Goatwalking. - book reviews

Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1991 by Richard Nilsen

Jim Corbett is a leader of the sanctuary movement that brought the plight of political refugees from the Central American killing fields to national attention a decade ago. This book eventually tells part of that story, but it gets there by following o very strange path - the author's life. Corbett appears to be a walking contradiction: a southern-Arizona cowboy who prefers goats and the life of a pastoral nomadic, a Quaker who is also o member of the National Rifle Association. He has written an autobiographical sermon, dense in places, lucid in others, about how to live the good life in an ethical sense.

He's a grizzly old master, and doesn't let anyone off the hook with a convenient answer, least of all himself. In this age of weaseling amorality, reading this book is like being hit with a bucket of cold water You can look up midway and say, "Gee, if it hadn't been for our imperialist Cold War government always backing the wrong side in Central America, none of this would ever have happened." And there will be corbett - like Mr. Natural - showing you THAT'S NOT THE POINT. By its very nature, any government limits human freedom, with individual action and ethical choice always hanging in the balance.

Goatwalking would make a fascinating text to base an introductory government course on, because it fans out in so many directions, as Corbett gathers a lifetime's experience and shapes his actions with that wisdom. Here ore dissertations about what those desert nomads were up to in the Old Testament, about what the Buddha thought, what Gandhi thought, and how that is different from what Soul Alinsky thought. Corbett also considers Hobbes, locke and, most importantly, Don Quixote. This is a Philosophical book about political tactics that is also a desert survival guide. And it is a book about goats; not since David MacKenzie's classic Goat Husbandry have I encountered anyone who gets inside their heads the way Corbett does.

The goat is the natural emblem of anarchy. It is the most adaptable pastoral animal, and pastoral nomadism remains the only form of livelihood that permits subjugated communities to walk away from the state. Quick-witted, social. and educable, with a capacious, high-speed digestive system, a thorn-chewing mouth, cliff-climbing hooves, and a relatively undiscriminating appetite for low-grade roughage, goats thrive on a wider range of plants and in more varied terrain than any other large herbivorous mammal. On range where other domesticated animals would starve, goats often provide both milk and meat for their human partners. Because goats will readily admit human beings into herd membership, they con be managed and moved without fences, corrals, hobbles, tethers, or any of the other mechanical devices used to control other livestock. From the Alps to the Empty Quarter, Java to Baja, with the goat as a partner, human beings con support themselves in most wildland environments.

Goats' dislike for water can be used as a quick, painless way to impose discipline; the herder wets his fingers and flicks a few drops at the offender, who will then immediately back away. Goats soon learn that a flick of the hand means "back off and behave yourself" and will respond without being sprinkled. This is also an effective way to teach them what to leave clone in camp.

Before the age of fossil fuels, pastoral nomads enjoyed the strategic advantages now associated with guerrillas. More mobile than any other human society and having no fixed bases to defend, they could choose the time and place for attack and, if necessary, retreat indefinitely without sacrifice. Militarily, all of their attention and resources could be devoted to attack, because escape substituted for defense.

The Saguaro-Juniper Covenant ... includes the following "bill of rights for the land":

1. The land has a right to be free of human activity that accelerates erosion.

2. Native plants and animals on the land have a right to life with a minimum of human disturbance.

3. The land has the right to evolve its own character from its own elements without scarring from construction or the importation of foreign objects dominating the scene.

4. The land has a preeminent right to the preservation of its unique or rare constituents and features.

5. The land, its waters, rocks, and minerals, its plants and animals, and their fruits and harvest have a right never to be rented, sold, extracted, or exported as mere commodities.

Goatwalking Jim Corbett, 1991; 237 pp.

$19.95 ($21.95 postpaid) from Viking Penguin/cash Soles, 120 Woodbine Street, Bergenfield, NJ 07621; 800/253-6476 (or Whole Earth Access)