The Company Spokesman Tells Us Tamarack is Unpublishable and Proceeds to Ape His Writing Enough So That We Can See Why

Now we ask you: Would you ever want to be in a Clan with these guys? See any women or children or elders in this "Clan"? No, we don't either, and there must be many a good reason why women certainly stay the hell away from these racist losers. No wonder he is talking about "Clans" with a disembodied, alienated e-group. Too much time on the Internet might also explain why these jokers are so pale.

Martin wrote:

"I'm now reading "Journey to the Ancestral Self" and in the texts Tamarack often refers to book II and III. Where can i find them? I have all his books (or actually one book and the rest is more like booklets) but they are not in any special sequence of what i can see."


To: teaching_drum@yahoogroups.com
From: redwolfreturns@teachingdrum.org
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 13:20:42 -0600
Subject: Re: [Teaching_Drum] What books?

Hey Martin, Books II and III noted in Journey to the Ancestral Self have not been published as it’s indicated that they would be. Basically all the booklets currently self-published by the school are what would have
made up book II, and all of Tamarack's skills articles (such as have been published in Wilderness Way down through the years) would have made up book III.

As for your questions about Tribes and Clans, a number of us here on the egroup have been discussing this issue lately, and it's an important one. I'd like to hear other folks input on this question based upon their own understanding so far. My understanding right now is that when Old Way hunter-gatherers say "the people" they mean all the people (I've heard that in some native languages use of this term extends even beyond what we in our culture would think of as our own species -- thus "the people" includes the deer people, the bear people, the ant people, etc.).

This is reflected in how the language works. For instance "Lakota" translated into english means "the people (and "the people" in english translates into "Lakota"). The groups neighboring the Lakota have the same basic word, but with slight variations, so you get "Dakota" and "Nakota" as regional dialects. If a "Lakota" travels far away and meets a "Dakota" they recognize they are both related and are speaking the same language, just with slightly different pronunciations.

In a balanced old-way landscape (such as in pre-contact Australia, for instance) people would live their whole lives surrounded by kin relationships that extended far out into distant peoples who spoke the same language, just with progressively divergent pronunciations the farther one traveled from where one was born. These far-reaching extended kinship networks were very important, and would be relied upon in times when scarcity (for instance, due to drought) came to any one region. At such times people would disperse into areas not affected by the drought or whatever might have caused the scarce times.

Literally, a person who grows up in such a world lives in a reality where everyone they are likely to meet is related to them closely enough that the relationship can be traced, and thus they come to expect that anyone they might meet would of course be related to them – eventually it becomes incomprehensible that anyone they would meet might not be related to them. This is our natural way of thinking, and it is the truth of the matter on the deepest level of our relationships, anyway.

The notion that we are not all related is largely an illusion created by cities (i.e. places were large densities of people are placed in constantly rushed, impersonal, and yet close contact) and the stories we tell ourselves as a culture.

Clan relationships are the connectedness which characterizes native life and which the people draw upon in the times of scarcity as noted above. Clans are natural kinships between people who share a special connection to an animal (or plant, or insect, or rock) guide or “dodem”. The relationship of each person with their dodem is ultimately personal.

This relationship is a deep heart-connection to the spirit of an animal, (plant, rock, etc.,) and a person traveling far from the place of his birth would recognize people of the same clan as brothers and sisters even if they spoke entirely different languages and looked very different from each other (i.e. even if our culture would determine them to be of different races). Our culture might even view clan relationships as “genetic”, however, they are ancestral on a much deeper level than our distinction as a species. Clan affiliation would seem then (again, at least to people of our culture) to be an essentially spiritual relationship, however, in the Old-Way, no such distinctions exist – clan merely is what it is.

As far as I’ve been able to find out, no distinction is made between "our people" and "their people" until domestication comes into the people's lives (either among themselves or among their neighbors). Tribal consciousness tends to emerge among horticultural or pastoral people living with domesticated plants and animals, or sometimes among to hunter-gatherers experiencing severe pressure on the frontiers of civilization.

Other major contributing factors to the tribal myth are the cultural prejudices and agendas of the civilized folks on the frontier (from whom much of our cultural perspective on natives comes). Western civilized folks simply cannot comprehend a people with no us-vs.-them consciousness. This is because such consciousness is foundational to the stories we tell ourselves about the world and therefore how we interact with the world. In many cases, even if no Old-Way person ever told a western anthropologist that he lived in a “tribe”, the anthropologist would assume so anyway. In addition to this, it was in the best interests of a conquering people to foster divisions between Old-Way peoples for the purpose of dividing and conquering. One can see this illustrated in how Europeans frequently went to great lengths to draw natives into divisive alliances in both inter-European wars and European wars of conquest against native peoples themselves.

Thanks for your question Martin, hope this helps,

wild peace,
Glenn