User:Physis/Hunter-gatherer cultures and ecology

I have thought of three improvements of Shamanism:
 * 1) The explanations can be extended and verbatim quotations can be presented. The section is based Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff's works, see references.
 * 2) Although I cannot check personally the fieldwork done by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, but there is a possibility to compare his work with other fieldworks done among Tukano people. I think of the books of an author pair Hugh-Jones.  (It can be a problem that the author pair had already to face with deteriorating of traditional culture. I have not read these two books yet, just seen a mentioning about them (and a very positive critic) by Edmund Leach.
 * 3) I admit, at least one critic should be added. I think of The Golden Age That Never Was thought of Jared Diamond.

This ecologist-aspect of shaman seems to be mentioned also by other authors, but I admit the given details are not large enough to explain them in a thoroughly convincing manner. Thus Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff remains my primary reference, and Jared Diamond seems to be a primary critic.

An exception to this may be a new article, but I must study yet carefully.

Ecological aspect
In tropical rainforests, resources for human consumption are easily depletable. In some rainforest cultures, such as the Tucano, a sophisticated system exists for the management of resources, and for avoiding the depletion of these resources through overhunting. This system is conceptualized in a mythological context, involving symbolism and, in some cases, the belief that the breaking of hunting restrictions may cause illness. As the primary teacher of tribal symbolism, the shaman may have a leading role in this ecological management, actively restricting hunting and fishing. The shaman is able to “release” game animals (or their souls) from their hidden abodes, The Desana shaman has to negotiate with a mythological being for souls of game. Not only Tucanos, but also some other rainforest Indians have such ecological concerns related to their shamanism, for example Piaroa. Besides Tukanos and Piaroa, also many Eskimo groups think that the shaman is able to fetch souls of game from remote places; or undertake a soul travel in order to promote hunting luck, e.g. by asking for game from mythological beings (Sea Woman). besides that, also the everyday hunting practice has some ecological features, and other beliefs behing it. Hansen's principle also conveys an ecological attitude.

Terminological critic
I am interested in the example You wrote about. Can You give some details? Now I think of that
 * what You write suggests that they were not a hunter-gatherer people.
 * If this is an African example, it can be debated that it can be termed correctly as "shamanistic". Mediums (incapable of control over their spirits, and lacking soul travel of their own) are in generally not termed as "shaman"s in the literature (although Huxley & Narby seems to challenge this distinction as definition of shamanism, proposing a continuum, examples compared from Africa ). Till now, I found that in Africa, it is Bushmen who are mentioned as an example having some similarities to shamanism (travel of the soul, maintaining control over spirits). Your example seems to be rather a pastoralist example (I admit, also Bushmen have pastoralist language relatives: also Hottentots belong to Khoisan, and anyway, there can be other cultures in Africa that can be termed as "shamanistic" after careful examination).

Australian Aborigines
Elkin: "my landscape". And also James: Visions of the Dreamtime: "not man owns land, land own man", and also "cultural landsacpe".

Others
Gerardo Reichel-Dolamtoff: landscape in imbued with culture of transformed by technology. Eskimo: the artist sees the artefact in the natural features of the raw material, and "releases it" (Burch & Forman 1988).

Sami
Ingold 1997: 63–65: I come now to the third level on which we can ask how participation in reindeer work affects the formation of personal identity: this is in terms of people's relation with the non-human components of their environment, principally animals and land. Here I believe there is a quite basic contrast to be drawn between Finnish and Saaami attitudes. For the Saami pastoralist, reindeer herds constitute a repository of wealth and value, and their reproduction is the primary objective of husbandry (Paine 1972). Among the Finns, by contrast, the reindeer has always figured as a secondary source of income an economy centred on farming and forestry. Social relations are anchored in the possession of land, and not in animals which are regarded as but means for converting natural pasture into meat that can be either sold or consumed directly. Reindeer, like corps, are grown and harvested—in other words, they are farmed. The repository of wealth of the Finnish farmer is his reserve of standing timber, held either on a private, bounded plot, or as a fixed share of common forest. Indeed in may ways, trees serve for him the same function — as a store of value — that reindeer do for the Sami. Where the latter is a builder of herds, the former is a farmer of the forest (Ingold 1983b).

This contrast, moreover, has implications for the way the forest itself is perceived. This may be expressed in terms of a distinction between land and landscape (Ingold 1983d:153–154). By landscape I refer to the morphology of the environment through which a person moves in the practical business of life. For the Saami the forest is a landscape in this sense, and its significance is relative to different kinds of tasks that draw people into it. Thus if a man is away from home, and you ask of his whereabouts, the answer will depend on what he is doing: if he is mustering reindeer, then he is in the 'reindeer-forest',; if he is trapping ptarmigan, then he is in the 'ptarmigan-forest',; if he is collecting berries, then he is in the 'berry-forest'. Yet as they go about these and other activities, people leave impressions in the landscape, even as the landscape impresses itself in the form of their own experience. Particular individuals are identified with their own paths, each a record of countless journeys made (ingold 1976:96–97). And the remains of a fire may call up memories of who stopped there to warm themselves, and what they were doing at that time.Through the inscriptions of innumerable traces of this kind, the forest — as a landscape — becomes a fabric into which is woven the lives of past and present generations. A man may be known, and remembered, by constellation of places and paths associated with is name, each linked to some significant component in his biography, and adding up to a record of who he is and where he has been. In this way the forest as a whole enfolds the history of a community, and to engage with it perceptually is itself to perform ab act of remembrance (Ingold 1973d: 152—153).1

Whereas 'landscape' denotes the world as it is known to those who move about in it, by 'land' I mean to express the idea of a universal substrate upon which (rather than within which) people work. The land, in this sense, isa kind of 'lowest common denominator' of the natural world. In Finnish this idea is conveyed by the term maa, which can refer just as well to the earth in which corps and trees are rooted as to the surface of the earth n its global extent, and equally to the territorial domain of a farm or a nation state. From the perspective of the Finnish farmer, then, the forest is not a landscape so much as a realisation of the inherent productive potential of the land, consisting in essence of the trees that grow on it. Accordingly, one kind of forest is distinguished from another not in terms of what people are doing there but in terms of the dominant type of tree — generally spine, spruce or birch. Where timber is a commodity, such distinctions are of considerable significance. Moreover the history of any stand of the forest is intimately bound up with the history of the house to which it belongs: here, an open-felled plot testifies that its owner has sold out to financea move to the city or clear a debt to his siblings in the contet of inherietance; there, a stand of overaged trees speaks of a miserly old farmer who is reluctant to relaise the value of his assets, or ofthe failure of his heirs to reach a settlement among themselves. thus, given an experienced eyeand a good deal of local knowledge, one can tell much about the changing fortunes of a house from the condition of its forest.

To sum up the contrast I have drawn here: for the Saami the forest is a domain in which lives and identities are inscribed, for the Finns it is a resource to be appropriated and transformed. Linked to this is a more general contrast in attitudes to the natural environment. Among the Saami, the environment is seen to lay down, in its temporal rhythms and the spatial disposition of its features, a course to be followed rather than a resistance to overcome. One works with the world, not against it. The Finnish farmers whom I came to know took a much less benign view of their environment. They would forever complain about the harsh, god-forsaken land in which they were condemned to live, about the long winters, and the cold. Life for them is regarded as a struggle in which people pit their energies against nature, in competition both with their neighbours and with themselves. It is through such struggle, in the record of achievement in the face of adversity, that personal identities are forged.

Footnotes [also belonging to the quoted text]


 * 1) Nelson (1983:243) makes a very similar observation in his fine account of the way in which Koyukon, native hunter-trappers of Alaska, perceive their landscape:The Koyukon homeland is filled with places … invested with significance in personal and familiar history. Drawing back to view the landscape as a whole, we can see it completely interwoven with these meanings. Each living individual is bound into this pattern of land and people that extends throughout the terrain and far back across time.

Epistemological questions
We might ask: but how can a shaman achieve any ecological management, as he/she is not a scientist? Now,let us address such problems? What is the knowledge of a shaman? What is science?

The shaman and the community
The shaman is not always the only person in a community who knows the beliefs and motifs related to the local shamanhood (laics know myths as well, among Barasana, even though less; there are former shaman apprentices unable to complete the learning among some Greenlandic Inuit peoples, moreover, even laics can have trance-like and other remarkable experiences among Eskimos (hallucinations, memories about ghosts or other beings, hearing voices in nature occasionally notifying about the community by falling into trance ). The assistant of a shaman can be extremely knowledgable among Oroqen ). Although the shaman is often believed and trusted exactly because he/she "accommodates" to the "grammar" of the beliefs of the community, but several parts of the knowledge related to the local shamanhood consist of personal experiences of the shaman (illness), or root in his/her family life (the interpretation of the symbolics of his/her drum), thus, these are lost with his/her death.

In some cultures, the border between the shaman and the lay person is not sharp: Among the Barasana, there is no absolute difference between those men recognized as shamans and those who are not. At the lowest level, most adult men have some abilities as shamans and will carry out some of the same functions as those men who have a widespread reputation for their powers and knowledge. The difference is that the shaman knows more myths and understands their meaning better, but the majority of adult men knows many myths, too.

Similar can be observed among some Eskimo peoples. The boundary between shaman and lay person was not always clearly demarcated. Non-shamans could also experience hallucinations, and almost every Eskimo can report memories of ghosts, animals in human form, or little people living in remote places. Experiences such as hearing voices from ice or stones were discussed as readily as everyday hunting adventures. Neither were trance-like states the monopoly of shamans, and laic people (non-shamans) experiencing such were welcome as well to report their experiences and interpretations. The ability to have and command helping spirits was characteristic of shamans, but laic people could also profit from spirit powers through the use of amulets. In one extreme instance a Netsilingmiut child had eighty amulets for protection. Some laic people had a greater capacity than others for close relationships with special beings of the belief system; these people were often apprentice shamans who failed to complete their learning process.

Many laic people have felt experiences that are usually attributed to the shamans of those Eskimo groups: experiencing daydreaming, reverie, trance is not restricted to shamans. It is the control over helping spirits that is characteristic mainly to shamans, the laic people use amulets, spells, formulae, songs. In Greenland among some Inuit, there are laic people who may have the capability to have closer relationships with beings of the belief system than others. These people are apprentice shamans who failed to accomplish their learning process.

The assistant of an Oroqen shaman (called jardalanin, i.e. "second spirit") knows many things about the associated beliefs: he/she accompanies the rituals, interprets the behavior of the shaman. Despite of this, the jardalanin is not a shaman. For his/her interpretative, accompanying role, it would be even unwelcome to fall into trance.

The way shamans get sustenance and take part in everyday life varies among cultures. In many Eskimo groups, they provide services for the community and get a “due payment” (some cultures believe the payment is given to the helping spirits ), but these goods are only “welcome addenda.” They are not enough to enable shamanizing as a full-time activity. Shamans live like any other member of the group, as hunter or housewife.

Cognitive, semiotic, hermeneutic approaches
As mentioned, a (debated) approach explains the etymology of word “shaman” as meaning “one who knows”. Really, the shaman is a person who is an expert in keeping together the multiple codes through which this complex belief system appears, and has a comprehensive view on it in his/her mind with certainty of knowledge. The shaman uses (and the audience understands) multiple codes. Shamans express meanings in many ways: verbally, musically, artistically, and in dance. Meanings may be manifested in objects, such as amulets.

The shaman knows the culture of his/her community well, and acts accordingly. Thus, his/her audience knows the used symbols and meanings — that's why shamanism can be efficient: people in the audience trust it. Such belief system can appear to its members with certainty of knowledge — this explains the above described etymology for the word “shaman”.

There are semiotic theoretical approaches to shamanism, (“ethnosemiotics”). The symbols on the shaman's costume and drum can refer to animals (as helping spirits), or the rank of the shaman. There were also examples of “mutually opposing symbols”, distinguishing “white” shamans practicing at day contacting sky spirits, and “black” shamans practicing at night contacting evil spirits for bad aims.

Series of such opposing symbols referred to a world-view behind them. Analogously to the way grammar arranges words to express meanings and convey a world, also this formed a cognitive map. Shaman's lore is rooted in the folklore of the community, which provides a “mythological mental map”. Juha Pentikäinen uses the concept “grammar of mind”. Linking to a Sami example, Kathleen Osgood Dana writes: Juha Pentikäinen, in his introduction to Shamanism and Northern Ecology, explains how the Sámi drum embodies Sámi worldviews. He considers shamanism to be a ‘grammar of mind’ (10), because shamans need to be experts in the folklore of their cultures (11). Some approaches refer to hermeneutics, “ethnohermeneutics”, as coined and introduced by Armin Geertz. The term can be extended: Hoppál includes not only the interpretation of oral or written texts, but also that of “visual texts as well (including motions, gestures and more complex ritual, and ceremonies performed for instance by shamans)”. It can not only reveal the animistic views hiding behind shamanism, but also convey their relevance for the recent world, where ecological problems made paradigms about balance and protection valid.

Ecological approaches, systems theory
Other fieldworks use systems theory concepts and ecological considerations to understand the shaman's lore. Desana and Tucano Indians have developed a sophisticated symbolism and concepts of “energy” flowing between people and animals in cyclic paths. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff relates these concepts to the changes how modern science (systems theory, ecology, some new approaches in anthropology and archeology) treats causality in a less linear way. He suggests also a cooperation of modern science and indigenous lore.

As Hadzabe are among the recent few functioning hunter-gatherer communities, several researches are done among them: game theoretical approaches, ecology etc. See the appendix parts of Hadzabe article.

Other remarks
According to Vladimir Basilov and his work Chosen By the Spirits, a shaman is to be in the utmost healthy conditions to perform their duties to the fullest. The belief of the shaman is most popular through the people located in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The traditions of the shamanism is also imbedded in the Tadzhiks and Uzbeks regions. The shaman’s bodies are to be formed in a strong manner, someone having a small build would be turned away at once. Age is a requirement as well, definitely being over the age of fifty would disqualify those that want to be involved in serving the spirits. The shamans are always of the higher intellect and are looked at in a different perspective, they have a way that makes them quick on their feet and at ill will curing those in need.

One of the most significant and relevant qualities that separate a shaman from other spiritual leaders is their communications with the supernatural world. As early as the beginning of the century self-hypnosis was very highly thought of by those who worship. Another characteristic of the shaman is the talent to locate objects and discover thieves, shocking those of their tribe and those others also around to witness. The belief in the spirits or the supernatural is what attracts those to believe in the shamans. Those who have ill children or are in failing health of their own is what draws them to the shaman spiritual healings. Although the shamans are still in existence, the population is surely declining.

Philosophy of science
You mentioned a shaman is not a scientist. I suppose (from Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff's book) he simply uses his phronesis, establishes practical rules (restricts exploitation if it seems that searching of resource begins to require longer and longer times), and there are patterns of restrictions embedded in the tradition. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff also mentions the possiblity of abstraction and philospohy, use of model, exact knowledge of ecological and physiological causes behind the mythological explanation.

Calendar among hunter-gatherers
As for tradition, his example, the association of hunting seasons of various species to the visibility of their corresponding constellations, surely enables even an oral culture to manage a seasonal pattern of arranging restrictions and exploitation. The ways hunter-gather peoples mimic a written calendar are marvelous: clever associations of signs (appearance or disappearance of various species, constellations etc.) to seasons, see also linking signs to astronomy among Australian Aborigines, also their "speaking" month names, speaking month names alre noteworthy also among Siberian Yupik and Caribou Eskimo in all three cases, these "speaking" month names are referring to clues of natural phenomena.

Algebra of kinship
About the way abstraction can be present or lack among hunter-gatherers, see Elkin about the genious solution for making two different kinship systems compatible, e.g. on occasions of corroboree (despite of minimalistic number concept ).

Supporting claims
Interdependence results in a special ecological relationship. Notion of "healing" the cosmos (this "cosmos" may be man with the environment, but i may be also as small as the internal of a pacient.

Amazonia
Tucano, Desana examples by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff.

Something like a proof: where shamanism weakened, overhunting resulted.

Illness
Detailed in Gerardo-Reichel-Dolmatoff's book, (but also expressed in a Cherokee tale. ).

Piaroa.

Master of animals
Tucano, Desana, Norh American Indian. Sea woman among Eskimos. Kurupi in Guaraní mythology. Diana's paper.

Siberia
Examples selected from shamanism in Siberia by Mihály Hoppál.

The Ob-Ugric did not want to achieve the Plan, and refused to fish down a sacred lake, because they knew that it is ecologically absurd requirement. They were punished.

Eskimos
Maybe something will be found by browsing through Mousalimas'edition, especially Nuttall's article. See also blurring subject and object.

Ogiek
Defending the Ogiek against the claim of overhunting.

Critic
I feel that Diamond's several examples are not hunter-gatherers, and the hunter-gatherers he mentions are arriving in a new territory (invasion of man into the virgin Americas through the Bering Strait). I suspect hunter-gatherers with an established local knowledge and presence have time to work out practical rules (possibly embedded in the belief system) to restrict exploitation. Maybe Marshall Sahlin's Stone Age Economics will be a good source for that, but I have read it only ten years ago, I must re-read it.

It is worth also browsing through a book about Arctic peoples and ecology.

Game theory
Although it is indeed an interesting question how the shaman gets his knowledge (and what kind of knowledge he has), but it is no less important question how he enforces the restrictions. Lack of knowledge is not the only cause of ecological disasters: as we know from the game theory, people are not immune to social traps automatically. Examples like prisoner's dilemma, and tragedy of commons reveal that people can cause disasters even if everybody knows exactly that his deed is not good. The shaman's achievement is not only that he foresees depletion of resources (sometimes this may be rather evident), the main point is that he is able to make people change the behavior. The mythical belief that "overhunting may cause illness for the hunter in a magical way" may be able to enforce some coordinated self-restriction even in societies without state and central power.

Cooperation
I admit that Reichel-Dolmatoff is not an ecologist/biologist himself, he is an anthropologist, but he has done thorough fieldwork, and he has proposed the collaboration of biologists and anthropologists: Up to this point, I have been writing this article as a humanist, as an intellectual, as an anthropologist who is profoundly concerned about the future of the Indians and their natural environment. But now I shall begin to write as a rationalist too: as a person who is acutely aware of the realities of our present times, and who knows that the future lies in the hands of the intelligentsia, of the technologists and bureaucrats. It is they who have the power, and according to them the Indians are primitives who have to be integrated; according to them, nature is something that has to he exploited for the benefit of man.

We may know that we need the Indians; we may know that the ruthless exploitation of natural resources has limits; but the leading intelligentsia and their development agencies recognise no limits to their all-embracing technology. We have to be realistic, and accept the fact that the Indian world is on the wane. The Amazon basin and many, many other, formerly remote, regions of the Third World are being opened to outside influences and to technological development. In some regions this process will be slower and less turbulent than in others; some aboriginal societies will he able to re-adapt, but others will become profoundly modified, and some will perish altogether, biologically, culturally, linguistically. As anthropologists and biologists, we know only too well that these changes are part of the historical scheme of things.

These are disturbing thoughts, to say the least, and I wish I could be more positive when thinking of the future of rainforest Indians and aboriginal peoples in general. But in fifty years, I have seen too many traditions being lost; I have seen entire tribes disappear; I have seen too much misery among gentle, helpless people.

Although I know that the Indians' world is on the wane, I believe that this knowledge does not exempt us from certain obligations. So, here, I shall attempt to suggest a few approaches to these problems; I shall try to make an effort to envisage a better future for the Indians, by suggesting a few personal ideas.

In the first place, I think we should make a combined effort to study the Indians' knowledge of their biotype, taking into account not only our, but above all their, concepts of ecosystems. Every square kilometre of forest contains a library of important biological, cultural and psychological information, and if we study it in the company of the Indians our insights in all these fields will be enormously enriched. The death of an old Indian who never had the chance to share with us his knowledge of the forest and the river is the equivalent of a whole library disappearing. If we undertake this study alone, we will get a mere inventory but if we work together with the Indians our insights will be greatly enriched by a kind of knowledge which, at present, still lies beyond our experience. For 500 years we have witnessed and played along with, the destruction of the Indians; now we are witnessing the destruction of the natural habitat. What are we waiting for?

There can also be no doubt that as anthropologists, biologists and ecologists we possess an enormous amount of information, or practical field experience, and of the many forms of human vulnerability and of the destruction of the natural environment. By transforming this information into practical knowledge, in a manner that would make it understandable and convincing to national leaders and planning agencies, we can influence the process of decision-making; we can convince those in power of the biological and social necessity to conserve these lands; and we can convince them of the dignity and value of our Indian societies.

It is not sufficient to say that what we owe to the Indians is potatoes, maize and quinine. It is not sufficient to retell their myths and tales in florid Portuguese or Spanish or to stage their dances in a pseudo-Indian setting on television. What we must show is the Indian's philosophy of life, their cosmogonic and cosmological schemes, their ethical and aesthetical attitudes. What we must show is their courage of choice, their option of other ways of life, different from ours; the courage and genius of having built their societies, their cultures based upon an astonishing combination of realism and imagery.

Latin

 * The title means “The faces of culture. Mosaics fom the area of cultural anthropology”.
 * Diamond, Jared. "The Golden Age that never was", in The Third Chimpanzee.
 * Translation of Elkin 1974.
 * The Golden Age That Never Was
 * Translation of the original:
 * 
 * (The title means "Shamans in Eurasia", the book is written in Hungarian, but it is also published in German, Estonian and Finnish). Site of publisher with short description on the book (in Hungarian)
 * Translation of the original Leach 1982.
 * Read original English as Narby & Huxley 2004.
 * 
 * 
 * Sahlin, Marshal. Stone Age Economics.
 * Translation of Vitebsky 1995
 * Translation of the original Leach 1982.
 * Read original English as Narby & Huxley 2004.
 * 
 * 
 * Sahlin, Marshal. Stone Age Economics.
 * Translation of Vitebsky 1995
 * Read original English as Narby & Huxley 2004.
 * 
 * 
 * Sahlin, Marshal. Stone Age Economics.
 * Translation of Vitebsky 1995
 * 
 * Sahlin, Marshal. Stone Age Economics.
 * Translation of Vitebsky 1995
 * Sahlin, Marshal. Stone Age Economics.
 * Translation of Vitebsky 1995
 * Translation of Vitebsky 1995

Cyrillic

 * The transliteration of author's name, and the rendering of title in English: