I am constantly amused by the white "greens" who like to claim the Native American "never killed more than he could eat." That's total nonsense. The Native American did more to destroy the Great Plains Bison Herd than a few dozen buffalo hunters working for the railroads ever did.
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Technically true, but ignores the fact that he only did so once the Europeans had introduced both horses and the circumstances that led to the native's usage of mass hunting tactics.
I agree partly, in that the 'never killed more than he could eat' thing is total bunk (Certain tribes, not sure which ones, tended to chase whole herds of buffalo off of cliffs, killing dozens, if not hundreds.). But a 'few dozen buffalo hunters working for the railroads' did even more damage.
It always amuses me how people attribute all kinds of love-the-earth sentiment to aboriginals.
Indians were in tune with nature. They had to be. If they weren't where the bison were when the bison were there they would starve to death.
Hunter gatherers generally cannot kill more than they can carry or store.
Hunter gatherers were conservationsists, to the point that they were, by force of necessity, not because of some normative conviction that this was the better way. They adapted to their environment as best they could, and as soon as they are given an opportunity to exploit it, they're just like the rest of us: no better, no worse.
"The Native American did more to destroy the Great Plains Bison Herd than a few dozen buffalo hunters working for the railroads ever did."
Funny thing, then, that there were still herds of bison that covered whole states in the early 1800s, even after the Indians had been here for 10,000 years -- yet after white settlers got really serious about eradicating bison because they were a threat to railroads, it took just a century to nearly wipe them out altogether (and that applies both to Indians AND to bison, come to think of it).
To be fair I have seen people who know better than I do (Jared Diamond - Collapse) that Native Americans deforested the southwest and turned it in to the desert that it is today. So while buffalo hunting may not be a good example, saying that Native Americans were always good stewards of the land, may be accurate.
ALong the lines of the previous psoting, it is more litterally true that the Indians wiped out the mastadon by wastefully hunting practices such as stampeding herds over cliffs. They simply had no idea about ecological stweardship, which is hardly surprising since its a scientific idea. The Indians expected the gods to maintian the herds and if their populations fell it couldn't be becuase of over-hunting but impiety.
It just so happened that they didn't go extinct until the white man came the scene, with guns and incredible capacity for killing the buffalo. Obviously, this had nothing to do with anything, though.
This is off-topic, but hey, so is the original FSTDT quote. Anyone ever been to Drums Along the Hudson? Man, if you're Native American you can have your pick of middle-aged, gullible white lady groupies. Just mumble something about "my people" and "Mother Earth" and you're in like Flynn.
The role of the native Americans as environmentalists HAS been way over-blown. With the native technology, extinction-level slaughter was nearly impossible. With the introduction of the horse and fire arms (and continual improvement in fire arms) both whites and natives found buffalo slaughter easy and profitable.
When you consider the thousands of years that the Indians and bison coexisted, and the few years it took for the whiteys to drive populations down to critical levels, you obviously must be drinking the funny stuff to spew that sort of garbage.
Of course there was waste but they killed for meat,the hides and utilized much of some animals. They hunted for survival.
White man hunted for the joy of killing and left the animal to rot. Sport, they call it
I think he's referring to places like the Buffalo Jump in Alberta were Native Americans would herd entire herds of buffalo off a cliff. But of course of that they would have enough meat, hides, and horns to last the whole tribe for a year and would never have to hunt until next summer, as opposed to pioneers who just shot the buffalo from their trains and left them for dead.
Well, here's a unique occurence: He's absolutely correct.
The one slight thing he's leaving out though. There were quite a bit more the "a few dozen buffalo hunters".
That and the fact that guns and horses are a tad more effective then bows and sandals.
While this is technically true, the natives had been stuck onto reserves and needed to come up with money to buy supplies. Europeans wanted exotic furs and skins that were from North America. So the Natives did kill the buffalo, but the skins were sold/traded at a ridiculously low price to the traders.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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