Appetite for Destruction: Indigenous Americans knew how to avoid starvation

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/appetite-destruction

by pepys • 4 years ago

60 61 4 years ago

dieselgate3• 4 years ago

What a great article if not for only the context of what Native populations of the American northeast would eat! Boiled horse hoof is making me laugh because it sounds horrendous, but hey don’t know til you try. I also got a kick out of the woman saying something like “first week captive I couldn’t eat, second week I ate a little, third week everything tasted amazing”. Of course the Native population knew how to eat well and had an incredibly diverse food system! Even Native people in comparatively extreme (elevation/desert etc) environments like modern Mexico City or the American southwest (and beyond) thrived.

RajT88• 4 years ago

The early settlers, as they point out, also had a far more diverse diet than we do now. In fact, they (partly) ate passenger pigeons out of existence.

It seems to me that China still has this kind of diversity somehow. Going to a large Chinese supermarket is dizzying in the variety of vegetables, dried fungus, seaweed, spices, etc. on display. I wish I knew more about it, and how they maintained that diverse food culture.

corrral2• 4 years ago

In fact, they (partly) ate passenger pigeons out of existence.

Mann's 1491 suggests this may be a myth, as passenger pigeon remains are nearly non-existent in native refuse piles, so they don't seem to have been a normal part of their diet (at least, before contact). Rather, he paints both their incredible abundance and subsequent demise as consequences of contact with Europe: the boom in the passenger pigeon population may have been a sign of an ecosystem experiencing a catastrophe, resulting from large areas of cultivated land falling out of use as entire cities were depopulated by disease, causing a temporary but enormous increase in easy, available calories for animals positioned to take advantage of it, and of course their decline and extinction is entirely a post-contact event.

[EDIT] I misread you as having written that the native people contributed to the demise of the pigeons, but I think the info's still broadly relevant so I'll let the post stand.

kennend32• 4 years ago

"I wish I knew more about it, and how they maintained that diverse food culture."

My ex-wife is Chinese and I might be able to assist a bit.

China is a massive country and each province has their own "special dishes".

For the Chinese out there reading this - you can guess where she's from when i tell you their speciality is "Guìlín mǐfěn"

Anyhow, when you go to a large Chinese grocery store in North America you are looking at the fruits, vegetables, etc from a large number of provinces.

So if someone from Guangxi goes there for Hot Peppers they can find it. If someone else is looking to make Peking duck can find what they need as well.

Back in China, someone from Guangxi wouldn't be making a lot of Peking duck...

Hope this helps?

kurupt2132• 4 years ago

pigeons are delicious

bergenty3• 4 years ago

A lot of people eat slow cooked goat hooves and it’s absolutely delicious, probably my favorite part of the goat. There’s plenty of meaty fat on the feet and lots of delicious bone marrow. The soup is always very rich because of the fat. Maybe horse hooves are similar?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paya_(food)

dieselgate3• 4 years ago

I believe it thanks for chiming in! When you say “slow cooked” it certainly has more appeal. Oh gosh now I’m curious

pvaldes3• 4 years ago

(Hey, want a laugh? lets give the worse bits to the prisoner to see if he vomits)

itsoktocry• 4 years ago

Indigenous survival methods have persisted, like their keepers, for hundreds of years against invasion, disease, and ecological catastrophe. Colonizers could learn a great deal from Indigenous resilience...

I find interpretations like this strange. Sure, there's lots to learn from cultures of all kinds, and it's particularly relevant to hear from Natives of NA if we're talking about North American agriculture.

But there's an implication that the European colonizers bumbled their way through history, as if they didn't face and overcome their own issues with starving populations. I think it's objective fact that Europeans have been quite resilient themselves, being as how they managed to settle most of the planet.

tchalla• 4 years ago

I think it's objective fact that Europeans have been quite resilient themselves, being as how they managed to settle most of the planet.

I am sure you would notice the difference of resilience pointed out by the article in comparison to the European world wide "settling" resilience.

bergenty3• 4 years ago

This is a straw man that you proposed and then go on to refute. No one is implying Europeans didn’t face challenges and “bumbled through history”.

Saying colonizers could learn a lot is sort of what ended up happening anyways, especially in the early days of colonization where plenty of skills to survive in a brand new continent came from the natives.

kennend32• 4 years ago

I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion this is a "straw man"?

Did you read the article?

his comment was directly copied from it :

"Colonizers could learn a great deal from Indigenous resilience, as we all confront a twenty-first century that feels hauntingly like the seventeenth: beset by violence, disease, hatred."

By stating they could learn a great deal does imply they "bumbled along".

It also isn't very accurate as there was a lot of technology sharing at the start of things. The FN shared a great deal with the newcomers on how to survive here.

yakak2• 4 years ago

The earliest settlers were really quite elite and many probably never had to feed themselves in adverse circumstances in Europe. The later larger waves of migration were big scale and financed such that they were recruiting people who didn't have a lot of capital and would know how to feed themselves in adverse circumstances.

vorpalhex2• 4 years ago

The earliest settlers were poor religious folks, criminals and some business people, along with trappers and hunters.

Not exactly "elite".

tomjakubowski• 4 years ago

Even if one group is more robust than another, they may still exchange novel strategies that strengthen both.

rory• 4 years ago

Exactly, and it's clear that cultural exchange has already been quite strong in the European->Indigenous American direction, so it's interesting to see what we could learn in the other direction.

The article isn't helping itself with some its quasi-historical editorializations, though. "Indigenous Americans knew how to avoid starvation. Colonists were too hungry to notice" isn't exactly a balanced view of the history.

chasil• 4 years ago

Resilient, but a bit wasteful.

Acorns can be ground into flour and used if food, if the tannins are removed. We have never collected this resource in the U.S. in my living memory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn#Culinary_use

I saw a video recently where a woman prepared a feast described in a 200-year-old cookbook. One of the recipes called for fruit set in horse hoof jelly. She said that she used regular gelatin, as the recipe would otherwise have a strong taste of beef.

I think that many unconventional foods sustained our ancestors, and we have forgotten them for a variety of reasons.

vorpalhex2• 4 years ago

Eating acorns can also kill you if not prepared properly - and it's hard to know if they are prepared properly. Tannins will make you shit blood and mess up your digestion.

Even if you do get rid of them, you are left with a pretty bitter nut.

nradov• 4 years ago

The traditional European approach was to let pigs eat the acorns, then eat the pigs. Pork tastes better and has a superior nutritional profile compared to bread made from acorn flour.

Volundr• 4 years ago

I think that many unconventional foods sustained our ancestors, and we have forgotten them for a variety of reasons.

Insects is the most notable example of this. Pretty much every culture availed themselves insects as a ready source of protein, but now many would be utterly shocked by the suggestion.

riffraff• 4 years ago

Acorns taste bad according to all accounts, which is why people don't generally eat them, until famine arrives.

MichaelCollins• 4 years ago

Popular culture likes to praise Native Americans for using every part of the animals they killed, but it simultaneously vilifies the modern food processing that does the same, e.g. deriding hotdogs for being made out of pig anuses.

It's a strange incongruity. Not letting an animal go to waste after you've killed it is good, I firmly believe that. Why should it be framed as a bad thing in modern contexts, while it's widely acknowledged as good in the context of another culture a century or so ago?

Incidentally, "regular gelatin" is still made out of animal feet/etc unless you go out of your way to get vegetable gelatin. So this is another way our society still makes use of the full animal but without really appreciating it.

nineplay• 4 years ago

It feels a bit patronizing frankly, like it defies otherwise low expectations of indigenous Americans to find out that they know how to feed themselves under difficult circumstances. The comparison to the colonizers boils down to "people who have lived somewhere for a long time know more about it than recent arrivals".

onetimeusename• 4 years ago

I've read different accounts of the alleged Thanksgiving dinner that Americans celebrate. Popularly we are told that it was a dinner to celebrate the Native Americans who came to help Pilgrims who arrived to survive a harsh winter and grow food.

However, other accounts suggest that the dinner was celebrated as an alliance between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag who were at war with other tribes such as the Narragansett.

I mention this because I have read accounts that the Pilgrims knew how to do agriculture fairly well and that disease was the culprit of many deaths. I think it is somewhat strange to assume that any colonists who arrived did not know anything about agriculture. Especially because English colonies had already been set up further to the north than Plymouth Colony prior to the arrival of the Mayflower. I am not an expert in this topic though. But it feels like this is an extremely contentious topic that has been heavily politicized.

kurupt2132• 4 years ago

this other account sounds like the american way

ricksunny• 4 years ago

I don't think 'knowing how to do agriculture fairly well' was the distinguishing factor in growing enough to survive first winter in a new land.

I'd like to hear firsthand agriculturalists / agronomists on this. But heading into your first winter in a new climate with an unfamiliar crop (maize would like to say hello) , unfamiliar soil, make the likelihood of growing enough foodstuffs to store to last the winter a proposition fraught with risk indeed.

notlukesky• 4 years ago

Here is an account that is taught at the college level at many schools in America:

https://tlio.org.uk/1637-pequot-massacre-%E2%80%8Bthe-real-s...

gwbas1c5• 4 years ago

But there's an implication that the European colonizers bumbled their way through history, as if they didn't face and overcome their own issues with starving populations. I think it's objective fact that Europeans have been quite resilient themselves, being as how they managed to settle most of the planet.

At least when it comes to the Americas, the reason why the Europeans became dominant was mostly luck and genetics: American Indians (and the Siberians they descended from) don't have the genetics to fight European disease. Where European death rates from Smallpox are around 1/3rd, for American Indians it's at 90%.

Otherwise, compared to Europe, American Indians typically had a better diet and better hygiene.

mongrelion2• 4 years ago

Two things:

1. I think a much appropriate term to use here is Native American instead of American Indians.

2. I disagree with your statement "the reason why the Europeans became dominant was mostly luck and genetics". I do agree that the disease brought by the Europeans played a very important role in the whole colonization effort but mostly it was violence the main driver. Saying otherwise is just downplaying the genocide.

somenameforme• 4 years ago

I think technology made dominance inevitable. Many other issues, including disease and internal conflicts, absolutely accelerated the pace of victory but consider the technology. You're looking at steel weapons/armor, gunpower/firearms/cannons, crossbows, and horses against unarmored unmounted opposition equipped with basic stone instruments and simple bows.

corrral2• 4 years ago

An aid for anyone else who found the usage "knowledges" unfamiliar and distracting:

Knowl"edge (?), n.

2. That which is or may be known; the object of an act of knowing; a cognition; -- chiefly used in the plural.

There is a great difference in the delivery of the mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges. Bacon.

Knowledges is a term in frequent use by Bacon, and, though now obsolete, should be revived, as without it we are compelled to borrow "cognitions" to express its import. Sir W. Hamilton.

To use a word of Bacon's, now unfortunately obsolete, we must determine the relative value of knowledges. H. Spencer.

- Webster's 1913

I figured it was some probably-from-critical-theory-because-aren't-they-always liberal-artsism, but looks like it's just an unusual-bordering-on-archaic sense.

claudiawerner2• 4 years ago

I figured it was some probably-from-critical-theory-because-aren't-they-always liberal-artsism, but looks like it's just an unusual-bordering-on-archaic sense.

I don't think that's correct (and the age of the dictionary quoted probably isn't helping); if you search Google Scholar for "knowledges", even since the year 2000 you get about 85,000 results. It's a term of art in sociology and anthropology fields, and marginally within philosophy too. It points to multiple understandings of the world which are disparate enough to be their own 'system' of knowledge; multiple such systems are known as knowledges.

chis• 4 years ago

This article is such an odd mix of interesting Native American facts and overwrought critical theory. Mostly makes me want to go read the actual source (Sovereignty and Goodness of God).

I always wonder if the academics writing this stuff actually believe it or whether they start by writing a normal essay and then throw in all the critical theory stuff at the end so it can get published.

akamaka• 4 years ago

I think the problem is simply in the varying writing skills of academics. Of course they need to take into consideration current theory and political viewpoints if they want their work to be relevant. But it takes an unusually skilled writer to weave theory and facts into a compelling story.

claudiawerner2• 4 years ago

It's interesting how "critical theory" is used as a prejorative not only going on a hunch, but also that the very use of it degrades the quality of any article without question. Personally I've come to enjoy quite a lot of work which many would categorize under 'critical theory' and a lot of work which many would mistakenly categorize under 'critical theory' simply due to the topics covered.

taeric• 4 years ago

To be fair, the complaint is against "overwrought" critical theory.

A critical eye is important. It can also be overdone.

RappingBoomer• 4 years ago

yeah, what started out as a good piece of writing devolved into a dogmatic narrative

rdtsc• 4 years ago

throw in all the critical theory stuff at the end so it can get published.

It’s how it was done in the Soviet Union. You’d read a cooking recipe book and there might be some paragraph about serving the party’s goal or other stuff like.

The personal beliefs were more cynical towards the later years and it was done mostly to appease censors or gain a few virtue points with peers and superiors.

Here it could be the same. Write whatever, but make sure to insert a few critical theory du-jour points just in case.

causality0• 4 years ago

Indigenous survival methods have persisted, like their keepers, for hundreds of years against invasion, disease, and ecological catastrophe.

That would depend on the people in question. The list of indigenous tribes who wiped themselves out by destroying their environment is extensive. The Maya, the Anasazi, Easter Islanders, the Nazca, and countless more we'll never know about.

WalterBright3• 4 years ago

From what I've read about the archaeological evidence of bones, Indigenous peoples suffered from famine now and then.

colechristensen• 4 years ago

What weird patronizing tone.

Indigenous Americans knew how to avoid starvation. Colonists were too hungry to notice.

What's the point, civilization(s) that lived off the local land were better at subsisting in difficult situations than people from a different continent not very familiar with local food sources?

An exposition of native foods contrasting with colonial foods could be interesting but it's wrapped up in weird reverence and arguing against a centuries old idiot.

lazide• 4 years ago

The trope you’re identifying is the ‘noble savage’.

WalterBright3• 4 years ago

as we all confront a twenty-first century that feels hauntingly like the seventeenth: beset by violence, disease, hatred.

The 17th century was far, far worse off with violence, disease, and hatred. Life expectancy was short in those days.

bslorence• 4 years ago

In the early seventeenth century, for example, the French Jesuit missionary Pierre Biard complained that the Wabanaki did not have to work hard enough to feed themselves ... “Had he ever gone fishing…? Gathered nuts, or berries deep in thorns and mosquitoes? Ever tracked a deer through snow, skinned a rabbit…?”

Huh. Seems probable that an early 17th-century missionary to North America knew a little bit about roughing it, maybe even more than the OP's poet... who also seems to have missed his point. Here's something he actually said:

"They are never in a hurry. Quite different from us, who can never do anything without hurry and worry; worry, I say, because our desire tyrannizes over us and banishes peace from our actions." [1]

[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46218/46218-h/46218-h.htm#XI...

pvaldes3• 4 years ago

The myth of the good savage that lives in harmony with the nature

... after, ahum, erasing a third of the megafauna of North America with their ecological and wise techniques 13000 years ago

Same as natives did in South America 11000 years ago.

And same as Australians did 30000 years ago in the rainforested Australia

And same as Africans did in the green land of thousand lakes, Sahara

And the same thing as Europeans did in Europe

Lets face it, we all are complete morons in that sense. Every culture by equal.

Hey a winter without gas could be coming!, lets set fire to the forests in half Europe this summer so we don't have neither gas nor wood in winter!.

dqpb• 4 years ago

I would bet it’s pretty common for people to know how to feed themselves in their indigenous land, and struggle in a foreign land.

xchip• 4 years ago

Typical article that could have been 2 tweets but the inflated it to make it 3 pages. They did a good job by scattering the answer all over the place.

This is becoming a classic.

Appetite for Destruction: Indigenous Americans knew how to avoid starvation

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