At 09:03 AM 1/27/98 +1100, you wrote:
>Interesting story Louis but how do you account for the practice
>whereby some tribes in the plains used to stampede whole herds
>of bison over cliffs as a quick way of killing them and then
>picking only bits and pieces of the bodies below. Incredible
>waste and lack of concern for their natural partners.
>
>kind regards
>bill mitchell
This, along with the disappearance of the saber-tooth tiger, is another one
of those "gotchas" that figures prominently in the right-wing repertory.
Hutchinson, in "Remaking of the Amerind", wrote that the Crow once drove
700 buffalo off the edge of a cliff. This anecdote has made the rounds of
the Rush Limbaugh show, the National Review and other venues.
What he does not deal with is the question of whether the Crow *wasted* the
meat, but only projected what whites would do in capitalist society into
hunting-and-gathering society. But, even granting the possibility that
Indians left the meat to rot, are we supposed to draw general conclusions
about this one incident? It is amazing that such events are so isolated in
Indian societies. When whites killed millions of beaver and buffalo
wantonly and allowed valuable parts of the animal to go to waste, how can
we even begin to compare our society to their's? This of course is the goal
of Hutchinson and other apologists for capitalism, to legitimize the waste
that our system has institutionalized.
Louis Proyect
