[HN Gopher] Appetite for Destruction: Indigenous Americans knew ...
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Appetite for Destruction: Indigenous Americans knew how to avoid
starvation
Author : pepys
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-07-29 16:45 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
| WalterBright wrote:
| From what I've read about the archaeological evidence of bones,
| Indigenous peoples suffered from famine now and then.
| chis wrote:
| This article is such an odd mix of interesting Native American
| facts and overwrought critical theory. Mostly makes me want to go
| read the actual source (Sovereignty and Goodness of God).
|
| I always wonder if the academics writing this stuff actually
| believe it or whether they start by writing a normal essay and
| then throw in all the critical theory stuff at the end so it can
| get published.
| RappingBoomer wrote:
| yeah, what started out as a good piece of writing devolved into
| a dogmatic narrative
| akamaka wrote:
| I think the problem is simply in the varying writing skills of
| academics. Of course they need to take into consideration
| current theory and political viewpoints if they want their work
| to be relevant. But it takes an unusually skilled writer to
| weave theory and facts into a compelling story.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| It's interesting how "critical theory" is used as a prejorative
| not only going on a hunch, but also that the very use of it
| degrades the quality of any article without question.
| Personally I've come to enjoy quite a lot of work which many
| would categorize under 'critical theory' and a lot of work
| which many would mistakenly categorize under 'critical theory'
| simply due to the topics covered.
| taeric wrote:
| To be fair, the complaint is against "overwrought" critical
| theory.
|
| A critical eye is important. It can also be overdone.
| colechristensen wrote:
| What weird patronizing tone.
|
| >Indigenous Americans knew how to avoid starvation. Colonists
| were too hungry to notice.
|
| What's the point, civilization(s) that lived off the local land
| were better at subsisting in difficult situations than people
| from a different continent not very familiar with local food
| sources?
|
| An exposition of native foods contrasting with colonial foods
| could be interesting but it's wrapped up in weird reverence and
| arguing against a centuries old idiot.
| causality0 wrote:
| _Indigenous survival methods have persisted, like their keepers,
| for hundreds of years against invasion, disease, and ecological
| catastrophe._
|
| That would depend on the people in question. The list of
| indigenous tribes who wiped themselves out by destroying their
| environment is extensive. The Maya, the Anasazi, Easter
| Islanders, the Nazca, and countless more we'll never know about.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > as we all confront a twenty-first century that feels hauntingly
| like the seventeenth: beset by violence, disease, hatred.
|
| The 17th century was far, far worse off with violence, disease,
| and hatred. Life expectancy was short in those days.
| bslorence wrote:
| > _In the early seventeenth century, for example, the French
| Jesuit missionary Pierre Biard complained that the Wabanaki did
| not have to work hard enough to feed themselves ... "Had he ever
| gone fishing...? Gathered nuts, or berries deep in thorns and
| mosquitoes? Ever tracked a deer through snow, skinned a
| rabbit...?"_
|
| Huh. Seems probable that an early 17th-century missionary to
| North America knew a little bit about roughing it, maybe even
| more than the OP's poet... who also seems to have missed his
| point. Here's something he actually said:
|
| "They are never in a hurry. Quite different from us, who can
| never do anything without hurry and worry; worry, I say, because
| our desire tyrannizes over us and banishes peace from our
| actions." [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46218/46218-h/46218-h.htm#XI...
| corrral wrote:
| An aid for anyone else who found the usage "knowledges"
| unfamiliar and distracting:
|
| Knowl"edge (?), n.
|
| 2. That which is or may be known; the object of an act of
| knowing; a cognition; -- chiefly used in the plural.
|
| There is a great difference in the delivery of the mathematics,
| which are the most abstracted of knowledges. Bacon.
|
| Knowledges is a term in frequent use by Bacon, and, though now
| obsolete, should be revived, as without it we are compelled to
| borrow "cognitions" to express its import. Sir W. Hamilton.
|
| To use a word of Bacon's, now unfortunately obsolete, we must
| determine the relative value of knowledges. H. Spencer.
|
| - Webster's 1913
|
| I figured it was some probably-from-critical-theory-because-
| aren't-they-always liberal-artsism, but looks like it's just an
| unusual-bordering-on-archaic sense.
| claudiawerner wrote:
| >I figured it was some probably-from-critical-theory-because-
| aren't-they-always liberal-artsism, but looks like it's just an
| unusual-bordering-on-archaic sense.
|
| I don't think that's correct (and the age of the dictionary
| quoted probably isn't helping); if you search Google Scholar
| for "knowledges", even since the year 2000 you get about 85,000
| results. It's a term of art in sociology and anthropology
| fields, and marginally within philosophy too. It points to
| multiple understandings of the world which are disparate enough
| to be their own 'system' of knowledge; multiple such systems
| are known as knowledges.
| dieselgate wrote:
| What a great article if not for only the context of what Native
| populations of the American northeast would eat! Boiled horse
| hoof is making me laugh because it sounds horrendous, but hey
| don't know til you try. I also got a kick out of the woman saying
| something like "first week captive I couldn't eat, second week I
| ate a little, third week everything tasted amazing". Of course
| the Native population knew how to eat well and had an incredibly
| diverse food system! Even Native people in comparatively extreme
| (elevation/desert etc) environments like modern Mexico City or
| the American southwest (and beyond) thrived.
| bergenty wrote:
| A lot of people eat slow cooked goat hooves and it's absolutely
| delicious, probably my favorite part of the goat. There's
| plenty of meaty fat on the feet and lots of delicious bone
| marrow. The soup is always very rich because of the fat. Maybe
| horse hooves are similar?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paya_(food)
| dieselgate wrote:
| I believe it thanks for chiming in! When you say "slow
| cooked" it certainly has more appeal. Oh gosh now I'm curious
| bergenty wrote:
| Though I should add it's never just the hooves but the
| bottom 6 inches of the foot including the hooves.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Was wondering about that part..
| RajT88 wrote:
| The early settlers, as they point out, also had a far more
| diverse diet than we do now. In fact, they (partly) ate
| passenger pigeons out of existence.
|
| It seems to me that China still has this kind of diversity
| somehow. Going to a large Chinese supermarket is dizzying in
| the variety of vegetables, dried fungus, seaweed, spices, etc.
| on display. I wish I knew more about it, and how they
| maintained that diverse food culture.
| corrral wrote:
| > In fact, they (partly) ate passenger pigeons out of
| existence.
|
| Mann's _1491_ suggests this may be a myth, as passenger
| pigeon remains are nearly non-existent in native refuse
| piles, so they don 't seem to have been a normal part of
| their diet (at least, before contact). Rather, he paints both
| their incredible abundance and subsequent demise as
| consequences of contact with Europe: the boom in the
| passenger pigeon population may have been a sign of an
| ecosystem experiencing a catastrophe, resulting from large
| areas of cultivated land falling out of use as entire cities
| were depopulated by disease, causing a temporary but enormous
| increase in easy, available calories for animals positioned
| to take advantage of it, and of course their decline and
| extinction is entirely a post-contact event.
|
| [EDIT] I misread you as having written that the _native
| people_ contributed to the demise of the pigeons, but I think
| the info 's still broadly relevant so I'll let the post
| stand.
| kennend3 wrote:
| "I wish I knew more about it, and how they maintained that
| diverse food culture."
|
| My ex-wife is Chinese and I might be able to assist a bit.
|
| China is a massive country and each province has their own
| "special dishes".
|
| For the Chinese out there reading this - you can guess where
| she's from when i tell you their speciality is "Guilin mifen"
|
| Anyhow, when you go to a large Chinese grocery store in North
| America you are looking at the fruits, vegetables, etc from a
| large number of provinces.
|
| So if someone from Guangxi goes there for Hot Peppers they
| can find it. If someone else is looking to make Peking duck
| can find what they need as well.
|
| Back in China, someone from Guangxi wouldn't be making a lot
| of Peking duck...
|
| Hope this helps?
| kurupt213 wrote:
| pigeons are delicious
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Indigenous survival methods have persisted, like their
| keepers, for hundreds of years against invasion, disease, and
| ecological catastrophe. Colonizers could learn a great deal from
| Indigenous resilience..._
|
| I find interpretations like this strange. Sure, there's lots to
| learn from cultures of all kinds, and it's particularly relevant
| to hear from Natives of NA if we're talking about North American
| agriculture.
|
| But there's an implication that the European colonizers bumbled
| their way through history, as if they didn't face and overcome
| their own issues with starving populations. I think it's
| objective fact that Europeans have been _quite_ resilient
| themselves, being as how they managed to settle most of the
| planet.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > But there's an implication that the European colonizers
| bumbled their way through history, as if they didn't face and
| overcome their own issues with starving populations. I think
| it's objective fact that Europeans have been quite resilient
| themselves, being as how they managed to settle most of the
| planet.
|
| At least when it comes to the Americas, the reason why the
| Europeans became dominant was mostly luck and genetics:
| American Indians (and the Siberians they descended from) don't
| have the genetics to fight European disease. Where European
| death rates from Smallpox are around 1/3rd, for American
| Indians it's at 90%.
|
| Otherwise, compared to Europe, American Indians typically had a
| better diet and better hygiene.
| nineplay wrote:
| It feels a bit patronizing frankly, like it defies otherwise
| low expectations of indigenous Americans to find out that they
| know how to feed themselves under difficult circumstances. The
| comparison to the colonizers boils down to "people who have
| lived somewhere for a long time know more about it than recent
| arrivals".
| bergenty wrote:
| This is a straw man that you proposed and then go on to refute.
| No one is implying Europeans didn't face challenges and
| "bumbled through history".
|
| Saying colonizers could learn a lot is sort of what ended up
| happening anyways, especially in the early days of colonization
| where plenty of skills to survive in a brand new continent came
| from the natives.
| kennend3 wrote:
| I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion this is a "straw
| man"?
|
| Did you read the article?
|
| his comment was directly copied from it :
|
| "Colonizers could learn a great deal from Indigenous
| resilience, as we all confront a twenty-first century that
| feels hauntingly like the seventeenth: beset by violence,
| disease, hatred."
|
| By stating they could learn a great deal does imply they
| "bumbled along".
|
| It also isn't very accurate as there was a lot of technology
| sharing at the start of things. The FN shared a great deal
| with the newcomers on how to survive here.
| yakak wrote:
| The earliest settlers were really quite elite and many probably
| never had to feed themselves in adverse circumstances in
| Europe. The later larger waves of migration were big scale and
| financed such that they were recruiting people who didn't have
| a lot of capital and would know how to feed themselves in
| adverse circumstances.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The earliest settlers were poor religious folks, criminals
| and some business people, along with trappers and hunters.
|
| Not exactly "elite".
| WalterBright wrote:
| A lot of them also came as indentured servants, meaning
| they had nothing and had to work for several years to pay
| off the debt of the transport.
|
| The rest were pretty much poor people who had little
| prospects in the old country, looking for a fresh start.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Even if one group is more robust than another, they may still
| exchange novel strategies that strengthen both.
| rory wrote:
| Exactly, and it's clear that cultural exchange has already
| been quite strong in the European->Indigenous American
| direction, so it's interesting to see what we could learn in
| the other direction.
|
| The article isn't helping itself with some its quasi-
| historical editorializations, though. "Indigenous Americans
| knew how to avoid starvation. Colonists were too hungry to
| notice" isn't exactly a balanced view of the history.
| chasil wrote:
| Resilient, but a bit wasteful.
|
| Acorns can be ground into flour and used if food, if the
| tannins are removed. We have never collected this resource in
| the U.S. in my living memory.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn#Culinary_use
|
| I saw a video recently where a woman prepared a feast described
| in a 200-year-old cookbook. One of the recipes called for fruit
| set in horse hoof jelly. She said that she used regular
| gelatin, as the recipe would otherwise have a strong taste of
| beef.
|
| I think that many unconventional foods sustained our ancestors,
| and we have forgotten them for a variety of reasons.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Popular culture likes to praise Native Americans for using
| every part of the animals they killed, but it simultaneously
| vilifies the modern food processing that does the same, e.g.
| deriding hotdogs for being made out of pig anuses.
|
| It's a strange incongruity. Not letting an animal go to waste
| after you've killed it _is_ good, I firmly believe that. Why
| should it be framed as a bad thing in modern contexts, while
| it 's widely acknowledged as good in the context of another
| culture a century or so ago?
|
| Incidentally, "regular gelatin" is still made out of animal
| feet/etc unless you go out of your way to get vegetable
| gelatin. So this is another way our society still makes use
| of the full animal but without really appreciating it.
| syntheweave wrote:
| The incongruity expresses certain power relationships.
|
| If you only eat the "best parts" of the animal, you must
| have a high status. Poor people must be practical in all
| respects, if they want to survive, but people who wish to
| signal will waste.
|
| Simultaneously, pointing to the practices of natives is
| used in support of a different kind of power relationship
| narrative: the old regime(colonizers, imperalists, racists)
| versus the new(liberalized, diverse, equal). The actual
| goal is not to say "and therefore we should be more like
| the natives" or enact genuine policy supportive of the
| ideals, but to say "and therefore we(the new kid political
| organization) are so good because THEY(the old regime) are
| so bad." It's a way of deflection towards a scapegoat.
|
| Thus you will frequently find examples of black-hearted
| activist types that copy-paste their ideology from some
| authentic source, but then reject it in their personal
| lives and mold the policy to be ineffectual. Because deep
| down, they see it as kayfabe to gain power. If they
| actually want to reach an elected office, prominent
| cultural role or significant appointment they have to
| knowingly compromise on the authentic and please existing
| stakeholders. Many would actually do the things they talk
| about(whether or not it's a good idea) except that the
| systemic forces are too strong most of the time; to get
| along with their political betters they have to live more
| like them, vote more like them, and so on.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Eating acorns can also kill you if not prepared properly -
| and it's hard to know if they are prepared properly. Tannins
| will make you shit blood and mess up your digestion.
|
| Even if you do get rid of them, you are left with a pretty
| bitter nut.
| nradov wrote:
| The traditional European approach was to let pigs eat the
| acorns, then eat the pigs. Pork tastes better and has a
| superior nutritional profile compared to bread made from
| acorn flour.
| riffraff wrote:
| Acorns taste bad according to all accounts, which is why
| people don't generally eat them, until famine arrives.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I've had some safely-prepared acorn flour* bread. It has a
| distinctive flavor. Earthy, kind of like a walnut. But it
| isn't bitter. I could see it being a staple without
| complaint.
|
| *I don't know which species of Oak. Common ones in the Bay
| Area, I know that much.
| pvaldes wrote:
| There are sweet acorns also that are perfectly edible, in
| the same way as there are sweet and bitter almonds
| Volundr wrote:
| > I think that many unconventional foods sustained our
| ancestors, and we have forgotten them for a variety of
| reasons.
|
| Insects is the most notable example of this. Pretty much
| every culture availed themselves insects as a ready source of
| protein, but now many would be utterly shocked by the
| suggestion.
| tchalla wrote:
| > I think it's objective fact that Europeans have been quite
| resilient themselves, being as how they managed to settle most
| of the planet.
|
| I am sure you would notice the difference of resilience pointed
| out by the article in comparison to the European world wide
| "settling" resilience.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| I've read different accounts of the alleged Thanksgiving dinner
| that Americans celebrate. Popularly we are told that it was a
| dinner to celebrate the Native Americans who came to help
| Pilgrims who arrived to survive a harsh winter and grow food.
|
| However, other accounts suggest that the dinner was celebrated
| as an alliance between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag who were
| at war with other tribes such as the Narragansett.
|
| I mention this because I have read accounts that the Pilgrims
| knew how to do agriculture fairly well and that disease was the
| culprit of many deaths. I think it is somewhat strange to
| assume that any colonists who arrived did not know anything
| about agriculture. Especially because English colonies had
| already been set up further to the north than Plymouth Colony
| prior to the arrival of the Mayflower. I am not an expert in
| this topic though. But it feels like this is an extremely
| contentious topic that has been heavily politicized.
| ricksunny wrote:
| I don't think 'knowing how to do agriculture fairly well' was
| the distinguishing factor in growing enough to survive first
| winter in a new land.
|
| I'd like to hear firsthand agriculturalists / agronomists on
| this. But heading into your first winter in a new climate
| with an unfamiliar crop (maize would like to say hello) ,
| unfamiliar soil, make the likelihood of growing enough
| foodstuffs to store to last the winter a proposition fraught
| with risk indeed.
| kurupt213 wrote:
| this other account sounds like the american way
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