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  • From: John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: indigenous knowledge
  • Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 22:25:17 -0800 (PST)


Aloha,

One in a hundred works both ways...there will be at least 1 in 100 in
any culture who will give or sell any given 'secret' to 'outsiders'...

...besides, larger systems (cultural/ecological) are much more diverse
than the thread would indicate. The health and fate of the world's
people does not hang on this one person's choice as to how to steward
her knowledge.

Others, both there and everywhere else, have equivalent (though not
necessarily identical) knowledge (if they've bothered to learn/preserve
it - if not, it's not her responsibility to correct their error);
different medicinal plants that serve similar functions grow in
different parts of the world. Let's name all the ancient - and recent
- cultures we can that never had any local medicinal plants of their
own and had to steal them all from someone/somewhere else... ;-)

It's entirely possible (and I would say typical) for any given culture
to be 'wiser' (than other cultures) in some ways and 'stupider' in
others. The challenge is to hold both possibilities at once, and not
insist that a given culture (or person) is all one or the other. We're
all a combo of noble and ignorant, wise and foolish...though none of us
so far have been wise enough to avoid overpopulating in the long run...
:-o


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
--------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Food - Shelter - Community
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

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  • Re: indigenous knowledge, John Schinnerer, 01/09/2002

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