Hunters vs Farmers

Alternatives Journal, Spring, 2002 by Tamara Levine

The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and the Shaping of the World, Hugh Brody, Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2000.

Canadian tourist boutiques are filled with dream catchers, soapstone carvings, moccasins and igloos. However, the Native hunting and gathering cultures that these souvenirs represent have been pushed to the social and physical periphery of our society. This is not unique to Canada. All over the world, hunter-gatherers have endured the taking of their land, language and spirituality.

Today, hunting and gathering is an endangered way of life. Yet these societies provide powerful lessons about the environment, social organization, language and spirituality. Through understanding the values and practices that underlie such cultures, we may be able to build more viable relationships with the natural world and each other.

Hugh Brody's The Other Side of Eden examines the hunter-gatherers' long losing confrontation with agricultural expansion and the persistent differences between the hunter-gatherer and agricultural ways of understanding. Brady, a celebrated anthropologist who has worked in Canada with the Inuit, Innu, Beaver and Nisg'ha, argues that the essential genius of hunter-gatherer cultures is connection to place.

According to Brady, the farmer is plagued by physical and spiritual restlessness caused by a desire to control rather than to be a part of nature. This physical restlessness drives agriculturists to continually expand the margins of their territories into lands that are not being "appropriately managed" by the hunter-gatherers.

Because few hunter-gatherers have permanent homes, they are usually considered nomads. But Brody argues that it is the agriculture-based society that is truly nomadic. Their expanding populations have spread nearly everywhere, he says, overwhelming the relatively stable local communities of hunter-gatherers.

The contrasting hunter-gatherer and farmer views of land use are revealed in language, beliefs and behaviour. Native cultures have myths and legends based on nature. Their language rests on detailed knowledge of natural phenomenon and organisms, and their lifestyle is tied to the land. In contrast, the agricultural need for control and expansion continues to manifest today in languages and traditions that are detached from the natural world.

Brody may be overstating his case a little. In order to emphasize the beauty of societies based on hunting and gathering, he offers an exceedingly bleak image of the agriculturist in a constant struggle for control of the natural world. The contrast with life in traditional hunting and gathering communities - rich in cultural and spiritual tradition, passion - often seems too sharp.

Still, there clearly has been and still is profound conflict between hunter-gatherer cultures and the agendas of control initiated by agriculturalists, and The Other Side of Eden serves as a crucial first step in the quest for greater understanding and cooperation.

Brody's intricate interweaving of trials and tribulations of hunter-gatherer societies with personal stories makes the Other Side of Eden a delight to read and a work of both utility and beauty.

Tamara Levine is in Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo.