Animal Rights and Native Culture

Ted Altar

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HUNTING PRACTICES OF NATIVE PEOPLE IS LOW PRIORITY

There is already plenty of human caused animal suffering and animal exploitation in other areas that quantitatively make the animals killed by indigenous peoples pale in comparison. Our own riotous gluttony on meat must first be eliminated and this is not likely to happen for a very long time to come.

Having said that, however, this does not exonerate individuals from considering the full moral consequences of their actions.

ALL CULTURAL PRACTICES UNDERGO CHANGE

All things eventually change and hopefully undergo some advance. We in the West no longer have religious rituals sacrificing humans or animals. Not every traditional practice from the past is worth preserving, even by today's standards. Nor are the outward practices necessary for preserving what might be the essential and best ideas of a culture.

The Haida and Nookta Indians here in British Columbia used to practice slavery and would even sacrifice some slaves during the Potlach. The Potlach is again being practiced, but this time without the sacrifice of slaves. Surely, this is an advance. Many others North American natives not only condoned slavery but even sanctioned the prolonged torture of captives as a legitimate means to humiliate one's enemies. It was right that such horrific practices be banned, and such selective proscriptions for certain practices can actually help a culture advance the best of its traditions and practices.

Indigenous cultures have both benefitted and been plague with new problems and moral issues via their contact with Western civilization. The Haida Indians never made the kinds of totem poles that they are famous for, until they began trading with Europeans for metal axes. Hunting with high powered rifles and trapping with steel metal leg-hold traps was not part of the the original culture of North American indigenous peoples. Why should it now be consider as an essential part of their heritage?

THE MYTH OF EARLY PEOPLES BEING MORE IN HARMONY WITH NATURE

There is an exaggeration about North American native groups being vastly more advanced ecologically and attitudinally towards the natural world. Often, Chief Seattle's famous speech is here cited as proof of this more advanced sensitivity towards the natural world. It is a beautiful speech. Consider the following snippet from the speech:
What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are interconnected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. . . If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. . . Man did not weave the web of live; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
It express a marvellous sentiment, but I'm afraid that it is APOCRYPHAL! Those are NOT the words of chief Seattle, but of Ted Perry written in the winter of 1971/72 for the film called HOME. The thing is a hoax perpetrated by the unnamed producer of HOME who wanted a more "authentic" effect by adding Chief Seattle's name, instead of Ted Perry's, to the text. For the full details of how this North American urban myth got started, see: 

     Rudolf Kaiser "A Fifth Gospel, Almost: Chief Seattle(es):

          American Origins and European Reception" in Christian

          Feest (ed.), INDIANS AND EUROPE: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY

          COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, 1987.

     

     A shorter discussion by J. Callicott ("American Indian Land

          Wisdom?  Sorting Out the Issues") can be found in the

          JOURNAL OF FOREST HISTORY, 1989, 33(1):35-42
Whatever might have been the different sentiment by North American native nations towards their environment and nature, it was probably quite varied and not as ecologically sophisticated and pure as it is often made out to have been. This is not to say that some profound ideas and sentiments are not to be found, but let us, as seekers of truth, more carefully represent what might have been believed and practiced in all its variations and complexity.

Indeed, these aboriginal nations actually changed the face of the North American ecology quite profoundly. For example, Iroquois and Powhatan peoples burned the forests in order to improve their berry harvest. More dramatic, the destruction of whole forests were intentionally undertaken in order to created pastureland on which the species they hunted would thrive. Hence, the grasslands of North American owe their existence to the use of fire by American Indians, and that is the primary source of the great herds of bison which were once found there. The savannas of Africa are also thought to be the product of early people's application of fire. Indeed, it is thought that a number of fire-resistant plant species, like the long-leaf pine, the Burmese teak, Cheer pine of the Himalayas, the Douglas Fir of the Pacific Northwest, etc., evolved or flourished due to such human activities so radically affecting and changing the environment. 


     see O. Stewart, "Fire as the first great force employed by

          man" in W. Thomas et. al. (ed.),MAN'S ROLE IN CHANGING

          THE FACE OF THE EARTH, 1956.

     

     Also, see O. Stewart "Burning and natural vegetation in the

          U. S." in GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, 1951, 41:317.
Early humans were responsible for about 75 species being eliminated in Africa about 50,000 years ago, and at least 200 species are though to have disappeared from their former range or became extinct from North America about 10,000 years ago due to human hunting. 

     see Antoon de Vos,  "Africa, the Devastated Continent?

     Man's Impact on the Ecology of Africa". 1975, (see

     Monographiae Biologicae, vol. 26)

     

     for a very interesting read, take a look at M. N. Cohen, THE

     FOOD CRISIS IN PREHISTORY, 1975.

EQUALITY DEMANDS SOME EQUAL SHARING OF RESPONSIBILITIES

I am sympathetic to special considerations, like that of some LOCAL autonomy, self-policing, local administration, etc. being given to indigenous peoples. However, I also believe that some values are too important to make them merely optional or local. There are some universal principles of justice or preferred ways of living that we ought to defend and promote. For instance, autonomy if preferable to slavery, equalitarianism is preferable to grievous inequity, education is preferable to enforced ignorance, compassion is preferable to cruelty, etc. One day, our better treatment of non-human animals will also be more widely recognized to be one of our preferred human possibilities.