Folks -- I came across a very interesting book at the bookstore and the worldview of the tribal persons described was of great interest to me and may be to others.
The book was: The Old Way: A Story of the First People by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas This book depicts stories from the life of the author, who as a young 19 year old moved to an area of Africa in the Kalahari Desert where Bushmen lived and still practiced a hunter/gatherer existence with no domestic animals and almost no influences from modern "civilization". This was around 1950; the peoples involved have changed their lifestyles over time and do not live "the old way" as they once did, but the author apparently stays in touch with friends she made in that location to this day, though now she lives in the U.S. The "old way" involved a way of life and a worldview that is very different than practiced by almost anyone else on the planet, and I thought the discussion of the relationship of the Bushmen to lions was indicative of this and very interesting. I will try to describe this relationship as best I can working from memory after a brief reading: The Bushmen (Ju/Wasi people if I recall correctly) interacted with lions on a regular basis. Both hunted antelope as preferred prey. The Bushmen had about five or six antelope species that were preferred prey by their male hunters, and the women gathered "vegetables" such as roots and nuts and anyone could take "slow" prey, such as snakes, baby birds and other animals, rodents and rabbits, etc. at any time. But the antelope were the preferred food for feasting, etc. Lions were obviously dangerous and to be avoided. The Ju/wasi hunted with poisoned arrows, but the poison was slow-acting and required tracking shot prey, such as antelope for days before the prey could be recovered. Poisoned arrows with slow-acting poison were not effective as a means of self-defense against lions. The other "weapons" used by these people were short spears, probably not more than about three feet long, which were hardly useful to defend against lions, as the spears hardly extended more than the grasp of the lions themselves. The spears were useful for putting down wounded and dying antelope and for reaching things beyond the normal grasp of the users. Thus the Ju/wasi avoided confrontations with lions in normal procedure. Lions tend to hunt at night, so the Bushmen arranged their affairs to avoid proximity to lions by staying in their encampments at night, by arranging their primitive grass huts as to avoid stealth attacks by lions, by keepiog watch in an informal security system at night, and similar passive measures. They had no livestock to protect and attract lions like tribesmen in other parts of Africa. One occasion hunters stalking game might encounter a pride of lions guarding a kill and the tribesmen were not averse to stealing the prey from the lions if they could get away with it, and they had some skill at reading lion behaviors to determine when they could approach a lion kill in circumstances where the lion(s) abandoned prey without lethal defense and moved off while the men took their victim. But sometimes lions would kill these tribesmen. And here is where the worldview was quite interesting, I thought. No consideration was ever given by these people to retaliation against lions that killed humans. Lion kills of humans were infrequent, and there seemed to be some sort of "truce" between the competing species in which normally neither attacked or harmed the other. And if lions were to become dangerous to the human groups, and perhaps begin killing multiple people, the tribesmen would leave the area and abandon the area to the lions. To me, that is amazing! This is a people who were nomadic and did not build permanent houses or structures for shelter. They did not have to "stand their ground" or protect their livestock. They could and would come and go according to availability of food, water, game, etc. They felt a relatedness to all around them. They exploited nature for survival, but possessed very little. I guess a little of that spirit might be still present, in of all places, Las Vegas. If I recall correctly, when Roy (of Siegfried and Roy) was attacked by his tiger, he understood the tiger was not his enemy and did not demand its destruction. And thank goodness that Bindi Irwin is not calling for stingray eradication. Maybe we can learn to live with the thrills and the danger of wild nature if we choose to, and the story of these Bushmen of fifty or sixty years ago was fascinating to me. I don't know if I would purchase this book, but if I could find it at a public library I would love to read it in its entirety. _________________________________________________________________ Try Search Survival Kits: Fix up your home and better handle your cash with Live Search! http://imagine-windowslive.com/search/kits/default.aspx?kit=improve&locale=en-US&source=hmtagline
