Learning jungle survival techniques in Anthropology class-the Malaysian Batek people

Watchful said:
I'm reminded of the Guarani tribe which bordered Venezuela and Brazil. In the 1960s, they were almost a stone age culture who lived pretty much as you described the Batek. They did have an assortment of metal blades, but that was the height of their technology.

Anthropologists documented them well, and took great pains to avoid tainting their culture.

Except, by the 1980s, they were all wearing Walkmen,* t-shirts, jeans, and looking for work in the big cities. Not because Western society encroached on them...but that after a brief exposure to Western society, they decided they wanted that better. They actively sought it out.

It's easy to damn modern man for ruining cultures like this, but the reality is usually the other way around. They want beds, air conditioning, hot and cold running water, and ready-cooked food. We don't bring it to them so much as they come and get it.
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Generally true, but not universally so. Two examples come immediately to mind, the Tarahumara of Mexico and the Bushmen of the Kalahari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmen#Ancestral_land_conflict_with_Botswana_government

There are other examples - I think more than anything it depends on the culture in question and how strongly they self-identify as different from outsiders. Just as the Amish resist the culture of the "English", the Tarahumara resist the culture of the "Chabochi".
 
There's a point where technology and complex society collapses on itself due to the caloric requirement it takes to maintain and operate. The average person in the US consumed the equivelant of 250,000 calories a day, whereas the average hunter-gatherer society member burns 3-5,000. It's amazing how much energy we waste conforming to society's standards. In the Batek, 25% of children die before the age of 2, typically due to malaria. Once they reach the age of 5, they're home free. They make up for that by reproducing constantly from late adolescence til they die. As far as the food storage factor, they don't need any. Like I said, they take note of fruit trees, tubor vines and animal nests and harvest as needed. The storage is the jungle. When resources are depleted, they pack up, move,and build new lean-to huts, carrying the young and the old from place to place.

Also, it takes infrastructure to make infrastructure-meaning that unless these tribes move to civilization, they are relying on the traders as the source of their technology. If the traders stop coming, they would have no ammo for the rifles, no gas for the vehicles, coal for stoves, etc etc, and then they become useless. You can't just adopt new technologies on a whim as you'd like-your walkman needs batteries. If you don't have the cash or goods to trade for them, all it is going to do is weigh you down when moving every week or two...

When societies lose this infrastructure, they tend to revert back to primative functions-IE Blowgun over rifle, walking or floating the rivers over motorized transportation, obsidian and flint tools over hammer forged steel. You get the point. The Batek provide goods that society wants (fruit, honey, rattan) and society provides goods that the Batek want (clothes, tools, certain food items etc)
 
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Esav Benyamin said:
Where on the face of this overwhelmingly technologized world do you see equality? Absolute equality evades us all, but low-tech cultures avoid the economic and social extremes seen between individuals in busier societies.

I ignore the concept of morality: without a clear definition, it isn't worth discussing.
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At what point did I say we see equality or even refer to absolute equality? I said more equality. More does not mean true or absolute.

If you don't think that in general the world has more equality than previously, I don't know what to say.

I mean, let's look at something like slavery...hmmm, for 1000s of years slavery existed, now, for most of the industrialized world it doesn't. When did this happen? Primarily over the last 200 years. When did technology truly and drastically change the way we lived? The last 200 years. From things such as industrialized farming, improved healthcare, the assembly line.... If you were a woman, would you rather have today's version of equality or the 1600's version?

I mean look at the limits on government today versus the 1900s versus the 1800s versus anytime before that. Please don't give me isolated cultures that had more equality in say the 1000s versus the 1600s, let's keep it on the general populace within their respective eras.

As for morality, I don't believe in a universal morality, but for the sake of argument, let me change morality to higher value assigned to life.

If you don't agree with this point, then I am not going to type out the argument of how technological advancement was predicated on static food sources and domesticated animals and how this led to more equality among people.
 
richw said:
At what point did I say we see equality or even refer to absolute equality? I said more equality. More does not mean true or absolute.

If you don't think that in general the world has more equality than previously, I don't know what to say.

I mean, let's look at something like slavery...hmmm, for 1000s of years slavery existed, now, for most of the industrialized world it doesn't. When did this happen? Primarily over the last 200 years. When did technology truly and drastically change the way we lived? The last 200 years. From things such as industrialized farming, improved healthcare, the assembly line.... If you were a woman, would you rather have today's version of equality or the 1600's version?

I mean look at the limits on government today versus the 1900s versus the 1800s versus anytime before that. Please don't give me isolated cultures that had more equality in say the 1000s versus the 1600s, let's keep it on the general populace within their respective eras.

As for morality, I don't believe in a universal morality, but for the sake of argument, let me change morality to higher value assigned to life.

If you don't agree with this point, then I am not going to type out the argument of how technological advancement was predicated on static food sources and domesticated animals and how this led to more equality among people.
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Versus hunter gatherer societies who avoid egoism, wear naught but loingcloths or shorts, who practice food sharing as a necessity, own nothing but what is on their backs, have no defined power roles in the community, no difference in parental roles between mothers and fathers... this society epitomizes equality. In fact, most hunter gatherer societies mirror this, at least to some extent...

I'll add slavery is all but nonexistant in hunter gatherer societies-it's mostly ranching/agriculture heavy communities, where the ammount of labor per foot output is MUCH higher, that slavery starts to come into the picture. In which case I'd say that slavery is MORE prevelant as technology increases, as more labor is needed and less food is available-it's just more predictably available.
 
I love Anthropology - started my PhD in Cultural Anthro, but yea tuition and lack of inspiration for my thesis has sorta put that on hold.
 
PayetteRucker said:
Versus hunter gatherer societies who avoid egoism, wear naught but loingcloths or shorts, who practice food sharing as a necessity, own nothing but what is on their backs, have no defined power roles in the community, no difference in parental roles between mothers and fathers... this society epitomizes equality. In fact, most hunter gatherer societies mirror this, at least to some extent...
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Go back to my first statement, about how cultures with static food sources dominated cultures without them.

You are familiar that the native Americans, from North to South America, had slaves? They would actually fight each other and take slaves. In fact, one of the first trading arrangements between Europeans and North American natives was that of slave trade.

I can point to this in other places as well. Guns, Germs, and Steel had some great examples of this.

My point was this, those with good food sources and animals that can be domesticated (especially large animals like horses) will overtake these hunter gathers (that often fought other hunter gatherers). When technology was limited, the harshness of let's call it a class system was extreme, today, it is not.
 
richw said:
Go back to my first statement, about how cultures with static food sources dominated cultures without them.

You are familiar that the native Americans, from North to South America, had slaves? They would actually fight each other and take slaves. In fact, one of the first trading arrangements between Europeans and North American natives was that of slave trade.

I can point to this in other places as well. Guns, Germs, and Steel had some great examples of this.

My point was this, those with good food sources and animals that can be domesticated (especially large animals like horses) will overtake these hunter gathers (that often fought other hunter gatherers). When technology was limited, the harshness of let's call it a class system was extreme, today, it is not.
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Not so much a class system, but defined levels of technology between different cultures, for sure. Technology also seems to cause a significant loss in skill over generations-there are points where higher skill and more primative technology have trumped better weaponry and armor. That's why cultural anthropology is so cool-I'm getting credits for reading about these primative cultures and their lifestyles, which are completely applicable to wilderness and survival skills. We just got done reading a book on hunting and gathering societies in northern Siberia that live off of carribou-everything from their cold weather gear to a vast majority of their food comes from the carribou, and they hunt them in dozens of different ways. When they migrate they walk right through town and the women run around with kitchen knives stabbing them to death. As long as the resources remain renewable, and don't exceed that point, hunting and gathering can be an extremely sustainable lifestyle, that not only requires less effort, but the effort is a heck of alot more fun. Hunting carribou from snowmobiles with Mosin Nagants and spears, running traplines for arctic fox and lemming, making poison darts and hunting monkeys, swinging on vines from fruit tree to fruit tree, versus slaving away in fields all day... They're both viable economic models, obviously-I'm just saying I learn and associate more with the hunter gatherer side.
 
Barbarossa said:
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Gives them more quality time with the family. Sounds like we are doing things the hard way.
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The ART of NOTHING

http://www.hollowtop.com/spt_html/nothing.htm

Excerpt:

Today many of us westerners find ourselves fascinated with these simple cultures, and a few of us really dive into it to reproduce or recreate the primitive lifestyle. In our typical western zeal we get right into it and produce, produce, produce. We work ambitiously to learn each primitive craft, and we produce all kinds of primitive clothing, tools, containers, and art, and just plain stuff. True hunter-gatherer cultures carried all their possessions on their backs, but us modern primitives soon find that we need a pickup truck just to move camp! In our effort to recreate the primitive lifestyle we find that we have ironically missed our mark completely-- that we have made many primitive things, but that we have not begun to grasp the true nature of a primitive culture. To truly grasp that essence requires that we let go, and begin to understand the art of doing nothing.

Understanding the art of nothing is a somewhat challenging concept for us westerners. When we go on a "primitive" camping trip, we take our western preconceptions with us. We find a level spot in a meadow to build our shelters, and if a site is not level then we make it so. Then we gather materials and start from scratch, building the walls and roof of a shelter. We do what we are accustomed to; we build a frame house on a surveyed plot in the meadow. Then we gather materials and shingle our shelter, regardless of whether or not there is a cloud in the sky, or whether or not it has rained at all in a month.
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Technology and the most creative and successful methods of implementation have allowed cultures to dominate others. It is that simple. There are other mitigating factors, but in general terms this has been true throughout history.

Additionally, there are always exceptions to the rule, but they must be accepted for what they are - exceptions. Furthermore, those exceptions don't always provide for continued dominance.

The "age" we live in currently is probably the most interesting in all history. With the advent of global communication and the dissolution of linguistic barriers, technology is growing at an ever accelerating pace, yet our cultures and sociological structures are struggling to keep pace. Entire base-level value systems are being decimated as a result of advancing tech, but acceptable functional equivalents have yet to be accepted (or even significantly innovated).

Interesting days.
 
Again, technology comes at a price. We work 40 hours a week on average to produce enough to fuel our cars and heat our homes and keep our refrigerators and water heaters running. All of these things alienate us from what we try so hard to do-experience the outdoors. Whereas these hunter gatherer societies work 20-25 hours a week and live much simpler lives through amazing outdoors skills that most of us could only dream of replicating in a controled environment. I didn't want this to become a technology versus naturalist approach, I'm just saying by looking at these primative cultures we can learn ALOT about wilderness and survival skills. If you're ever bored, pick up a few anthropological studies at the library. Guaranteed you'll learn some outdoor skills/techniques.
 
richw said:
You are familiar that the native Americans, from North to South America, had slaves? They would actually fight each other and take slaves. In fact, one of the first trading arrangements between Europeans and North American natives was that of slave trade.
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Native Americans were not hunter-gatherers prior to being decimated (approx 90% die-off) by European diseases. The European encounter with hunter-gatherer Native Americans was after they had been reduced to a much more primitive lifestyle - prior to 1492 they were agricultural with large cities and extensive trade networks, and yes, slaves just like most contemporaneous societies at that time. What the Europeans found were the remnants of an advanced society and wrongly assumed their present primitive lifestyle had always been the case.

1491 by Charles Mann is an excellent intro to just how advanced and non-primitive the Americas were prior to Columbus:

http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelati...2059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287600440&sr=8-1

Edit:
I think it's universally true that primitive-hunter gatherer societies are/were egalitarian - at least I don't know of a case in which they aren't/weren't. Even the title of Chief or Big Man didn't confer any political power, economic benefit or special privileges over and above anyone else in a tribe or village - just as being a facilitator or mediator among peers doesn't get you anything beyond the respect for taking the trouble to fill that role.
 
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akennedy73 said:
I think it's universally true that primitive-hunter gatherer societies are/were egalitarian - at least I don't know of a case in which they aren't/weren't. Even the title of Chief or Big Man didn't confer any political power, economic benefit or special privileges over and above anyone else in a tribe or village - just as being a facilitator or mediator among peers doesn't get you anything beyond the respect for taking the trouble to fill that role.
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And usually the role was well earned in the community, as they were generally natural leaders-not 'appointed' or inherited. They earned the respect of the tribe members.
 
Yorkshire Boy said:
_machete.jpg


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This was pretty much me growing up. I was out hunting down and eating coconuts with a screwdriver and hatchet when I was 5, and using a machete to cut and eat my mom's sugar cane when I was 8.
 
PayetteRucker said:
Again, technology comes at a price. We work 40 hours a week on average to produce enough to fuel our cars and heat our homes and keep our refrigerators and water heaters running. All of these things alienate us from what we try so hard to do-experience the outdoors. Whereas these hunter gatherer societies work 20-25 hours a week and live much simpler lives through amazing outdoors skills that most of us could only dream of replicating in a controled environment. I didn't want this to become a technology versus naturalist approach, I'm just saying by looking at these primative cultures we can learn ALOT about wilderness and survival skills. If you're ever bored, pick up a few anthropological studies at the library. Guaranteed you'll learn some outdoor skills/techniques.
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Well done Payette!

Keep the main topic the main topic. Studying lesser technologically advanced cultures is usually very interesting (if you're into that sorta thing). Especially those skills which they performed in their day-to-day living and had mastery over. Whereas we have mastery over different types of skills (i bet everyone here knows very well how to use a mouse and keyboard), each culture must have mastery over it's basic tech to acheive daily survival - for us it's going to the grocery store.

As to anthropological studes, yup have checked out/read hundreds (thousands?) of books and professional articles and written critical commentaries/articles on some of their research styles/methods. Good stuff generally.

There is an interesting read on a native American from the early 20th century - Ishi i believe was his name. Fascinating - particularly as it relates to his technology (aka "survival" skills - more like living skills).

Additionally, though it's never been publicly discussed, i wonder if he was something of a "peace child" between antagonistic clans - formerly a social component among a few of the tribes in Papua, New Ginea.
 
akennedy73 said:
Native Americans were not hunter-gatherers prior to being decimated (approx 90% die-off) by European diseases. The European encounter with hunter-gatherer Native Americans was after they had been reduced to a much more primitive lifestyle - prior to 1492 they were agricultural with large cities and extensive trade networks, and yes, slaves just like most contemporaneous societies at that time. What the Europeans found were the remnants of an advanced society and wrongly assumed their present primitive lifestyle had always been the case.

1491 by Charles Mann is an excellent intro to just how advanced and non-primitive the Americas were prior to Columbus:

http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelati...2059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287600440&sr=8-1

Edit:
I think it's universally true that primitive-hunter gatherer societies are/were egalitarian - at least I don't know of a case in which they aren't/weren't. Even the title of Chief or Big Man didn't confer any political power, economic benefit or special privileges over and above anyone else in a tribe or village - just as being a facilitator or mediator among peers doesn't get you anything beyond the respect for taking the trouble to fill that role.
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I can see why you think I meant that the Native Americans that first traded with the Europeans were the ones that I were referring to that were hunter/gatherers. However, slaves in the Americas existed well before the Europeans came. Generally it was the civilized native Americans victimizing on the less civilized. Which just gets back to my point, those with a stable food source tend to victimize the ones without. It is human nature that when one has an advantage to press it.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
,,, primitive methods may not be good for much beyond maintaining a precarious status quo.

The limiting factor is usually the ability to store food. No sense producing so much it will spoil, especially when there is a good chance of finding more as needed.
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Storage of fuel can be included in that. Notice the part where payette mentioned that fires were not from coals but from constantly fed sticks? A rainforest biome would inhibit the amount of fuel a nomadic group could store. This also gets me thinking about Mediterranean cultures and the high value they placed on olive oil.
 
PayetteRucker said:
There's a point where technology and complex society collapses on itself due to the caloric requirement it takes to maintain and operate.
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And this is where the argument for sustainability and perma culture come in. I think that the greatest lesson we could take from primitive life styles is that they have an upper boundary that they do not try to force in order to increase their own prosperity. It's a serious concept that, sooner or later, we in our cozy homes are going to be forced to deal with. I'm wondering if it will start with lack of water?
 
It's already started with fossil fuels, that much is undeniable. Enjoy your cars while you still can. Water, as well. Check out the book Cadillac Desert, about the abuse of the rivers in the West, for hydroelectric dams. If a river had any sort of current in the mid 1900's, we dammed it for power. And California is STILL in the middle of an energy crisis... the Colorado River runs dry even before it hits the Mexican border.

The same goes for manpower and the complexity of the government. If you look at how huge and complex our government is, and how many resources it takes to run, how many BS laws and regulations we spend our time and energy to abide by, it will reach a breaking point where we simply can't support it anymore. Hence our insane national debt.
 
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