I think I need to point out here that most of the Cree (northern canadian amerindians) still tend trap lines that are handed down in their bloodlines. Boys learn at fathers and uncles knees "their" trapping territory. This is mostly done mostly for subsistance and only secondly for commerce. You eat the meat and use what furs you need. If you have extra you trade them if there is any demand for them--of course you do because you want to use all of the animal, you aren't going to throw away excess fur or hide, are you? And it has been going on for a long, long, time. The nature of the traps may have changed since europeans arrived, but the concepts didn't. The europeans didn't teach the natives how to trap beaver, that had long been happening.
If you have plentiful plant life to gather that provides the majority of your nutrition, then maybe it makes sense to go for the occasional big kill that provides lots of meet. But if you need meat on a regular basis to fill your belly trapping is much more reliable. Rabbits, squirrels, and other large rodent types are usually a much more reliable source of food, unless you spend your life shadowing large herds (The Uncolings (if I remember the name right--the reindeer hsunchen) are the only Gernertelans that I know of that do that without actually herding).
Since Odaylans seems to live more by hunting than by gathering
(unlike most terrestrial bears), I'd assume that the daily rabbit
makes more sense than the periodic deer. Not that deer isn't good
when you can get it, but you don't want to have to rely on it I'd
think. Unless of course the Odaylans actually do much more gathering
of plants than is usually mentioned, something that somehow they tend
to omit from telling anyone else either....
>
> Another is that most trapping animals will have totemic status for
certain
> clans (and for certain Odaylans!), so you can't casually go round
the
> Boldhome markets wearing a mink without risking a beating or worse
from the
> Black Oaks who hold it ancestral and sacred.
I'd think that Odaylans could. "Of course he's dressed in furs, he's an Odaylan. Yes, that is Otter fur, but we know he treated the Otter honorably, so how can we object?"
> Thirdly, such trapping is clearly unsustainable - it survived only
a few
> generations in the US, which is as large as *all* of Genertela, and
> considerable less in Australia (koala pelts etc.) which is just as
large.
As I mentioned above, I think you are off base with this one. I'm not positive about the US, but in Canada of course it is ongoing. Further most of the small animals that you trap breed far more rapidly and plentifully than does larger game. I would think you could support more people per km^2 of land without risk of eliminating species by trapping than by hunting larger game. Of course, naturally you do both. You check the trap lines on a regular basis, and hunt in between.
It
> also goes against the hunting ethic and the decrees of the Lady of
the
> Wild - kill what you need to survive, and no more. Never kill
> indiscriminately etc. -
Who says that trapping involves killing more than you need to survive? It can, just as you can do massive hunts and wipe out entire species. The key is being careful not to deplete the land, much like farmers rotate their crops to prevent the soil from getting depleted.
The only area that I see as being an issue is that if you want to make sure you take the last breath, you need to use live-traps only.
> their temple. For me, there's a gigantic clash of worldviews
implicit in
> commercial trapping. What wilderness worshipper would kill
indiscriminately
> to give pelts to non-kin strangers who have no respect for the
animal?
> Ritual trapping - yes, as previously discussed. Trapping for
clothing for
> you and your kin - yes. But indiscriminate trapping for commercial
gain?
> That's hardly thinking like a mountain.
I don't think the lines are so clear. You eat the meat of everything you take, by trap, bow, or however. You use the bones or horns or sinews of those that have useful such things. You use such hides and furs as are useful and you need. But you need more meat than you need fur. Of _course_ you trade the rest to your kin for things that they have surplus of. And next time you come out of the woods you might see that fur being worn with pride and honor.
I fully agree that an Odaylan wouldn't be trapping huge numbers of animals to bring down stacks of pelts to trade for pointless luxuries. But performing some trapping, and trading off some of the results of that trapping, seems likely.
All just IMO, of course. We may well have read the same description of Odayla and come out with very different fundamental views of their attitudes.
--Bryan
Powered by hypermail