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 his is but the briefest of overviews of an interesting period in our collective history. Later mythologies show signs of their inceptions in this era. The river goddesses, so important in Irish cosmology, were almost certainly evoked into being during this time. The hazel-nut and the salmon, two of the most important food sources for these forebears, would become potent symbols of wisdom down through the ages and to be held in reverence by some of us even to this day. Animism through the anthropomorphizing9 of animals began in foraging cultures. Though from multi-cultural studies it seems that this was initially to help predict animal behavior during the hunt and had no specific religious significance. Though there was occasional inter-tribal violence,10 something I chose not to explore here, this transitional period of human culture seems to have been fairly peaceful. Despite their way of life having some impact on the land, it was still minimal in comparison to what would come as agriculture and animal domestication made it's influence felt in the woodlands of Europe. Who were these people? How did they live and die? What songs did they sing? What did they celebrate? Good questions for which there are no answers. How did individuals see themselves in relation to their tribe, to the animals and plants with which they shared the world? Did they recognize their kinship with all things or had they already begun to carry the tenet of separation that would follow in the wake of the plow? Were the forests and shores their garden or had they already begun to see them as their descendants would; as dark threatening places in need of taming? Until very recently our distant ancestors were seen as little else than dirt grubbing barbarian savages. It was, and still is, a widely held belief that only with the development of agriculture did "primitive" people "evolve" into civilized, sophisticated, human beings. From the time that humans began to rely on planted seeds and domesticated animals there has been what we could term an aggressive need to convert or destroy non-agricultural people. There are many interesting issues in this cultural clash and I would recommend the books "Nature and Madness" and "Coming Home to the Pleistocene" by Paul Shepard as "must reads" to anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the ramifications of this important transition in our collective history. Fortunately these seed-centric11 attitudes are beginning to change and more respect is being afforded foraging cultures past and present. The combined work of archaeologists, anthropologist and ethnographers is bringing to light the undeniable truth that these people had a rich, pre-dominantly egalitarian, sophisticated society whose basic tenets were sharing, cooperation and walking lightly upon the land. It would seem to me that given the strange fruit the agricultural and industrial revolutions have brought forth, it would serve us all well to seek the wisdom of the foragers rather than attempting to make them over in our image. |
