Re: M-I: Re: Ecology and the American Indians

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

Louis P.,
     Thank you for presuming that I am not a racist.  Quite 
a few others have reiterated or reinforced my original 
points, so let me make just a few remarks.
1)  I think you accept that not all Indians were/are 
identical.  Clearly there are/were variations on material 
grounds between farmers, hunter-gatherers, tributary 
empires, etc.  
2)  Even within each of these groups there are/were 
substantial variations:  it was the Aztecs not the Incas 
who had big-time ritual human sacrifice.  The Incas indeed 
had a fairly advanced welfare state.  The oppressiveness of 
the Aztecs over other groups set them up for the fall that 
came with the Spanish conquest, reflected in the 
Quetzacoatl myth.
3)  Repudiating arguments because some right-winger has 
made them is not a very good argument.  There are plenty of 
left-wing, even Marxist, anthropologists who have 
documented such things as cannibalism and high murder rates 
among specific Amazon tribes, as well as nasty stuff among 
the Aztecs, etc.
3)  I agree that it is uncertain what caused the Mayan 
collapse in about the tenth century.  The main competing 
hyptheses are resource overexploitation and class struggle. 
That is why I mentioned both in my post, although it may 
have been both or neither.  We don't know.  But the claim 
that it was definitely not resource overexploitation is not 
sustainable.  I don't think that Harry Cleaver's very 
reasonable account of the awful things being done to the 
descendents of the Mayans today in Chiapas has much 
relevance with respect to explaining why their 
economy-civilization collapsed 1000 years ago before any 
Europeans or capitalists (other than themselves possibly) 
were around.
4)  I agree that there is no definite answer about the 
reason for the Pleistocene extinctions.  My original 
source, since you asked, is Vernon L Smith, "The Primitive 
Hunter Culture, the Pleistocene Extinction, and the Rise of 
Agriculture," 1975, _Journal of Political Economy_, 83, 
727-756.  But, basically we don't know.  By and large I 
would prefer to avoid a "citation slinging" exercise in 
this discussion, although I am perfectly willing to do it 
if you insist.
5)  I am much more in sympathy with your mystical views 
about the views of Mative American Indians towards nature 
than some people on these lists, and that current societies 
may have much to learn from them.  All I objected to was 
the claim that all Indians had these views.  I don't think 
that making this point in any way justifies the terrible 
things done to the Indians by the Europeans, even if those 
who wish to justify such things certainly make reference to 
the nastier things that some Indian tribes indisputably did.
Barkley Rosser
On Mon, 26 Jan 1998 16:49:01 -0500 Louis Proyect 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> >     One famous counerexample to the view that Indians were 
> >always "in harmony with nature" is the high probability 
> >that the extinction of the sabre-tooth tiger and several 
> >other large mammals in North America probably resulted from 
> >overhunting arising from the initial invasion of the 
> >continent by the human species, the first Native American 
> >Indians to be precise.  This does not say that many tribes 
> >later adopted highly ecologically sound approaches.
> >Barkley Rosser
> 
> I am not saying that Barkely is a racist, but this argument is part of the
> ideological repertory of those who try to apologize for the genocide of the
> Indian. It goes along with references to Incan human sacrifice, and other
> items that get passed from one right-wing scholar to another. Simon Schama
> is a master of this kind of bullshit.
> 
> We have no knowledge of the exact circumstances surrounding the extinction
> of the saber-tooth tiger and other large animals during the late ice age.
> Despite all the data on the subject, there is no convincing evidence that
> Indians were the chief or even the major contributing factor in the demise
> of such animals. Climate and dozens of other factors could have been just
> as significant. These questions are dealt with in the scholarly
> "Pleistocene Extinctions: The Search for A Cause", edited by Paul Martin
> and H.E. Wright Jr. (Yale Univ., 1967). Where does Barkely get his
> information from? The National Geographic?
> 
> Louis Proyect
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]