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Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies
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Subject: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: InOBU Date: 21 Apr 00 - 08:09 AM Our Brother Richard made the following observation in a post about guns.... Mankind evolved out of the "hunter-gatherer" stage many centuries ago. I know Richard did not mean harm by it, however, I have worked among a modern Hunter Gatherer society, the Innu of Quebec and Labrador. We have been trying very hard to convince the world that their way IS a modern way of life. People who destroy the land for industrial progress do not have a right of ownership over the present! Hunter Gatherer societies are AS evolved as any other, as they have evolved and continued into the present day! So, Richard, put the kettle on and listen to Yvettes Song, and someday, in early August, go to Mani Utenam, for the music festival, and meet Yvette. You will find she is a living breathing part of the 21st Century. It does show that there is a great difference between Europe and the States. On this contenent where we still have true wilderness and rivers one can drink out of, the idea that we must tame the land rather than live with the land... well enough from me... Hope the weather is better in England, I hear it has been horrible the last week... All the best Larry |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Apr 00 - 09:09 AM One thing which seems to be obscured in most of the talk about these kind of issues is the chasm between hunting as a way of subsistence, and hunting as recreation.
The two things aren't variations of the same basic things - hunting purely as recreation is a perversion of hunting as a way of subsistance. Types of hunting where the hunters don't even eat the creatures they kill are the clearest example.
The other perversion is the industrialisation of the process.
And with things like automatic rifles and machine guns you've got both perversions at the same time.
Traditional hunting methods involve a link between the hunter and the hunted. Methods which don't require this are somehow degrading. |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: katlaughing Date: 21 Apr 00 - 10:00 AM Good point, Kevin. Rog and I were just joking last night about how, here in Wyoming, most of them don't go hunting until they spent several hundred, if not more, on a high-powered rifle, thousands on a 4 wheel drive monster truck, several more thousands on a caravan/trailer, proper clothing, a guide, etc. In short the hundred or so pound antelope they bag really cost them several tens of thousands and it is such a manly thing to do, oh, yeah, and several hundreds on food and booze. Larry, I understand the need to hunt in the far reaches, as you mention, but I won't be back to this thread. I have a really hard time reading about any killing of animals, regardless of any apparent justification. Good point, though, about the way of life which honours all life, including the planet's. Thanks, kat |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Little Neophyte Date: 21 Apr 00 - 01:51 PM Two really good books on the subject Larry is talking about are: Ishmael My Ishmael: A Sequel By Daniel Quinn They really wake you up to understanding what the Hunter Gatherer society was all about and how we lost it. Little Neo |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: M. Ted (inactive) Date: 21 Apr 00 - 02:26 PM Larry, My father grew up in rural New England, during the Great Depression, and their primary sources of food were the woods, the rivers, and the sea-- Even today,our European friends would be surprised at how many people there are whose diet includes a significant amount of food that they gather, catch, forage--and not only in the remote areas, either-- As to hunting--here in the US, we have a huge population of deer, hunting is necessary to thin the herds, if the herds are not kept down by hunting, they grow too large for the food supply and they are thinned by the other processes, starvation and disease, much more brutal!!! |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: SINSULL Date: 21 Apr 00 - 02:36 PM they grow too large for the food supply and they are thinned by the other processes, starvation and disease, much more brutal!!! Did the deer get to vote on this? Humans die of starvation and disease when they outgrow the food supply. Would it be less brutal to shoot them? Maybe. Believe it or not, I come from a family of hunters and do not have a problem with hunters who eat their kill. I do have a problem with their justifying an essentially cruel sport with the "kindness theory". |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: SeanM Date: 21 Apr 00 - 02:40 PM Kat, I understand the difficulty with the killing of animals... but, if it helps, consider it a matter of the food chain. Modern society has more or less created an entire new food chain on top of the old one... we create entire crops and species of animals strictly for consumption. Right or wrong is not something I want to get into on this, but it's still there. What is described above is a society still living within the old food chain... once again, not to debate over rightness and wrongness, but it's also there. M |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: catspaw49 Date: 21 Apr 00 - 03:05 PM Well......I certainly believe that "Hunter-Gatherer Societies" exist and are thriving today, certainly here where I live. And I think that they are as brutal, violent, and also tenacious, as any from previous times. I mean, I been to the grocery store when boneless/skinless chicken breasts were 59 cents a pound and although I lived to tell about it, it wasn't pretty. Many deaths. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Little Neophyte Date: 21 Apr 00 - 10:10 PM Catspaw, have you ever been to a boneless chicken farm? That is a real mess. Thousands of helpless chickens flopped all over the field like Raggedy Anns. Little Neo |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Rick Fielding Date: 21 Apr 00 - 10:19 PM I haven't Bonnie...but I did try to buy one of those "free range" chickens once. What a ripoff. The chicken was ok but they finked on the deal and I'm still cooking on the "old" range. Myron Cohen |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: catspaw49 Date: 21 Apr 00 - 10:33 PM Since the two of you are so well versed in this, maybe you could help me. While driving along the ridges leading westward from Cumberland Falls, we passed a lot of "homesteads" where you wonder how it is that these folks make a living. Rounding a tight curve very close to one of these homes, a pot-bellied pig darted out into the road in front of me. I missed it thankfully, but Karen and I figured he mist belong to the folks in the house across the road. Then we both looked down the ridge and there, standing alone in the woods was a strange site and not one I ever associated with the Kentucky highlands. An Emu was freely roaming over where the pig had come from......Just out wandering. I suppose it too belonged across the road, but my question is this............... Is there a market for "Free Range Emus?" Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: M. Ted (inactive) Date: 22 Apr 00 - 02:27 AM "Spaw-- There is not much of a market for the other sort of Emus--at least if the experience of my old Em-farming neigbors is typical--I understand that, from time to time, they would just let some of the hungrier ones go out for a smoke, and then lock the gate behind them-- A lot of these Emus ended up working in video rental stores, although many of the ones who were home-schooled often were accepted at good colleges-- |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Metchosin Date: 22 Apr 00 - 03:12 AM Pre-war Martins could not have been produced by unstinting vegetarians. |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Eluned Date: 22 Apr 00 - 11:36 PM Emus being the size they are, I can't see any economically feasible way of raising them OTHER than "free range". Emus are the latest thing in ranching, hadn't you 'herd'(hehe)? Seriously, there is even a professional magazine out for those who raise emu, ostrich, and other exotics. They are sold as gormet meat with the additional income from the leather (after all, who ever heard of CHICKEN leather?) and the feathers. |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: katlaughing Date: 23 Apr 00 - 12:35 AM Oh, gawd, I wasn't gonna get sucked in but oh well. eluned is right, Spaw, there are lots of freerange Emus here, although there is fencing around the hundreds and hundreds of acres they roam. Besides the IMO despicable uses mentioned above, their oil is all the rage in lotion for rancher/oilfield/lamber/sheep shearer/dishpan hands. Might work on them possum lips, too! |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Apr 00 - 12:46 AM Hey....Chicken Leather!!!! Now that's got some possibilities too. Along with the ass-grown asparagus I ought to be in the black in no time!!! Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Apr 00 - 12:51 AM Say, maybe the great speckled bird in the other thread is a free range Emu.......and we could tan them and make bible covers....Whaddaya think? Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: katlaughing Date: 23 Apr 00 - 12:55 AM I am gonna tan YOU!*BG* LMAO!!! We've also got an old boy out here who keeps bredding more and more llamsa to keep the weeds down on his many-acred ranchette, if your aspargus gets out of hand, maybe he'd send a few your way! |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: M. Ted (inactive) Date: 23 Apr 00 - 09:26 PM Seems to me that there were renegade Yaks out in Montana and Manitoba, as well-- |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Peg Date: 25 Apr 00 - 10:26 AM jus a point that needs to be made; this so called "humane action" of killing deer to thin the herds to prevent them from starving to death (admittedly, a much crueler way for them to die than shooting) is a bit wrong-minded...since the reason the deer herd populations have exploded is because HUMANS have killed all their natural predators!!! (cougars, bobcats, mountain lions, lynxes, etc.) this is not about sympathy or animal husbandry; it is about a hasty solution to a problem we have created...no forethought. The Iroquois tried never to do anything without determining how their actions would afect their tribe seven generations into the future. You kill the wild cats, the deer overbreed, the deer starve...takes only about one generation to see the results of this...
"Stupid Fucking white man." peg |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: katlaughing Date: 25 Apr 00 - 11:15 AM Thank you, Peg! |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: canoer Date: 25 Apr 00 - 04:08 PM No lie, my brother got sucked into that emu-farming thing. Lost his ass and the 10 emu along with it. In southwestern Wisconsin. |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: MMario Date: 25 Apr 00 - 04:35 PM Of course you also have to take into consideration the fact that the whitetail deer range is MUCH greater now then it was in the past,(it has been spreading north for generations) that the carrying capacity of the land for whitetails is also much larger (while uncut virgin forest can be beautiful - second growth forest and mixed fields and scrub provide much more food for animals) - and a few other things, such as there are probably more coyotes alive in NEW YORK CITY ALONE then there were on the entire continent during the 1700's. It's a complicated subject, and has an extreme number of variables. Animal populations also tend to go through cycles (sometimes seemingly at random). |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Bert Date: 25 Apr 00 - 04:44 PM Of course those ten feral emus and one feral ass in southwestern Wisconsin don't help the ecological balance much either! |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: MMario Date: 25 Apr 00 - 04:54 PM bert - don't laugh....The US now has populations of feral camels,(yes, camels!) horses, ponies and cattle that all resulted from "escapes". Not to mention the walking catfish, snails and other "pests". And of course the common dandelion, chicory and teasels; all brought over as crop plants. |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Richard Bridge Date: 25 Apr 00 - 05:04 PM Somehow I knew who had started this thread before I even looked past the title. OK - there are some few hunter gatherer societies left. Not many, but a few. But the people seeking to oppose gun control because of the alleged need to hunt tend by and large not to be members of such societies. The danger of being out of context! I would venture to suggest that the great and good would assert that the information society is supplanting the service economy which has not quite finished supplanting the manufacturing economy which has almost finished supplanting the agrarian economy which is turn has in most of the world has left no space for the hunter-gatherer society. I'm not an anthropologist but it rings a vague bell from my economics subsidiary at university although it could have been my social administration subsidiary - and of course the information society was only just thinking about starting then. Brother Larry, I have to disagree with your implication that the hunter gatherer is as much a part of world society as later economic forms, and, a fortiori that the remaining existence of hunter gatherers is a valid argument against gun control. I am not wholly opposed to gun control, but I would like the arguments about it to be relevant. |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: Bert Date: 25 Apr 00 - 05:23 PM MMario, I know it's a serious problem (recently we had a big problem with some escaped dogs) but the concept of 'the feral ass' hit my funny bone. |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: InOBU Date: 25 Apr 00 - 07:24 PM Hi Richard: These are two separate points. You and I, most likely, share similar views on gun control. I believe that a democracy is well protected, at this poor stage in human history, by having the population able to have guns, however, thouse guns should be regulated and not in the hands of criminals and crazies, and to accomplish this, there needs to be much more regulation, and much different regulation than exists in the US today. What I was objecting to is the belief that hunter gatherer societies are a thing of the past and will evolve out of their hunterer gatherer past. In the old social darwinist view of history, we are moveing towards the perfection of the Euro-American present, when ever that is and with what ever mistakes that represents. And communities which evolve by other ideals and goals are seen as being a relic of the past. We have to (in my very, well not so humble I am afraid, humble opinon) stop making a religion out of our view of history and progress. The earth cannot sustain US and English views of consumption, though I do admit the US is the chief villian in this, taking some 70 percent of the worlds resourses... well, the point is progress and modernism may look a little more like what some natives do... All the best... Larry |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: canoer Date: 25 Apr 00 - 08:43 PM I like the existence of hunter-gatherer societies because most of them (perhaps all, I don't know) demonstrate that a different society based on cooperation IS possible and IS NOT contrary to "human nature." |
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Subject: RE: Hunter Gatherer MODERN! societies From: GUEST,Aldus Date: 26 Apr 00 - 08:18 AM The only species who does not occupy a place in the natural order of things are humans. We have "evolved" our way out of it. The rather self-serving suggestion that we must hunt to keep animals from starving is absurd. We are the one who killed of the natural perdators..nature also thins...by cruel but natural means. Hunting is an industry..a tourist thing...it is not an essential way of life. As for the rather odd suggestion that "hunting and gathering societies" are somehow all nobilty and nature loving...that is a stereo-type which serves no one well. I agree that our mindless tendancy to "tame" nature has done us more harm than good...but until we all accept that as a fact, we will evolve ourselves right off the planet. |
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