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The Stone Age Revisited

M. Annette Jaimes

M. Annette Jaimes
The Stone Age Revisited
1993

Originally published in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #35 —

Winter ’93

theanarchistlibrary.org 1993
 Underlining this distinction is the claim that “upwards of 60% of
the subsistence of most Native American societies came directly
from agriculture,” as opposed to the gatherer-hunter mode of
Paleolithic times. Besides “sophisticated agricultural technologies,”
Jaimes cites calendars, paved roads, cities, property relations, Contents
and national sovereignty as examples of superior development
in pre-Columbian North America. The contrast, or qualitative
difference, for Jaimes, consists of the achievements of “traditional An Indigenist View of Primitivism, Industrialism and the
native societies” versus “their industrialized counterparts.” Labor Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
In respectful disagreement, I see domestication as the fundamen- America’s “Stone Age Savages” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
tal divide. The turning toward domination of the natural world, that American Indian Agriculture and Medicine . . . . . . . . 13
Jaimes in effect applauds, began to reveal itself in hierarchy, reli- Native American Mathematics, Science, Architecture
gion, and warfare before European contact and long before indus- and Engineering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
trialization. Indigenous Governance in America . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
It is obvious that Native American culture exhibits far less of “Slaves to Subsistence”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
this than does the modern cancer of high tech estrangement and “Nomads” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
destruction, and thus has much to teach us. Nonetheless, alienated “The Vacant Land” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
life, in my view, is founded on domestication, the diseased fruits of “Paleolithic Drudges” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
which now threaten us all on every level. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
A brief comment by John Zerzan on “The Stone Age Re-
visited” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

42 3
computers to the trees and live within instead of upon nature.”87
Only then will we be able to forge a multifaceted but collectively
held world view which places materialism and spirituality in sus-
tainable balance with one another. Only then will we be able to
remove labor from its burdensome contemporary position as the
descriptor of our essence, returning it to its rightful place as an
integral but not over-determined aspect of our being.88 Together,
we must hammer out the intellectual methods by which we not
only retain that which is useful in the matrix of Eurocentrism, but
recapture that which most of us have lost in the process of being
subordinated to it. Indigenous peoples are the primary repositories
of the latter and thereby possess a major portion of the figurative
road map to our common future. Hence, we must be asked to lead
as well as follow. It is time we move toward a future marked by
mutual understanding and respect.
M. Annette Jaimes is a lecturer in American Indian Studies with the
Center for Studies in Ethnicity and Race in America at the University
of Colorado, Boulder. She is an associate editor of New Studies on the
Left, where this essay first appeared.

A brief comment by John Zerzan on “The

Stone Age Revisited”
M.A. Jaimes tries to distance native North Americans from the
Paleolithic Era and this is largely justified, if exaggerated in places.
By the time humans peopled the continent — extremely recently
by comparison with how far back Homo goes in Africa or Europe,
for example — the Stone Age was giving way all over the world to
the Neolithic Revolution (domestication of plants and animals).

87
From a speech by Abbie Hoffman, Bradley University. November 23, 1970.
88
This is not an altogether a new theme within the Eurocentric tradition
itself. See Lafarge, Paul, The Right to be Lazy, Charles Kerr Publishers, Chicago,
1917.

41
 ahead. Our next immediate task is the unification of An Indigenist View of Primitivism,
human knowledge.”86 Industrialism and the Labor Process
Unfortunately, none of the aforementioned thinkers have “Those damned lazy Mexicans. You can’t get ‘em to
approached their task in this manner. As yet, they have not begun work. Always takin’ siestas during the best part of th’
to come to grips with the fact that many of the ‘new’ insights they day. It’s no wonder they end up livin’ like dogs, th’
seek already exist, imbedded in ongoing systems of indigenous way they lay around doin’ nothin’. But that’s th’ way
knowledge the world over. Perhaps ironically, the conceptual key it’s always been with them.”
to liberation of native societies is thus also the key to liberating
— West Texas Farmer (1985)
Eurocentrism from itself, unchaining it from the twin fetishes of
materialism and production. In the most concrete possible terms, “All this fuss about Indian poverty and unemployment
the reactualization of traditional indigenous socio-economic struc- is just a bunch of bullshit. Hell, it’s their own fault. You
tures where they have been most severely suppressed — especially hire ‘em to do a job; they work awhile, then just up and
in North America, with its abundant juxtaposition of tradition- drift away. You can’t depend on ‘em to finish anything
oriented native peoples and recently devised technologies — can they start. There wouldn’t be no Indian problem if their
provide practical living models of how other societies might nature wasn’t to be such a shiftless bunch.”
begin to truly redefine and reorganize themselves in constructive — South Dakota Rancher (1988)
ways. To this extent at least, the reemergence of a vibrant and
functioning Native North America in the 21st century would offer The relationship of the labor process to the ways of life of
vital prefiguration of what humanity as a whole might accomplish. indigenous peoples is a central issue in any attempt to con-
What is called for is not some “reconstitution of the Stone Age,” ceive a positive alternative to the conditions under which they
but that the Fourth World be finally extended the proper recog- presently live. Although the term “indigenous peoples” has global
nition, understanding and respect it has always been due. Rather appropriateness, encompassing the several thousand distinct
than its being arbitrarily and presumptuously consigned to the ir- cultural-nationalities known to hold aboriginal links with the
relevancy of ‘archaicism’, the wisdom and values all along retained land they occupy, usage in this essay will accrue primarily to
by unrepentant “Stone Agers” of the modern indigenous world two major groups within the 48 contiguous states of the United
must at last be allowed to inform the other paradigms of knowl- States. These are the members of the various American Indian
edge within the human endeavor in such a way as to complete and nations located within this geographic area, and a significant
perfect the whole. portion of the Mexican/Mexican-American/ Chicano population
Then, and probably only then, will we be able to create a human residing within .the U.S. at any given moment. The latter group is
project in which, as Abbie Hoffman once put it, “we can strap our understood as being composed of American Indians from nations
mostly, but not exclusively, located south of the Rio Grande,
86
Deloria, Vine Jr., The Metapltysics of Modern Existence. Harper and Row within what are now the states of Chihuahua, Sonora, Coahuila,
Publishers, New York, 1979, p. 213.

40 5
Baja California Del Norte and Tamaulipas, in Mexico.1 They are be expected that many, if not most, progressive non-Indians will
distinguished from their more northerly cousins by virtue of agree this is a worthy goal, at least in an abstract moral or ‘idealis-
having undergone a Spanish rather than Anglo-Saxon originated tic’ sense. But it is much more.
process of colonization.2 Any coin has two sides, this one no less than any other. The
Taken together, these groups make up the very poorest strata of very process of reconceiving the Stone Age inherently entails a
North American society, and have done so throughout the 20th cen- simultaneous reconsideration of the Eurocentric notion of histor-
tury.3 In particular, those Indians whose homelands are recognized ical materialism in all its various guises. Such ideas as the “labor
as lying north of the Rio Grande represent what may be accurately theory of value” will be called inevitably into question from pro-
described as “the poorest of the poor” inside the U.S. Overall, ac- gressive rather than reactionary standpoints. This is equally true
cording to the federal government’s own statistics, they enjoy far of attempts to uncover conceptual remedies to the sorts of malaise
and away the lowest annual and lifetime per capita incomes of any — racism, sexism, classism, ageism, militarism, consumerism, alien-
identifiable ‘ethnic’ aggregate. Their collective unemployment ex- ation, reification and the like — besetting advanced industrial soci-
ceeds 65% each year, year after year; in some locales, such as the eties themselves. Already, such efforts have been undertaken, how-
Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the unemployment rate ever tentatively, even by white male theorists such as Michael Al-
has hovered in the upper 90th percentile for decades. Correspond- bert, Robin Hahnel, Murray Bookchin and Rudolph Bahro.85 Their
ingly, American Indians suffer the highest rates of infant mortal- collective quest to achieve a new synthesis of understanding is to
ity, death by malnutrition and exposure, tuberculosis and plague be applauded, but must be carried far beyond its immediate, prelim-
disease (to list but a few causes) of any population group on the inary level if it is to prove successful. As the Lakota scholar Vine
continent. The current life expectancy of the average American In- Deloria, Jr. framed the matter, more than a decade ago:

1
The indigenous nations of Canada are not considered within the definition “Western science must reintegrate human emotions
used here because, unlike their counterparts in northern Mexico, almost none of and intuitions into its interpretation of phenom-
their populations have been displaced into the U.S., either transiently or perma- ena…In the recreation of metaphysics as a continuing
nently.
2 search for meaning which incorporates all aspects of
A significant confusion attends this definition insofar as a substantial por-
tion of the population in question attempts to identify itself with the tradition of science and historical experience, we can hasten the
its Spanish colonizers rather than the colonized indigenous nations from which time when we will come to an integrated conception
it so obviously springs. Such identification by victims with the identity of their of how our species came to be, what it has accom-
victimizers is a rather well known phenomenon in the psychology of individuals,
plished, and where it can expect to go in the millennia
and often marks the experience of entire peoples under sustained colonial rule.
See Fanon Frantz. Black Skin,White Masks, Grove Press, New York, 1967.
3
This is said in full knowledge of the fact that appreciable segments of the
black population in the U.S. — in the Brownsville, Harlem and South Bronx sec-
85
tions of New York City, for example — experience a poverty every bit as pro- See, as examples, Albert, Michael, and Robin Hahnel, Unorthodox Marx-
nounced as that which pertains on most Indian reservations or along the streams ism, South End Press, Boston, 1978; Bookchin, Murray, The Ecology of Freedom,
of Chicano migrants. Taken as a whole, however, the U.S. black population finds Cheshire Books, Palo Alto, CA, 1982; and Bahro, Rudolph, From Red to Green,
itself in a somewhat better economic position than the two indigenous groups. Verso Publishers, London, 1980.

6 39
the great bulk of a given population, deteriorates in direct propor- dian male is barely 44.5 years. Females live an average of 3.5 years
tion to the degree of industrialization it has undergone. Such a longer.4
process is, at best, a strange emblem by which to define “human These data readily suggest association with Third World contexts
progress.” rather than with a subsection of what is reputedly “the world’s
Here, the dilemma experienced by contemporary North Amer- most advanced industrial democracy,” a matter which has led many
ican Indians snaps into bold relief. While the colonially-induced critical observers to remark upon the existence of a bona fide “Third
physical circumstances under which they suffer — depicted at the World at home” in the U.S. More accurately, such analysts might
outset of this essay — are plainly intolerable, the ‘solutions’ pre- reflect upon the reality of a non-industrial and very much on go-
sented by all facets of the dominant culture are in many ways ing Fourth World, an indigenous world upon which each of the
even worse. The option of embracing the industrial order might, as other three — First World (capitalist, industrialized), Second World
advertised, alleviate the magnitude of their material deprivation. (socialist, industrialized), Third World (either capitalist or social-
Simultaneously, however, it would seal them into the surround- ist, and industrialized) — has been constructed and is now being
ing pathos of Euroamerica, negating, perhaps irrevocably, those maintained or developed.5 It is instructive that the people of this
aspects of their own tradition which are unmistakably preferable Fourth World, or “Host World” as it is sometimes called, comprise
to that which is offered as its replacement. American Indians are the absolute poorest sector of the populations attributed to each of
thereby trapped within a netherworld in which it is presently im- the assortment of nation-states making up all three industrial or
possible either to abandon their socio-cultural heritage or to viably industrializing venues6 In other words, Fourth World People are as
reconstitute its socio-economic forms. marginalized in Third World settings as they are within the U.S. or
The means to break this impasse lie within the broader soci- U.S.S.R.7
ety, particularly its more enlightened and progressive sectors. Only Conventional explanations of such circumstances, regardless of
there does sufficient weight and mass exist to reshape the current the relative degree of sophistication with which they are expressed,
social order in such ways as to allow North America’s native people 4
the ‘space’ they require to reconstitute themselves in meaningful See U.S. Bureau of Census, Population Division, Statistics Branch, A Sta-
tistical Profile of the American Indian Population, Washington,D.C.,1984. Also see
fashion. Any broad based initiative to support the genuine libera- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Chart Series Book, Public Health
tion of Native North America will necessarily be predicated in a Service, Washington,D.C.,1988. For detailed corroboration of the fact that things
general and fundamental alteration in consciousness among the have not lately ‘improved’, see U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare,
dominant population. Popular conceptions concerning the nature A Statistical Portrait of the American Indian, Washington,D.C.,1976.
5
An interesting articulation of the Fourth World concept may be found in
of and meaning assigned to the workings of traditional indigenous Weyler, Rex, Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against the
cultures will have to be recast far more accurately than has hereto- American Indian Movement, Vintage Books, New York, 1984, pp. 212–50.
fore been the case. Only from such a reformed vantage point, of the 6
Use of the “Host World” terminology may be found in Winona LaDuke’s
sort barely sketched in this essay, can non-Indians hope to make de- preface (“Natural to Synthetic and Back Again”) in Churchill.Ward (ed.), Marxism
and Native Americans, South End Press, Boston, 1983, pp.i-vii.
cisions and undertake actions alleviating rather than perpetuating 7
An interesting elaboration on portions of this topic may be found in Con-
and even increasing the magnitude of the problems their society nor, Walker, The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy, Prince-
has imposed upon native people. At one level or another, it is to ton University Press, 1984.

38 7
are reducible in their substance to echoes of the assertions tendered Audrey Richards has observed, “The whole bodily rhythm of [tradi-
by the pair of “ignorant rednecks” quoted at the outset of this paper. tional indigenous people] differs completely from that of a peasant
This is to say it is a scholarly orthodoxy transcending ideological in Western Europe, let alone an industrial worker.”83
differentiation that native people, insofar as they retain the man- Those who take for granted the superior quality of life attending
ifest genuine core attributes of their own “Stone Age” (or at least industrial socio-economics would do well to seriously consider the
‘primitive’) cultures, do so in ways which prevent their effective implications of such things in comparison to the correlate indices
incorporation into ‘modern’ labor processes.8 This inherent ‘irra- of their own system, remarked upon by Andre Gorz and others: a
tionality’ consistently shows itself, for example, in their readiness base work week of 40–48 hours, exclusive of overtime, commuting
to elevate the importance of their participation in the ceremonial time, time required for subsistence shopping and food preparation,
life of their culture above that of involvement in the “organized as well as time consumed in sundry other domestic chores. The
work place”; when spiritual duty calls, native people simply fail to average per capita labor-time expenditure in advanced industrial
show up for work. Similarly, they often demonstrate a marked will- societies exceeds 80 hours per week, more than 530% of the aver-
ingness to assign a higher priority to meeting familial obligations, age for Dobe society.84 Additionally, the imposition of such mas-
engaging in social activities, hunting and fishing seasons, and a sive quantities of labor-time in even the most liberal industrialized
host of other factors — including an apparently insatiable desire for context is far more regimented and arbitrary than that evidenced
rest and recreation — than to insuring ‘stability’ in their “working in the most rigidly structured indigenous society. The result is a
lives.”9 Suffice it to say indigenous folk make it abundantly clear vastly more stressful, less leisurely environment .under conditions
that sale of their labor power is not an essential preoccupation of of industrialization than appears to be the case in even the most
their existence. Consequently, they are regarded as being among primitive of Stone Age cultures.
the least employable of all potential workers within any industrial
or industrializing socio-economic system.
The sort of endemic poverty experienced by indigenous peoples
Conclusion
is therefore, in the conventional view, directly correlated to their While it is undoubtedly true that industrial society generates a
retention of certain ‘retrograde’ cultural characteristics. It follows much greater abundance of material items than do traditional na-
that the route to solving the problem of native impoverishment is tive societies, axiomatic correlations between this fact and living
quite uniformly perceived among adherents to intellectual ortho- standards are questionable in the extreme. Indeed, it is plainly ar-
8
See, as examples, Dalton, George, “Economic Theory and Primitive Soci- guable that — in genuine human terms such as senses of personal
eties,” American Anthropologist, No. 63, 1961, pp. 1–25; LeClair, Joseph E., Jr., “Eco- fulfillment, control over one’s time and general peace of mind —
nomic Theory and Economic Activity,” American Anthropologist, No. 64, 1962, pp. the quality of life realized within traditional native societies greatly
1179–1203; and Hindless, Barry and Paul Q. Hirst, Precapitalist Modes of Produc-
outstrips that of their industrialized counterparts. Viewed from this
tion, Routledge and Kegan Paul Publishers, London, 1975.
9
An excellent commentary on the sort of phenomenon at issue, and illus- perspective, one can only conclude that quality of life, at least for
tration of the ways in which it has been treated within Eurocentric anthropol-
83
ogy, is H.G. Barnett’s “The Nature of the Potlatch,” American Anthropologist, No. Richards, op. cit., p. 393.
84
40,1938,pp. 349–58. Gorz, Andre, Ecology As Politics, South End Press, Boston, 1983.

8 37
 “regain lost power and health.” This monotonous fluc- doxy as lying in the obliteration of the final residues of ‘savagery’
tuation of leisure and work is made more appealing imbedded in the indigenous mind, assimilating the natives ever
to the Kapauku by inserting into their schedule peri- more perfectly and completely into the “advanced civilizations”
ods of prolonged holidays… Consequently, we usually which have come to dominate and in many cases subsume their
find only some people departing for their gardens in societies.10 Implicit to this notion — once described as “the white
the morning, the others are taking their “day off.” How- man’s burden” by Rudyard Kipling — is the assumption that the
ever, many individuals do not rigidly conform to this physical well-being of any indigenous people is possible only in
ideal. The more conscientious cultivators often work direct correspondence to the extent to with its cultural integrity
intensively for several days in order to complete clear- is destroyed, its world view extinguished. Although the genocidal
ing a plot, making a fence, or digging a ditch. After content of such thinking and action, intended as it is to foster the
such a task is accomplished, they relax for a period of disappearance of entire human groups as such, is quite recogniz-
several days, thus compensating for the ‘missed’ days able under contemporary international legal definitions, it is in-
of rest.”81 variably presented as “the humane alternative” to what are seen as
being the range of other ‘realistic’ possibilities.11 Ultimately, these
The same sorts of observations have been made in connection last add up to only a pair of options: either letting the frustration
with the Maori of New Zealand, the Lozi and other Bantu groups of less patient sectors of the dominant population vent themselves
in Azania (South Africa), the Siuai of Bougainville (Solomon Is- by physically exterminating indigenous obstructions to the “path
lands), and many other peoples in varying locales.82 It is worth of progress,” or allowing indigenous people to continue as they are,
noting that, by-and-large, such labor-related demands on time as until their deteriorating material situation accomplishes the same
commuting, and domestic forms of work, have been lumped into result.
the labor time totals attributed to the various traditional indige- A difficulty typically encountered by “Friends of the Indian,”
nous socio-economic contexts studied. Hence, the uniformly abun- “Hispanic Bootstrappers” and others who would engage in cul-
dant “off work” periods involved represent truly free time which tural rather than physical forms of genocide is (and has been)
can be devoted entirely to recreation and creativity. Resultingly, as the resistance mounted by native populations when it comes
to cooperating in the liquidation of their ways of living and
81
Pospisil, Leopold, Kapauku Papuans and Their Law, Yale University Publi- understanding the would.12 Even worse, some among the subjects
cations in Anthropology, No. 54, New Haven, CT, 1958.
82
Concerning the Maoris, see Firth, Raymond, Economics of the New Zealand
Maori, R.E. Owen, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand, (2nd edition), 10
The classic discourse in this vein is, of course, Graham Clark’s From Sav-
1959, p. 192f. On the Bantus, see Gluckman, Max, Essays on Lozi Land and agery to Civilization, Schuman Publishers, New York, 1953.
11
Royal Property, Rhodes-Livingston Papers, No. 10, London, 1943; also see Leacock, The complete text of the United Nations 1948 Convention on Prevention
Eleanor, The Montagnais “Hunting Territory” and the Fur Trade, American Anthro- and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide may be found in Brownlie, Ian, Basic
pological Association Memoir No. 78, 1954, p. 7. With regard to the Siuai, see Documents on Human Rights, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981, pp. 31–4.
12
Oliver, Douglas, Studies in the Anthropology of Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Pa- The terminology used here is commonplace, the intercultural dynamics
pers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard consistent; see Prucha, Francis Paul, Americanizing the American Indian: Writings
University, Vol. 29, Nos. 1–4, 1949. of the “Friends of the Indian,” 1880–1900. University of Nebraska Press, 1978.

36 9
of the Friends’ benevolence have been known to counter that young men seven; while at [the village of] Kampamba in the bus-
they feel they themselves hold visions of how things might be ier season, the men of all ages worked an average of 8 out of 9
which are different, root and branch, from those held within working days [Sunday not included]. The average working day in
the dominant culture. These insights, the “Fourth Worlders” or the first instance was 2.75 hours for men and two hours gardening
‘indigenists’ argue, could serve to save not only their own nations plus 4 hours domestic work for women, but the figures vary from
from the predicaments in which they are now mired, but those of 0 to 6 hours per day. In the second case the average was 4 hours
the Friends as well.13 for men and 6 for women, and the figures showed the same varia-
A singular basis for this ‘ingratitude’ or ‘recalcitrance’ is tion.”78 The work patterns of the Bemba are quite similar to those
discerned in the continuing attachment of indigenous peoples to of the Toupouri of North Cameroon, where 105.5 days per year are
their heritage of ‘primitivism’. Having never really experienced devoted to agricultural labor, 87.5 days to work of other sorts, 161.5
the benefits of material affluence — the essence of their cultures to leisure, and an annual average of 9.5 sick days are reported to
being predicated in perpetual scarcity rather than surplus — they be normative.79
do not comprehend the fact of their poverty. In sum, they have Such circumstances are hardly restricted to Australia and Africa.
achieved no capacity to truly “understand what’s good for them. Among the Kuikuru people of the Amazon Basin, “a man spends
“The task confronting those who would better their miserable about 3.5 hours a day on subsistence — 2 hours on horticulture, and
lot is thus fundamentally educational, to acquaint them with all 1.5 hours on fishing. Of the remaining 10 or 12 waking hours of the
they are ‘missing’ through their obstinate insistence on remaining day the Kuikuru men spend a great deal of time dancing, wrestling,
“outside of history.”14 Properly coached and oriented, it is widely in some form of informal recreation, and in loafing.“80 And again,
believed, the consciousness of the natives can and will ‘evolve’ with regards to the Kapauku of Papua (New Guinea):
to the point where they will be willing to harness themselves to
the wheel of production in exchange for their proper share of “Since the Kapauku have a conception of balance in
otherwise unavailable goods and services. It is even possible, in life, only every other day is supposed to be a working
certain of the more radical elaborations on this theme, that they day. Such a day is followed by a day of rest in order to
may become “as good as we are” (albeit, quite tardily and after the
fashion of petulant children).15 78
Richards, Audrey I., Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia, Oxford
University Press, London, (2nd edition) 1962, pp. 393–4. Richards did not record
time spent by men in manufacture of farm implements and the like, a matter
which would have raised the quantity for male labor to a level comparable to that
13
See, as one example, Editors of Akwesasne Notes, A Basic Call to Con- attributed to women.
79
sciousness, Mohawk Nation via Rooseveltown, NY, 1977. I Guillard, J., “Essai de mesure de 1’ activite d’un paysan Africain: le
14
For a lucid exposition on this theme, see Wolf, Eric R., Europe and the Toupouri,” L’ Agronoie Tropicale, No. 13, pp. 415–28. Also see Clark, Colin, and
People Without History, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1982. Margaret Haswell, The Economics of Subsistence Agriculture, Macmillan Publish-
15
Such posturing is common not only to capitalist thinking and literature, ers, New York, 1964, p. 117.
80
but that of the marxian variety as well. See, for example, Phil Reno’s Navajo Re- Carniero, Robert L., “Slash-and-burn Cultivation among the Kuikuru and
sources and Economic Development, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, its Implications for Cultural Development in the Amazon Basin,” in Y. Cohen (ed.),
1981. Man in Adaptation: The Cultural Present, Aldine Publishers, Chicago, 1968, p. 134.

10 35
ically or mentally.71 Consequently, those engaged in the labor pro- There are, to be sure, a number of objectionable aspects to the
cess “do not approach it as an unpleasant job to be got over as thesis at hand, not least being the liberal doses of smug arrogance
soon as possible, or a necessary evil to be postponed as long as and cultural chauvinism with which its proponents, whatever
possible.”72 To the contrary, some aboriginal groups, such as the their ideological guise, habitually adorn it. Beyond these, the
Yir-Yiront, make no linguistic distinction between work and play.73 entire conceptualization which places industrialism in a superior
Yet all basic subsistence needs are more than minimally satisfied on position vis a vis other socio-cultural systems is grounded in a
a consistent rather than erratic basis.74 series of profoundly mistaken assumptions, erroneous conclusions
Among the Dobe portion of the IKung Bushmen of Botswana, an- and sheer falsehoods concerning the functional and structural
other true hunting and gathering culture, the data are even more realities of both industrial and non-industrial societies. It is to
striking. Only about two-thirds of the potential Dobe work force these that we now turn.
is deployed as labor at any given moment, leaving the other third
free to engage in other pursuits.75 Of those engaged in labor, the
average work week is approximately fifteen hours, or two hours,
America’s “Stone Age Savages”
nine minutes per day. In other words, “each productive individ- The first question which must be posed in this connection is
ual supporting herself or himself and dependents still has 3.5 to whether the indigenous peoples of North America actually lived
5.5 days [per week] available for other activities.”76 All subsistence in what might be reasonably categorized as a “Stone Age” prior
needs are nonetheless met, and an appreciable surplus generated; to the European invasion. In framing such a query, it is important
“the Bushmen do not lead a substandard existence on the edge of to observe that the term itself derives from orthodox anthropolog-
starvation as has been commonly supposed.”77 ical/archaeological conceptions of the socio-economic conditions
Concerning peoples for whom agriculture augmented by hunt- prevailing in Europe some 15,000–40,000 years ago, an extended
ing and gathering is the mode, the figures are comparable. Among period during which stone tools were the normative material ex-
the Bemba of Zimbabwe, for example, “at [the village of] Kasaka, pression of culture on that continent. It is generally believed that
in a slack season, the old men worked 14 days out of 20 and the this “cave man” stage of material development in the evolution of
European societies intersected with only the most feeble sorts of
71
Ibid., p. 150f. human accomplishment: economies were restricted to those of the
72
McArthur, Margaret, “Food Consumption and Dietary Levels of Groups
of Aborigines Living on Naturally Occurring Foods,” in Mountford, op. cit., p. 92.
pre-agricultural subsistence (“hunting and gathering”) variety, all
73
Sharp, Lauriston, “People Without Politics,” in V.F. Ray (ed.), Systems of but the most rudimentary suggestions of abstract thought were en-
Political Control and Bureaucracy in Human Societies, University of Washington tirely absent. It is apparent that the early Europeans led a rather
Press, Seattle, 1958, p. 6. squalid existence, doomed to spend every waking moment labori-
74
McArthur, op. cit.
75 ously pursuing the nutrients required to stave off the ever-present
Lee, Richard, “IKung Bushman Subsistence: An Input-Output Analysis,” in
A. Vayda (ed.), Environment and Cultural Behavior, Natural History Press, Garden specter of imminent starvation, plagued throughout the genera-
City, NY, 1969, p. 67.
76
Ibid.
77
Ibid., p. 73.

34 11
tions of their consistently brief life spans by a chronic scarcity in- cultures. One of the cardinal signifiers of the conceptual gulf
duced by their grossly inefficient economic structure.16 separating orthodox anthropological classifications of pre-contact
Only with the acquisition of certain “great discoveries” from the socio-economic forms and actual indigenous realities rests in the
Middle East — agriculture, animal domestication and, eventually, quantity of labor supposedly required to meet subsistence and
metallurgy — was Europe able to free itself from the constrictions other material needs.
of human potential inherent to its Stone Age. To put it in sim- It is taken as a given of mainstream scholarship that at both pa-
plest terms, as alterations in material circumstance allowed increas- leolithic and neolithic levels of development, work was/is a virtual
ing economic efficiency, the proportion of human time necessarily constant, a necessity precluding the leisure time marking “quality
devoted to the quest for sustenance correspondingly diminished. of life” and the concomitant creativity leading to cultural refine-
Time was, in other words, increasingly available for devotion to all ment. As has been noted, such sweeping quantitative assessments
the “other things” which are taken as constituting true culture: su- derive in large part from the fact that the case studies forming
perstition was transcended by complex systems of theology, philo- the predicate of anthropological wisdom were gleaned almost ex-
sophical and mathematical thinking emerged, as did the practice of clusively among peoples undergoing geographical dislocation and
medicine, science and engineering, written language, art and archi- other radical disruptions of their traditional socio-economic struc-
tecture, codes of law and concepts of enlightened governance. Each tures as the result of European invasion, conquest and colonization
step along this route of ‘advancement’ is seen as being coupled to during the 19th century. By contrast to these wildly skewed exam-
a level of technological innovation making it possible. Conversely, ples, the invading culture has always made itself appear vastly su-
none of this is possible for a people whose technology is indicative perior in terms of relieving its members of most of the drudgery
of the Stone Age.17 thus associated with ‘primitive’ societies.
Since the implements and utensils employed by American Indi- More recent evidence, however, obtained among those indige-
ans at the point of first contact with Europeans were made mainly nous peoples who have been able to maintain or reconstitute (how-
of stone, Eurocentric orthodoxy — both popular and scholarly — ever imperfectly) their pre-contact socio-economic forms, has be-
has always decreed that their station in life must have equalled that gun to tell a very different story. For instance, studies conducted
of Europe during its Stone Age. To be blunt about it, the assumption among the aboriginal population of Arnhem Land, Australia, dur-
is that not only were the indigenous peoples of America retarded at ing the late 1950s concluded that the workday among these true
least ten millennia behind the levels of material and other sorts of hunter-gatherers averages five hours, eight minutes, all told.70 Fur-
16
ther, the work load seems not to be especially tiresome, either phys-
For a classic articulation of this theses, see Braidwood, Robert J., Prehis-
toric Man, Chicago Museum of Natural History Popular Series, Anthropology,
70
Number 37, (3rd Edition), 1957. Also see Bordes, Francois, The Old Stone Age, For those interested, the apportionment of labor along gender lines was
McGraw-Hill, New York, 1968. virtually equal: five hours, none minutes per day for men, five hours, seven min-
17
See, for example, Redfield, Robert, The Primitive World and Its Transforma- utes per day for women. See McCarthy, Frederick D., and Margaret McArthur,
tion, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1953. Also see Braidwood, Robert J., The “The Food Quest and Time Factor in Aboriginal Life,” In C.P. Mountford (ed.),
Near East and the Foundations of Civilization, Oregon State System of Public Ed- Records of tlte Australian-American Scientific Expedition to Amhem Land, Vol. II:
ucation, 1952; and Loring, Brace G, The Stages of Human Evolution, Prentice-Hall, Anthropology and Nutrition, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Australia,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1979. 1960.

12 33
Ohio River Valley had supported a somewhat larger number.66 Ul- cultural attainment already reached in Europe, but they were phys-
timately, Dobyns estimated that the aggregate Native North Amer- ically and intellectually incapable of favorably altering this situa-
ican population may have been as great as 18.5 million at the time tion without the intervention of Europeans. The conventional por-
of Columbus’ arrival in the New World,67 while more conservative trait painted of those living north of the Rio Grande in particular
researchers such as Russell Thornton have concluded that a pre- has been that of tiny, extremely dispersed populations wandering
contact indigenous population of ten million or more is entirely endlessly across huge and vacant expanses of land, grubbing out
probable.68 Ecological demographers such as William Catton have the most meager possible livelihood through the perpetual toil of
concurred, suggesting that North America was saturated with hu- hunting, fishing and the gathering of wild nuts, fruits and berries.18
man population in terms of the natural carrying capacity of the
land long before 1500, and that indigenous peoples had quite de-
liberately held their numbers at or below this level in order to not
American Indian Agriculture and Medicine
unbalance the proportional equations of nature.69 In actuality, fully two-thirds of all the vegetal foodstuffs now
consumed by humanity were under cultivation in Native America
“Paleolithic Drudges” — and nowhere else — at the moment Columbus first set foot on
Hispaniola.19 An instructive, but by no means exhaustive list of
As should by now be abundantly clear, the normative standard these crops includes corn, potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes, toma-
of pre-contact Native American life, material and otherwise, did toes, squash, pumpkins, most varieties of beans, all varieties of pep-
not devolve upon the hunting and gathering activities indicative per except black, amaranth, manioc (tapioca), mustard and a num-
of ‘paleolithic’ socio-economic organization. In purely materialist ber of other greens, sunflowers, cassava, some types of rice, arti-
terms, ‘neolithic’ would perhaps be a more appropriate descriptor, chokes, avocados, okra, chayotes, peanuts, cashews, walnuts, hick-
although it too is conspicuously lacking in its ability to convey the ory nuts, pecans, pineapples, bread fruit, passion fruit, many mel-
range of non-material attainments evidenced by traditional native 18
The classic in this genre is James M. Mooney’s The Aboriginal Population of
America North of Mexico, edited by John R. Stanton, Smithsonian Miscellaneous
66
See Dobyns, Henry F., “Estimating American Aboriginal Population: An Collections, LXXX, No. 7, Washington, D.C., 1928. Mooney’s grotesquely inac-
Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate,” Current Anthropol- curate conclusions were canonized in American anthropology by Alfred Louis
ogy, No. 7, pp. 395–416. Kroeber in an essay entitled “Native American Population” published in Amer-
67
The estimate is made in Dobyns’ culminative work. See Dobyns, Henry F., ican Anthropologist, N.S., XXXVI, 1934, pp. 1–25. The essay is also included in
Their Numbers Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern Kroeber’s Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, University of Cal-
North America, University of Tennessee Press, Nashville, 1983. ifornia Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology, XXXVIII, 1939.
68 19
See Thornton, Russell, “American Indian Historical Demography: A Re- This has been well known for some time, as is revealed in certain of the
view Essay with Suggestions for Future Research,” American Indian Culture and less public pronouncements of the anthropological establishment. In 1929, for
Research Journal. No. 3, 1979, pp. 69–74. Also see Thornton, Russell, American instance, H.J. Spinden, a Smithsonian scholar, quietly observed that “about four-
Indian Holocaust and Suivival: A Population History Since 1492, University of Ok- sevenths of the agricultural production of the United States are in economic plants
lahoma Press, Norman, 1987. domesticated by the American Indian and taken over by the white man” (“Popula-
69
Cation, William, Overshoot: The Ecological Bass of Revolutionaiy Change, tion of Ancient America,” Anthropological Report, Smithsonian Institution, Wash-
University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1982. ington, D.C., 1929, p. 465n.).

32 13
ons, persimmons, choke cherries, papayas, cranberries, blueberries, sought to impose upon the forms and levels of cultural attainment
blackberries, coffee, sassafras, vanilla, chocolate, and cocoa.20 In they had achieved. Also at issue is an apparent desire on the part
order to raise this proliferation of food items, American Indians of the status quo to diminish the magnitude of indigenous popu-
had perfected elaborate and sophisticated agricultural technologies lation reduction associated with the Euroamerican ‘civilization’ of
throughout the hemisphere long before the arrival of the first Eu- North America. Using Kroeber’s maximum estimate of one million
ropean. This included intricate and highly effective irrigation sys- in comparison to the U.S. Census Bureau’s finding in 1890 that only
tems, ecologically integrated and highly effective planting methods about 227,000 American Indians remained alive in the United States
such as milpa and comico, and the refinement of what amounted to one is led to conclude that some 78% of the native population was
botanical experimentation facilities, among other things.21 wiped out during the course of the invasion and conquest.64 While
Upwards of 60% of the subsistence of most Native American this figure places the extermination of Indians on par with the his-
societies came directly from agriculture, with hunting and gath- tory’s worst genocides, more accurate estimates of pre-contact pop-
ering providing a decidedly supplemental source of nutrients ulation serve to drive the rate of attrition into the upper 90th per-
(just as fishing did and does, throughout the world).22 This highly centile, a matter which is simply unparalleled. The distinction is not
developed agricultural base was greatly enhanced by extensive insignificant, as official insistence upon the accuracy of Kroeber’s
20
See Farb, Peter, and George Armelagos, Consuming Passions: The Anthro-
spectacularly low count readily demonstrates.
pology of Eating, Washington Square Books, New York, 1980. Also see Weather- Even as the Mooney/Kroeber numbers were being entrenched
ford, Jack, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, as dogma, much lesser known, but far more solidly researched es-
Crown Publishers, New York, 1988. It is also important to note that literally hun- timates were being reached by scholars such as Lesley B. Simp-
dreds of foodstuffs being grown by Native Americans at the point of first contact
son, Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah.65 By the late 1960s,
— tuber and root crops such as oca, ami, achiia, papa liza, liki and maza — were
never adopted by the conquerors, and in many cases forced out of production. An- the work of Henry F. Dobyns had revealed that the population of
other interesting overview of native agriculture may be found in Sale, Kirkpatrick, what is now the state of Florida alone very nearly equaled that at-
The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy, Alfred tributed to all of North America by Mooney and Kroeber, while the
A. Knopf Publishers, New York, 1990.
21
See Josephy, Alvin, The Indian Heritage of America, American Heritage,
New York, 1968. Also see Holmes, G.K., “Aboriginal Agriculture — The American
Indians,” in L.H. Bailey (ed.), Cyclopedia of American Agriculture: A Popular Survey
64
of Agricultural Conditions, Practices, and Ideals in the United States and Canada U.S. Bureau of Census, Abstract of the Eleventh Census: 1890, U.S. Govern-
(Volume IV), New York, 1909. Concerning more southerly practices, see Gliess- ment Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1896.
65
man, S.R.R. Garcia, and M.F. Amador, “The Ecological Basis for the Application of See, as examples, Cook, Sherburne F., and Leslie B. Simpson, “The Popula-
Traditional Agriculture Technology in the Management of Tropical Agroecosys- tion of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century” (Ibero-Americana, No. 31, Uni-
tems,” Agro-Ecosystems, No. 7, 1981. versity of California Press, Berkeley, 1948); Borah, Woodrow W., “The Historical
22
A number of studies are relevant here. As a sample, see Herndon, G. Demography of Aboriginal and Colonial America: An Attempt at Perspective” (in
Melvin, “Indian Agriculture in the Southern Colonies,” North Carolina Historical William E. Denevan [ed.], The Native Population of the Americas in 1942. University
Review, XLVI, 1967, pp. 283–97; Russell, Howard S., “New England Indian Agricul- of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1976); and Borah’s “America as Model: The Demo-
ture,” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, XXII, April-July 1961, graphic Impact of European Expansion Upon the Non-European World” (In Actos
pp. 58–91; Vayda, A.P., “A Re-Examination of Northwest Coast Economic Sys- Memorias del XXXV Congreso International de Americanistas, Institute de Anthro-
tems,” Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series 2, No. 23, 1961, pp. pologia, Mexico City, 1964).

14 31
 Mooney’s “provisional detailed estimates” were immediately trade networks23 and food storage techniques24 which afforded
adopted by his successor as leading U.S. anthropologist, Alfred pre-contact American Indians what was (and might well still be, if
Louis Kroeber, seemingly without so much as a cursory glance at reconstituted) far and away the most diversified and balanced diet
their merits. For some time, Kroeber devoted much time and en- on earth. This undoubtedly figured heavily in their generalized
ergy, as well as the luster of his academic prestige, to discrediting state of healthiness,25 while allowing them to create a vast range
anyone brash enough to suggest that his and Mooney’s rearward of distinctive and quite lively regional cuisines, many dishes from
demographic projections might have been cast too low, overall or which — tacos, potato chips and clam chowder, to name but three
at least with regard to specific locales.62 Then, on the basis of no — have subsequently been attributed to conquering groups.26
discernable factual evidence whatsoever, Kroeber announced he
had concluded Mooney had overestimated, and effected yet an- 618–24; and Sahlins, Marshall D., “Economic Anthropology and Anthropological
Economics,” Social Science Information, Vol. 8, No. 5, 1969, pp. 13–33.
other across-the-board reduction of 10%. The resulting ‘definitive’ 23
It is estimated that peoples in highly productive agricultural areas devoted
tally, which came to “not more than 1,000,000” indigenous people as much as half their annual crops to trade with peoples in less or differently pro-
living in all of North America prior to 1492, was entrenched as ductive locales, either for different crop items, for meat and/or fish, or for non-
“scholarly truth” for some forty years after its publication in 1939, food commodities. Trade networks were quite extensive, with the indigenous peo-
ples of New England known to have regularly engaged in commerce with those
and is still widely believed today.63 of the Arctic Circle, the peoples of the Great Plains region of the U.S. interacting
The placement of an arbitrary ceiling upon the number of native with those of present-day Guatemala. See Jennings, Francis, The Invasion of Amer-
people who lived in pre-contact North America corresponds quite ica: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest, University of North Carolina
well with the equally arbitrary limits orthodox anthropology has Press, Chapel Hill, 1975 (Chapter 5, “Savage Form for Peasant Function,” esp. pp.
61–7). Also see Wallace, Ernest, and E.A. Hoebel, Comanches: Lords of the Southern
62
For instance, Kroeber took great care to ‘rebut’ the argument advanced Plains, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1952.
24
by archaeologist H.J. Spinden that Mooney’s estimate of a total native population American Indian methods of food preservation centered on drying (’jerk-
of 150,000 having lived in the Ohio River Valley was grossly inadequate, based ing’), freeze drying, and smoking, all more efficient, palatable and nutritional than
upon the results — suggesting a pre-contact population of “several millions” — the European convention of salting food for storage. See Russell, Howard S., “How
Spinden obtained by excavating some of the area’s vast burial mounds. Kroeber Aboriginal Planters Stored Food,” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological So-
dismissed Spinden as a ‘romantic’. He took the same approach with critiques of ciety, XXIII, April-July 1962, pp. 47–9. Also see Weatherford, op. si., p.64
25
Mooney’s overall population estimates advanced by C.O. Sauer and others. See Most nutritionally-related diseases were virtually unknown in pre-contact
Kroeber, Alfred L., Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, Univer- Native America. See Wissler, Clark, Wilton M. Krogman and Walter Krickerberg.
sity of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, XXXVIII, Medicine Among the American Indians, Acoma Press, Ramona, CA, 1939.
26
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1939. Consider ‘Irish’ potatoes and ‘Italian’ tomatoes as but two examples of en-
63
Kroeber’s 1,000,000 figure was first published in an essay entitled “Native tire food items being attributed to the conquerors rather than the original domes-
American Population. American Anthropologist, N.S., XXXVI, 1934, pp. 1–25. Sub- ticators of the foodstuffs in question. Consider also the implications for so-called
sequently it was incorporated into the above-cited Cultural and Natural Areas of Italian cuisine had the tomato never been acquired from Native Americans. By the
Native North America, which quickly became (and has remained) a centerpiece same token, several cuisines of China (Szechuan, for example) would be nonex-
of the American anthropological canon. Tellingly, its conclusions have been as istent without the varieties of pepper developed by American Indians. The same
acceptable to self-proclaimed “revolutionary marxists” among the Euroamerican might be said for the curries of India itself. See Bryant, Carol A., Anita Courtney,
population as they have to the most arcane and reactionary of “bourgeois aca- Barbara A. Markesbery and Kathleen M. DeWalt, The Cultural Feast, West Publish-
demics”; see, for example, Revolutionary Communist Party, U.S.A., “Searching ers, St. Paul, MN, 1985. Also see Crosby, Alfred W. Jr., The Columbian Exchange,
for the Second Harvest,” in Churchill; op. dr., pp. 35–58. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1972.

30 15
 In contrast, the European agriculture of the same period re- was pronounced. The meaning of this can be accurately understood
volved almost entirely around a narrow range of cereal grains — only from the vantage point of a perspective tendered elsewhere:
primarily wheat, barley, oats and rye — accompanied by a few “The Indian did not wander; [s]he commuted.”59
vegetables such as onions, beets, turnips and cabbage.27 These
were combined with large proportions of domesticated meat and
dairy products, producing a diet which was at once almost total
“The Vacant Land”
lacking in spices, and unbalanced to the point of inducing an Another core tenet of Eurocentric doctrine is that the invading
assortment of endemic diseases extending from gout to scurvy.28 European population didn’t really displace anyone in North
Simply put, indigenous American agriculture and its concomitants America because the land was largely an uninhabited vacuum,
were considerably more developed than those of the allegedly vacant and open for the taking. The ‘scientific’ foundation upon
superior European civilization by the 16th century and, in many which this assertion rests is the contention of a “giant of American
respects, have arguably remained so through the present day.29 anthropology,” James M. Mooney, who posited that the pre-contact
Much the same might be said with regard to medicine. At a time population of the continent north of the Rio Grande totaled “ap-
when the cutting edge of European knowledge decreed that the ap- proximately 1,100,000 persons.”60 The methods Mooney employed
plication of leeches to drain off “tainted blood” was an effective in determining that this number was in any way accurate are
treatment for all manner of ailments, and that causing the sick quite ambiguous, given that his study of the matter was published
to be stung by hornets would cure bubonic plague, American In- posthumously and without footnotes. It is apparent, however, that
dians were widely utilizing holistic and preventative approaches they consisted of nothing so much as a compilation and arbitrary,
across-the-board reduction — by an average of more than 50%
27
For the best exposition on this topic, see Salaman, Redcliffe N., The His- — of earlier regional and subregional estimates. The sources he
tory and Social Influence of the Potato, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, used consisted, in turn, mainly of equally arbitrary reductions of
England, 1949. Also see Weatherford, Jack M., “Millennium of Modernization: A
Changing German Village,” in Priscilla Copeland Reining and Barbara Lenkard
still earlier first hand accounts regarding the size of given native
(eds.), Village Viability in Contemporary Society, AAAS Selected Symposium Se- groups at or shortly after first contact.61
ries 34, Westview Press. Boulder, 1980.
28 59
An excellent survey of this may be found in Drummond, J.C., and Anne Jennings, op. cit., p. 71.
60
Wilbraham, The Englishman’s Food, Cape Publishers, London, 1957. Also see Sala- Mooney, J.M., The Aboriginal Population of America North of Mexico, John
man, op. cit. R. Swanton (ed.), Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, LXXX, No. 7, Washing-
29
This is true not only in terms of the ecological modes of agriculture devel- ton, D.C. 1928.
61
oped by indigenous peoples of the New World, but also in terms of relative crop For example,. Mooney sliced by half earlier estimates concerning aggre-
yield and efficiency. More than 3,000 varieties of potato wee under cultivation in gate New England Indian population tendered by the notoriously anti-Indian his-
the Americas at the point of arrival; fewer than 250 remain in production today, torian John Gorham Palfrey. No evidential basis at all was cited to justify this
with fewer than twenty comprising at least 75% of the world crop (Weatherford, downward revision. Palfrey himself had already engaged in a process of system-
1988, op. cit., pp. 63–4; also see Gumpert, Anita von Kahler, “One Potato, Two atically discounting by as much as 80% the initial estimates of indigenous popula-
Potato,” Americas, May 1986). Another perspective on the high efficiency of tradi- tion in the region, contained in original settler accounts, for equally unexplained
tional American Indian agriculture maybe found in Stea, Vikki, “High-Yield Corn reasons. See Palfrey, John Gorham, History of New England, 5 Volumes, Boston,
from Ancient Seed Strains,” Christian Science Monitor, August 20, 1985. 1858–1890.

16 29
 est…In nearly every case the European colonists built to health care. Hygiene and sanitation were conspicuous elements
a city that eventually stretched to hundreds and even of native life in the Americas, even while the absence of sewers
thousands of times the size and population of the orig- in European cities gave rise to devastating epidemics, and bathing
inal Indian settlement, but nevertheless they built on was considered a crime against god and king.30 Native American
top of a previous settlement rather than starting a new pharmacology already contained a veritable cornucopia of “wonder
one. Even the Puritans took over fields already cleared drugs” including quinine, a close equivalent to aspirin, assorted vi-
by the Indians but abandoned when European diseases tamin compounds, anesthetics, analgesics, astringents, stimulants,
decimated the native population.”57 antispasmodics, and a wide array of creams and ointments devel-
oped to facilitate the healing of every sort of wound, burn and
Weatherford goes on to note that thousands of contemporary abrasion.31 A number of native peoples are also known to have es-
place names in North America — Chicago, Nantucket, Milwaukee, tablished the procedures necessary to allow their performance of
Roanoke, Tallahassee, Minneapolis, Poughkeepsie and Oswego such operations as tumor removal, amputation of limbs, and brain
among them — are lifted directly from those already bestowed by surgery.32 In this connection, it is worth noting that steel instru-
native occupants before the first Europeans arrived. Others, like ments never yielded the precision obtained by pre-contact indige-
Seattle, result from the Euroamerican practice of renaming village nous practitioners with the obsidian blades they designed for use
sites after indigenous leaders who resided in them at the point in their surgical activities; it was not until the advent of laser tech-
each was taken away. Even the U.S. capitol, the location for which
legend has George Washington selecting amidst a virgin tract of
forest, was really the site of Naconhtake, a major trade center of
the Conoy Indians. The present Washington, D.C. suburb of Ana- 30
On the impact of disease, see McNeill, William H., Plagues and Peoples,
costia gained its name via a Latinized corruption of the original Anchor/Doubleday. Garden City, NY.. 1976. Of additional interest, see Creighton,
indigenous word. The Potomac River, astride which the capitol Charles, A History of Epidemics in Britain, Cambridge University Press, Cam-
now sits, was so designated through a comparable corruption of bridge, England, 1891.
31
the name of Patawomeke, a principal Conoy leader.58 Concerning native pharmacology, see Taylor, Norman, Plant Drugs That
Changed the World, Dodd, Mead ‘Publishers, New York, 1965. Also see Vogel,
Despite the ‘sedentary’ constant of pre-contact native existence, Virgil, American Indian Medicine, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1970;
the travel quotient for most societies, especially for young adult and Hutchins, Alma R., Indian Herbology of North America, Merco Publishers,
males, was undoubtedly rather high. Hunting and fishing, which Toronto, Canada, 1969. On the impact of quinine in particular, see Laderman,
were integral to (though not preponderant within) virtually all in- Carol, “Malaria and Progress: Some Historical and Ecological Considerations,” So-
cial Science and Medicine, No. 9, November-December 1975, pp. 587–94.
digenous economies, demanded it, as did engaging in the extensive 32
On indigenous surgical techniques, see Guzman, Peredo, Medical Practices
inter-regional commerce which fleshed out the inventories of com- in Ancient America, Ediciones Euroamericanas, Mexico City, Mexico, 1985. Also
modities available in each local. Hence, it is fair to say that the see Wissler, et al., op. cit. An interesting related reading is Kidwell, Clara Sue,
degree of mobility evident among pre-contact American Indians “Science and Ethnoscience: Native American World Views as a Factor in the De-
velopment of Native Technologies,” in Dendall
57
Weatherford, op. cit., pp. 231–2. E. Bailes (ed.), Environmental History: Critical Issues in Comparative Per-
58
Ibid. spective, University Press of America, Lanham, MD., 1985, pp. 277–87.

28 17
nologies during the 1970s that western science came to rival the cultural and socio-economic activity, generation after generation,
accuracy inherent to traditional American Indian surgical tools.33 allowing not only the development of highly efficient surplus and
trade economies, but the sort of long-term social stability which
lent itself to the realization of well-polished forms of governance,
Native American Mathematics, Science, property relations and the like. Such consistency in land use and
Architecture and Engineering. occupancy also fostered clear understandings as to the national ter-
ritoralities of given peoples, not in the European sense of precisely-
In terms of mathematical and related forms of abstract thinking, defined national borders, but from a more fluid, interactive and co-
the accomplishments of pre-contact indigenous peoples provide an operative posture of international affairs.56
ample accompaniment to the achievements already discussed, cen- The urban centers of Native American life were not few and far
tering mainly in the sciences of botany, horticulture, anatomy and between, as is typically claimed by proponents of Eurocentric or-
pharmacology. It is appropriate to observe that the concept of zero thodoxy. As Jack Weatherford had observed:
originated among the Mayan peoples of Central America.34 The
Mexicanos (Aztecs) of the central Mexican highlands had, well be- “Even though the European settlers imposed new ar-
fore the first Spaniard set foot on their plateau, computed a calen- chitectural styles and new ideas of urban planning on
dar extending some 500 years into the future and with a degree America, they usually built over existing Indian settle-
of accuracy several decimal places greater than that of the ‘Julian’ ments rather than clearing out new areas of settlement.
calendar still in general use by Eurocentric societies.35 The exis- Subsequent generations of Americans usually forgot
tence of the Mexicano calendar can be understood only within the that their towns and cities had been founded by In-
context of a body of astronomical knowledge markedly superior dians. Myths arose about how the colonists literally
to that current to Europe — where heated debates on the probable carved their settlements out of the uninhabited for-
flatness of the earth were not especially uncommon — at the time.
Nor is there reason to suspect that such astute awareness of the New York, 1986. It is interesting to note that indigenous settlement patterns were
such as to concentrate population along both coasts of the present continental
33
See Weatherford, op.cit., p. 188. The author also notes that the concepts of United States, as well as along major inland waterways such as the St. Lawrence,
the syringe, rubber hose and plaster cast for setting broken bones also originated Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Tellingly, this is the same settlement pattern evi-
in the Americas well before first European contact. Interesting commentary on denced by the Euroamerican population through the present day.
56
the incorporation of these technologies into European medical practice may be Although little weight is placed on this important point in contemporary
found in Bakeless, John, The Eyes of Discovery, Dover Books, New York, 1961. Eurocentric scholarship, this is not because the matter is mysterious. Indeed, the
34
Probably the best elaboration on this topic may be found in Morley, issue of defined and preexisting native territoralities is addressed with a great deal
Syvanus G., and George W. Bainerd, The Ancient Maya, Stanford University Press, of precision in each of the treaties entered into by the U.S. with various indigenous
Stanford, Ca, (4th edition) 1983. Also see Carmack, Robert M., Quichean Civiliza- nations (this comes to at least 371 ratified documents and as many as 1,000 more
tion, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973. which went unratified). On this basis, and through numerous other sources of
35
See Tompkins, Peter, Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, Harper and Row, information, it remains entirely possible to reconstruct to general boundaries of
New York, 1976. Additional information may be found in Borah, Woodrow Wil- each indigenous nation. For detailed explanation of methodologies applicable to
son, The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of Spanish Conquest, this end, see Sutton, Imre (ed.), Irredeemable America: The Indians’ Estate and Land
Ibero-America 45, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1963. Claims, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1985.

18 27
 and they could transport little of what they might heavens’ functioning was unique to Mesoamerica, as examination
manufacture in spare moments. To them, adequacy of of the belief systems indigenous to areas as geographically diverse
production meant physical survival, and they rarely as Tierra del Fuego in the south, or the Arctic tundra in the north,
had surplus of either products or time.”53 readily reveals.36
Beyond calendars and astronomy, American Indian mathemat-
Although such misconceptions may have been implicitly cor-
ical and scientific thought manifested itself in a proliferation of
rected through even limited examination of such phenomena as
forms of architecture and engineering. Throughout Mesoamerica,
native agriculture and architecture, it would be well to discuss each
indigenous people mastered the principles involved in construct-
issue more directly.
ing earthquake-proof buildings on both residential and monumen-
tal scales hundreds of years before Columbus. Many of their efforts
“Nomads” remain the tallest and/or largest structures by volume in their lo-
cales, having continued to stand while subsequently erected build-
It is an article of faith within the Eurocentric vision that tradi- ings — based in supposedly superior European architectural con-
tional American Indians “wandered the land,” driven to perpetual cepts — have collapsed all around them. In the process of creating
motion by their utter dependence upon access to migrating ani- their edifices, these native peoples developed ways and means of
mal herds and the seasonal ripenings of an array of wild fruits, quarrying and perfectly squaring huge stones without the use of
nuts and berries.54 In actuality, every pre-contact indigenous so- steel tools of any sort. The cut stones, many weighing ten tons or
ciety in North America was organized around fixed villages, towns more, were then moved — often uphill and over great distances —
and, in some cases, cities.55 These constituted the focal points for to construction sites where they were lifted into place.37 All this
53
Sahlins, Marshall, Stone Age Economics, Aldine Publishing Co., Chicago, was accomplished as a matter of course, without resort to draught
1972, p. 3. Sahlins assembled this conventional anthropological summary by uti- animals and, supposedly, without wheeled vehicles.38 Needless to
lizing a series of juxtaposed quotes drawn from the standard literature: Stewart,
36
Julian H., and Louis C. Faron, The Native Peoples of North America (McGraw-Hill On the most southerly portion of the Americas, see Lothrup, Samuel K.,
Publishers, New York, 1959, p. 60); Clark, Graham, From Savagery to Civilization The Indians of Tierra del Fuego, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation,
(Schuman Publishers, New York, 1953, p.27); Haury, Emil W., “The Greater Ameri- New York, 1929. Concerning the Arctic area, see Weyer, E.M., The Eskimos, Yale
can Southwest” (in J. Braidwood and G.R. Willey [eds.], Courses Toward Urban Life, University Press, New Haven, CT, 1932.
37
Aldine Publishers, Chicago, 1962, p. 113); Hoebel, E. Adamson, Man in the Primi- See Cespedes, Gauillermo, America Indigena, Alianza Publishers Madrid,
tive World (McGraw-Hill Publishers, New York [2nd ed.] 1958, p. 188): Redfield, Spain, 1985. Also see Helms, Mary W., Middle America, University of America
Robert, The Primitive World and Its Transformations (Cornell University Press, Press, Boston, 1982.
38
Ithaca, NY, 1953, p.5); and White, Leslie A., The Evolution of Culture (McGraw- Much has been made of the ‘fact’ that American Indians “failed to in-
Hill Publishers, New York, 1959, p. 31). vent” the wheel. This is categorically untrue. Wheeled toys were rather common
54
For solid analysis of this stereotype, see Berkhofer, Robert F.,Jr., The Wlute throughout the Americas prior to 1492. Similarly, a variety o wheels, pulleys and
Man’s Indian, Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, New York, 1978. A more standard an- the like were undoubtedly used in the construction techniques of a variety of peo-
thropological treatment may be found in Spicer, Edward H., A Short History of the ples in diverse geographic settings. That the wheel may not have been deployed
Indians of the United States, Van Nostrum Reinhold, New York, 1969. as a transportation device seems due primarily to the reality that no animal suit-
55
A comprehensive survey of known sites may be found in Coe, Michael, able for pulling large wheeled vehicles existed anywhere in the hemisphere until
Deand Snow and Elizabeth Benson, Atlas of Ancient America, Facts on File Books, importation of horses mules and oxen began with the arrival of Europeans. Thus,

26 19
say, certain of these feats could not be duplicated today, even with might be given by which to illustrate the rarified political acumen
application of the most “space age” technologies. attained by pre-contact indigenous peoples on this continent. The
The Incas of the Andean highlands and, to a lesser extent, the best testimony to this effect, however, may well be the fact that,
Mexicanos further north also constructed lengthy complexes of during the course of its westward expansion, the U.S. government
leveled, graded and paved roads — just one of which, Capac Nan, found occasion to formally recognize the pre-existing full national
stretches more than 2,500 miles — complete with curbs, guttered sovereignty of various native peoples at least 371 times between
drainage systems, retaining walls, rest areas, and road signs posted 1778 and 1871.52
at regular intervals. Substantial portions of these roads, most of
them built at a uniform 24’ width, are still in use, most notably in
Ecuador and Peru. To complete their roadways, the Incas perfected
“Slaves to Subsistence”?
the design and construction of suspension bridges long before the While the preceding information should have done much to
relevant engineering concepts saw common usage in Europe.39 counter certain standard assumptions concerning the style and
North of the Rio Grande; the Anasazis had by the year quality of living which prevailed in North America prior to the
1200 completed construction of their cities at Mesa Verde (Col- conquest, it addresses several important questions only obliquely.
orado) and Chaco Canyon (New Mexico). These complicated These center upon the ideas that the pre-contact population on
socio-architectural endeavors remained the largest apartment this continent was quite tiny and largely nomadic, and that its
complexes built in North America until well into the 20th cen- time was almost wholly consumed in the drudgery of pecking out
tury.40 They also incorporated engineering elements concerning a most meager subsistence. As Marshall Sahlins has framed the
insulating characteristics and use of solar energy which are perception:
appreciably sounder than those employed by most Eurocentric
architects and engineers right up through the present. In the same “The nomadic hunters and gatherers barely met
vein, the Hidatsas, Arikaras, Pawnees and other peoples of the minimum subsistence needs and often fell far short
Great Plains region developed comfortable, spacious and durable of them. Their population of 1 person to 10 or 20
‘underground’ housing techniques which were both extremely square miles reflects this. Constantly on the move in
energy efficient and ideally suited to the tornado-ridden climate search of food, they clearly lacked the leisure hours
for non-subsistence activities of any significance,
it appears that while the wheel was known to the indigenous peoples of America,
52
it was considered a largely useless contraption, at least in many of the ways in The federal government of the United States is constitutionally prohibited
which it was applied in “The Old World.” (under the first and sixth articles) from entering into a treaty relationship with any
39
On this topic, see Von Hagen, Victor Wolfgang, The Royal Road of the Inca, entity other than another fully sovereign national government. The ratification
Gordon and Cremonesi Publishers, London, 1976. Interesting side bar readings of any treaty by the U.S. senate is therefore de facto formal recognition by the
may be found in Mariategui, Jose Carlos, Seven Interpretive Essay on Peruvian United States of the other party’s sovereign status. The texts of 371 duly ratified
Reality, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1971. treaties between the U.S. and various American Indian nations may be found in
40
For illuminating discussion, see Mays, Buddy, Ancient Cities of the South- Kappler, Charles J., Indian Treaties, 1778–1883, Interland Publishers, New York,
west, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1982. 1972.

20 25
intermingling ideas drawn from ancient Greece and Rome, as well in which they lived.41 Today, after a long hiatus brought about by
as those of such more topical thinkers as Voltaire and Rousseau, these conquerors’ insistence that grossly inefficient and vulnerable
with those of the Iroquois. The result was a unmistakable and above-ground construction represented a superior mode of build-
unqualified diminution of basic Haudenosaunee libertarianism ing on the plains, subsurface or “partially submerged” building
within its Euroamerican counterpart.49 designs are making a comeback at the hands of some of the more
The “Iroquois League” was by no means the only example of its ‘radical’ and ‘innovative’ Eurocentric architects. Although these
sort. From at least as early as 1350, the powerful Creek Confeder- ‘new’ conceptions are precisely similar in principle to those long
acy in what are now the southeastern states of Georgia, Florida and ago implemented by native builders, acknowledgment of and
Alabama also governed itself through an elected council structure. attribution to the actual inventors has been sorely missing.
Like the Haudenosaunee, it later engaged quite successfully and Meanwhile, like the peoples of Mesoamerica, the Anasazis
over an extended period in high level diplomacy with European constructed a paved road system, this one radiating outward from
nation-states. After contact with Old World peoples, the Creeks Chaco Canyon and extending for hundreds of miles in virtually
also displayed an unparalleled interracial openness, marrying, straight lines across the Arizona /New Mexico desert. Far to the
adopting and otherwise naturalizing both European immigrants southwest, the Hohokams had, during the same period, built more
and large numbers of escaped African slaves as full citizens within than 3,000 miles of irrigation canals, each running quite straight
their society.50 Far to the west, in the central Sonoran desert, the and exhibiting a uniform width. The Hohokam canals were also
Yaqui federation exhibited many of the same democratic charac- engineered to effect a neatly consistent gradient drop of about 5”
teristics as the Creeks, and waged a protracted war first against per quarter mile to insure maximally efficient water flow. Europe
Spain, and then the Republic of Mexico, in an effort to forestall knew no counterpart in terms of sustained architectural precision
the erosion of their fundamental liberties through imposition at this point in its history. Suffice it to observe that the present-day
of Eurocentric forms of governance.51 Many further examples cities of Phoenix and Tucson have opted to incorporate large seg-
ments of — this ancient indigenous water transportation system
Notes on the State of Virginia, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, into their own, and have done so without substantial modification
1955; and Paine, Thomas, Rights of Man, Penguin Books, New York, 1969. Quotes
from Franklin and an interesting overview may be found in Parrington, Vernon to the original engineering.42
L., The Colonial Mind, 1620–1800, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1927.
49 41
An illuminating, if unintended, commentary on this score is offered in A good exposition on these building techniques may be found i Driver,
Commager, Henry Steele, The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and Amer- Harold E., Indians of North America, University of Chicago Pres Chicago, (2nd .
ica Realized the Enlightenment, Anchor Books, Garden City, NY., 1978. edition) 1969. Also see Nabokov, Peter, and Robert Easton Native American Archi-
50
On Creek governance, diplomacy and race relations, see Nash, Gary B., tecture, Oxford University Press, New York, 1988.
42
Red, Wltite and Black: The Early Peoples of America, Prentice-Hall, Engelwood Mays, op.cit. Also see Weatherford, op. cit. (p. 246), concerning the Anasazi
Cliffs, NJ, 1974. Also see Halbert, H.S., and T.H. Ball, The Creek War of 1813 and roadways. The author goes on to point out that many model highways trace the
1814, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 1969. routes laid out along unpaved but well established trails already in place in North
51
See Hu-DeHart, Evelyn, Yaqui Resistance and Survival, University of Wis- America long before the first white man came. Many of these extended for hun-
consin Press, Madison, 1984. Also see Harris, Fred R., “Mexico: Historical Foun- dreds of miles, and some for thousands, being the infrastructure of the above-
dations,” in Jan Kippers Black (ed.), Latin America: Its Problems and Promise, West- mentioned system of international commerce actualized by American Indians
view Press, Boulder, CO., 1984. prior to the European invasion.

24 21
Indigenous Governance in America age-based organizational mandates, and the matrilineal/matrilocal
nature of kinship bonding.45
Typical Eurocentric notions of how the societies of North Nor was all this possible because the Iroquois amounted to
America’s indigenous peoples were traditionally organized is only a small, ‘backwatered’ or powerless amalgamation. To the
that they were grouped into ‘tribes’, ruled by an assortment of contrary, the record shows them to have been consummate
‘chiefs’. Nowhere is the fallacy of this idea better demonstrated diplomats who entered as equals into bilateral agreements with
than with the Haudenosaunee, or Five (later Six) Nations Iroquois the European powers, held the balance of military power in their
Confederacy, as it is more commonly known. Assembled in area for more than a century and a half after first contact with the
present-day New York state and southeastern Canada on the invaders, and tipped the scales of victory to Great Britain during
basis of the Kaianerekowa (“Great Law of Peace”) promulgated the so-called French and Indian Wars.46 It was a Haudenosaunee
by an indigenous philosopher named Deganwidah at least three leader named Canassatego who, in the course of a meeting
centuries before Columbus, the Haudenosaunee may well have between colonists and British officials in 1744, first suggested that
been the first functioning model of real democracy, and was an the thirteen English colonies of the eastern seaboard be organized
essential practical precursor to the contemporary aspirations for into a federation similar to that created by his own people.47
international harmony expressed through the United Nations.43 Benjamin Franklin, Tom Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson,
At a time when even the most enlightened European nation- and others among the “founding fathers” of the United States can-
states were still afflicted with a firm belief in the “divine rights of didly acknowledged in their personal papers that they drew great
kings,” the Haudenosaunee had been living under a highly effective conceptual inspiration from the Haudenosaunee in their quest to
form of representative government for hundreds of years.44 As con- establish the “first modern republic.”48 They insisted, of course, on
trasted to the chronic bias against females still displayed by Euro-
centric societies, the Haudenosaunee had institutionalized gender 45
These dimensions of Haudenosaunee life are covered in Goldenheiser,
balance by vesting all power to select and recall governmental dele- Alexander A., “Iroquois Social Organization,” in Roger C. Owen, James J.F. Deetz
gates among women. Further safeguards to genuine egalitarianism and Anthony D. Fisher (eds.), The North American Indians, Macmillan, New York,
were built into such socio-economic arenas as property relations, 1967. Also see Morgan, Lewis Henry, League of the Iroquois, Sage Publishers,
Rochester, NY, 1851.
46
See Aquila, Richard, The Iroquois Restoration: Iroquois Diplomacy on the
Colonial Frontier, 1701–1754, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1983. It
should be noted that the “French and Indian Wars” consisted of four separate
conflicts during the course of nearly a century: King William’s War (1689–97),
43
See Brandon, William, New Worlds for Old: Reports from the New World Queen Anne’s War (1702–13), King George’s War (1744–8), and The Great War
and Their Effect on the Development of Social Thought in Europe, 1500–1800, Ohio of Empire (1754–63).
47
University Press, Athens, 1986. Also see Wilson, Edmund, Apologies to the Iroquois, See Grinde, Donald A., The Iroquois and the Founding of the American Na-
Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, New York, 1959. tion, Indian Historian Press, San Francisco, 1977. Also see Graymont, Barbara,
44
Considerable detail on this assertion is contained in Johansen, Bruce, For- The Iroquois in the American Revolution, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY,
gotten Founders, Gambit Books, Ipswich, MA, 1982. Also see Burton, Bruce A., 1972; and Johansen, op.cit.
48
“Iroquois Confederate Law and the Origins of the U.S. Constitution,” Northeast For direct quotations, see Cappon, Lester J., The Adams-Jefferson Letters,
Indian Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1986, pp. 4–9. Vol II, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1959; Jefferson, Thomas,

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