James,
If you and Gene are talking about beliefs and behaviors of
native peoples whose traditional cultures are intact, we have to inquire
(a)where did you find the data on this traditional situation that would
actually enable you to measure any of the ecological variables that are
being debated here, and (b) are you aware that the notion of a static "in
equilibrium" traditional society is under serious challenge for a variety
of theoretical reasons - the most serious being the gradual replacement
of steady state systems theory with dynamical systems theory.?
I won't accuse *you* of necessarily pulling this move, but all too
often I see people taking accounts of a native population written during
the first decade or so of *direct* European contact as true portraits of
a timeless pristine in-equilibrium type of culture. In these accounts,
they may - if they pick and chose - find some fulfillment of an ideal: no
violence, matriarchy, or whatever. They then argue, endlessly, that this
is they way thiings were *everywhere* before horrible Euro contact shattered
the traditional Eden. This move ignores (a) that indirect contact has
often been moving and shaping these cultures centuries before
'historical' cultures have detected their presence (e.g. brasses and
trade beads from Imperial China have been unearthed in the highlands of
New Guinea; the brilliant efflourescence of Plains Culture in native
North America followed the introduction of the horse by the Spanish,
etc), and (b) that the ethnographic reports coming out of the first
decade or so of direct contact are often of terrible quality
by current standards - usually the earlier the worse.
Again, if the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. I just want to
point out some of the trickiness of historical/ethnographic argument.
I'll say no more on this thread. Back to birds!

Harriet Whitehead
Anthropology WSU


On Fri, 21 Apr 1995, James
West wrote:

> One important note needs feeding back into this interesting thread: what
> indigenous peoples do _today_ may not be relevant if their traditional
> belief systems have been wholly or partly replaced by "European"
> thinking. What Gene and I have been talking about is the beliefs and
> behaviors of indigenous peoples with their traditional cultures pretty
> much intact. The Buriats of today have very little left of the shamanistic
> belief system in which the bear was sacred (and in which, birders, the
> Buriat people sprang from the union of a hunter and a SWAN!). Like the
> average Russian hunter, they will blast away at anything that moves
> through their line of sight.
>