Learning Primitive Skills
by Jason GodeskySo, at this point, I think we’ve visited and revisited the philosophical and academic grounds for primitivism enough that most of you who remain are wondering, “now what?” Learning primitive skills is a matter of gaining self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is the key to all freedom. You can never be free so long as you are dependent on someone else, and whatever it is you do depend on is what your fate is staked to. If you are dependent on civilization, then the end of that civilization is your own doom, as well. If you depend on the natural world, then you will only die off with the end of all other multicellular life on the planet. Self-sufficiency–primitive skills–is always the key to freedom, but in a time of collapse such as ours, it’s also the key to survival.
Of course, many of us see this as a daunting task. How can we ever acquire such skills in time? I’ve argued that this isn’t something to be overly worried about, but that suggestion has met a good deal of opposition, so allow me to expand on that position.
First, a disclaimer. I have lived in the city of Pittsburgh since 1987, and before then, Virginian suburbia. I’ve never lived in the woods. I’ve gone camping–I know the basics of recognizing basic sounds of the forest, how to keep a fire going, etc.–but I’m no wilderness expert. I consider myself very, very green; I consider myself just “starting out” when it comes to primitive skills. But I’ve talked to many people who are much more advanced than me, and I’ve noticed some curious patterns arising. They’ve set my own expectations, and I think that it’s something worth sharing with others who are starting down the same road we’re starting on.
This is our plan. About an hour or so east of Pittsburgh is Raccoon Creek State Park, a significant regional watershed. The Friends of Raccoon Creek pay for a whole series of classes and workshops in primitive skills. Last year, we attended the wild edibles course. We learned a few plants, but more importantly, we learned how to use field guides to learn new plants. The number of plants I know has increased significantly, but we left even that first weekend with much more than we arrived with. Soon, we’ll be joining them to learn how to make maple syrup right out of the tree–and we’re hoping by October to have graduated the “Advanced Primitive Skills” course. I’m under no illusions about what that means, but any standard that can call my primitive skills “advanced” must be at least up to Boy Scout level. That in itself amazes me as a very swift progression.
Of course, just as important as learning primitive skills is practicing them. So, this year will see us nearly every weekend in one of the nearby woods. We’ll be learning to fish, and learning to hunt. The state’s free hunting and trapping education course, and the bow-hunting course, will be invaluable for that.
Once we’ve gotten that far, it will be time to take a look at a serious primitive skills school, and spending a year in the woods non-stop, learning how to survival primitively.
Now, I’m under no illusions about the sustainability of hunting rifles or Peterson’s Field Guide, but I think that’s a problem that many run nto when they begin trying to learn primitive skills. They approach it as an all-or-nothing proposition. Since learning it all at once is so daunting, they become overwhelmed and may never succeed in learning anything. First, we learned how to identify plants using Peterson’s. With that, we’ve learned and memorized more plants. Until winter descended, we made regular hikes through the city parks to acquaint ourselves with more plants. Our repository is growing. No, our field guides won’t last forever–but they’ll last many years, and during that time, we’ll be relying on these plants, learning them at different stages of their growth, and memorizing them. By the time our field guides crumble into dust, we won’t need them anymore.
Hunting with a rifle won’t last forever, but there are parts of hunting that are universal, and hard enough to learn on their own. Tracking, gutting, bleeding, all these things must be learned. Hunting with a rifle gives you the opportunity to focus just on that. Once that’s learned, you can try an industrial bow instead. Once you have that down, it will be time to make your own bow. Each step along the way is much easier to learn than to simply go into the woods expecting to make your own bow and bring down a deer with it.
There’s the first lesson I’ve learned: don’t try to learn everything at once.
There is also the difference between ability and mastery. Primitive skills are, in general, easy to learn, and difficult to master. We learned how to identify wild edibles in a weekend, but we’ll probably spend the rest of our lives learning new plants, and new ways to use them. The basics of survival are very simple: just a few thousand calories per day (which you could probably get just from an anthill, if need be), potable water, and some way to protect yourself from exposure. These are simple tasks. You can learn them in a weekend, and survive. But surviving is not thriving–that is the difference between ability and mastery.
That said, survival buys you more time to develop your mastery. Every day you survive is another day of practice, another day of honing your skills, and practice is at least as important as learning. I’ve met many now who knew a wide range of primitive skills. Some of them characterized it as very easy. They tended to share my attitude about continual practice, and the difference between surviving and thriving. I’ve met others who said it was very hard. They’ve also tended to be more those who wanted to learn everything at once, or expected a high standard of living from the very start, or, very often, simply did not have much time to devote to practicing their skills. They attended a class here, a weekend there, but that was it. These skills must be practiced as often as possible–ideally, as the basics of your everyday life.
There are many ways that this can be made a difficult project, but it doesn’t have to be. I do not expect any significant trouble for the Tribe of Anthropik, and we’re on schedule to be full-fledged, self-sufficient foragers by 2010. In the end, whatever we might personally have taken to quickly–computers, art, etc.–primitive skills are precisely what humans evolved to learn. Even if we’re past our learning prime, this is the life humans have evolved for. In my own, admittedly limited, experience, learning primitive skills has had less the feeling of mastering some difficult, arcane task, and more the feeling of finally coming home.
Well said, Jason.
Towards the end of this summer, I’ve begun to invest more and more interest into primitive skills. Though I spend considerably more time working on them these days than any other point in my life, what is more noticable to me is my heightened DESIRE to work on them.
Though I’ve tried a lot of differnt skills, I will claim no mastery of any. Perhaps *some* proficiency, but really, who am I kidding? I think I’m trying to follow the harder path.
This stems from me attempting to go all-out in the skill. But, any skill is like a puzzle, and fitting the side and corner pieces together first is, after reading this, the obvious thing to do. Thank you for that insight.
I don’t think I’ve been considering using a tool made through civ’s infastructure as ‘cheating’, though I don’t know why else I’ve been reluctant to use them.
I’ve made two bows out of saplings now, and the second is better than the first. Ive made a bunch of arrows, and a quiver to keep them in. I’m doing better accuracy-wise. I haven’t killed anything yet, but I haven’t tried. Perhaps it’s a fear of failure, perhaps I feel that I’m not ‘ready’. I don’t know. However, my need to do so is mounting.
I swore a blood oath with the Sunrise Ocean as my witness to eat no meat until I’ve killed some myself, so that I can look into the animal’s eyes as it dies, and try to understand the sacrifice that an organism gives, to become the flesh of another.
In light of the argument for the Paleo diet, there is all the more reason to do this thing. Why not buy an aluminum bow that would many times more accurate and powerful than my own? Why not scrape some roadkill off the street? Why not go to the local farm and steal a chicken? These things I could do today. One one hand, yes, I understand that a steel tipped arrow with plastic feathers is just as natural as a wood tipped one with turkey feathers. They both came from the same universe, after all. On the other hand, the bite of steel is cold and dead. Does a reed shaft, let loose by bleeding fingers, bird feathers flying once again, cast through the air by the power of its brother oak, kill with more ‘understanding’?
…
Molecules interacting with other molecules. I guess it’s all the same. (?)
…
Trying to learn these skills from an all-or-nothing mindset has certainly been very, very frustrating. It is hard to be a noob at all trades, and master of none. But perhaps sucess will be all the more sweet?
Thank you for the insight, Jason, and for being so very, very influential in the foundation of my life’s most recent chapter.
Comment by Anonymous — 25 January 2006 @ 5:43 PM
In this little life, self sufficiency can come easy or hard. I have found Jason to be correct in that it is a matter of expectation. If you expect to learn and master these skills quickly, you will certainly fail. But, like any other skill, if you work at it and practice often, it will become more and more effortless over time. And by the time one would need these skills for real survival, if you have practiced, you will live.
On the hunting with rifles tip, if you remember these two things you can rifle hunt well into the next century. 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal(preferably willow), and 10% sulfur. That is the optimum formula for black powder. Second, any rifle that is well maintained can be used indefinitely.
and i didn’t even mention reloading your brass or making muzzle loaders from scratch. might even be worth buying one too.
great article Jason, keep it up!!!
Comment by Rory — 25 January 2006 @ 5:49 PM
“and i didn’t even mention reloading your brass or making muzzle loaders from scratch. might even be worth buying one too.”
I don’t know how easy it is to find pure sulfur. I guess you could find a bat cave or a good bird roost for the saltpeter. If you do though, you’d better make sure you get a flintlock, most muzzleloaders require caps, and I really doubt any of us is going to be able to make those. Flintlocks are such a pain in the rear that I think a homemade longbow would be easier, and more accurate if you know how to use it. The EROEI for finding all the necessary components for black powder, along with recasting the shot, combined with the difficulty of loading (no second shot) and inaccuracy just doesn’t seem worth it. Especially if you plan to be nomadic.
Comment by limukala — 25 January 2006 @ 8:06 PM
When you make your break and finally head for the woods, never to see another town again, I’m curious about your base-camp plans.
Are you and your tribe going to buy some land in a way out part of the back woods, a place that is not easily accessible, and build and operate out of a permanent base camp? And defend your camp, should that become a necessity?
Or do you plan on building and operating out of a temporary base camp built on public land? And if a situation develops where you no longer feel secure, you simply walk off and leave it, and build another one some miles away?
If you are thinking in terms of a temporary base camp, are you thinking of doing it on state or federal land? I would think that state land would be best, or, if federal, then national forests would be best. I think either of those two would have little or no Ranger activity, especially in the back country. Just wanted to get some thoughts on this. On any public land, though, you might accidentally walk into some drug operation’s illegal cash crop. That could prove interesting, not to mention dangerous.
Some years ago, I talked with a guy who spent a lot of time in Alaska (also a long time ago) and he told me that Alaska takes a dim view on people setting up house on government land (not sure whether he was talking about state or federal). If they received and verified reports that there was anything that looked like a permanent dwelling on their land, they would actually come back and destroy it by bombing it with 55 gallon drums filled with water. I’ve always wondered if there were any truth to that, or if it was just BS. Not that I’m planning on going to Alaska.
Comment by George — 25 January 2006 @ 8:22 PM
You can stay in a national forest for as long as you want. But you have to move every two weeks. They don’t want anyone living as a permanent resident.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 25 January 2006 @ 9:11 PM
Right, I was aware of that.
However, in the context of a society undergoing collapse, I am not talking about going through the permit routine and operating out of designated campgrounds. I am talking about going in under the radar, setting up shop somewhere deep in the backcountry, off the beaten track, and for as long as you desire, or until you are forced to move for some reason or other.
I understand that this is done regularly on government land, with the exception that those who currently do it are not planning on staying forever. Well, most don’t plan on staying forever.
Do you remember the caveman from Arizona? He lived in a cave just outside Flagstaff. I believe it was in a national forest. He lived undetected for about 11 years. He hiked into Flagstaff to do odd jobs and made just enough money to survive. A few years ago, some hiker stumbled into the cave and could tell someone was living there and alerted the authorities. The caveman is now banned for life from ever entering that particular national forest again. Now, if he hadn’t had a “permanent” base camp, he might still be there, undetected.
If a person decides to go the hunter/gatherer/forager route and operate out of a temporary base camp, the only way to make that work is to slip in under the radar.
I was just wondering if this is what Jason’s tribe has in mind, or are they planning on buying land for a permanent base camp.
Comment by George — 25 January 2006 @ 9:53 PM
Using a firearm for hunting may be practical while civilization rules, but during the collapse the sound of it will certainly attract the scavengers. So gaining the ability to kill silently is of most importance.
Also, the greatest asset of all is patience. My favorite hunting technique is to s-l-o-w-l-y scout along looking for signs of where the animal feeds and beds. Then find a comfortable spot to hide, waiting in ambush hoping for the critter to come within range for a kill shot. This technique is quiet and does not expend much energy.
To learn this kind of patience, start by parking your ass in some hiding spot in the woods and not move (much) for a time (you won’t believe all the movement, specially in the fall when the critters are fatting up). Keep a routine of this, maybe every few days, and lengthen your stays as you go. Soon you will have aquired a great hunting skill.
Next is the ability to make the kill.:-)
Comment by Rick Larson — 25 January 2006 @ 10:58 PM
I’m honored. Thank you, anonymous. Knowing that I’m helping make a difference gives me the motivation to continue this project even when it gets rough around here.
AWESOME!
I’m thinking a few small pieces of property adjacent to a national forest. Camping laws in national forests are sufficiently lenient that we could make a break for it just on that if we really had to, but a few regular campsites we cycle between seasonally just seems to make more sense than trying to tip-toe around the laws on that front. Granted, “obeying the law” is a short-term concern, but still something better seen to than not. Makes life easier if you don’t need to fear the ranger. Besides, seasonal campsites allow us to make some improvements, like an underground vault for books at each site, and maybe set up something like the Celts used. Pitch our tipis over a hole we’ve dug and filled with cereal grains, and then covered with flooring. As the cereal grains decompose, they release heat, and keep us nice and warm through the winter.
Usually, it’s to grow drugs or escape INS. Which is why they take such a dim view of people living on national lands. I figure it’s better to avoid all that. Buying a few small patches of land at the edges of a national forest, and doing our living there, and our hunting and fishing in the forest, that makes us campers at best, and only when moving from one seasonal camp to the next.
I don’t think that’s true. I think you can follow the rules and hunt and gather your living out of a national forest. The base camp is the thing you need to buy, and that’s relatively easy. Buying your whole range isn’t really viable, though, and that’s where the national forest comes in.
Animal scavengers? It seems most animal scavengers would be scared away by the sound, rather than attracted by it.
Or do you mean human scavengers? We’ve discussed in detail elsewhere why that’s a problem I’m not particularly concerned with.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 10:48 AM
Depends on where you are. In BC, Canada, I understand that over the years grizzlies have learned to associate the sound of a rifle shot with an easy meal. When they hear the shot, bears in that area heads towards the shot, not away from it, in hopes of taking the kill away from the hunters. Hunters have to keep a constant lookout after they make the kill.
Comment by George — 26 January 2006 @ 11:29 AM
I once went to a pow wow during deer season and learned how to use the whole animal. that was really interesting, and something worth checking into.
Comment by TonyZ — 26 January 2006 @ 12:15 PM
Interesting. That sounds like some pretty fast adaptation. Bears, specifically? Any other kinds of animal? That may make it less of an issue out here. Western PA has a huge hunter population. I think I heard 25% of the NRA’s national membership lives within 300 miles of Pittsburgh. We used to have off from school for the first day of deer season. I know people who actually hunt for food–and they’re not primitivists.
But none of them ever mentioned bears scavenging their kills. But out west, bears are more carnivorous. This way, they’re more herbivorous. We’re lucky: on this side, the only time we really need to worry about bears is when we get too close to the cubs.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 1:03 PM
Animals learn, too. Just not as much or as quickly as most people do.
Comment by William Carrington — 26 January 2006 @ 1:27 PM
Oh, I know. I’m not surprised at the adaptation, just at how quick it is.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 1:38 PM
I was on a backpacking trip once, and one of the road accessible camps had garbage cans for waste disposal. A passing park ranger warned us that the raccoons in the area were “10th generation raccoons,” and that we should tie-lock the dumpsters with nylon rope, as the coons had learned all the tricks. We laughed it off and dumped our garbage, only to wake up the next morning to find it strewn accross half the camp. The god-damn raccoons had opened up the extremely complex locking mechanism that we had had no small level of difficulty opening.
The scary part was that the bins required dual locks to be opened on two sides at once, no problem for humans (with our long arms), but impossible for an individual raccoon. This meant that the raccoons were working in tandem and orchestrating their movements, possibly with language or some form of psychic communication. It was on that day I first began to wear a tin foil hat.
Raccoons will be the death of us all. You might as well stay in the cities and die with civilization! You can never out-compete those cute, furry little bandit-masked critters.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 26 January 2006 @ 1:52 PM
People have been hunting with guns in North America for over 2 centuries. That’s more than 10 generations of bears. I’m surprised that other scanvengers haven’t picked it up.
Comment by William Carrington — 26 January 2006 @ 1:56 PM
The thing is, guns sound very much like thunder, and thunder’s been around a lot longer. Distinguishing those two–to say nothing of the fact that guns today sound awfully different from the stuff we were using 200 years ago–can’t be easy.
But, Chuck’s right. I, for one, welcome our new raccoon overlords.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 1:59 PM
Chuck, I didn’t see your comment before I wrote mine. That’s exactly what I am talking about. Animals learn quickly, and teach their young most of the skills they know, just like people.
And before you accuse me of anthropomorphization, it isn’t that animals act peoplish, but that people act animalish.
Comment by William Carrington — 26 January 2006 @ 2:01 PM
we’ve definitely got bears making a comeback around here–my dad has seen more than one, on more than one trip, both this season and the last two (he hunts on private farmland in Bedford County.)
coyotes are also on the rise in these parts.
but the number of human hunters around here does bring up a question–as money gets tighter and food gets harder to come by, is it possible that regular hunters will deplete the game populations in some areas, like Western PA? not everyone who hunts in my dad’s group eats everything they bring down, but most of them eat at least some of it, and so they’d certainly eat more of it, if they had to.
Comment by Librarian — 26 January 2006 @ 2:09 PM
Reading about primitive skills is definitely different than “learning” when it comes to procedural memory skills, such as many of the survivalist/primitive skills. Although engaging in regular practice is probably not practical for most at this point, although some hard decisions may have to be made in the next couple years in terms of remaining a ‘cog’ in the current untenable system.
I’ve been in the information gathering stage for the last few years. I’ve done a fair amount of camping, but those skills are of limited value for longterm survival.
I still believe that foraging and hunting will have to be a limited method for food gathering if/when society breaks down as the energy of modern civilization dries up. Farming and some simple animals such as chickens, rabbitts may be the better way to go.
It’s very difficult to work full-time and truly become proficient in many of these areas. Thus, it should be the goal to practice frugality and work toward a part-time job. Growing your own food is a great way to save on the grocery bill, as your income decreases!?
Also some food storage for the tough times important especially for PA people etc. with the limited growing season. I think as things get tougher financially hunting will increase, since a deer provides a goodly amount of meat for a family.
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it.” Emerson
Comment by Bubba — 26 January 2006 @ 2:09 PM
Until the 18th century, even in a “civilized” place like France, man was by no means the sole master of the land. It was a common occurence for packs of wolves to terrorize french villages, and as late as 1800 there are reports of wolf packs invading Paris, killing and eating significant numbers of people. We shouldn’t forget that, minus the armor of civilization, we will not only face competition in foraging from the likes of raccoons, we will also be both predator and prey… and I expect that the wolf in particular will make quite a comeback.
Comment by Jeff Vail — 26 January 2006 @ 2:47 PM
I heard it was a myth that wolves attack people.
I would be afraid of bears and moutain lions though. I think the West or Alaska would be much more preferable as a place to live. There’s a lot less concentration of people.
Comment by planetwarming — 26 January 2006 @ 3:05 PM
In response to planet warming,
Concentration of people probably will only be an issue in the short-term if civilization collapses in a major way. Longterm viability of the land for biointensive farming, water availibility, diversity of food crops for nutrition will all come into play. Many of the more isolated parts of the US don’t have these things in plenty. Plus you have the wolves and bears to deal with down the road, eh?
Comment by Bubba — 26 January 2006 @ 3:20 PM
I think that wolf attacks are very rare. There was a fatal wolf-attack by healthy wolves this year, but it seems to be a VERY rare event:
Article
There have also been fatal attacks by mountain lions, hyenas, jackals, etc. Not very common, certainly. But then, we don’t really know how they would behave if circumstances were greatly changed, as post-collapse. From what I’ve read it seems that wolf attacks were actually quite endemic in Europe until a couple hundred years ago–although it’s difficult to tell how much of this was propaganda to prevent wolves from preying on livestock. In the immediate future, packs of feral dogs may actually represent a much greater threat–especially in cities.
Comment by Jeff Vail — 26 January 2006 @ 3:25 PM
“Quickly” means a different thing on an evolutionary scale. “Culture” is the sum of everything you learn, and while humans are not at all the only animals with culture, we most certainly do take it to unprecedented lengths. It is a difference of degree, not kind, but it is a definite difference of degree, nonetheless. Humans learn far more quickly than any other animal, and our closest competitors are other great apes, crows and dolphins. I don’t think there’s been any observed bear culture as yet.
That won’t be possible. If everyone tries to forage, we’re screwed, But, very few people will ever try, that’s why the rest of us will be able to forage ourselves a life of plenty. But agriculture will ensure your ruin. It’s just not possible anymore.
Wolves tend to stay away from humans. We haven’t been around them for very long, and they haven’t really adapted to eating us just yet.
But a hungry wolf is still hungry.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 3:25 PM
Bears usually lead a solitary life, so any bear culture would look very different than human culture. Bears also stay with their mother for about 6 months, and live nearby for a few years. It seems reasonable to me that some significant knowledge communication happens in that time, if only by observation of what works.
Comment by William Carrington — 26 January 2006 @ 4:06 PM
In response to Jason’s —that won’t be possible–
I agree that very few people will forage, very few people will be willing to get off the unsustainable path. Most people wait for life to hit them in the face, and then try to recover–if possible. Stephen Covey’s 1st habit for effective people is BE PROACTIVE, this mindset is fundamental to problems humanity faces this century. The scenarios you have discussed over your 30 theses present an extremely strong argument that recovery won’t be possible.
But, I’m still not convinced that small pockets of people can’t with good top soil, composting know-how, can’t produce some food for themselves–even if its the skinny person’s diet, not the typical USA obesity foods.
Foraging in many areas of this country will not be very productive initially. Aren’t the survivalists right to some degree that if society collapses, raider groups and desperate folks will likely fight for survival resources? The great die off scenario isn’t likely to be a quiet event is it?
Comment by Bubba — 26 January 2006 @ 4:24 PM
Quiet–no. Not for most. Most will turn to farming. Some small pockets might still have enough soil that some people who really know what they’re doing might be able to survive through back-breaking labor.
But, there’s raiders to consider. Raiders raid farmers. Prior to farms, raiders didn’t even exist, because there was nothing worth raiding. Even in conflicts involving hunter-gatherers, no one’s ever bothered raiding them. They don’t have any stored food, as a rule, so what’s the point? You raid farms, not try to hunt down where the forager band might be.
Foraging in many areas of the country might not be paradise initially, but it will never likely be as dead as the Kalahari or the Arctic–areas where farming is impossible, but foraging is easy.
In other words, wherever you are, foraging is the easiest, most secure way of life you can find. Anything else is harder and riskier–in any ecology.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 4:31 PM
“As the cereal grains decompose, they release heat, and keep us nice and warm through the winter”
Wow, did they eat the fermented grain too? If not, it seems it would be better to fill the hole with some other sort of inedible compost.
“In the immediate future, packs of feral dogs may actually represent a much greater threat–especially in cities”
I agree, coy dogs are much scarier than wolves because they generally have no fear of humans and can be extremely vicious (there have even been cute little poodles in packs of dogs that have killed elderly ladies).
There are definitely plenty of historical instances of wolf attacks throughout Eurasia, if not so much in the Americas. There was one wolf pack in India in the 1800’s that killed over a dozen people in a few villages, but the pack stopped attacking when a hunter killed the alpha wolf.
From what I’ve read mountain lions are probably the most likely of the predators on this continent to hunt and eat a human (most bear attacks are more defensive). Still, the predators around here are cute and cuddly compared to what’s crawling around your typical African savannah, or meeting a tiger in the woods. Shoot, I’d even take them to all the poisonous spiders and reptiles in the Australian outback. We don’t even have crocodiles.
“Prior to farms, raiders didn’t even exist, because there was nothing worth raiding”
I thought many American indians (even strict foragers) had a good tradition of raiding neighbors for adoptees. Sure, you don’t have any food they can take, but maybe they just want your daughter.
“the Kalahari or the Arctic–areas where farming is impossible, but foraging is easy”
Well, I guess if you consider paddling out in a one-man skin kayak to do battle with a narwhal or walrus (in water so cold you don’t have a prayer of survival if it tips) easy, then you won’t have any problems. I doubt many Inuit would describe it as easy though, at least not the strictly traditional methods. That’s why they use rifles when they go hunting now. In the words of Jens Danielsen (north Greenland Inuit, still living more traditionally that the vast majority of Inuit, no snowmobiles, etc) “Not long ago we hunted walruses from kayaks, but they killed too many of us”
I know they aren’t your typical forager group, but come on, it ain’t easy up there.
Comment by limukala — 26 January 2006 @ 5:04 PM
I’m not sure, but they ate grain. Though, really, grain’s probably better for that than eating–we’ve already seen what happens when you eat that stuff….
Any occurence, however rare, will have plenty of instances over a sufficiently long time period.
Exactly. I’m so thankful to be setting up shop in North America–no super-predators, and nothing that grew up with humans, evolutionarily. We’ve discussed a custom for the Tribe of Anthropik–if a predator attacks one of us, we need to hunt it down and kill it, and its young (or pack, for things like wolves). That should help slow the evolutionary progress of animals picking us up as a regular food source.
Plains Indians, I believe, who were entirely the product of European contact. The trauma of shattered tribes from invasion and smallpox sent the refugees into the Great Plains, where they formed a new culture around the horses and guns that found their way to them from Europe. Foragers, yes, but hardly what I’d call regular behavior. And I think they only raided farmers for adoptees, even then.
True. The Inuit no doubt have it harder than any other foragers. “Easy” better describes the !Kung in the Kalahari. But, among the Inuit who were settled down, there are still some elders who were old enough to remember the old ways, and have been settled long enough to see what it has brought them. They’re unanimous that it’s the worst thing that ever happened to their people, and they were much better off before. Their children dismiss them much as we dismiss our elders who talk about “the good old days.” So, I think however harsh it was, it may still be an improvement over what came before.
But the Kalahari is more likely for us than the Arctic, and I’ll be surprised if we wind up with either one. My point remains, that if foragers can survive and even thrive in those environments, then we probably can stop worrying about whether or not foraging will be possible. The most desolate ecology that can support cultivation is many times healthier than the most desolate ecology that can support foraging. Fear of the health of the ecologies that will survive is one of the strongest arguments in favor of foraging over cultivation, not vice versa.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 5:20 PM
“Fear of the health of the ecologies that will survive is one of the strongest arguments in favor of foraging over cultivation, not vice versa.”
True, but I still don’t plan to put all my eggs into one basket. I plan to set up a nice, self sustaining forest garden, but have enough primitive living skills that I would still be in great shape if it dies or I get chased off.
Comment by limukala — 26 January 2006 @ 5:47 PM
Jason, et. al.,
I grew up in North Central Pennsylvania (North of Clearfield/I-80, South of New York, West of Tioga County, East of Oil City/Franklin) and a lot of the comments touch on familiar topics for me.
All of the whitetail deer in Pennsylvania were killed in the late 19th/early 20th century. The current deer population is a descendant of deer imported from Michigan.
Northern PA is also home to one of two elk herds east of the Mississippi. They were imported from, I think, Wyoming.
In the last few years, neighbors and friends in the area have also been seeing other animals in the area, such as mountain lions, wolves, badgers, and wolverines, that had previously been killed/trapped out of the area.
For many people in the area, hunting supplies most of the year’s meat. It isn’t as much a primitivist activity as it is family tradition and way to get food.
If you have any questions about the area or hunting or the woods, I would be happy to answer.
I would also recommend reading the book, 50 Years a Hunter and Trapper, if you can find it. It is about hunting in Northern Pennsylvania in the early 20th Century.
Comment by PAnative — 26 January 2006 @ 5:53 PM
limukala: Amen to that. The Tribe of Anthropik will likely be doing the same. I think we all are. It’s just trading ideas about what balance we’re comfortable with at this point, I think.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 6:00 PM
Wow, fellow Pennsylvanian, that’s awesome! I know where Clearfield is, that’s actually not far from my family’s cabin (near Cook Forest), so it’s the wilderness that I’m most familiar with.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 January 2006 @ 6:03 PM
Each person who decides to transition from city life to a life of foraging in the wilderness will approach the challenges faced by such a transition in their own way. If you start out learning to hunt using a gun, that is not a deal breaker, as long as you know how to make and use a bow when the gun takes a powder (sorry).
Virtually everything that needs to be considered is at least obvious. The gun versus the bow? Private land versus public land? Permanent base camp versus temporary base camp? And so on. If the potential obstacles you face during the interim learning period are right in front of your face, then they can be dealt with, either rightly or wrongly. You’ll find out which when you make your move and head for the woods.
But what about the obstacles that aren’t so obvious? And can’t really be seen at all. If you don’t have a plan to deal with those, your new foraging way of life may already be in jeopardy, without you evening knowing it and before you even get started.
Two not-so-obvious challenges to the foraging way of life come to mind. I’m sure there are many others.
1. Lyme Disease (LD)
Everywhere there are woods and grass, there are ticks. Everywhere there are ticks, there are tick-borne diseases. They say that the Lyme tick has to feed for 36-48 hours before it can transmit LD, but I can tell you from personal experience, that is not the case.
I took a short walk in the Northeast Arkansas woods (less than thirty minutes) while visiting the area some years ago. My father and brother were with me. When we got back to the motel, we all found that our socks were covered with small ticks, no bigger than a pin’s head, and some of them had already attached themselves to our skin. All the ticks were removed within six hours of the walk in the woods. Within a week after returning home, I developed the bull’s eye rash consistent with LD. We all ended up on antibiotics for a few weeks, and that was that. No more LD.
Northeast Arkansas isn’t even supposed to be a high risk area for LD, and that was the only walk in the woods I had taken for more than ten years. So what were the odds I would get LD? Miniscule, I’m sure. But it happened. However, the area where Jason’s tribe is going to is a high risk area for LD. What are the odds there? Given they are going to be there forever, not minuscule.
LD can only be treated with meds and, left untreated, it will slowly destroy your ability to fully enjoy your life, and could actually incapacitate you in time.
Are you going to stockpile antibiotics? And hike into town to replenish your supplies after the expiry date? Or hike into town for treatment? Or just take your chances and deal with it if you get it?
2. Giardia
The cysts from this tiny parasitic critter has been found in water all over the North American wilderness and is spread by fecal contamination. So much so that it is highly inadvisable to drink water from rivers, streams, creeks, ponds, lakes, etc. unless it has first been treated to kill or filter out Giardia. As I understand it, the more game in an area, the more likely natural water sources will be contaminated. Backpackers use gravity filters, hand pumps with filters, or tablets to treat their water.
If you are exposed to Giardia and get Giardiasis, the main symptom is diarrhea. That dehydrates you, and to rehydrate, you will have to drink more of the same water that infected you in the first place.
Giardiasis can only be treated with meds, but, unlike LD, it is often difficult to get rid of once you get it. Even after treatment, some people still experience flare ups months, and even years, after exposure. Left untreated, your friendly parasite colony will continue to multiply. Problems associated with this will slowly destroy your ability to fully enjoy life, and could actually incapacitate you in time.
Are you going to stockpile pumps, filters, tablets? And hike into town to replenish your supplies when they break, clog, or run out? Or hike into town for treatment? Or just take your chances and deal with it if you get it?
Before anyone says it, I know that venturing into the wilderness carries with it a certain degree of risk. However, we are typically willing to take that risk because we know we will only be visiting the wilderness for a short period of time. If anything happens to us while we are there, we’ll simply seek out a doctor when we get back and let her/him fix us up with a quick prescription.
I’m not saying that these unseen risks should prevent a person from deciding to make such a transition to a permanent way of life in the wilderness, but such a decision should also involve a reassessment and reacceptance of those risks. Unfortunately, it ain’t your great-great-great grandpappy’s wilderness anymore.
BTW, boiling water for a few minutes is the low-tech way of killing Giardia, so a heavy gauge, stainless steel pot may very well turn out to be the most important “modern” item you can bring with you into the wilderness.
Sometimes it’s the tiny, overlooked things that can do you in.
Comment by George — 26 January 2006 @ 6:56 PM
Hey –
Just a quick comment, George. Antibiotics are available in the wild, if you know your plant lore. For example, Purple Coneflowers, echinacea, have antibiotic properties. this is the sort of research we need to do relative to out local regions in order to determine the availability of different plants.
there are also a variety of natural ‘bug-away’ plants that you can use to avoid getting infested in the first place.
And Steel pots are not neccessary for boiling water — just convenient
But still, good points all around.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 26 January 2006 @ 7:57 PM
Thanks, Janene.
I hadn’t seen anyone posting concerns about microbial critters, and wrote from a perspective of someone who knows nothing about medicinal plants.
Are the antibiotic properties of some of these plants actually powerful enough to cure you from something like Lyme Disease?
And are the bug-away properties of some plants actually strong enough to keep ticks off you? Or just flying insects?
And I hadn’t even thought about being able to boil water without a metal container. A hot rock would certainly do the trick.
If I couldn’t figure that out, can’t you just see me trying to trap small game!
Comment by George — 26 January 2006 @ 9:11 PM
Another thing to consider is that it is possible to “hypercharge” your immune system in such a way that bacterial infection is virtually impossible. I know a lot of people will automatically scoff at such an idea and never give it second thought. For those of you who are curious though, I recommend the book Pathnotes of an American Ninja Master, which, despite the name, is actually basically a handbook of simple, yet powerful and effective techniques for awakening kundalini.
There, I just lost half of the few people who might have still been interested. Let me just add that this is a powerful energy source known to many primitive cultures. I believe the !Kung call it !num. Not quite the same as chi, it is actually the fiery energy of Gaia using your body as a vessel.
A person with awakened kundalini would have many other benefits in a foraging scenario, such has heightened sensitivity and awareness, vastly improved health overall (people with awakened kundalini tend to only breath 3-4 times a minute, for instance), and vastly improved strength and energy.
For the very literal and materialistic minded people out there this will sound like nonsense, but for those open to development on more than one level of existence, it’s worth checking into.
Comment by limukala — 26 January 2006 @ 9:37 PM
Oh, and Dr. Glenn Morris (The author of pathnotes) says that while bacterial infection seems impossible, and the immune system overall is ramped up, viral infections still manage to sneak in sometimes, though the body tends to deal with them a little faster.
Comment by limukala — 26 January 2006 @ 9:38 PM
ooo you know it’s posts like Georges that make me think that primitivism is a hobby at worst, and a skill set at best, not a lifestyle.
Although as a summer camp counselor for many years, something unexplained happened to me. I was bitten by a mystery insect and was laid up in the hospital for three days, three days I dont’ remember. I woke up and I saw family memberes I hadn’t seen since I was a little dude. they were that scared for my life. and there is still great mystery surrounding my life around that moment.
I have to say my life experiences direct me towards village life. My genes are considerably weakened by thousands of years of the semi-isolations of celtic and nordic and european civilization, and I dont’ think I could survive the nomadic lifestyle. I have gotten hardy just through exposure, but I also was cured of my pollen and mold allergies(irony?) through injections. I guess my feelings on the matter is that it is all fun and games until one of my babies die.
Of course, as interested as I am in my friends opinions and ideas, I dont’ come here like most of you with the same concepts of crash.
I think crashology and it’s accompanying mythology may be an incredibly important tool. the subjects it studies and creates are useful knowledges to for humanity to integrate.
But as someone whose been raised to have the skills of the Great Forgetting, I feel my flexibilty in these matters is somewhat antagonistic. I’m preparing for society and the bulk of humans to move on as the energy-efficient, worldly integrated community it is headed towards.
I understand the antiseptic properties of jewelweed, I get what the depth of each track on a trail means, i understand determinism and free will, I know why democracy is a dictatorship, now I’m learning how to get an tax credit for installing tankless on-demand water heaters. my information has always flowed up from ancient to the cutting edge, and my streams are taking me forward into a even more complex, technological tomorrow.
Geez, i didn’t mean to write a manifesto here, or even piss people off. Not trying to change anyone’s minds or discourage anyone’s learning, because if it’s remedial education you need, then goddamnit go out and get it.
——
But what then. Is there a plan to survive WITHOUT a crash?
TonyZ
——-
p.s. It would probably make sense to have your own pack to protect you, n’est pas? My girl Claire(lab herself) had lab and pit mix puppies once (13 of them, btw) and I wish to god I could’ve get kept all those little fuckers. My friends have most of the puppies and I think only a few of them would have been all the protection I or my village needed. ACtually, a lot of those friends are going to be in the village, so there is a good chance they will be coming along… hmmm… that makes me happy:)
Comment by TonyZ — 26 January 2006 @ 9:41 PM
Jason, you have a hell-of-a-large vocabulary (and intellect), but to be successful hunting will require experience and skill. I suggest you buy a hunting license then go find out if you have what it takes. One bit of advice: try to find a place nobody is hunting.
Also, it is very difficult to believe that all those who now hunt will not be beating the bushes for the same eats that you will pursue. And if your not excellent at avoiding these people, you may be doing hard labor for them.
And one other death dealing aspect of large eatable critters:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jan06/387848.asp
Comment by Rick Larson — 26 January 2006 @ 10:43 PM
I don’t think it even has to be “large” critters, because I believe I read that CWD has also been found in the brains of squirrels in parts of Appalachia.
And there are numerous rules you are supposed to follow when handling and processing deer.
Can you imagine having to follow those rules while living as a hunter/gatherer?
There is so much more to contend with in todays wilderness than there was a couple of hundred years ago.
Comment by George — 26 January 2006 @ 11:11 PM
George,
No way of life is perfect–not even forager life. They all have their little annoyances. We haven’t talked about Lyme disease or any of the other microbial concerns because they’re pragmatic concerns–and we’ve just recently finished the theory section.
But Lyme disease and giardia in particular have both been on my radar for some time (though, the Tribe of Anthropik’s range is not considered particularly high-risk, either–we’re on the other side of the Appalachians). For Lyme disease, I’ve been learning several of the medicinal plants to treat bacterial infections, and we’re pretty good with prevention in the first place. Lemon balm is really great for repelling all kinds of insects. A few leaves will make you smell like lemon, and keep bugs away for a good half a day–and that’s with heavy perspiration. Giardia is even easier. I’m actually learning how to make a pot out of leather (all the way from dead animal to functioning pot), and yes, the best way to boil it is to take a red-hot rock and just drop it in.
There’s also a whole wide range of other nuisances to deal with that you didn’t mention, but we’ve been concerning ourselves with. They’ll find their way onto these pages in months to come, as we get deeper into a discussion of praxis. But in general, none of these are show-stoppers. I can’t think of a one of them that pose more annoyance, or more danger, than your average daily commute to work.
Yes, sometimes it’s the tiny, overlooked things that do you in. In our own case, these are not overlooked at all.
Tony,
What, I’ve surpassed the Great Tony for knowing how to handle such things? I’m surprised you’d let such a minor annoyance lull you into calling primitive living “a hobby at best.” How ever did we manage to survive those long two million years before big, strong civilization came and swept us off our feet, hmmm?
And what about our plan to survive if the sun doesn’t come up tomorrow? About as likely, and for all the same basic laws of physics. This isn’t a matter of speculative, probabilistic chance–this is a determinative process that has already begun.
Our plans are meant to survive an indefinite “interrim” period, but one way or another, there will be a crash. The question is whether it will take the whole species with it–and given the toughness of our species, and the fragility of civilization, I find that highly unlikely. But if I’m wrong, it’s not really going to matter, is it?
limukala,
Conflating kundalini, n/um and chi seems like a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? I suppose you could throw in mana, too, but by now the tent’s so wide it probably includes bananas and airplanes, hmmm?
Rick,
I’ve assiduously avoided all knowledge that might be construed as “useful” up until now.
That’s changing, but for reasons I’ve described in depth elsewhere, I’m not expecting a lot of competition–for all the same reasons that all previous iterations saw little competition.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 January 2006 @ 12:07 AM
Actually, I said kundalini and chi are not the same thing. Chi would we equivalent to prana in the Hindi dialect. Mana has such broad definitions, especially cross-culturally, that it can be used to describe almost any kind of subtle energy, along with more mundane things such as status and prestige.
I guess !num isn’t really the same as kundalini, since they are located in different areas. What they share is their fiery nature. The Tibetans, however, to have a term for !num, tummo. It is the same energy they use to dry wet sheets with their bodies on frigid Tibetan nights.
To simplify, Kundalini is upward flowing, fiery, earth-based, feminine energy (the red mother essence in tibetan iconography), whereas I think of chi as cool energy that is often more downward flowing. Some people might just call these fire and water chi though, so it’s all just semantics really. The point is that there is a vast reservoir of fiery, feminine energy that we can tap into with less effort than you might think.
The main difference (in my admittedly very limited understanding) between using chi and using kundalini energy is that chi can be directed through intent. You can “use” chi. Kundalini, on the other hand, is its own master. It “uses” you, and if you try to direct or control it, it will bite you in the ass–hard. On the other hand, it posesses an intelligence far greater than your own, so if you let it flow, and do what it wants, the results are far more appropriate and powerful than anything you could have intentionally planned.
Comment by limukala — 27 January 2006 @ 1:16 AM
All of these concepts have their own, unique features. N/um and kundalini aren’t quite the same, either.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 January 2006 @ 9:22 AM
I actually said:
Yeah, jeez, I dunno what to say. I was just raised to know a lot of the primitive stuff. How can this be effectively expressed without sounding condescending, and how can I fruitfully share this? My personality is mostly in the way, I know. Sorry about that.
My Scout, OA, and Firecrafter education stopped short of intermediate metalurgy, or somewhere around the Bronze Age.
Something in me bubbles when people start talking about cannibalism and killer raccoons roving desolate cities as a foregone conclusion.
Besides, I though it was the squirrels that were going to take over? Maybe it’s a regional thing….
Comment by TonyZ — 27 January 2006 @ 11:13 AM
I know your background, Tony, that’s why I was so surprised that you’d throw up your hands over such a little thing. I figured you must know at least as many ways to purify water and protect from ticks as I do.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 January 2006 @ 11:21 AM
“N/um and kundalini aren’t quite the same, either”
I know, that’s why I said this:
“I guess !num isn’t really the same as kundalini”
They also have similarities that bear further research. !num is very similar to tummo though. They are both fiery energies that begin in the belly and rise through the body. That is beside my point anyway. My point is that an individual with awakened kundalini would have many distinct advantages in a foraging situation (or any situation really). My other point is that awakening kundalini is much easier and safer than most people believe, you just need to know the proper techniques and safeguards. Kundalini awakening IS the same as the Greater Kan and Li of Taoist yoga. I’ll take Dr. Morris’s word over yours, since he is recognized by the Chinese National Institute of Chi Kung for having experienced the Greater Kan and Li (which was his kundalini awakening). He had a full blown kundalini awakening as a result of qigong practices, before he even knew what kundalini was. Differences between the two are superficial and the result of cultural lenses. I have a feeling many types of subtle energy are thus related but percieved differently according to the culture they are observed in. This would make sense considering the inherently malleable and subjective nature of many types of subtle energy.
This is not to say, however, that all subtle energies are the same, there are as many types of subtle energy as there are physical energy. I have a feeling though that, like physical energy, they are all on some level united.
Comment by limukala — 27 January 2006 @ 12:28 PM
Assuming any of these are real. As it is, we only know that they exist as beliefs, and the beliefs are much more different than you, or Dr. Morris, makes them out to be. I’ve heard lots of quacks with references akin to those you cite for Dr. Morris, so that doesn’t persuade me in the least.
I say this as someone who has danced n/um, and even healed people with it. I practice shamanism. I think it’s a belief system that will be crucial for forager bands to hold, and I think it will be the difference between sustainable survival and elimination.
That said, I can’t prove a single word of it. Yes, kundalini and n/um and chi and mana all strike me as similar idea, but I don’t know if they’re the same idea, much less whether or not any (or all) of them have the slightest foundation in reality. How do I know my own experiences as a n/om k”ausi are real, or simply the result of shared expectations? As far as its value to me and my band, it matters very little.
But, I still think that learning to notch a bow is a much more important skill than mastering my n/um, regardless. I think this will be an important project to undertake, once my physical needs are met, but I also think that we need to learn the mundane variety of primitive skills before we try to go mapping the spirit world. To say nothing of the fact that it would no doubt be an easier undertaking, once your day-to-day life is more attuned to the rest of the universe.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 January 2006 @ 1:07 PM
Note: I’m for the Bow, but primitive skills alone will not suffice to sustain the human psyche through extreme stressors (wars, starvation, die off scenarios fall into this category, eh?). That’s why experiential learning and practicing is so important–to actually navigate psychologically with the ‘real’ world its positives and negatives.
Philosopher, Paul Ricoeur stated, “As cultural beings we do not live in accordance with the sterile parameters of Newtonian physics or Cosmological time. Instead, we perpetually reinscribe lived experiences semantically through the comforting balm of narrative. Narrative is a form of rationalization, an artificial projection of meaning, which provides an element of coherence to disjunctive experiences which make up life.”
Day-to-day life in the modern world has certainly proven its capacity to damage human beings (mentally perhaps even more so than physically). Psychosomatic disorders are the primary causation of most physiological disorders in the US. Md’s in 2005 reported that 80% of Md visits are the result of lifestyle/psychological issues vs. disease/pathology. The stress of a highly complex/heirarchal civilization appears to be more chronic than that experienced typically in nature. But its hard to say since Nature can deal out the type of stress that can shorten our life path, with just as much certainty as our technological masochistic culture.
Ultimately existential pursuits, and the balm of narrative not only helps frame our worldview but our reality. Perhaps there is a common thread to why many here “see” what much of the world either doesn’t or refuses to?
Comment by Bubba — 27 January 2006 @ 1:35 PM
Oh okay Jason I understand you know.
Hmmm. I was prompted to think the other sie of things for a bit, but my hands are nor thrown up into the air.
As I shared before, I do have a few anectdotes where modern medicine either in reality or only in perception prolonged my life.
I do have many more anectdotes where modern trappings almost ended my life. Oh, like the time I was 4 and decided to play with a bottle of HCL. I’ve still got some gross scarring on my legs if you’re intereted…
Isn’t it so hard to say everything at once?
I think I do have this to share. I won’t adopt nomadic practices unless that’s the best option.
I think TBM (tribal business model) is my best option right now. Hunting and gathering calories can be figured into even the most complex lifestyles. I often eat deer at Sarah’s parents, for example.
I would have better served this thread to counter hunter-gatherer objections, because I really value these skills, rather than get all tangental on your asses.
Me in a nutshell:
living arrangements based on current environments (nomadic as a last resort), hunting and gathering best ROI Calorie input-output.
Activating these energies limukala refers to can be done with simple meditation.
The alightment and quieting of the mind to allow other functions beyond eating and reproducing can be called anything based on your culture, or the culture you study, but it’s still the same neurological process of giving your brain the space to think.
The alignment of the body in motion and in stillness is key to arrising of these energies, and the awakening of these energies will seem to “automatically” heal yourself, and the energy can just as easily be transmitted like pheremones and aping (yawning, verbal syncronisity).
But the truth is you are giving mind to them, and that is all that matters, doesn’t matter what you call them
Comment by TonyZ — 27 January 2006 @ 1:37 PM
Granted that physical skills are probably paramount at this stage, but the problem is, after TSHTF, you aren’t going to have to opportunity to learn from powerful energy master like Dr. Morris. His technique is effective and safe, and there are plenty of people who have successfully implemented it. If you ever met the guy, you wouldn’t be comparing him to quacks, his energy is intense, and he can do some pretty crazy shit with it. Also, if you take a seminar and it doesn’t blow your mind by the end of the first day, you get a full refund, no questions asked. He is also very good at teaching other invaluable skills such as seeing and reading auras (which is a lot easier than you think), and communicating with various spiritual entities.
I’m not here to advertise though, I just thought that you might be more open-minded towards something that could easily save your life out in the bush. While learning spiritual skills would undoubtedly be easier in a harmonious lifestyle, learning physical skills would also be far easier with a degree of spiritual progress.
I’m also saying this as someone who got lyme disease, who know how damn hard it is to even find those ticks. It would be impossible to even know you contracted it if the tick bites you in the hair. I got lucky and got a bull’s eye in the middle of my back. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you don’t want to look up more about Dr. Morris, than what about getting into the spiritual skills that Tom Brown Jr. describes, or do you think he’s a quack too? If you read his books, you will realize that the spiritual skills were at LEAST as crucial to his survival as the physical skills during his 10 solitary years in the wilderness.
I hate to think of the tribe anthropik falling victim to lyme’s disease and slowly wasting away.
Comment by limukala — 27 January 2006 @ 1:52 PM
Very true. The “practice” part can take some time, but the “learning” part is quite easy. But, the pleasant surprise is, once you’ve done the “learning” part, every day that you live off of that is “practice,” too! Granted, that would make for a fairly mean life to start with, but even under those extremes, it gets better.
Absolutely. But a narrative that isn’t lived daily is trite and meaningless. To make the narrative meaningful, we need to live by it, too.
Me, too … but how many of them are because only modern medicine could help, and how many because only modern medicine was available to us, being in the midst of our civilization? And how much more often was our need the result of living in our civilization, with its pollution and its food and its stress?
It’s a step in the right direction–just like I think our camping and learning primitive skills is a step in the right direction. TBM isn’t our road, but it’s one I can respect. Good luck in that.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 January 2006 @ 1:56 PM
All the better. Shamans are traditionally discouraged to learn from other humans; their primary training is supposed to come from the spirits themselves.
Your defense makes him sound even more like a faith healer, not less. My point is that your citation of his “credentials” should not be a basis. He may be entirely on-target, I don’t know, but if that’s the case, it’s because he’s correct, not because of who he is, and even less because of his self-reported “awakening.” New Age frauds cite such things endlessly.
The risk of contracting Lyme disease drops to almost zero on a paleolithic diet. Lemon balm is a quite effective way of preventing ticks. Even so, people do occasionally get Lyme disease. Just like people occasionally get a cold. It’s a nuisance, but that’s usually about it.
Most of the tribe shares the opnion that Tom Brown made up a lot of his experiences in order to make a good myth to sell his books and high-priced classes. I mean, Grandfather? Doesn’t that strike you as just a little too … mythological? I’m a fan of myth, but I can still tell what it is. I think Brown also over-emphasized the spiritual dimension of his experiences, again, to sell books and high-priced classes, because he recognized that there was a significant demographic in his target audience that was influenced by New Age and “spiritual” beliefs, and he wanted to tap that.
I don’t think he’s a quack, and he’s obviously a skilled outdoorsman … but he strikes me as a very shrewd marketer, too.
Not to worry. Like I said, I do practice a number of shamanic techniques.
And we also have much better preventative measures than civilization, and medicinal plants to deal with it as well. Every survival book I’ve read so far has had a section on how to deal with Lyme disease, so I just took it for granted.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 January 2006 @ 2:07 PM
I still don’t understand why people who hunt for food today won’t be a problem for you 6 years from now, if their rifles will continue to work longer than that.
Comment by _Gi — 27 January 2006 @ 2:55 PM
Because they see it as supplemental. They work, and they define themselves primarily in civilized terms. When they’re tight on food, their response is to work more to get more money–not to go hunting more. When pressed for food, they hunt less, and move closer to more urban and populated areas. The idea that they could hunt for more food never occurs to them. When I suggest it, they are genuinely shocked, and then they dismiss it as unrealistic.
That’s why they don’t concern me.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 January 2006 @ 3:05 PM
I agree with this idea. Often times post-oil civlization discussions describe people heading for the ‘hills’ phenomenon as society crumbles. This is very unlikely to happen in en masse until things are very close to the true collapse (thus too late for the most part). As energy prices skyrocket and jobs become scarce (or at least lower paying) its likely more people will move TO CITIES, to save on fuel costs, employment etc. Thus many hunters will very well hunt less.
Anyway, have a great weekend and plant some blueberry bushes if you get the chance!
Comment by Bubba — 27 January 2006 @ 4:15 PM
good point bubba.
Comment by TonyZ — 27 January 2006 @ 5:10 PM
How do you know this?
Lyme Disease (LD) is a fairly recent discovery. Who do you know on a Paleolithic diet that has been exposed to LD and didn’t get it?
Do you have personal experience where you lemoned yourself up, walked through a field of tall grass infested with ticks, and not get even one tick on you?
With all due respect, you present these things as though they were facts. Isn’t the reality that your tick-control method is just something you’ve read or been taught? And you have not field tested it yet?
I have no personal experience that your method won’t work. In fact, for your sake, I hope it does work. However, the backpackers I have talked with about natural insect control all laughed at the idea. They did admit natural controls helped “some” with flying insects, but they didn’t seem to help at all with crawling insects.
When you do field-test your tick-control method, my gut feeling is that it won’t work as well as you think. IMO, it is unrealistic to think that you can live permanently in a wooded/grassy wilderness area and not have an ongoing tick problem — no matter how many leaves you stuff in your socks.
Untreated LD can lead to severe arthritis, persistent fatigue, mood/concentration problems, neuropathy (odd sensations in the body), and, although rare, other life-threatening disorders.
And you suggest that untreated LD is no more serious than a cold… and is simply a nuisance?
I give you full credit though, because you have the courage of your convictions, and I am sincerely hoping things work out well for you.
Comment by George — 27 January 2006 @ 6:12 PM
Hey George –
Just realized I never replied to you yesterday… sorry about that, things were just moving so fast
To be honest, I don’t know how effective different plants will be for particular ailments.
That being said, when I look at the sum total of what I have learned (and learned that I have yet to learn) about both natural plant properties, natural ecologies and biological adaptations, I have several strong gut feelings on all this.
1) Different plants will show different levels of — and perhaps more importantly — types of effectiveness. While Echinacea may be unsited for LD, it may be very effective for ear infection, or vice versa etc. Like everything else, this will be a sharp learning curve to start, gradually declining to a slow, constant(ish) increase in knowledge and application.
2) Healthy ecologies will probably exhibit less concentrations of diseases like LD. Deer populations will decline as a result of steady, small scale hunting and as a result of other large carnivores returning (wolves, etc). At the same time, insects that find ticks to be a tasty treat will be on the rise (once we stop mosquito spraying, fertilizer run-off, airborne pollutants, etc). Over the long haul, most of these diseases that we worry about will return to thier natural balance, just as we do.
3) I strongly believe, though I cannot prove it, that individual genetic characteristics play heavily into our relationship with biting, stinging bugs, etc. My husband can be sitting quietly and a bee will come, land on him and start stinging. Me, I only get stung if I step on a dead one. Same thing with other insects. I get mosquitos when they are really bad, but otherwisse, the bugs tend to leave me alone. (That is, except when I am walking in the sun and they think I’m a flower. No, really. I’m a red head.)
All of these things, I believe, will come together, even in the first generation — but progessively moreso — to decrease the prevalence of, and our susceptibility to, many of the things that we now see as serious dangers.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 27 January 2006 @ 7:23 PM
Mushrooms are one of the most powerful sources of natural anti-biotics and anti-virals. I don’t know about the forests in PA, but I’m guessing they’re teeming with edible and medicinal species (word of caution, though: N. America seems to have an unusually high proportion of deadly species of Mushroom as well, so use a good field guide at first). For a fascinating read, check out “Mycellium Running” by Paul Stammets. Not to mention that they have historically been used for–as Jason pointed out above–direct, unmediated contact with the spirit world (or whatever term you choose for their psychedellic effects). Along those lines, I should also recommend “Food of the Gods” by Terrence McKenna. Thought provoking, certainly, if nothing else..
Comment by Jeff Vail — 27 January 2006 @ 7:38 PM
Hopefully my link will open the page to natural remedies, otherwise, scroll down 2/3 of the page. The interesting advice was chitostan from crustacean shells.
Also, looking for ticks about the body is a good function of a mate!
http://www.springboard4health.com/notebook/health_lyme_disease.html
Comment by Rick Larson — 27 January 2006 @ 9:42 PM
Hey, Jason.
I had an extremely strong visceral reaction to this. For a variety of reasons, I think. Not only was I seeing hypocrisy, but also cultural appropriation, and still further self-aggrandizing neoshamanic masturbation.
Help me out here. I don’t want to put you on the defensive as engaging people’s defense mechanisms is not my idea of a good time, but I would like to understand where you’re coming from on this. So I will ask you to respond to these particular questions.
On what grounds are you being skeptical of Dr. Morris, while in the next sentence making a claim to have healed people with shamanism?
How do you feel about cultural appropriation, and how does your n/um shamanistic practice fit in with this perspective?
By practicing shamanism, are you not doing exactly what you criticized in your article Neoshamanism is Masturbation? How is your shamanism practice NOT neoshamanism?
Lastly, how would the practice of shamanic techniques help with something like lyme disease? I don’t understand how something akin to a psychological placebo effect would heal an actual disease. Maybe I need to re-read that part in your thesis on medicine, but I’d still like you to answer this specific question.
Thanks.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 28 January 2006 @ 5:27 AM
George,
What point are you driving at? That the wilderness is a death-trap which no human could ever survive? That living in it is a death sentence? How, then, do so many people do so–and successfully? How are we here, unless we were able to do that for millions of years? To address your specific points…
A good way of helping prevent Lyme disease, besides wearing long leggings and light-colored clothing so you can see ticks, is diet. We know what the Neolithic diet does to our bodies in general, but specifically, it creates a significant stress on the immune system–just like all our stress does. For prevention–and even treatment–of Lyme disease, patients are recommended to get more vitamins and minerals, eat less carbohydrates (that helps the yeast infections that’s so often a co-infection with Lyme disease), etc. All of the recommendations are covered as a matter of course by foragers under the paleo diet.
Besides the tips suggested by Janene and Jeff, according to this page, saunas and sweat lodges also likely have a positive effect. Another page on the same site lists some of the specific herbal remedies for Lyme disease.
I haven’t been able to field test any of this, because I’ve never gotten Lyme disease. Not for lack of experience in the wild, though. As I said before, the areas we’re in are on the other side of the eastern continental divide from the areas where 90% of all Lyme disease cases take place. That means 10% occur elsewhere, but between my general avoidance of stands of grass, and the fact that I only go out with long leggings and light-colored clothing, I’ve never so much as gotten a tick on me yet. I’ve been out in the woods for weeks at a time, regularly, all my life, but it just hasn’t happened yet. “An ounce of prevention” has, so far, been everything I need.
But, should that ever fail, we also have a number of remedies. I’m going to be taking the medicinal plants course at the beginning of March, so I’ll get back to you on specifics then.
Left untreated, Lyme disease can become a major problem. Left untreated, pneumonia, the flu, or a simple cut can become fatal. So, don’t leave it untreated. Ultimately, yes, I would consider Lyme disease primarily a nuisance, just like a cut, or pneumonia, of the flu–treat it properly, and it just means you’re sick for a while. Don’t, and it becomes much worse.
But ultimately, I agree, ticks will no doubt be an ongoing problem. Just like allergies, respiratory problems, arthritis, senility, cancer, and chronic stress are ongoing problems in the alternative, urban way of life. No lifestyle is perfect or without its nuisances, but you learn to deal with them.
Finally, as Janene pointed out, it seems likely that the recent emergence of Lyme disease is a response to our peculiar environmental state. The restoration of our ecology may greatly reduce the incidence of tick problems. Not that that’s likely to help us very much, but it bodes well for our children–who, incidentally, would also be descended disproportionately from those of us with the best resistances to tick-borne diseases. Immunities develop over time. So, we’ve got the worst deal of all the generations to come–but even we have a better deal out there than we do here in the cities.
Devin,
I don’t really feel anything at all about cultural appropriation. I don’t believe in “races,” and I know more about Navajo culture than most Navajo. Culture is learned–it isn’t in the blood, and I never understood the argument that some magical power gave someone a monopoly over an idea simply by virtue of her mitochondrial DNA. Even the DMCA doesn’t try to deal in ownership of ideas.
But, I wasn’t mentioning my dancing of n/um to flaunt my stance, but to provide my credentials that I’m not necessarily hostile to, for lack of a better word, “spiritual” exercises–thus, that my criticism wasn’t that Dr. Morris was “spiritual” in and of itself, but that his particular blend seemed rather … commercial. New Age hucksters abound, and Dr. Morris so far has set off all my alarms. Maybe it’s just that I don’t know enough about him, but my spidey-sense is a ‘tinglin’, and that’s enough for me.
I said that neoshamanism was masturbation not because it committed some sin of “cultural appropriation,” but because it was divorced from a tribal context. I was part of a tribe when I did this, and it was for other members of the tribe. So, I’m not sure how your charge of hypocrisy fits in, since as far as I can see, it’s all quite consistent with my actual remarks–though, I could certainly understand it if you thought I’d ever condemned “cultural appropriation.” The problem with that is, I never have, because, as I said above, I don’t really care about “cultural appropriation.”
How it works, I have no idea. The placebo effect is one way shamanism works that I understand, but there’s a lot about it I don’t understand, too. I can understand Lyme disease being overcome through a placebo effect, by activating and strengthening the immune response. But I’ve also heard of shamans putting cancer into remission, and doing other things that I can’t explain. It’s a black box to me: I don’t always understand how it works, I just know it does. And that’s enough for me.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 January 2006 @ 12:00 PM
Thanks, Jason. I think for the most part I just wasn’t clear on what your thoughts were on all of those things, and was checking in with you. I think I had such a strong reaction because I saw you as using the practice of shamanism as an ego-trip, wherein you were putting someone else down and elevating yourself. Any exchange of this sort is something that sets off my arrogance alarm (hey, you get a spidey sense), but there was more than that. For whatever reason, any practice of shamanism by someone who grew up a middle class white male living in a city strikes me as disingenuous. I don’t think you’re intending to make money off of your shamanism practice, but isn’t using it to gain prestige very similar? And that IS what it looked to me like you were doing — I’m not sure if I can interpret the claim to shamanistic authority (what I already quoted) any differently. That would be where the hypocrisy comes in.
The cultural appropriation thing, I don’t really have any well-defined principles on it, but much of the cultural appropriation that I have a negative reaction to is a function of colonialism. It would seem that we are taking other peoples’ culture’s, removing them from their original context, for all practical purposes making them meaningless. All of this is occurring at the same time we’re committing cultural genocide, either by outright killing or a slow-death by reservation. This cultural appropriation and genocide is why you know more about the Navajo culture than the Navajo do. Even this kind of self-aggrandizing claim without any explanation as to why this is so is crossing a line into dangerous territory.
And finally, I can accept that you don’t know how the healing works. But then we’re getting into epistemology — what is healing, and how do you know when you’ve actually healed someone? This question was more just because I was curious than anything else.
We will probably continue to have a difference of opinion on these matters, and I’m okay with that. I just have some strong feelings about this, and wanted to understand where you were coming from before I expressed those.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 28 January 2006 @ 6:32 PM
It is not given to you to say what is an honest expression of a person’s soul, be it catholic worship or shamanic healing. Nor is it within your power to declare what the context of a cultural act or belief is or should be, nor when it is meaningful.
This is not about the color of a person’s skin, the language they speak or the accent they use, the people they are descended from or where they live now. This is between the person and the spirit, and that relationship brooks no intermediaries.
Comment by scruff — 28 January 2006 @ 7:38 PM
As well it should! I don’t wear these things on my sleeve, I see it as primarily a private matter with my tribe, so I debated over whether I should mention it at all, but I thought it necessary to “provide credentials,” so to speak, that I’m not opposed to all things wierd and mystical on those grounds alone. No, it’s certainly not meant as a boast, simply as evidence that I’m open-minded about such things.
A common reaction, but one I don’t share. Shamanism is bound into the human brain–it’s not a function of some mythological “race,” much less social classes. I know for a fact that it’s often been used disingeniously, but shamanism itself is the common heritage of all mankind as far as I’m concerned. If you’re human, you have a right to practice it.
I use it to help my tribe, not for money or prestige. I mentioned it here to show that I’m not discounting Dr. Morris because he’s talking about kundalini, but because he sounds like a huckster.
There’s the problem–but that’s not necessarily the same thing as cultural appropriation. The problem is reducing another’s culture to air fresheners or knick-knacks. That’s not necessarily the same thing, though.
Is it? We have some individuals from native cultures who don’t want anyone else to be able to do anything they did–even if it’s something that was held in common by many cultures, all around the world, like shamanism. Tamarack Song was under attack for performing sweat lodge ceremonies. At the same time, these same natives barely remember their own culture. They’re better known to anthropologists than to themselves. They can make a claim to blood, but we know more about their culture than they do now. The Navajo were talking about banning gay marriage–the Navajo! I’m not saying that how it came about was right, but at this point in time, a statement from a native person on their own culture is not necessarily any more authoritative than anyone else’s, because at this point in time, most of them have been raised exactly the same way as you or I. I’m descended from Russians, but there are many, many non-Russians who understand Russian culture better than I do–because I wasn’t raised in that culture. And neither have the vast majority of Native Americans been raised in their cultures.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 January 2006 @ 7:49 PM
Hey Scruff –
It apparently is within your power to tell me what is and what isn’t an honest expression of my own emotions, my “soul” as it were. I shouldn’t have to justify my emotions, to you or to anyone else. It doesn’t matter if my reaction was grounded or not, (although in this instance I feel it certainly was), my emotions don’t follow politically correct relativistic nonjudgmental lines. For some reason, being condescended to on the basis of me expressing my feelings really pisses me off. This is no small issue we’re talking about here, this gets into my thoughts and feelings on genocide and the destruction of entire cultures. I cannot play the relativist in areas such as this where I have strong emotions of my own.
If you would maintain an echo chamber where no one expresses their emotions about anything because somehow it is not given to them to do so, you’re going to have to do it elsewhere. That isn’t going to fly with me. And this holier-than-thou rhetoric smacks to me of yet another dissociated liberal attempting to justify their existence.
Go on, apply this relativism to me. Tell yourself about me that it is not “given to you” to judge me or have any emotions about what I just said to you, since my relationship with the spirit brooks no intermediaries, not even a holy spirit such as thou. It doesn’t feel very good, does it? It feels like you’re invalidating your own self for the benefit of this distant and faceless person. Because, of course, it is not given to you to judge anyone.
And then iterate that invalidation over a period of several years, when you’re constantly reminded that it is not given to you to judge others even when you have strong feelings about something, even when by expressing those strong feelings you’re not necessarily judging anyone but you’d better not express those things anyway because someone might take offense. That is how I grew up. That is why I was a bitter, dissociated, and extremely judgmental individual for so many years. Funny how telling someone they shouldn’t judge others backfires.
And now, please, I’d like to hear what was and what wasn’t acceptable for me to say in this particular comment. Since you are the benevolent and objective arbiter of all things said, of course.
Oh no, I think someone was angry in this comment. Where are the politically correct police? Anger is not an emotion that we should be expressing! Guards, arrest that man!
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 28 January 2006 @ 9:28 PM
Now that I’ve made my peace with that, I’d like to respond to what you said, Jason.
I see. I guess I just misunderstood your intent in saying such a thing. I now see how you were using it to say that you weren’t opposed to the guy on the grounds that he was into weird things. It was the juxtaposition that attracted my attention, and I guess I read it wrong as a result.
There’s the problem–but that’s not necessarily the same thing as cultural appropriation. The problem is reducing another’s culture to air fresheners or knick-knacks. That’s not necessarily the same thing, though.
Yeah. I guess that was what I was driving at with the cultural appropriation comment. Much of the cultural appropriation I have seen is guilty of this sort of thing, so I guess I lumped them together as if they were one and the same. As I said, I don’t have any real well-developed principles on any of this, I just had a visceral reaction that I’d wanted to share and work through a bit.
I still maintain that when talking about matters such as practices and rituals that come from other cultures (particularly those subject to genocide), we should be thinking about where these things came from and do some extensive soul searching about whether we feel right about partaking in them. As for me, I have not worked through these things fully, so this whole conversation so far is a result of me having a strong reaction that I didn’t know what to do with. I do know, however, that these are no small issues and are nothing to be glossed over, so I definitely wanted to bring it up. Thanks for bearing with me.
- Devin
Comment by Devin — 28 January 2006 @ 9:49 PM
Absolutely. There was no shortage of that prior to my dance. In the end, the fact that one of my tribe’s members was sick, and I knew something that could help, carried the day.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 January 2006 @ 10:44 PM
I’m very much on a planning and taking in info. mode. We are lucky enough to live in the middle of no-where in the Flint Hills, and are going to put together a greywater system and–starting small–what I would call an organic garden. I also wanted to chime in and thank the authors of this website for the great mental fodder, affirmations within your thought processes, etc. I’m no ways near as book smart as any of you
and thats OK–we all have diffring gifts that we bring into our repsective communities. Speaking of such; a few years ago we took a Survivalist course, really good info., and one man stood up towards the end of the 8 week series and simply said, “Find-your-people”. His words went to the bone, and that is my wish for everyone here, that you would find your people. Green Blessings to all-Beth
Comment by Beth — 29 January 2006 @ 2:20 PM
Jason, I think you will agree that every tribe will need a shaman.
Your tribe is set.
But your solution of going tribal now becomes even more inaccessible to overwhelming majority. An average person intending to survive collapse will have to not only form a tribe that is ready to go forager in 4-6 years, they’ll also have to find and train a shaman among them. The former project is enormous in scope, and the latter is even more difficult.
Comment by _Gi — 30 January 2006 @ 3:00 PM
You’re overestimating the difficulty of both. The best way to practice foraging skills is to use them, every day. To live off of them. That can take years before you’ll live with the ease of a hunter-gatherer, but during those years, you’re surviving off of those skills.
As for shamanism, that may be a project better undertaken once you’re successfully rewilded. Practicing shamanism in an urban environment can be a terrifying experience. When is someone a shaman? When their tribe says they are.
I am not; we’re not set. But it’s something I’m compelled to follow, nonetheless, and I think one day I probably will be one of my tribe’s shamans (most bands have at least one shaman; among the !Kung, I believe it was 33% of the male population and 25% of the females who reported being n/um k”ausi).
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 January 2006 @ 3:30 PM
That is, until somebody gets a bright idea that he can make more money by selling his kill than by any other job, which will be scarce in the depression.
If food really becomes scarce, game will gain a lot in value. If a deer or a raccoon can bring its weight in gold, your forest will become a site of a new gold fever, and I don’t think you’ll appreciate that.
Comment by _Gi — 30 January 2006 @ 4:40 PM
Again–why, then, has it never happened before?
When that happens, it’s few and far between. This doesn’t happen for lack of examples. It’s rampant among populations that routinely hunt, that have other hunters living in full view of them. It just never occurs to anyone. If it finally does dawn on some individuals, then they’ll go do it–and thus, become invisible to everyone else. There’s always the nutballs the run off into the hills, but nobody ever follows them. Living in the wilderness is a luxury. If times get tough, you move to the city, and once you’re in the city, it’s not easy to get out. You end up dying there.
Note the woman with her rabbits in Roger & Me–they interviewed her because she was the exception. And in big-time hunting territory, too.
You’re still talking about hypotheticals–hypotheticals that are discounted by every historical example. You keep expecting that if someone succeeds at it, well then of course everyone will try to do it. Not so. None of our examples unfolded for lack of an example. They all lived with easy access to wild foods, a history of exploiting wild foods, and living examples staring them in the face of people living quite happily on wild foods. But to the end, they never thought of relying on wild foods, and instead starved and died.
There’s a certain bridge Giuli and I cross, maybe three times a week. It’s two lane. We see people coming up the bridge all the time, but we usually go down. Yesterday, though, the way we usually go home was closed. Giuli began to wonder how we would ever manage to get back. The idea of going up the bridge never occurred to her–not for lack of examples, either.
People who rely on wild foods, stop relying on them when they become the most reliable source available. Instead, they concentrate all of their time and energy on their domesticated foods, which are jeopardized. It’s happened two dozen times already. Any argument that it will be different this time flies in the face of historical precedent and everything we know about human psychology and economic decision-making.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 January 2006 @ 4:53 PM
I am making a little different argument. You agree that there are always nutballs that go into the woods.
I am arguing that since we have a lot more people than all the previous examples, we’ll have a lot more nutballs who run for the hills. The proportion will stay approximately the same as before, but the absolute number of people will be much greater than any previous occurance.
If 10000 Anastasi abandoned their dying cities, it might not register on the history, they would be mostly invisible.
If every one of our big cities gives birth to a thousand forager tribes, I think you’ll notice, even though the proportion will stay the same.
Comment by _Gi — 30 January 2006 @ 5:10 PM
True. 1% would be vastly overestimating from the previous examples, so let’s consider the worst case scenario of 1%. Roughly, there are 300 million Americans (rounding up). 1% of that would be 3 million. In 1491, Mann argues that the pre-Columbian population of North America may have been as much as 10 million.
So, the wild, outside chance is 3 million survivors, in a land that can support three times that many people….
I think we’re good.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 January 2006 @ 5:16 PM
Too simple.
Top ten reasons out collapse is different from the others.
1)Out armed forces have unprecedented destructive potential. They also will likely be the last to lose the energy and supplies. They also will have contingency plans and training to keep operating when the supplies do get low, including going “native” and living off the land. So, our armed forces will likely have greater than 1% share and they will be very well armed for an undeterminate period of time.
2)Our population have access to guns and ammo in large quantities. If every one of three million foragers is armed with a rifle and ten rounds of ammo on average, inter-tribal warfare will be very brutal for some time.
3)Large percentage of the survivors will have psychological disorders of varying severity, PTSD will be common. (this may not be unprecedented) In addition, large percentage of survivors will be very competitive. That bodes ill for their tribes and for every tribe close by.
4)The area on which collapse will occur (the entire world, the entire continent) will be geographically diverse and contain many different environments. Some of these environments will be hostile to fledgeling forager tribes, and there competition for habitable areas will be fierce. This may or may not apply to your preferred area.
5)Although 1% estimate may be good in general, in some areas it may fluctuate even higher due to unusually high number of people predisposed to abandoning civilization. These areas will then be hotly contested.
6)Most of the areas where cultivation will still be possible, even in the form of horticulture, will likely be off-limits to foragers. This will cut the available livable areas and facilitate conflict.
7)We and our Southern neighbors have a percentage of population who remember that their great grandfathers were foragers. They will have an easier time going back psychologically.
8)We have anthropologists. They are well-respected in their communities, and they will have survival ideas independent of civilization.
9)We have internet and we have large libraries. We also have literate population.
10)We used to have a lot of hippies. Where’d they go?
Comment by _Gi — 30 January 2006 @ 6:57 PM
1.) See Jeff Vail’s comment for an insider perspective on just how effective the military could be without its oil. Their contingency plans are, frankly, fairly pitiable.
2.) Our guns and ammo per capita are less than those found among other societies that have collapsed. People don’t fight without reason, even when they have the means. Why would people fight when they have more than enough resources without any need to compete?
3.) Then those tribes would implode, with a minimum of damage to the neighbors that they barely have contact with….
4.) Very true. So, for those of us with a luxury to prepare ahead of time, we should consider the area to learn and become native to based on ecology, weather, and competition. This is one of the main reasons I’m not going to the Pacific Northwest–everyone’s going there. It may end up being one of the continent’s most densely populated areas.
5.) That’s true. See #4.
6.) Horticulture is only sustainable as an adjunct to foraging. See this conversation with Toby Hemenway on this horticulture-foraging spectrum. The areas where anything more intensive is possible will be very small, and easy to avoid.
7.) The Greenland Vikings defined themselves in terms of their relationship to their European cousins, who lived almost entirely on fish. Didn’t help him, did it?
8.) Anthropologists abhor the notion. It’s called “going native,” and it’s anathema to everything they stand for. The very suggestion is … well, simply not possible.
9.) So what? As I keep saying, this isn’t a question of knowledge, but imagination. Knowledge is easy to get–it’s imagination that’s hard to come by.
10.) They mostly went to communes, where they try to live by farming.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 January 2006 @ 10:33 PM
I thought the hippies put on suits and went to work?
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 31 January 2006 @ 1:01 AM
Ahhhh, Jason. That’s the most discouraging thing I’ve read, yet, this morning. Of course, looking at Bellingham, WA growth (where I’m at), can’t say I disagree.
Oddly, enough, I was in a bookstore Sunday where I overheard a conversation. A guy with a heavy southern accent was telling the clerk he just moved to town. Turns out his house was destroyed in one of the 2005 hurricanes.
He decided to move to Bellingham as a result. An early example of your point 4.
The search begins ….
Comment by Eric — 31 January 2006 @ 10:27 AM
1) Nuclear submarines can survive independently for years at a time. How long will the collapse take? What will be the reaction of nuclear submarine commanders? Somebody has to guard missiles on the ground as well. These commands might have better contingency plans. Forager used to be a military profession. Forager units used to be deployed in all the armies. Even if they do not have them now all they’ll have to do is look at their own history.
2)Name another collapsed society that had guns and ammo. People will fight to protect their territory. This generation is also likely to fight because of religious or ideological differences. We are members of this generation, so this is our problem.
6)If horticulture is unsustainable, on what time scale can it continue? Multigenerational sustainability is not your pressing survival concern.
7)The Greenland Vikings were a small population, who left Scandinavia for a reason. The people who can remember their foraging ancestors are a bigger population, and they never wanted to leave their land and many did not. If it is imagination that is needed most, plenty of inspiration will be provided by grandfather’s stories.
10)Can these communes last without civilization? How long will they last? Will the inhabitants realize that it is time to become nomads again?
Comment by _Gi — 31 January 2006 @ 12:15 PM
1.) I lived at Newport News, VA for several years, while my father was employed at Tenneco, as a draftsman designing some of those nuclear submarines. They stock them with enough power to last years but, in a tragically common bit of miltiary oversight, not enough food. As far as history, all we have to do is look to our history–but we don’t do that, either. The relationship between inventiveness and the officer corps is a tense one. Non-officers are systematically discouraged from any kind of thought; they are to be automatons, and nothing more. That’s the whole point of boot camp. Officers, though, are expected to be inventive–but only within very specific parameters. The military is conservative with very good reason. No, the military is the least likely segment of society to try anything new or daring. To be otherwise would be the exact opposite of everything we so meticulously train our militaries to be.
2.) People will very likely fight to defend “their land,” which is why you probably shouldn’t try foraging someone’s fields. Expanding land claims is unlikely–no other collapsing society did it. That said, the Donner party had guns and ammo, and they starved to death without fighting breaking out.
6.) I don’t know if horticulture is unsustainable or not; if it is not, then it is at least over a scale of 10,000 years. But, permaculture as practiced today is also very concerned with ecological balance, and balancing that with a forager way of life. Our own tribe is considering using some permaculture techniques. I am concerned that those principles may be lost at some future time, but a reliance on foraging should keep the system stable. At any rate, none of these are problems that our generation will face.
7.) The Greenland Vikings left Scandinavia for economic opportunity, not because they wanted to cut their ties with Scandinavia. Per capita, their spending on European goods far exceeded most European countries, because maintaining their identity as Europeans was so crucial for them. The people you’re talking about have largely the opposite attitude: that their grandfathers’ stories are pure nostalgia, and that their greatest desire is to leave all that behind and succeed inside of civilization.
10.) Hippie communes are, in general, not sustainable. They rely on agriculture, and would be impossible without fertilizer. Without fertilizer, they’ll starve inside of a year. Some of the primitive types may be an exception, such as Wildroots, but those are few and far between.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 31 January 2006 @ 12:29 PM
rivercottage.net
It’s an interesting site, well worth checking out. It advocates, among other things, an awareness of what foods can be locally foraged. It also advocates standard gardening and local food, all within the context of the UK, so I certainly don’t think that it is a viable long-term solution. As far as I’m aware, it is by far the most “main stream” site to come right out and say “let’s go foraging.”
Comment by Jeff Vail — 31 January 2006 @ 1:01 PM
I have been reading some posts on this site, and have a few recommendations and comments to all wishing to learn primitive skills. Firstly, there is some very stimulating discussion and well informed people here - but with that comes a severe lack of experience with the actual physical reality of ‘going wild’. I have some experience in this area, and reached similar realizations as you fellows have simply through experience - not through anthropology texts. Paying someone to learn primitive skills seems ridiculous. Firstly - choose a bioregion you like, somewhere you want to live and maybe already have some knowledge/ affinity with. Now get out in that bioregion and look at what’s happening, learn what grows where and when and what you can do with it-study the natives in that region-their building prectices were based on what was practical in that area. Just get out there, off the fucking computer - it’s febuary now - i’m going to get some nettles for lunch. Just don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to run into ‘the woods’ to start learning these things-it’s too discouraging that way.
Comment by miles — 6 February 2006 @ 3:40 PM
Your advice is more appreciated than your tone, Miles. You assume too much. Have you noted that our posting behavior so often trails off on the weekends? That’s because we are out in the woods. But while it’s a part-time gig, as you suggest, we have full-time jobs. Evenings and lunch hours provide ample time to write things that some people need to hear. If that’s not you, that’s fine, we can never be all things to all people, but your conclusion that we’re all talk and no action is too much of an assumption to make.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 6 February 2006 @ 3:49 PM
Hi Jason, fair enough, definetely unfair assumptions to make, and i do see the usefulness of forums like this - i just know for myself that i used to really feel i had to escape civilization or wait for it to implode before i started learning these things - picked up a bit of a similar tone here and wanted to point it out. It also seems important that learning these things be approached from more than an economic perspective - by which i mean that if one is motivated to learn primitive skills or how to go ‘wild’ simply to escape the impending crash - they will probably fail. There needs to be more than an economic incentive, otherwise were repeating the mistake of that which we are trying to leave behind. That’s why i emphasised finding a bioregion - my bioregion is the rainshadow of eastern vancouver island - knowing the area and coming the consider it family provides me my motivation.
Comment by miles — 7 February 2006 @ 3:04 PM
You’re absolutely spot-on that all of this is incredibly region-specific, so you need to figure out your bioregion first.
A bit of a “proverb” I’ve been spreading is, “When the ship is sinking, it’s a little late to learn how to swim.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 February 2006 @ 3:12 PM
Dear Jason,
You wrote:
Last Summer, I listened to a replay of conference call with Jon Young addressing whether or not Grandfather was real. You may find his perspective interesting because Jon was the only person ever mentored by Tom the same way he was(supposedly?) mentored by Grandfather.
Here is a link and description of the call.
http://www.wildlore.com/JY_Call.html
Free Replay of the Jon Young Conference Call
For those unfamiliar with Jon Young, he is the first student of Tom Brown Jr. and to this day the only
individual to have been mentored by Tom in the same manner that Tom was taught by Stalking Wolf. Jon is
the founder of the Washington based Wilderness Awareness School, established in 1983. Jon is also the creator of the four-part “Kamana Naturalist Training Program,� an independent study course that blends tracking, fieldcraft, navigation, botany, ecology, bird language, and the art of mentoring. In addition, he is the narrator of a series of audio CD’s and cassettes including “Seeing through Native Eyes: Understanding the Language of Nature�
and “Advanced Bird Language: Reading the Concentric Rings of Nature.�
On this call Jon discusses:
•Did Stalking Wolf exist outside the imagination of Tom Brown Jr..
•Are Tracker School and Wilderness Awareness School cults.
•Why so many primitive skill practitioners claim to have taught Tom Brown Jr. everything he knows.
•The definition of the modern day outdoor expert.
•Jon’s search for 10 ordinary people to whom he will teach extraordinary things.
Comment by Curt — 9 February 2006 @ 10:06 PM
I forgot to mention in my last post that you can listen to a replay of the call with Jon Young at the link given.
Comment by Curt — 9 February 2006 @ 10:42 PM
The topic on this page is learning primitive skills. I have noticed on the pages I’ve read thus far on this site that talk of hunting seems to focus exclusively on big game animals (or insects).
I just want to bring up two other alternatives. One don’t forget that small game can be snared or caught with bolas or darts (anyone who’s good at the bar game ought to get a sharp set for hunting).
Two, Seems to me that if Tribe Anthropik is correct and most people will be fleeing to the city, there will be a lot of domesticated livestock left. Set them free of fences. Let them roam, but they will still be less wary of humans than a deer. I have no difficulty believing that it will be possible to approach a cow and over the course of a day or three get her to accept my presence enough I can touch her. At that point, I don’t need a gun or a spear or a bow and arrow. A knife or even a good sharp stick to her throat will be sufficient to provide meat for my group for quite some time.
I also have a woman’s question…What do I do about my menstrual blood. I don’t want to pollute our water supply by using and washing rags. I’ve heard tell of some tribes having used cattail fluff - but I’ve also got info that cattail fluff is irritating when in direct contact with human skin, thus necesitating the rags I’m already trying to avoid. It is also my understanding that the !Kung just let it run and washed it off. But I expect the climate where I’m going to be living will necessitate wearing leg coverings at least part of the year. Any suggesions on how this issue can be dealt with?
Comment by Chandrashakti — 27 February 2006 @ 2:57 PM
Wash them downstream with the rest of the clothes.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 27 February 2006 @ 4:39 PM
Oh there will absolutely be a lot of domesticated animals left. Problem is, the vast majority will be factory farmed animals and are not likely to survive long, even if you do release them.
As for menstrual blood, hmm, interesting thing to ponder. I know of some people that use it as a fertilizer of sorts, but since we are not farming people that likely wont work for us.
Comment by Miranda Belcher — 28 February 2006 @ 8:16 AM
On wild dogs:
I lived in Kazakhstan in 1995, as the country was recovering from the Soviet collapse. Wild dogs were a very common occurrence–probably more common than the cardboard box street vendors trying to sell the goods they received in payment from the factories where they worked. I never heard of any instances of attack that were not provoked. For the most part, the dogs just went around town (Almaty–the capitol at the time), like they were ordinary inhabitants.
On domesticated animals:
I think about this a lot, living in the Ozarks with all the cattle ranches up here. I’ve tried to note some not-too-distant ranches that could provide sources of meat, where fences could be cut to let the cattle roam.
For the most part, though, I think cattle poaching is a short term and probably risky venture–unless you can find an abandoned ranch where the animals haven’t died yet. But I think, for the most part, the ranchers are going to view their livestock as potential money from the nearby urban community and will fiercely protect them.
On the 1% theory:
Jason, the land that supported 10 million indigenous inhabitants has drastically changed. That land was free of the urban sprawl that has devoured habitats. Urban areas can still be foraging ground for us and our animal neighbors, but I doubt the capacity is as generous as your statement makes it sound.
One road across the plains could interrupt the flow of migration. Imagine what miles and miles of interstate and railroad have done.
I think life is certainly robust enough to adapt–all life, humans included. And I have no idea what percentage of the population is in-tune enough to actually attempt a hunter/gatherer lifestyle. I think there is enough forageability for those who want it, but your statement seems very out of perspective.
Comment by Rix — 9 May 2007 @ 11:41 AM
Even urban sprawl is better than the Kalahari, the Arctic, and other places where foragers flourish today.
Funny, since your statement was essentially all I was saying.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 9 May 2007 @ 11:50 AM
Yeah, I don’t diagree with your premise at all. I was just disagreeing with the proposition that the current carrying capacity could be 1/3 as great as it was before the Civ shit hit the North American fan.
But that’s an excellent point that urban sprawl beats out other foraging places. I have no doubt that North America will be survivable, even lush and abundantly providing, for a lot of people.
Comment by Rix — 10 May 2007 @ 12:18 AM