by mannytheseacow » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:52 pm
I was traveling in Hawaii several years ago and happened into a used book store. I was studying the spread of civilization through Asia and into Alaska and Polynesia and got chatting with the store owner about the similarities in Polynesian art and Native American art in the Pacific Northwest. We ended up discussing our particulars and it turns out that this guy was in the process of opening another used book shop.... in my town. 65 degrees away on the planet. What are the odds?
Anyway, long-story-short... I walked out of there with a couple of books that day. One on Gary Snyder's travels through India, and a book on the ethnology of the Koyukuk in Alaska. The final paragraph of that second book contained one of the most powerful text which I have ever read:
"We often remember ancient or traditional cultures for the monuments they have left behind- the megaliths of Stonehenge, the temples of Bankok, the pyramids of Teotihuacán, the great ruins of Machu Picchu. People like the Koyukon have created no such monuments, but they have left something that may be unique- greater and more significant as a human achievement. This legacy is the vast land itself, enduring and essentially unchanged despite having supported human life for countless centuries. Koyukon people and their ancestors, bound to a strict code of morality governing their behavior toward nature, have been the land's stewards and caretakers. Only because they have nurtured it so well does this great legacy of land exist today." - Richard Nelson, Make Prayers to the Raven.
"Knowledge is power. Arm yourself."