On Thu, 26 Jul 2001 20:32:02 -0400, you wrote:
>
>> "Smigrodzki, Rafal" wrote:
>>
>> MIke Lorrey wrote:
>>
>> back to the Heidelberg/Neanderthal period. Tribal cultures are
>> actually
>> far more socially and economically egalitarian than most any other
>> social system
>>
>> ### Can you name examples? How about the enormous power of village
>> chiefs (which translates into most of the offspring being produced by
>> them, not differences in material wealth) in some Amazon Indian
>> tribes?
>
>Take eskimos, which up into the 20th lived the same existence as in eons
>past, and which rarely gathered in concentrations greater than an
>extended family or clan (primarily to harvest the salmon runs), and
>never had the need for 'chieftans'.
>
>In the case of your amazon chiefs, if they did in fact father most of
>the offspring, then the 'tribe' is little more than a polygamous family.
>How much 'enormous power' do they exert? Did they do so before they
>acquired metal technology?
>
>Cheiftans typically gain power where population pressure due to
>technology exceeds local ecological capabilities and conflict for
>resources results.
>
>Also look at the early Icelandic culture, which had no chieftans, yet
>lived a herder / fisherman lifestyle without nomadism and retained a
>hyperdemocratic proto-libertarian form of government.
Ever see Nanook of the North...eskimo existentialism to the max...
But I digress...
I think you are romanticizing, or at least picking up on the
romanticization of those who came before. I am a longtime student of
things anthropological, and from all I have seen, the closer the
culture/people are to nature, the more brutal and savage they are.
You want a taste of eskimo culture from one who was there?
Try this short story:
http://www.geocities.com/jacklondons/whiteman.html
Disclaimer/qualifier/half-ass creds: I am part Native American.
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