Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas

["mike shupp" mikeshupp@xxxxxxxx]

Aborigines have sort of a regulated friendliness towards strangers.

Typically they'd paint glyphs as mapping symbols ("this way to the
nearest spring") which could be broadly interpreted by members of
neighboring tribal groups, but which conveyed additional meaning
("it's five days march away") only to their own tribe.  They also
had a strong sense of etiquette, and Bad Things Could Happen to
someone who transgressed when he/she could have been presumed to
know better.

On the other hand, they had various procedures for handling disputes
between members of different groups which were deliberately aimed
at preventing greater conflict. And people were known to traipse
all across the continent, to show off new dances and skits and
songs to each.

All in all, much of Australia is too harsh to support enough people
for widespread warfare. Here and there, some people did some
fighting (notably down in Tasmania) but it doesn't seem to have been
a central social issue.

Judging by what I've read anyhow.


----Original Message Follows----
From: "phillipalder" 
Reply-To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
To: 
Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 15:26:57 -0400

Re the piece about Indian tribes fighting, were the Aborigines of Australia
unfriendly toward each other? I cannot remember reading that. Also, they do
controlled burns in the outback for the regrowth reason given below.

By the way, if you are interesting about cattle ranching in the outback
early in the last century, get hold of "We of the Never Never". Sorry, my
aged brain cannot remember the name of the author, and I lent my copy to
someone who -- surprise, surprise -- never returned it.

Phillip Alder




----- Original Message -----
From: mike shupp 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas


> I've a stock response when someone suggests that the Los Angeles area
> would benefit from using past Indian "wisdom" to manage the local
> environment: "Oh goody! We're going to set fire to Orange County
> every other year!"
>
> (For the curious-- Range fires tend to burn off smaller twigs and
> branches on shrubs, but leave them alive, so the following spring
> you get a lot of new buds and young green branches. These tend to
> be high in sugar-rich sap, which attracts deer and other browsing
> animals, which simplifies hunting deer... So every so often local
> Indians did set fire to the flat lands in the LA area. And then of
> course, thermal inversions trapped the smoke in the LA basin,
> creating smog centuries before cars were invented.)
>
>
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: George Scithers 
> Reply-To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
> To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas
> Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 21:49:21 -0400
>
> It would be satisfying to refute the goody-goody image of the
> environmentally sensitive Amerindians . . .
>
> George Scithers of owlswickpress@xxxxxxxx
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: 
> To: 
> Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 9:22 PM
> Subject: Re: off topic: different cultures, same ideas
>
>
> > Not there, yet, but some in other places. The big issue is whether the
> > decline of these big creatures was affected by human hunting. It's a
hot
> one,
> > no where near settled.
> > Phil
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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