser_soze]

That's a rational, if somewhat brutal, decision to make tho; new borns are resource intensive in all aspects, and during times of hardship the last thing you need is a group that are incapable of pitching in for the good of the tribe.

 

[Fuchs66]

Ah the noble savage

 

[trabuquera]

I am assuming what ? Native Americans were free people not brainwashed. Nobody could order them around. Not even their "chiefs". They were chiefs as long as they were respected for bravery and wisdom. Nobody followed a coward or stupid chief just because of the title. Black slaves - possible. Native American slaves I did not hear of any.

oh riiiiiight. back to the bin/ban/bong category for you, you hunter-gatherer-hugging fruitloop.

 

[paimei01]

Whatever. You know I am trying to impose a society that kills children whenver they please. Thats' what I want. My dream !!

I can show you lots of tribes that did not do that. The idea is to copy the tribal economy - gift based economy where people participate because they like to contribute and they know that if they help others they help themselves. These things existed and still exist. Keep your savage children eating tribesman idea.

Read above about what Crazy Horse did when he was only 5. What do you say to that ? Ignore him. One day you will wish for a tribe.

Survival International - The movement for tribal peoples

And some quotes, you chose to ignore these, and bring stuff about killing children. Well it happened. The same way some people chose to be slaves and created this mess of a "civilization". No need to copy everything all the tribes did all over the world.

Observing a prisoner exchange between the Iroquois and the French in upper New York in 1699, Cadwallader Colden is blunt: “ notwithstanding the French Commissioners took all the Pains possible to carry Home the French, that were Prisoners with the Five Nations, and they had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be persuaded to return. “Nor, he has to admit, is this merely a reflection on the quality of French colonial life, “for the English had as much Difficulty” in persuading their redeemed to come home, despite what Colden would claim were the obvious superiority of English ways:

No Arguments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their new Indian Friends and Acquaintance; several of them that were by the Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little Time grew tired of our Manner of living, and run away again to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the other Hand, Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, cloathed and taught, yet, I think, there is not one Instance, that any of these, after they had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian Manner of Life as those that knew nothing of a civilized Manner of Living. And, he concludes, what he says of this particular prisoner exchange “has been found true on many other Occasions.”

Benjamin Franklin was even more pointed: When an Indian child is raised in white civilization, he remarks, the civilizing somehow does not stick, and at the first opportunity he will go back to his red relations, from whence there is no hope whatever of redeeming him. But when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and have lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness toprevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the firstgood Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.


There was always the great woods, and the life to be lived within it was, Crevecoeur admits, “singularly captivating,” perhaps even superior to that so boasted of by the transplanted Europeans. For, as many knew to their rueful amazement, “thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those aborigines having from choice become Europeans!”

Crazy Horse, Tashunkewitko of the western Sioux, was born about 1845. Killed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska in 1877, he lived barely 33 years.

As a boy, Crazy Horse seldom saw white men. Sioux parents took pride in teaching their sons and daughters according to tribal customs. Often giving food to the needy, they exemplified self-denial for the general good. They believed in generosity, courage, and self-denial, not a life based upon commerce and gain.

One winter when Crazy Horse was only five, the tribe was short of food. His father, a tireless hunter, finally brought in two antelope. The little boy rode his pony through the camp, telling the old folks to come for meat, without first asking his parents. Later when Crazy Horse asked for food, his mother said, "You must be brave and live up to your generous reputation."

It was customary for young men to spend much time in prayer and solitude, fasting in the wilderness --typical of Sioux spiritual life which has since been lost in the contact with a material civilization.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Urban farming takes root in Detroit

No greed

Visiting one of the largest allotments, on a site that had been derelict since Detroit's infamous 1967 riots, locals spoke about an astonishing transformation.

"There is something that every hand in this area can do," said Rose Stallard, who is keen to enlist as many volunteers as possible to help tend the garden and its precious crops.

As she organises a band of eager helpers to pull greens from the rich top-soil, Ms Stallard says food is more expensive than ever and neighbourhood shops are scarce.

"That's one cucumber you didn't have to pay 69 cents for," she adds, with a smile.

There are no fences but one local said greed had not been a problem.

"People are only taking what they need, because they know it's for everybody," he said.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There is a kernel of truth in all this – namely that the relentless accumulation of wealth has not been an ideal in many other societies, both hunter gatherer and in some cases agrarian. Farming, with the possibilities of surplus, certainly provides the conditions for such accumulation to become socialised. But there is no reason, certainly not some spurious notion of inevitable 'human nature', why we cannot in the future overcome the temptation to greed that farming has led us to.

If the only lesson studying non-agricultural societies teaches us is that there is nothing inherently 'natural' about current ideas of greed, it will be a lesson well learned. It can be hard to see beyond the socialisation of one's own culture, but to do so may point to a way to more-or-less consciously change the culture of the future. And I see no reason why this cannot be done. Unfortunately, it will probably take a crisis of the current system to provide the impetus for it to happen.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yes I say that. There was no "boss" to order them around. To make them create all those nice objects they did create in their free time. You are hungry you go foraging and hunting. There is no question about "liking". Unless you are suicidal. They had more free time and were not the cavemen "I hit you, I get your food and woman ! I stupid !" you imagine. Give me the "unbiased link" or book if you find any.

Claude Levi Strauss, "The Nambikwara of Northwest Matto Grosso", in Ronald Cohen and John Middleton, editors, 'Comparative Political Systems: Studies in the Politics of Pre-industrial Societies' (Garden City, New York; Natural History Press, 1967) p. 25, where Levi Strauss says that a system of chieftainship or headship seems always to exist in traditional societies.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I am assuming what ? Native Americans were free people not brainwashed. Nobody could order them around..

Aside from the fact that there were slaveholding tribes that traditionally subjugated and enslaved certain neighboring tribes.

The land claims process ran into a bit of a snag here awhile ago, when it was determined that one tribe seemed to be getting a better deal than another, and the second tribe couldn't abide by that, given that the first tribe were their hereditary slaves, traditionally.

The difficulty with making political pronouncements based upon how we think traditional people live/lived etc, is that our pronouncements are usually based on our romantic image of how they lived, instead upon the factual realities of how they lived.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, it is simplistic, a lot of what paimei is saying, I'm afraid.

The very consciousness of people in a h-g society will be very different from that of technological man. Many, indeed, will not see themselves as acting with freedom at all, but according to an imperative laid down by their ancestors.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Of course they had rules. Yes they had wars. With other tribes. Not like our wars. But no rulers. Can you understand that ? No chief could order and Indian around. .

Which ones? There were many many tribes, and the rules and lifestyles of the West Coast Tlingit, were different from those of the Oglala Sioux, which differed from the Iroquois Confederacy, which differed from the Zuni, which differed from the Apaches, which differed from the Aztecs, which differed from the Yanomamo.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Most Native Americans were not hunter-gatherers. Most of them were farmers with class structures. They farmed maize, potato, peppers, tomatoes, tobacco, etc. Choose again.

I don't think that's correct. The Coastal peoples lived off fishing, which is a form of hunter gatherer. The plains natives were definitely hunter gatherers, pursuing the buffalo. The organized civilizations of Mexico etc were as you describe, as were some but not all of the tribes of Eastern Canada and the US.

The northern peoples, the Inuit, the Dene, etc, were hunter gatherers.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't think that's correct. The Coastal peoples lived off fishing, which is a form of hunter gatherer. The plains natives were definitely hunter gatherers, pursuing the buffalo. The organized civilizations of Mexico etc were as you describe, as were some but not all of the tribes of Eastern Canada and the US.

The northern peoples, the Inuit, the Dene, etc, were hunter gatherers.

And many were a mixture, of course. There isn't a sharp dividing line between h-g and pastoralist. Predominantly hunter-gatherers traded with more settled peoples. And even if you look at so-called hunter gatherers in the Amazon now, many have invented ingenious systematic methods of exploiting plants in a way that is akin to a 'primitive' agriculture.

The romantic ideal doesn't work – humans of all flavours have long known of the principle of storage for later – even if it is just salting meats.

 

[camouflage]

There is a kernel of truth in all this – namely that the relentless accumulation of wealth has not been an ideal in many other societies, both hunter gatherer and in some cases agrarian. Farming, with the possibilities of surplus, certainly provides the conditions for such accumulation to become socialised. But there is no reason, certainly not some spurious notion of inevitable 'human nature', why we cannot in the future overcome the temptation to greed that farming has led us to.

If the only lesson studying non-agricultural societies teaches us is that there is nothing inherently 'natural' about current ideas of greed, it will be a lesson well learned. It can be hard to see beyond the socialisation of one's own culture, but to do so may point to a way to more-or-less consciously change the culture of the future. And I see no reason why this cannot be done. Unfortunately, it will probably take a crisis of the current system to provide the impetus for it to happen.

Necessity. Invention. Mother of.

 

[Kizmet]

Necessity. Invention. Mother of.

I was waiting for someone to say that.

You, mate, have said in 4 words what paimei has failed to appreciate in 40,000.

 

[ToothlessFerret]

I don't think that's correct. The Coastal peoples lived off fishing, which is a form of hunter gatherer. The plains natives were definitely hunter gatherers, pursuing the buffalo. The organized civilizations of Mexico etc were as you describe, as were some but not all of the tribes of Eastern Canada and the US.

The northern peoples, the Inuit, the Dene, etc, were hunter gatherers.

and I think that you may be wrong. The Native Americans built some of the largest cities in the World. They did this based on agrarian economies. The European perspective of them being 'barbaric' hunter-gatherers is clearly wrong. Look at early prints of East Coast Native Americans before the image of the wild west set root - you see farmers.

Bearing in mind that European diseases marched way ahead of western colonisation - what pioneers witnessed may have been the remnants of Native culture that had been recently ravished by disease - not a long standing tradition of hunting-gathering.

Ok, that's maybe a little extreme, but seriously - taking the Americas as a whole - there may have been pockets of hunter-gatherers, but only in areas where farming had not yet been successful. The Native Americans were perfectly acquainted, and had a history of agriculture, class/caste, and city-building. The Europeans destroyed them first.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

and I think that you may be wrong. The Native Americans built some of the largest cities in the World. They did this based on agrarian economies. The European perspective of them being 'barbaric' hunter-gatherers is clearly wrong. Look at early prints of East Coast Native Americans before the image of the wild west set root - you see farmers.
.

I might be, but I don't think so.

I was raised on the Canadian Prairie, which is similar in characteristic to all of Canada between the Canadian Shield of Ontario, and the Rocky Mountains. It is also much the same as the US, west of the Mississippi, to the Rockies, and part of the US on the other side of the river.

This land was not farmed prior to the European incursion, and not even very well after that, until irrigation became a commonplace. This area comprises a huge part of NA. To the southwest, is the northern extension of the Sonoran Desert, which stretches from Mexico, and ends in a finger of the Okanagan Valley in south central British Columbia. It includes the desert states of the Soutwest, as well as parts of Idaho, Washington, Oregon Montana, Utah, Colorado. The bulk of it is not farmed, and the parts that are, are farmed only because of irrigation.

The native americans of the West Coast of both countries, fished. Why bother scratching in the soil, when you have the bounty of the Pacific right beside you?

You're right that many tribes in the East of NA farmed, because the land there is more lush, with a temperate climate, but that pattern was not repeated throughout most of NA.

 

[toblerone3]

.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The other issue with hunter gatherer societies is that they produce no surplus and hence can't support specialists.

No specialists = no hierarchy. The egalitarianism seen in many hunter-gatherer societies is no coincidence.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I am assuming what ? Native Americans were free people not brainwashed. Nobody could order them around. Not even their "chiefs". They were chiefs as long as they were respected for bravery and wisdom. Nobody followed a coward or stupid chief just because of the title. Black slaves - possible. Native American slaves I did not hear of any.

Aside from all your other misconceptions, I just wanted to pull you on this one, because it demonstrates clearly how you fail to grasp historical processes.

The North Atlantic slave trade uprooted people captured in their homelands in Africa and mixed together with all kinds of different people who were also being taken as slaves. Upon arrival, they often had to take their master's tongue as a lingua franca between them, lacking as they did a common language or culture. This made them a very different group from one which would be taken en mass and set to slavery on their ancestral lands.

In chains on a strange land, given a strange name, with their culture stripped away from them, weakened after a horrific voyage during which many died. This is how most African slaves found themselves in America. In Haiti, Cuba and Brazil, African languages still show traces in religious chants the meaning of which has often long been lost, so some brotherhood was evidently possible in places. And of course slaves did rebel, despite the best attempts to break them. The slaves of Haiti needed no external power to liberate them, despite all that they or their ancestors had been through.

For the equivalent to have happened to the first nations of North America, they would have needed to be captured, thrown together with many different nations from across the land, packed off to Europe in horrific conditions, and then split up upon arrival in such a way that they would not be able to understand each other except in the European tongue of their new masters.

If you rob a person of their culture, their identity, their land, you leave someone who may only have the drive to stay alive left. The Nazis knew this. The Jews of the concentration camps were similarly brutalised, so much so that they would dream of bread rather than freedom.

It is pretty much impossible for any of us to imagine how we would react in such terrible circumstances.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No specialists = no hierarchy. The egalitarianism seen in many hunter-gatherer societies is no coincidence.

There is the hierarchy inferred by bravery, though, to take one example. The leaders may be those who have proved themselves in battle. It may not be a hierarchy based on possessions, but it is a hierarchy nonetheless.

 

[revol68]

There is the hierarchy inferred by bravery, though, to take one example. The leaders may be those who have proved themselves in battle. It may not be a hierarchy based on possessions, but it is a hierarchy nonetheless.

Yes but not in a really meaningful way, you might as well start talking about hierarchies of humour, beauty, kindness or intelligence etc etc.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Aside from all your other misconceptions, I just wanted to pull you on this one, because it demonstrates clearly how you fail to grasp historical processes.

The North Atlantic slave trade uprooted people captured in their homelands in Africa and mixed together with all kinds of different people who were also being taken as slaves. Upon arrival, they often had to take their master's tongue as a lingua franca between them, lacking as they did a common language or culture. This made them a very different group from one which would be taken en mass and set to slavery on their ancestral lands.

In chains on a strange land, given a strange name, with their culture stripped away from them, weakened after a horrific voyage during which many died. This is how most African slaves found themselves in America. In Haiti, Cuba and Brazil, African languages still show traces in religious chants the meaning of which has often long been lost, so some brotherhood was evidently possible in places. And of course slaves did rebel, despite the best attempts to break them. The slaves of Haiti needed no external power to liberate them, despite all that they or their ancestors had been through.

For the equivalent to have happened to the first nations of North America, they would have needed to be captured, thrown together with many different nations from across the land, packed off to Europe in horrific conditions, and then split up upon arrival in such a way that they would not be able to understand each other except in the European tongue of their new masters.

If you rob a person of their culture, their identity, their land, you leave someone who may only have the drive to stay alive left. The Nazis knew this. The Jews of the concentration camps were similarly brutalised, so much so that they would dream of bread rather than freedom.

It is pretty much impossible for any of us to imagine how we would react in such terrible circumstances.

...and not to forget the point, brought up above, that slavery existed intra the North American native indian societies.

 

[Kizmet]

Yes but not in a really meaningful way, you might as well start talking about hierarchies of humour, beauty, kindness or intelligence etc etc.

All of which exist and have existedand are as meaningful as each other.