Jon et al.,

I can't pass this one up. As an anthropologists who has worked for 25
years with Native American communities studying their knowledge of the
natural environment I would like to opine that you have phrased the issue
wrong. To suggest that Native American (or other indigenous, small-scale
subsistence oriented communities past & present) are just as inclined to
overhunt, degrade the environment, etc., as "we" are is not condescending
to them nor racists. It is a fact that in many cases indigenous
communities had in place well-regulated systems of social control
involving their religious beliefs, moral values, and interpersonal
relations that protected their resource bases from the so-called "Tragedy
of the Commons" of Garrett Hardin fame. Such well-regulated systems
depended upon their generationally-deep dependence upon a specific local
habitat/land base. Such systems have been everywhere disrupted if not
destroyed by the intrusion of state governments in support of opening up
the resource bases of all lands to the more "efficient" development of
resources for the global market. It has nothing to do with race. It has
a great deal to do with the particular economic and governmental
institutions that now dominate the globe. I believe indigenous
communities deserve the opportunity to continue to practice traditional
resource harvest management strategies, modified of course by the
inescapable influence of the global market and the encompassing national
societies. Such communities still have deep spiritual ties to the lands
their ancestors occupied for thousands of years before the arrival of
Euorpean (for the most part) immigrants withing the past two hundred years.
Bison were driven off cliffs but there is very little real evidence that
even under such circumstances -- special and localized as they clearly
were -- that a significant fraction of the meat was wasted.

Eugene Hunn.

On Thu, 20 Apr 1995, Jon Anderson wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, 20 Apr 1995, Stuart MacKay wrote:
>
> >I think there is a lot to be said for tribal peoples (American Indians
> spring to mind) , respect for the animals hunted. Not much evidence for
> that in red-blooded white males :-))
>
>
> Stuart -
>
> A minor flame:
>
> Pretending that the Native American community is more environmentally
> correct than us 'white red-blooded males' is condescending and is a form
> of racism in its own right.
>
> Historical running of bison by Lakota hunters over a cliff, resulting in
> meat being wasted is not appropriate by contemporary standards. The
> current use of gillnets and purse seines by the Lummi Nation to harvest
> sockeye salmon is mostly motivated by economics - not by some 'connection
> with the land' acsribed to native peoples by guilt-tripped WASPs.
>
> People are people. Different cultures often have varying perspectives on
> the world, but please do not assume that a people are 'better' or 'worse' or
> more or less environmentally-correct by virtue of their race or culture.
> That is as much a disservice to the one race as it is to the other.
>
> Jon. Anderson
> Olympia, WA
> anderjda at dfw.wa.gov
>
>