Did Native Americans Really Live in Balance with Nature?

[@jamesgilbert124]

Anybody else tired of Andrew stretching the content of his videos to hit that magical 10 minute mark for monetization?

[@IReallyLikeTreessmileyface]

@@jamesgilbert124 I’m not, better than short form content by miles! Plus it’s clearly very well researched so the information is reliable ide think!

[@erissusan8506]

this comment came out of a time machine sent from 2016

[@kraio-sfu]

I know right, who does this guy think he is!

[@PBnBJ]

On 99% of channels I would upvote and agree. I unsubscribe and stop watching channels I like for doing that. This is that 1% where I'm just happy listening and it has never felt stretched.

[@nikkovalidor4890]

hey guys, here for another daily sloprocynical video where i stretch a single tweet to a whole 20 minute video

[@samrobertson7535]

"It's my sleepover that means I get to pick the movie" "But you always pick 'Did Native Americans really live in balance with nature?'"

[@thenoneckpeoplerepresentat8074]

I’m just here for the pillow fight results.

[@kmarech1645]

LOL!

[@imacds]

this comment is me

[@AvgJane19]

I smiled, ty for this comment

[@chrisazure1624]

@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh Mr. Pink wasn't NA, but maybe Mr. Blonde was.

[@surgeland9084]

Having sustainable land use does not make us some sort of fantastical beings. I appreciate you platforming Indigenous voices here as well as a Métis person myself from Saskatchewan. We do try to implement our historical land practices into modern resource extraction but that's because at its core it's a philosophy and a set of traditions; not a magical superpower.

[@podemosurss8316]

That's very cool!

[@edmundmiller70]

Without sustainable land and our resources, we cease to exist.

[@PunishedFelix]

It's "what works" lol.

[@theendoftheworld9921]

It's funny that despite this obvious statement, you'll still find people in these comments arguing that native Americans have been just as harmful to the environment as the industrial revolution

[@Nudhul]

tell that to all the stupid liberals who believe in the noble savage BS

[@AncientAmericas]

Two hours of Native American discussion? What have we done to be so blessed?!

[@IReallyLikeTreessmileyface]

@@AncientAmericas hey! I love your stuff! ❤️

[@warlordofbritannia]

Peace! Ye know well that we art all vvretch’d finnerf, utterlay un-worthee o' God'f Love. A founten o' polution if deep with’n thy nayturr, and thou liveft af a wintrr tree; un-profitable, fit only to be hune doun an’ Burned. Fteep thy lyfe in praer, an’ hoope that God feef fit to fhow mercee up’n thy corrupt’d foul.

[@athena5573]

@@warlordofbritannia deep af

[@theshenpartei]

We are very blessed

[@donaldgetta4707]

I’m happy to see you here. Same thing when Karl from InRange turns up. All of you are good folks

[@sanityimpaired]

There's another important thing people need to know about Keep America Beautiful and the crying indian PSA; it was a lobby group for industries that produced consumer packaging, with the more recognizable companies including Coca Cola, Pepsi, Phillip Morris, and Anheuser-Busch. The entire point was to frame responsibility for the environment onto consumers rather than being held accountable for recycling the packaging they were making. And it worked. The onus for recycling is put almost entirely onto consumers and government, rather than making the companies making the stuff pay to recycle it.

[@tribequest9]

Ugh, makes me sick how out of control with evil deeds companies have gotten

[@weazle-fn4qo]

As a food scientist - I absolutely despise how prevalent the shifting of blame from corporations to consumers is. It’s completely abhorrent.

[@AZ-kr6ff]

No.

[@gambitsheild9814]

Have you ever heard of project mockingbird, or how the food pyramid was largely funded by big grain companies, or how Blackrock and vanguard were deemed to big to fail by the US government, or the twitter files? It's not companies that are primarily at fault. It's widespread government corruption. If it were only companies, this kind of corruption would be much less widespread. It's the fact that government officials are in incestuous relationships with companies. Typically, the government uses taxpayer dollars (taken by government force, I might add) and gives them as a form of "aid" to companies. Said companies then use some of that money in a kickback to politicians, either as bribes or the money going into PACs, which then gets donated to the politicians' campaign funds. While this is common across all party lines it's EXTREMELY common amongst the democrats. The dei, esg, "trans rights", abortion, feminism ect aren't natural and just tools they use to influence the masses.

[@terdragontra8900]

I’m a bit confused how Coca Cola would handle the recycling of their cans, mechanically. Would the consumer have to drop off their cans in specific Coca Cola recycle bins after they’ve drunk it? Would it be illegal for the consumer to throw it in a normal trash can instead? Surely there shouldn’t be individual bins for each company you buy from? Do you just mean, all companies producing products with trash pools their money together, proportional to the volume of trash they make, to pay for recycling in an area?

[@nomisunrider6472]

I'm a California ecologist, and a key factor in our worsening fire season is the fact that many of our ecosystems require regular prescribed burns, which were stopped with European colonization. There's no illusion that the Native Californians were perfect ecologists, they drove several species to extinction, but the simple fact is that if land management strategies are consistent and long-term enough the ecosystem will adapt to it. Stopping the burns was basically the removal of a keystone species.

[@thefreedommovement]

I grew up in the woods in Oregon, and around the mid 90s there were some regulations regarding forestry practices that good intentioned environmentalists put in place. Within a few years the forests were starting to dry up from the excessive vegetation. I do believe the forestry service recognized these practices were creating a dangerous situation, and may have changed the regulations (I have been searching for the actual legal regulations, as I think some changes happened during the years I lived abroad). Anywho, even if these changes in regulation did happen in the 2010s-ish, there was 15 years of overgrowth in ALL the woods surrounding our property, plus our 180 acres… cause we weren’t allowed to do anything to thin it out, or clear cut/back burn fire lines. So… 2020, being the historically awesome year it was, a tiny fire miles away ended up wiping out our place, over half our neighbors, and miles of the surrounding areas. Worst part was that of the 3 trees in our field that survived, one of our neighbors tried to remove some of the burnt limbs so they wouldn’t risk falling and hurting someone… and a limb broke off and crushed him to death. Now days I think back to that law change in the 90s. I was just a teen, but when I heard about the regulation proposal, I thought it sounded wrong. And I didn’t say anything, cause I sounded like an anti-environmentalist who wanted to slaughter the forest to my friends. But… I mean, it’s an ecosystem that humans are a part of. You can’t just remove us entirely :P

[@tribequest9]

I call bullshit considering all the recent mega fires in California.

[@KarlSnarks]

Isn't another huge problem that a lot of East Coast forests contain a lot of trees from one invasive species that dries and burns quickly?

[@thefreedommovement]

@@KarlSnarks I don’t know a whole lot about east coast fauna. Out west we have had a few invasive species, but recently there has been more issues with an invasive insect that is destroying plants/trees, turning them into dead, dry, tinder. I know local forestry services have been doing mass insecticide sprays to mitigate the issue.

[@nomisunrider6472]

@@KarlSnarks Don’t know. Here the problem is black mustard crowding out native grasses when fires happen.

[@GuruJudge21]

Well, they were humans, not fantastical elves.

[@amellirizarry9503]

Not all human societies pollute the same as moder industrial Capitalism though

[@TheBlazzer12]

​@amellirizarry9503 True. Tribal societies throughout the Americas had similar impacts on the environment to tribal societies throughout Europe, Asia (particularly the steppes), and Africa, among other places where humans lived. Settled societies in the Americas, such as the Inca or Maya people, had similar impacts on their environment to settled pre-industrial societies throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, among other places humans have lived. The deciding factor is population density and nomadic/non-nomadic lifestyle. Not ethnicity, culture (at least beyond the nomadic/settled split), or race.

[@breadman32398]

They weren't capable of it. But they certainly would if they could. Environmentalism is mostly a modern concept.

[@LilFeralGangrel]

@@breadman32398 Why would they? Modern ecological degradation happens due to incentive structures not just because of capacity.

[@brendonaldson8056]

@@amellirizarry9503no one is saying that but thinking natives cared is a wild take. Guess you never been to Oregon and seen the huge grasslands they made by burning forests down for generations.

[@bigrigjoe5130]

"Did Native Americans Really Live in Balance with Nature?" 5 Minutes later: "So Sperm Whales can talk to each other."

[@the_newt_nest]

I mean that's just fax

[@fredriksdottir]

Things like this are why I come to Andy's channel.

[@MbisonBalrog]

@@bigrigjoe5130 whales communicate

[@aaroncall2035]

2 min after that we've pretty much almost figured out how to kinda understand them. They're basically humans. How DARE THEY BE HUNTED!!!

[@marocat4749]

Whale songs are pretty famous

[@StarOnTheWater]

I feel like this boils down to "pre-industrial societies were pre-industrial"

[@edmundmiller70]

AHO

[@kireduhai9428]

A deeper statement than the whole video, to be honest.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@kireduhai9428 the video make good sense and was a work of wisdom.

[@user-re9se4iy4o]

It’s not about being industrial or pre industrial, it’s about the level of dependence on natural resources. If a society depends totally or mostly on wild plant and animal products, they are going to care a lot more about the sustainability and longevity of those resources than a society that doesn’t. Although to be fair, a society that depends on wild products can’t be industrialized.

[@theperfectbotsteve4916]

as a native American there is a thing I've learned going out into the world their is a HUGE difference between being native and being a hippe

[@sandrorass890]

What is the difference? (I am non-american, I don't know much about native americans and hippies)

[@leethax100]

​@@sandrorass890well, the whale hunt at the start of this video is a great example. Many native people and even tribal governments are just as, if not more, greedy and exploitative as any sort of local government you would find in the United States. To put it simply, many natives are more stereotypically "American" than Americans themselves. Despotism, cronyism, exploitation, any sort of abuse of power you can imagine sometimes run rampant in native communities. At this point, natives are almost entirely homogenous with American culture, but still have a separate system of self governance for better or for worse. And boy can it be for the worse sometimes.

[@surgeland9084]

Hippies kinda hate us beyond a weird caricature lol

[@Z0MBaY913]

Aho

[@HeatMiserr]

@@leethax100 sad but true

[@plolsteg7705]

The story of a native woman who turns against her tribe’s traditions after befriending a whale is an absolutely perfect movie plot

[@frustrateduser9933]

Only if the whale talks or she can ride it. 🙂

[@kenlandon6130]

Surprised Disney hasn't already made it yet

[@tabbitee]

Well, 'Whale Rider' is kiiiiiinda that.......but also very much not hehe

[@wes1960]

like avatar but the second movie

[@RunawayTrain2502]

@@frustrateduser9933 Wasn't that a story from the Pacific Islands (I forgot the specifics, but yeah...).

[@abbanjo13]

I was worried when I saw that title, that the video would overcorrect the trope of the Ecological Indian and ignore the actual philosophy and land management practices of various nations. Clearly I shouldn't have been doubted. This is a really sober and nuanced analysis of this topic. I really appreciate the reference to Cahokia and the recognition that Eastern woodland societies were like all societies, in that they developed and made choices on that development.

[@edmundmiller70]

AHO It is sad so much culture has disappeared.

[@adventuringwolf8517]

I'll never forget the 4chan story of an American Indian kid who's teacher believed this stereotype. He leveraged this to get time out of the classroom to "connect with nature." I hope that story was real.

[@mudnarchist]

lmfao that's hilarious if true

[@guyman1570]

That's still pretty gross. Racially motivated positivism is no less malicious than racially motivated negativism (or aka the classic racism) even though it's harder to spot the dangers.

[@FringeWizard2]

​@@guyman1570 Racism is good it is realistic and it preserves diversity.

[@Salesman40mm]

@@FringeWizard2I mean, the first half is… not what should be gained from racism, but I guess it does preserve diversity. Never thought of it that way, but I don’t think it’s a good enough reason to call racism “good”.

[@loadishstone]

It’s 4chan. Of course it was made up likely to bait.

[@collyernicholasjohn]

BCE Romans romanticised Britons’ connection with nature.

[@presidenttogekiss635]

They did. They called them mud people.

[@bopndop2347]

Afterall Britons adopted agriculture and then dropped it to be hunter gatherers again

[@marccordoba275]

@collyernicholasjohn can you provide some source or directions to learn about this? I am curious about this topic

[@collyernicholasjohn]

@ Tacitus, Annals, 16.31 & Agricola, 30. Dio Cassius, History of Rome, 62.1-13. Derek Williams, Romans and Barbarians, 1998.

[@wilgefortisohlin568]

⁠@@collyernicholasjohnlook at this absolute chad, citing primary sources in the youtube comments section

[@spinlok3943]

I appreciate the more nuanced look at these issues. I get so bored of the "evil white man vs magical nature hippies" oversimplification of settler vs natives issues. They always ignore the nuances and grey zones and frankly it gets so boring. And yeah, completely agree that the positive stereotype of Native Americans can be just as damaging and racist as the negative stereotypes. I'm glad to see someone point that out.

[@francescosacca6674]

I suppose we need to do at incorporating opposites, because in a sense that's what nature is: both beauty and gore, both competition and cooperation, just to make a couple of examples. What you said is the mirror opposite of "civilized white man vs Savage Nature/Natives" and we're still reeling from the effects of that.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@francescosacca6674 funny.

[@edmundmiller70]

It is important to have some historical understanding. It is equally important to face today's problems as a combined group and not separated by finger pointers.

[@quinnholloway5400]

I honestly think a lot of people end up having a "Noble Savage" view without realizing it when it comes to Native Americans

[@spinlok3943]

@@quinnholloway5400 Yeah that’s very true. Over idealizing them as flawless elves living in harmony with nature and did everything right while white people are characterized as everything wrong with the world.

[@TyrannosaurusRex5027]

Someone who has studied paleontology for years now; the answer is no. Unquestionably indigenous people had a huge impact on the environemnt, we have a well marked mass extinction of megafauna that coincided with the arrival of people entering the environment with good evidence of hunting of these creatures (megafaunal extinction is fought over, but it seems like a combination of animals with a low reproductive rate already vulnerable from a changing climate and in turn a new apex predator). That said, indigenous people were unquestionably better at utilizing the environment without running it into the ground like the large scale industrialization of the 19th,20th, even 21st century. Again though, unquestionably, indigenous people just like any other people controlled their environment in a way that has never been seen before in narural history. They just did it in a different way. Really glad to see this topic get covered in a nuanced and intelligent manner, it certainly deserves a better conversation around it.

[@billbadson7598]

_"That said, indigenous people were unquestionably better at utilizing the environment without running it into the ground like the large scale industrialization of the 19th,20th, even 21st century."_ I think this is a bit misleading. They weren't "better at utilizing the environment," they were just "worse at industrializing." Modern industry is hyper-efficient with resource use compared to any hunter-gatherer people anywhere on earth over its entire history, it's just that it produces at such an immense scale that even the relative efficiency of that production has highly visible waste products. If you took the average hunter-gatherer lifestyle and tried to scale it up to 7 billion people, the waste and ecological impact would be apocalyptic.

[@hotcakesism]

On the other hand, the buffalo herds did not go extinct and there's a lasting ethic among many native American populations of taking in moderation and using animal carcases efficiently. So like another commenter was saying, this could be an example of survivorship bias, or I might attribute the contrast to cultural evolution.

[@Van-Leo]

@@billbadson7598 source? Indigenous werent exclusively hunter gatherer, and what you refer to that as is not that. nomadic and seasonal spaces, living with the land and changing it as much as incorporating themselves into it was the form of many eastern tribes habits. also, it couldnt support 7billion people (we are at 8 now btw). the point isnt to endlessly expand and reproduce, thats a colonialist mind set. the goal isnt to extract the world of everything and own it all, thats how you end up with waste. your argument has no cultural, sociological, or environmental basis to support it other than posing capitalist colonization as the ideal form of humanity and using it as an excuse to call native peopels inferior.

[@Joesolo13]

@@billbadson7598 The waste and ecological impact of our current systems IS apocalyptic for most non-human species, with perhaps minor exceptions for our pet species are scavengers that succeed in cities and suburbs. Many areas are only just getting to the point of building things like wildlife overpasses to allow the surviving tracts of land to connect in a remotely safe way for species divided up by freeways.

[@Van-Leo]

@@hotcakesism the buffalo didnt go extinct, but the white colonizers did try to eradicate them. their conservation efforts today are in response to the eradication of the buffalo populations that were done to perpetuate the systemic genocide of all native peoples on the land. phrasing things this way is dangerous because you may imply that the natives mindlessly hunted without understanding their breeding seasons and migration patterns, or took more than they really needed at the cost of population and their future survival.

[@txanimalguru]

I can’t believe I made it into a video among such much more qualified experts, incredible discussion that needs to be had.

[@ulricmorningstar3524]

You did great work! Don't undercut yourself!

[@AtunSheiFilms]

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!

[@edmundmiller70]

I think we each have interests.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@ulricmorningstar3524 AHO. This guy gives a terrific presentation.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@AtunSheiFilms AHO

[@davidiainmcmahon]

Excellent video. Very interesting & well presented. Hoping to see more like it & glad to see that you continue to make films after finishing CL. All the best from Scotland.

[@edmundmiller70]

Are you aware that the first lawyer to settle in Canada was Scottish? I inherited that history in form of documentation which I currently labor to assemble, I can appreciate Scotland where everybody can be addressed, "Sir.". For the sake of independence, I'd be a bit Pict. I believe Scotland must be beautiful.

[@summbuddie9120]

@@edmundmiller70please don’t have a biscuit tin version of Scotland in your head

[@edmundmiller70]

@@summbuddie9120 as a historian I feel Scotland is a nice land, but it wasn't enough for immigrants urged to come here by England; as the first lawyer to reside in North America was a Scott. I have nothing against them. We just avoid everyone because we seek a germ free environment. Actually, Stein the first lawyer and Englidew were related. They are guest. We reside here.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@summbuddie9120 I actually studied Scottish history. They are descendants of Pictish. Interesting people. I personally relate better to Ireland. Engledo. Most people are nice to me.

[@summbuddie9120]

@@edmundmiller70 I’m Scottish, I’m in contention with the idea that we all refer to people as ‘sir’.

[@nebulan]

I always figured that Native American sustainability was because of survivorship bias. The practices that were consistent and stable when the Europeans arrived were the ones that survived thousands of years. We know there were several that weren't sustainable, like mammoth and giant sloth hunting.

[@warlordofbritannia]

I can never forgive them for refusing me the opportunity to hug a wooly mammoth.

[@nebulan]

​@@warlordofbritanniaI'm sad I'll never get to ride a glyptodon

[@Yourmumsrectum]

Yeah but mammoth and gaint sloth where already on the way down man they would have survived the climate shift that happened anyway

[@ecta9604]

@@YourmumsrectumI used to think this too but it’s just not true. Megafauna worldwide had weathered all sorts of climactic changes just fine (often extremely intense changes, more intense than the ones that coincided with their extinction), and their extinctions track extremely well with the expansion of Homo Sapiens. The relationship between the two is really well-established. Still though - if over the next 15,000 years our society causes only *as many extinctions* as humans caused over the previous 15,000, we can count ourselves and our ecosystems extremely fortunate.

[@Abcdefg-tf7cu]

​@@ecta9604 Whil I agree that megafauna surviving into the modern day is plausible, I don't think the giant ground sloth would be one of them. A sloth that can't climb sounds like an evolutionary dead end to me.

[@DarthMatusHolocron]

Your research on this one was spot on. Wado, from a Cherokee man. Not enough people approach this subject critically and with a check for bias. I especially agree with the end. Ive been arguing for a while that native Nations need to be responsive to growth and change and adaptation to the modern world if we are to survive. I feel that message often gets drowned out, but its a very important one. Wado, oginalii

[@mwolfe2022]

Cherokee... as yes. The favorite of pretendians and the most well known ethnically non-indigenous of the tribes. Let me guess, out of 64 gggggg-grandparents 1 was actually Native American?

[@DarthMatusHolocron]

@mwolfe2022 Tsitsalagi. Nigolagvna usdi

[@loadishstone]

@@mwolfe2022silent all of a sudden boo

[@georgetrusty7696]

Unfortunately with some of the tribes there's too many five dollar Indians dudes that look like Justin Timberlake in Russell Means

[@DarthMatusHolocron]

@@georgetrusty7696 my dude this happens literally every time. Any time I mention my Nation I have to deal with people coming out the woodwork to hurl slurs like pretendian and worse my way. A lot of it comes from other indigenous people too, for no other reason besides the name of my Nation.

[@Stoneworks]

Second time finishing this. Probably my favorite video of yours so far, digging deep into the complexity of something in a relatively morally neutral stance >>>>>>> It's always super frustrating to talk with people who aren't clued into how they're stereotyping indigenous people on either side of the aisle, especially when they clearly wouldn't even be interested in seeing them as complex people. The length and complexity of this video may keep the uninterested from fully engaging, but we have a lot more in our arsenal to talk with them about it. I'd never heard of the Makah whale hunt affair before this

[@edmundmiller70]

I only vaguely remember. It is sad that US and other countries forget we are still people. I understand the complexities.

[@Myname8315]

What happened to the bison and the dodo

[@edmundmiller70]

He has a deep concentration of subject matter to comprehend.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@Myname8315 all were exterminated by Europeans.

[@stewiebalew6446]

I really appreciate that this isn't just regurgitated Wikipedia articles. The depth of research is refreshing to me. Thank you.

[@zainmudassir2964]

I'm sure some KZbin channels like Simon Whistler will steal his content for 'Native American facts' vids

[@methanedirigible]

@@zainmudassir2964 That Simon Whistler bloke needs to be stopped.

[@404_nowheresnotfound3]

@@methanedirigibleagreed.

[@jospinner1183]

I really loved the collection of people that he interviewed within the video. This is an area where modern natural science, history, and Indigenous culture mix in a way that can be a challenge so it's vital that we hear from experts in many fields.

[@edmundmiller70]

AHO

[@glenmorrison8080]

33:26 Botanist here. This is remarkably well stated. This is it. It's not that they are little decision-making, personality-having, animal-like beings, but they aren't inert either. I get tired of people getting too mystical and overblown in discussing this developing understanding of how plants and fungi process stimuli.

[@travislyonsgary]

Mm plant blindness is a whole issue. So much interesting discoveries on memory in plants recently and complex interactions of microbial communities within the rhizhosphere

[@jospinner1183]

Hail and well-met, fellow botanist! I was also delighted when he mentioned (albeit as a side-note) the new knowledge scientists are accumulating regarding various symbiotic relationships among plants and fungi (and various other microbes). I was even more tickled when he discussed how wide-ranging and intensive the Indigenous modification of Eastern North America was. As a forest ecologist in the SE, it's something we discuss a lot, particularly when determining what counts as a "natural" plant community, potentially one needing conservation management.

[@jospinner1183]

@@travislyonsgary Yes, plant blindness is a real thing and it's particularly pernicious among a lot of conservationists, actually. Humans have more in common with other animals, particularly mammals and birds, and it's easy to drum up sympathy for those who are endangered by human actions. The plants that those animals absolutely _rely_ on tend to be viewed as the background, or what I call the "green wall" when I teach my field botany students. Even worse, as people stay indoors more often and are less inclined to explore nature, it feels like this gulf between how we value animals and how we value plants has been widening. I'm not sure how to bridge that gap beyond improving science education in school, though US public schools barely have enough funding to semi-function, never mind establish an experiential ecology curriculum involving time in the field.

[@edmundmiller70]

they may be our ancestors.

[@jospinner1183]

@@edmundmiller70 If you're talking about mycorrhizal fungi, then no, they aren't our ancestors. While fungi are more closely related to animals than either are to plants, they're still pretty distant. The ancestor of all animals (and a few other clades) diverged from the ancestor of fungi (and relatives) more than a billion years ago. That ancestor was a sort of protist, neither an animal or fungus. (However, if you're speaking of ancestry in a more metaphysical, spiritual kind of way, then sure. Believe what you like.)

[@Werebat]

Another fantastic video! A minor point and a hopeful plea - first, it is my understanding that the proper pronunciation of "Mi'kmaq" is closer to "Meegmaw" than "Mickmack". Second, hearing the Canadian Maritimes (and the Mi'kmaq!) even mentioned reminds me of the one time I met you at the showing of the Sudbury Devil (at the Satanic Temple in Salem) that my son took me to for my 50th birthday; we got to say hi and take a great picture but because you were clearly pressed for time I did not want to take enough of it to put a suggestion in your ear about the possibility of doing a future video on the Acadian people, of which we are members. One of my ancestors, Sebastien Poirier, survived the massacre at St-Anne's shortly after the deportations of 1755 began; he was 12 years old. After he fled into the snow, records do not speak of him until 10 years later when he reappears in Rimouski; while we do not officially know what happened to him in the intervening years, we kinda DO know what happened to him, as he was almost certainly taken in by Mi'kmaq, some of whom would have been blood relatives. The Acadian story is hardly ever heard, and it is a story worth telling and hearing, as we represent a tragic alternate story of how European colonization COULD have been (much kinder and more respectful towards the native people), and what happened to us at the hands of the British (and Americans!) is something that should not simply be swept under the carpet and forgotten. If you are reading this, kind creator, then thank you for your time, and thank you for the high quality, informative, and entertaining material you create. My son and I always look forward to watching your stuff together!

[@AtunSheiFilms]

Of course, I remember meeting you guys! And thank you so much for the correction!

[@Werebat]

@@AtunSheiFilms Thanks for the response! Future video or not, I’m psyched that you read what I wrote, because the only regret I had about that night was not being able to put that bug in your ear! Now that regret has been resolved! 😊

[@CosetteTape]

​@@Werebathi there! I'm Cajun with deep Acadian roots, & I also must say that it would be wonderful to get a more comprehensive story of how we got here, too, as well as how your culture and mine bridge the gap of time after all these decades.

[@Werebat]

@CosetteTape Indeed! It’s not just the ethnic cleansing we endured, but the people we were, our unique history, way of life, and relationship with the local indigenous population. I remember I met a group of Cajuns at a crawfish boil in New Orleans. They were so warm and welcoming, and quick to accept me as one of their own (“You’re a Poirier? My coozan Marie, she married a Poirier! We’s fam, sha!”). It hit me that that was the first time in my life I had been in a room full of people who shared my ethnicity, who were not blood relatives. It was a surprisingly powerful feeling.

[@edmundmiller70]

Agreed. Our history needs to be in schools.

[@justinkautz7733]

The evil, Imperial March-sounding version of Marching Through Georgia while quoting Sherman celebrating the slaughter of bison and genocide of the Plains Nations was an incredible touch.

[@tristanband4003]

@@justinkautz7733 I think one scary thing about Sherman is that his reasons for fighting the South and his reasons for his actions out west were the same. He saw himself as an agent of history, dragging stubborn and recalcitrant regions and populations into the present. Makes one wonder if he truly opposed slavery...or merely saw it as an institution that Outlived Its' Usefulness.

[@shepherddog1199]

​@@tristanband4003Sherman was a monster. The CSA wasn't in the right, but what Sherman did was... Unpalatable.

[@mikehunt3420]

@@shepherddog1199care to elaborate? Im ignorant on the details here

[@hanshotfirst4266]

@@shepherddog1199 I think Andy has a whole video addressing this. It isn't entirely unreasonable to claim that... but Sherman absolutely was not monstrous in a way that was appreciably different from his peers, either in the character or scope in his misdeeds. Feels strange to single him out. Edit: Sherman still sucks, especially during the "Indian wars"

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

@@shepherddog1199 considering what the south did to former slaves, Sherman didn't go far enough. still a bad guy tho.

[@AbsyntheMorstan]

Hey, thank you for this video! One of the most frustrating parts of being indigenous is honestly trying to explain to other people that we’re humans and we can make bad ecological decisions alongside decent ones, that our shaping our natural world can be both good and bad. It’s even something other indigenous people believe and get mad about being contradicted on. The more people talk about us as humans with human attitudes the more we can be perceived as people like any other.

[@PurpleLightning6was9]

All people make mistakes. But we’re just better at managing our own lane versus the people that took it from us. Hence why these wildfires are so bad. Because the indigenous peoples of those regions haven’t been allowed to do their controlled burnings.

[@edmundmiller70]

AHO Maybe someday, immigrants will recognize us in present tense. Well spoken.

[@Shenaldrac]

No, no you were and are perfect! Get back on that pedestal!

[@quinnholloway5400]

@@Shenaldrac Your being sarcastic right?

[@Shenaldrac]

@@quinnholloway5400 Yes. I had hoped it would be obvious what with literally mentioning them needing to be on a pedestal.

[@grantstratton4629]

I don't think Christianity is primarily responsible for Europeans not understanding environmentalism. After all, the very next chapter after the one you quoted has God putting man in the Garden of Eden to "dress it and keep it", and God has Adam name all of the plants and animals. (One would assume if God had a language he talked to Adam with, and He designed these things before creating them, which is what Genesis says He did, He'd already have names for His creations. So what purpose would have Adam naming everything have, other than to make Adam feel connected to and responsible for them?). This is complicated by the next chapter Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and Adam being told that not every plant and animal is now useful, and some of them will have no purpose other than to make things harder on him. (I personally place mosquitos in this category). So the view you get from Genisis on the environment is complicated. There is an interplay of dominion and responsibility. Likely the best way to describe it is not a relationship between equals, but a responsibility to wisely manage and to appreciate a gift from God. I think the better explanation is industrialization, mercantilism, social mobility, colonialization, technological superiority, encountering legal slave markets in foreign lands, and not enough experience with their newfound power to clearly understand the consequences. In other words, I think any society with a ton of power relative to it's neighbors, a poor understanding and appreciation for said neighbors, with the ability of individuals to go from rags to riches and peasant to statesman, the military power to defeat all comers, incredible access to new resources, and a lack of foresight into the results of their new technologies and social policies would be tempted into doing essentially the same thing as Europeans. Also, some people are selfish jerks, and try to hide their selfish jerkiness behind whatever thin veneer of supposed morality they can. Others are dumb enough to fall for it or jerks enough themselves once they decide they might benefit, to take up a cause they know is selfish and jerky. Edit: Got to the point of this video where the plains Indians get access to horses (and the market economy). Kind of makes my point. Doesn't excuse the American slaughter to weaken the plains Indians, but still. People are people, for better or worse.

[@aceroy9195]

Your thoughts and considerations are wasted. Any of his dogmatic acolytes will see your comment and disregard it or act like you are stupid for not understanding

[@grantstratton4629]

@@aceroy9195 Well I think you are proof that not everyone is dogmatic and won't listen. And frankly I don't think Atun Shei and I would agree politically on everything, I respect his work and realize that to some extent he's telling a joke.

[@jwallaby7895]

I think you're right that there should be more nuance to the discussion and, normally, no culture/ belief system should be outright demonized. Everything deserves honest and sincere evaluation. However history does bare out that the church doctrine of discovery is something that was at work in the case of the demise of native american tribes following first contact. And the notions of "wiping out the pagans" manifests prominently in the old testament NUMEROUS times. Moses, Joshua, King David, King josiah etc. etc. all had a hand in carrying out blind genocide against neighboring tribes and nations at times solely on the basis of race and ethnicity. In all cases their cultures and their sovereignty are irrelevant and they ate brutalized as "pagans....a rather dehumanizing notion. In the real world there has been for many centuries an INTENTIONAL, conscious and premeditated plan to eradicate the so called 'pagan enterprise'....and the bible is not directly to blame for this, but it did not help because the bible itself is a recipe book for destructive colonization. It DOES justify the wanton murder and forced marriage of virgins (rape) and genocide of many tribes for unwarranted and ARBITRARY reasons. If one wants to cherry pick scripture to apologize for the inconsistency of historical christian ethics, then they can. But scripture itself is all too inconsistent in its own ethics to be a reliable gauge for ethical behavior to begin with

[@aceroy9195]

@@jwallaby7895 see what I mean

[@jwallaby7895]

@@aceroy9195 never claimed anyone was stupid though. As i dont think religious people or christians are stupid. It isnt that simple. Edit: maybe you'd care to stand up out of your chair and state why you think your christian concepts are completely innocent in this respect? Do you honestly believe the bible consistently aligns with the christian 'rah-rah-rah' chant of "god is love and loves ALL of humanity?"

[@aRadianceRed]

You've only improved since the days of Checkmake Lincolnites. You always manage to enlight and entertain, whether it's this video or your amazing work with the Sudbury Devil. I cant wait to see what else is in store for this current chapter of the channel. Keep up the amazing work!

[@edmundmiller70]

Until this clip, I mainly concentrated on Siberian study, because odly, I can understand some language and the customs resemble me. This guy is great. He thinks deep.

[@devinfaux6987]

1:25:00 "Meanwhile the fur traders arrived, bringing with them diseases like smallpox, measles, and the market economy" This one really got me.

[@SomerandomShmuck]

They also brought over land ownership. That made the natives think the foreigners were crazy because before then the land couldn’t be owned by anybody because it belonged to the gods, free to live and work on without the control of man.

[@SeruraRenge11]

@@SomerandomShmuck Pretty sure most tribes believed in owning land, they just believed that the tribe as a whole owned it and not the individual. But collective property is still property that they're not going to share with an outsider.

[@silverhawkscape2677]

​@@SomerandomShmuck Stop believing in this Myth. Several tribes did own land. They had Territory like everyone else which they defended and even attacked other tribes for. While Also wiping them out in what we could call g*noc*de. Quit trying to Mythologize and Romanticize them.

[@AskTorin]

That's a lie. Most nations of first peoples had strict property and inheritance laws. Also regarding property.

[@syafiqasaraswati1720]

​@AskTorin yeah i remember that one of the example of strict property right is the tribes in pacific northwest. They even have an early version of intellectual rights

[@hitchman84]

Well, lookie here. A sober, nuanced examination of the myriad prejudices and misunderstandings of the complex milieu of First Nations cultures and peoples throughout history. A topic for serious-minded adults. Handled with restraint and respect. Now, let's read the comments section

[@edmundmiller70]

It appears very civil.

[@Myname8315]

Yeah what did yall do to the buffalo that used to live here 😂

[@edmundmiller70]

@@Myname8315 most were killed by European invaders, as illustrated by Theodore Roosevelt.

[@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs]

Lol. It's actually not bad considering. All the experts live down here as you know.

[@randallcraft4071]

If a whale comes up and wants to play with you, is that even really a hunt

[@weik-2936]

sounds pretty fucked up is what it is

[@Rob_Enhoud]

Obviously it's the whale offering themself to you to be sacrificed. The whole flailing around bit after being harpooned is just them playing up the part and making it exciting for the hunter, because they care about the hunter feeling satisfied. /s

[@CommanderTornado]

Considering a good part of hunting ethics (as in, modern ethics where hunting is not for subsistence) is the idea of fair chase where the prey can reasonably escape the hunter, it definitely isn't. There's no chase where the animal doesn't even know to run from you.

[@SeruraRenge11]

Yeah, just a comically easy one

[@SpoopySquid]

It's just canned hunting at that point

[@antyhntr4203]

Andrew I would like to inform you it is pronounced Mon-E-Toe and Pot-a-watt-omie I’ve always loved your videos I’m Prairie Band Potawatomi in Kansas. We are the farthest band of Potawatomi moved west minus our Oklahoma Citizen Band cousins in Oklahoma. Thank you for this video, our world was just as complicated and intricate as any continent in human history. Much love from Kansas

[@AtunSheiFilms]

Thanks for the correction :)

[@antyhntr4203]

⁠@@AtunSheiFilmsagain thank you for all you do, you never fall short of a great presentation controlled burns are a thing tribes are taking back and following better guidelines that go along either way regen agriculture that are bringing animals and pollinators back and rebuilding ecosystems I work for Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska and we are practicing regenerative agriculture and healing our lands year by year

[@peregrinemiles7936]

Also Quill-yute with a little trill on the l in the center . (in the first section)

[@edmundmiller70]

AHO

[@edmundmiller70]

@@antyhntr4203 AHO. The only thing we burn here is garbage, not trees. We value our forest and products it naturally surrenders, such as coasters and plates, and some furniture. We tend to harvest fallen trees and branches, rather than cutting. In that way, we have a continuous supply. But no system is perfect.

[@ethanbaker137]

Imagine my shock when thinking of an entire race of people that span two continents as a monolith is bad

[@InspiriumESOO]

That would apply to Europe as well.

[@therealamon]

We all were like this before technology advanced rapidly

[@TasTheWatcher]

@@InspiriumESOO Who is thinking of Europe as being all the same?

[@huckthatdish]

@@InspiriumESOOyeah duh. I don’t know many people who conflate English and Albanian culture

[@SomerandomShmuck]

@@TasTheWatcherthey’re all barbaric white savages who behead their peers over soccer games and eat fish with fries.

[@GeneralSam]

The New World had me cackling with how Pocahontas and her brother frolicked around like they were at a grateful dead concert. love Malick tho

[@Bathsaltknight]

Ong

[@depression2electricboogalo70]

ayo its the rat man

[@porktomas]

No way, one of the greatest watches one of the greatest, it's a small world.

[@jaypea30]

NO WAY

[@heyreallygiger]

Fingers crossed that Sam gets tired of hunt showdown and pivots to film buff content

[@AgainstWind]

WOW, I'm so glad to have found you through this video. What thoughtful, considerate, intelligent 'content' (calling it content feels wrong and diminutive - basically an industry-grade documentary!). Thank you and looking forward to watching more of your productions!

[@jacktingey7886]

What I find interesting is that the term "Native American" includes dozens of major cultural groups, hundreds of languages, and thousands of individual clans and bands. It is such an impossibly broad term that there are few similarities that connect every single tribe. One similarity is suffering and dramatic change at the hands of Europeans and European Americans, but besides that, making a statement like "All Native Americans were in touch with Nature" is loaded and misguided from the beginning. Fascinating video, Andy! Edit: Indigenous groups promoting pan-Indigenousness are a completely different situation. I am referring to non-Indigenous attempts to make broad characterizations of Indigenous people for political and cultural reasons.

[@badart3204]

Well they got put on a bunch of reservations and mixed in them so they are defined by being conquered. You can get into the weeds of the brutal plains Indians like the Comanche raiding and scalping, cannibalistic Karankawa, and relatively peaceful farmers Caddo just within Texas but most people aren’t actually very interested in the actual people and just wanna use them as a metaphor/tool for whatever idea they want to convey

[@jacktingey7886]

@@badart3204 That is a good point. A lot of the homogenization was forced and artificial as the result of relocation. Imagine having the Seminole, speaking their own language, move next to the Choctaw with a completely different language, not to mention culture and customs. Tribal affiliation is not as interchangeable as is often portrayed. Edit: The languages are from the same general family, but one wouldn't expect a Romanian and a Spaniard to immediately understand each other.

[@badart3204]

@@jacktingey7886 I would argue much of the homogenization is natural to the extent that if you force people to live in the same place under identical circumstances in close contact with each other they will naturally mix. The situation is artificial while the homogenization is largely organic. That being said language does not mean people are the same as looking at a Northern Italian and a Southern Italian will demonstrate to anyone that their union is artificial just as with the Native Americans

[@jacktingey7886]

@@badart3204 That's fair. Not all of it was forced, but it was definitely hastened by European contact.

[@cartilagehead]

It also begs questions around the meaning of ‘indigenousness’ and the windows through which one analyzes or defines it. As far as anybody can tell humans first came to the Americas from Asia and the Pacific, and they subsequently proceeded to drive multiple animal species to extinction thousands of years before any Europeans ever set foot in the New World. How does one measure “indigenousness”? Is there a time cutoff? Is it 100 years of occupation, 500 years, 1000 years? What if you have a piece of land that is in historical dispute, as many Pacific islands have been? Group A lived there for hundreds of years until a war with Group B 100 years ago drove them off and onto the land historically belonging to Group C, who are mostly cool with it but are becoming antsy. And now here come some Europeans laying claim to everything and saying that it’s theirs and doling out reservation parcels….. The history of Central and South America, especially in the 500 years leading up to the arrival of the Spanish that we have the most detailed record of, is rife with what are basically nation-states waging wars of conquest and enslavement on one another, engaging in realpolitik that wouldn’t be out of place in the halls of the Medicis, terraforming and developing their land, building continent-spanning trade economies, and forcibly occupying and taking the lands of their enemies. You could take political/military/etc writings from the War of the Roses or the 100 Years War or the Crusades and from the pre-Cortez Mexica Wars, remove the identifying details, and they’d look virtually identical.

[@Skycroft1000]

An excellent video, one of your best and that's saying a lot. My only real criticism, and I don't know if this is really a criticism, is the overfocus on North America and particularly the US and to a lesser extent Canada and the native nations that live in it and around it. The reason I say it's not really a criticism is that I fully understand why the video is focused there, it is the area you are far more familiar with and where you know much better how to get in touch with experts in the field compared with the rest of the Americas. And also, of course, the entire trope of the Native American living harmoniously with nature is for the most part specifically about North American indigenous peoples. Still, it would have been nice to compare and contrast here with other parts of the Americas, especially because another semi-criticism I have is the emphasis on market economies and mercantile systems and how they affect the way we relate to the environment and less on other, older systems that also affect this. It would have been nice to also have some discussion of states and state formation and how that impacts the way we think of and interact with the natural world. This is particularly relevant because North America is the one part of the world that did not develop indigenous pristine states, unlike pretty much the entire rest of the world including the rest of the Americas. At 46:44 you talk very briefly about Mesoamerica and dismiss (correctly IMO) that the difference is purely about population density and emphasize instead the importance of social organization. But then you almost immediately begin talking about markets, but I actually think the more relevant difference here is the presence of states in Mesoamerica. A state is a hierarchical social organization whose very existence revolves around resource extraction. The social organization of a state naturally promotes anthroprocentrism because states treat land and _people_ as sources of revenue first and foremost, revenue which is then used to further the maintenance and expansion of the state. States are also (in a pre-industrial context) fundamentally linked to agriculture. States promote the existence of farmers and support the destruction of the natural world to expand farms and ranches because states find farmers much, much easier to tax than non-farmers and want to convert all land that can support agriculture to that purpose if possible. In addition, in a pre-railroad context agrarian armies can literally only go where there are farmers to support them or they starve to death. These facts have vastly shaped the way most societies in history have treated their natural environs, long before the emergence of anything like a modern market economy. It's a really minor criticism, though, because I do think the analytical approach you've taken in this video, with its focus on the intrusion of global market systems into the existing subsistence systems of the indigenous peoples, is the most apt for the discussions of how human relationship to the environment has evolved in North America, among both native peoples and the colonial population. Which is the focus of the video. But I do ultimately think it is state formation, not markets, that is the primary reason for the prevalence of anthropocentric and resource extractive views of the natural world rather than conservationist or biocentric viewpoints throughout most of human history (and not just in 'Western' cultures either).

[@TimpanistMoth_AyKayEll]

What books would you recommend about state formation ('s ecological consequences)?

[@heck3143]

Atun Shei liking this very important comment made me like the video more. I had the same thoughts and you outlined them perfectly.

[@EphemeralTao]

I had much the same thought; particularly with regard to the late pre-Columbian empires of Mesoamerica. There is substantial documentary and archeological evidence that over-exploitation of resources, and pollution of their water supplies, were significant factors in the collapse of several of these cultures. If you look at the land allocation and management practices discussed in the video, you can see many of them would have been very familiar to Europeans as well, up until the rise of mercantile capitalism and acts of enclosure of the commons. And, of course, the imperial wars of Mesoamerica bear more than a passing resemblance to the numerous territorial and religious wars occurring in Europe at roughly the same period of history. One quibble, though, is that I don't think you can divorce market economies from state formation quite that easily, they're mutually-dependent and reinforcing phenomena; the state depending on the resource of the markets for its continued preservation and expansion. It's specifically the rise of mercantile capitalism which created the modern expansionist-imperialist state, but conversely mercantilism itself could not have arisen without the protection of a strong political entity supporting it and enforcing its principles.

[@ronkledonkanusmoncher564]

Market systems typically form around the rules and customs of the state in which they reside, there also has to be some form of state or at least sense of interconnectedness in different communities before a proper economy can form.

[@WaterIsPoison18]

" A state is a hierarchical social organization whose very existence revolves around resource extraction." is quite the statement that unless you are a die hard anarchist, I think doesn't necessarily follow logically

[@Human-um5mu]

Brother man, this is the best piece of content yet. a real swing for the fences! i look forward to seeing what you have instore!

[@catsupchutney]

I worked as an Environmental Engineer for about ten years. For many activities that pollute the environment the impact is really due to scale. A compost facility processing 10,000 cubic meters of grass and leaves is merely amplifying what happens on the forest floor naturally, but in scaling up an entire new set of problems emerge.

[@kokopelli314]

Composting grass is nothing like what happens in the forest floor

[@falconstudios146]

​@@kokopelli314 it's all decomposition in the end.

[@davidwright7193]

@@kokopelli314composting leaves is very much what happens on the forest floor. Particularly if the composting vessel is open to the soil underneath (as a garden compost heap would be) allowing soil and leaf litter organisms to get in. As you get bigger the centre of the mass will become anaerobic and change the nature of the process.

[@kokopelli314]

@ I think you’ve missed the point. Yes composting is something that happens on under the duff layer, but it’s only one of many interlinked processes The forest floor is a constantly changing layer where dead leaves, plants, and animals break down, releasing nutrients back into the soil to support new growth. Organisms like fungi, bacteria, and insects work together to decompose this material, forming a nutrient-rich soil that keeps the forest ecosystem healthy and growing. These organisms require a diverse source of carbohydrates proteins and other mineral nutrients in the soil that are produced by the diversity of plant and animal assemblages in and under the forest as well as minerals from the subsoil.

[@kokopelli314]

@ the presence, evolution and organization of life negates that statement

[@biggerdoofus]

I find the example of the hunter scolding the bear particularly fascinating, in that it's both trying to treat the animal with respect and also projecting one-sided values on another living creature. That's something I've seen a lot when listening to modern animal rights activists, but I hadn't heard it come up in older cultures before.

[@autumnsierra2401]

It happens all over pagan ideology

[@dionysusnow]

It's a mythological trope in every culture.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@autumnsierra2401 what defines Christian and pagan? It is suggest of supremacy. There is no difference between Gods. All were man's invention and for selfish reasons. Better to practice as a Buddhist. If Christian God were so great, why did they need to beat it into us? Why torture people over their idea of God? Why not see us as equal?

[@edmundmiller70]

@@autumnsierra2401 yes, like the man made bible.

[@Lucas-df4ht]

One thing I love about your channel is that you never stop outdoing yourself. Your most recent upload is always my favorite video until the next one comes out. You’re a legend. Keep it up!

[@edmundmiller70]

aho

[@zapdog_]

Two hours? Really living up to the "film" part of "Atun-Shei Films"

[@Alte.Kameraden]

TIKhistory level lengths. Maybe the nest will be 6 hours. 😂

[@ericcampbell503]

Well, he was inspired by Contrapoints.

[@Marcelis]

@@ericcampbell503oh man, I missed this year’s video from her😂

[@bnbcraft6666]

Ehh, wendigoon regulation makes long ass videos and they're usually pretty good

[@ericcampbell503]

@@Marcelis You haven't seen her Twilight video???

[@NukeNukedEarth]

I think this is the first time I ever watched a video essay and thought to myself ''I wonder if my professor speaks english, he would love this''. He's a old guy from Niger who studied plant protection and xenobiotics in the soviet union and has now been teaching most of the agri-environmental courses. Honestly he kind of sucks as a teacher, but the main thing that comes back time and time again is that the current conventional industrial agriculture cannot lead to anything but degradation.

[@heavenly2k]

I have so many questions lol

[@Bob-bs9ok]

Damn, that sounds incredibly interesting. Do you know if he published anything?

[@NukeNukedEarth]

@@Bob-bs9ok I think he mentionned working on a book, but going by his lectures it's probably an editor's worst nightmare. I tried finding his phd thesis somewhere but I think it's too old to be available online

[@NorthForkFisherman]

It's all about monoculture and how the crops themselves have been so commoditized that they have no genetic diversity at all. Totally setting us all up for a major collapse due to one lucky fungus or what have you that just kills everything. At that point, eat the effing rich!

[@travislyonsgary]

​@@NukeNukedEarth Do you know of his name? Haven't read much on that subject but interfaces with ecology and soil plenty

[@josesoriano8551]

Thanks!

[@AtunSheiFilms]

Thank you so much!

[@ethienosinsky5186]

I read a book about medieval people having very similar practices of controlled burns and managing forests, it's not really a surprise to learn another pre-modern culture developped similar approaches

[@maebh98]

It's because it's what makes the most sense the only difference today is capitalism

[@davidegaruti2582]

​@@maebh98yeah , also big machines : people back then had to be clever and figure out efficient solutions for their problems ... Today we can just throw men and steel at the issue and be done with it

[@HieMan-g1n]

@@maebh98 Gasp! Not the free exchange of goods! What shall we do?

[@maebh98]

@@HieMan-g1n that is one feature of capitalism but not the only one. There are other features such as, a focus on producing commodity products, and the continual reinvestment of profits. I also never said it was bad, just that it incentivizes earning a profit over everything else.

[@Van-Leo]

Money and market is not capitalism. Unlearn your propaganda ​@@HieMan-g1n

[@Stoneworks]

Been waiting on this for a while, thank you Mr. Films

[@TKDragon75]

Wait stoneworks, what are you doing here dude? Get back to fixing the server.

[@spinachgreens7179]

One of the best videos I've seen in a long while. Incredible stuff.

[@Moonlightatnight2]

Its been said before and I'll say it again. Humans have always had a large impact on our environment, but now we live longer and our waste/construction materials last way longer.

[@alganhar1]

And there are a whole HELL of a lot more of us!!!!

[@cynicalmemester1694]

We are consuming and harvesting resources at an unprecedented rate and scale. Not at all comparable to our way of living in past era's.

[@Shibouu59]

The idea that the ecosystem is something separate from us is wrong. We've always been a part of the environment, for better or worse. The biggest difference now is that our growth and impact has FAR outpaced the environment's ability to adapt. At this rate we will end up destroying everything else.

[@edmundmiller70]

@@Shibouu59 within this century we'll see many changes.

[@JKTCGMV13]

It’s so interesting how much conflict came from the settlers not fencing in their animals. I can’t imagine letting valuable livestock roam completely free with no fence

[@MrChristianDT]

Yeah, that's one of the bigger reasons why we have a wild hog problem in North America. In northeast Ohio, there are actual specific mentions that the settlers didn't feel like they had the proper resources to create animal pens, so they were constantly losing track of their pigs. Somehow, my area does not have any wild pigs, today (albeit, when you look into the lazy ways whites attempted industrializing hunting, to maximize kills in the 1800s, maybe this isn't all that surprising), but I can attest that my whole corner of the state is environmentally devastated. Half of the plants that belong here, I've never seen before. Our forestry agents had to spend a couple of decades of research trying to figure out what was even supposed to be here in the first place. I imagine, between the pigs, the land clearing, the industrialization, the straightening of waterways, the use of ditches & dams to either drain or flood low lying areas & the introduction of invasive plants as ornamentals, we really fucked this whole region up, big time- and it was apparently once so productive, the local tribes set it aside for every tribe within the entire region to share.

[@PF2015]

regarding "invasive species" that's just nature selecting dominant genes to reproduce. Those native plants should evolve to compete better or go extinct like 99% of all the other species. 😅

[@SeruraRenge11]

You have to keep in mind that by the time they left for America, over here in Europe we had almost completely exterminated the common wolf (aka the Eurasian Wolf) on the continent. Thus the biggest threat to livestock was gone and we mostly kept them fenced in so that they wouldn't wander onto someone else's property. In the Americas they didn't really have that problem, there was so much space (though paradoxically, also a lot more wolves) that they didn't bother.

[@alganhar1]

@@MrChristianDT Allowing pigs to forage freely was actually a traditional method of farming them in England at least. Many County bylaws still specifically allow foraging of pigs in common forested areas at certain times of the year and the like. The British settlers to the New World simply took that old method of raising pigs that had been in use in England especially for centuries with them.

[@travislyonsgary]

​@@SeruraRenge11 To be fair overall wolves weren't actually as much of a direct issue. Like fair few colonist actually met or dealt with wolves. But newspapers brought mention of those that did and sensationalized them and then you got market loops of wolf bounties creating more incentives and tales and the rest is history. Somewhat similar to other species getting pushed out and exterminated since a combo of lack of knowledge and lack of belief in extinction did a lot.

[@jack0slack]

I think this may be your best video. You do a great job teeing up one line of discussion, and carefully use it to transition to a very different discussion by the end. We've grown to see the "Video Essay Twist" become a common trope of the form (The best example of it still being Folding Ideas's 'In Search of a Flat Earth') but this is something a bit different; the twist extremely gradual and in some ways, not even a twist. You cover both topics with nuance, and both fall under the umbrella of the stated topic in your title. Excellent work.

[@AndrewHein-oh3ru]

I found the essay about controlled burns interesting. As a firefighter, I’ve taken part in controlled burns of grasslands before. It’s still a part of land management to this day. And even part of wildfire prevention.

[@piopl7104]

Do you think it's something that needs to be implemented on a larger scale in places like California?

[@AndrewHein-oh3ru]

@ I am not familiar enough with California and the firsts out there to comment one way or another.

[@piopl7104]

Oh interesting, never thought that the forest might not come back after a burn. I moved to northern Nevada 5 years ago from the mid west and I'm still trying to figure out the dry forest here. We do manual clearing of the forest and then small burns on the piles of debris, I've seen them also use goats as well. Thank you for your input.

[@edmundmiller70]

The only controlled burns we do here are the plastic garbage and grocery bags we get.

[@JohahnDiechter]

I am very impressed. In college I tried to dispel some of the myths of the ecological Indian with much less grace than you have here, sir. It was easy to point out the over-correction of Holywood, but it was a lot more work to explain why the hollow platitudes of films like Disney's Pocahantas were incorrect or even downright insulting.

[@edmundmiller70]

Disney is a corporation and they only recognize as such. Everybody else is considered a fan or an enemy, of which group I fit none. I don't watch their films because frankly they are bullshit. Their native portrait is naive to say the least. The movie is shallow and pedantic. As a nation, our nation was ninety percent forest when Europeans flooded in en mass during eighteen hundreds. Our families were here for centuries. It would be impossible for us to do as much damage. It is humorous that descendants of invaders wish to blame Pre-American people for destroying "their" country.

[@JorisStaschewski]

1:34:09 the idea of hunting from the comfort of a railway carriage is somehow fascinating and revolting at the same time.

[@edmundmiller70]

and cowardly.

[@ariabritton9669]

@@edmundmiller70 Do elaborate how hunting from a moving object is "revolting" and "cowardly", and tell me how hunting from horseback or from a boat isn't. Are you not allowed to be comfortable while hunting, or something? what, are you gonna tell me hunting from a deer blind is cowardly, too? If I go fishing with line and hook, or a spear from outside the water, am I a "coward" because I'm not swimming in the water with the fish?

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Just so damn of/for you Andy - thanks so much for this!

[@Josh-zc8gm]

I'm an Australian ecologist and feel that many things discussed here could also apply to our own indigenous Australians. They are often stereotyped as custodians of the land, in perfect harmony with their ecosystem, though one could argue that Australia's dozen-odd recently extinct megafauna species would disagree with that assertion. This is not to disparage any of these diverse indegenous cultures, they certainly maintained this continent's delicate ecosystems far better than our modern government ever has. But they were still people, they still made mistakes, to deny this is to deny them their humanity. As western taught ecologists we have a lot to learn from indegenous cultures worldwide in the mission of conservation, treating them not as some mystical ideal, but with respect as people.

[@johndeere8004]

I study environmental science in Queensland and this is spot on. I'm just a student but the parallels are very clear between the ecological indian and our positive stereotypes about aboriginals - it seems to me that in both cases its a story about cultures with complex "hunter-gatherer" means of subsistence being dramatically contrasted with an agricultural, industrial, capitalist culture. In Australia the picture is obviously complicated by how much the Pleistocene impacted the climate of the continent, but Aboriginal cultures - for all their positive land management - absolutely played a role in the extinction of megafauna (and pretending they didn't impact any extinction assumes Aboriginal people had less agency and impact than feral cats for instance).

[@edmundmiller70]

@@johndeere8004 AHO

[@edmundmiller70]

Funny and sad. We lived on different lands and in a different time. We managed to survive fairly well until we were decimated and forced to flee. Now we are written as a past tense.

[@potato_723]

Absolutely agree. Tbh im sick of them acting like we (non-aboriginal australians) are evil polluters that invented war, greed, and environmental destruction

[@mittens3673]

I've been looking for a video on this topic my entire life. Thank you!

[@triir2750]

As an Historian, this is the best non-academic free content on this matter. You managed to put in video form an incredibly hard topic. Congratulations.

[@edmundmiller70]

Aho

[@olenickel6013]

The moral discussion here suffers a problem I unfortunately notice hasn't become just common, but fundamental to Anglo-American leftist discourse: it is framed entirely within ethnic/national collectives. That is surprising, since you initially outline the class and gender divides within the Makah nation, but then there's oh so many sentences where white people are collective capitalists or where the Makah seemingly have a collective right to and interest in whaling. Europeans were not collective profiteers of colonization. Many of the processes that mark the spread of market economies through colonialism also occured in the Metropole. Europeans were driven from their lands to make land for profit-driven land uses like cash crops or the wool industry. Traditional collective methods of economy and land use were destroyed and millions of Europeans impoverished, forced to sell their labor in the hellish conditions of early capitalist factories. Many did not survive it. Then, as now, we are divided more by class than by nation. What right does a white person have to criticize Makah plans for industrial whaling? The same rights as any working class person has to criticize the capital owning class.

[@Caras_Reflejada]

Thank God someone sees the broader context that is ideologically being obscured in this, made a comment to the same effect. We're supposed to be deconstructing a monolithic idea appended to indigenous American peoples, and yet the roots of European culture are allowed to remain siloed in a monolith of exclusively colonialist vilification? Same old tiresome refrain of a unique evil pinned to a people who as you say, have their own history of deprivation in the face of the greater force of economic/industrial "progress". Let alone ignoring the early history of animist or naturally informed religious beliefs that have clear shared linkages to those across the pond. Leftist anthropology adjacent folks do a disservice to us all in consistently allowing this narrative of bias to inform them. Cruelty and compassion are baked into the human cake, you're not going to win whatever conflict you think this is all centering around by "pedestalizing" particular people's into victim narratives eternally. Like I said it gets old pretty fucking fast when you're informed by an actual passion for understanding all people's within a proper unbiased historical context/taking into account the context of human consciousness within it's given time of reference.

[@Caras_Reflejada]

@aduantas Vague bait? Sure Jan.. whatever you're rendering on your end ain't it.

[@amazinggrapes3045]

​@aduantasyour inability to understand is your own weakness

[@sophiaoconnell1927]

I feel like there’s like a weird mirror opposite anthrocentricism with projecting the human experience onto all things. Like telling a bear not to cry feels mean :(

[@rpgeoffrey]

Imagine telling a bear GGEZ! Right after you basically cheated death.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Really telling anyone not to cry after you put a knife in their chest is a bit rude.

[@MrChristianDT]

They reserved the kindness for after it was already dead, as they feared talking like this to something alive as normal, but talking like that to something dead would incur the wrath of its spirit or the spirit who protected the land.

[@chickensalad3535]

Agreed

[@spazzyshortgirl23]

It’s bear misogyny

[@lovelylavenderr]

This is exactly what I crave and live for in KZbin documentaries and history content. Thank you for always being a stellar creator Andy!

[@edmundmiller70]

It is all I live for, LOL. I find these videos fascinating and equally informative.

[@erlend.johnson]

Great job on a nuanced and thoughtful presentation. I say this as a Louisiana archeologist who focuses on precolombian populations here now and in Mesoamerica. The paleoindian transition and extinction of megafauna in the americas and more broadly is a fascinating debate relevant to this as well.

[@edmundmiller70]

For all that was done here, much more waste was laid down in Europe. Our land here was ninety percent forest as late as eighteen hundreds. It is documented that European immigrants decimated our forestland.

[@alexcarter8807]

On a lighter note, you ever go around sniffing ponderosa pines? At least in Prescott, Arizona, you sniff 'em and half smell like vanilla and half smell like the finest butterscotch ever. I may not be a tree hugger but I'll happily admit to being a tree sniffer.

[@AtunSheiFilms]

I have! When I was filming this video, actually.

[@tonyblitz1]

As a Scandinavian descendant, I feel like all people ought to have a reckoning with the the mistakes and imperfections of their ancestors. It's hard for propaganda and exceptionalist lies to exist in the same space as ugly truths about where you came from. I think It's humbling in a very important way that's healthy for anyone's outlook.

[@heyvsauce8444]

This video is amazing, I love seeing these more ecological and animal focused videos of yours, theyve been very interesting

[@waffles16v2]

Good topic to discuss. I understand some people's hesitancy to "give ground" as you mentioned at 6:23. But I've always thought of it like this: people who aren't experts are always going to have questions, and if you won't answer them, someone else will...and chances are the person who will is the last person you want to answer it.

[@rubenskiii]

In my experience nothing is more damaging to credibility than saying things you can't explain/back up. People are really good at noticing if someone is (a bit) knowledgeable on a subject or is just repeating things they heard somewhere. In my country we would say: _"Je hebt de bel horen luiden maar je weet niet waar de klepel hangt"._ (You heard the bells toll but don't know where the bell's tongue is located.)

[@edmundmiller70]

@@rubenskiii follow the sound.

[@jonflora1]

I have to admit, the Saruman-esque voiceover sure makes Biblical scripture hit different.

[@silkyjohnson4208]

Makes me want to read the Bible with lotr soundtrack playing lol

[@killerrabbitmedia]

Awesome video, I would have thought nuance on the internet was dead, thank you for shining a unique light on this with your platform

[@steinarvilnes3954]

I think one issue may be that our view of native americans are shaped by a few hunter-gatherer plain tribes, and that we often forget that many of those tribes had earlier been agricultural, but gave it up because of population losses due to introduced Eurasian diseases. In a way, the Native American within the US was living in what was really a postapocalyptic society. Also what is forgotten is that the Native Americans wiped out a large amounts of animals like the Mastodon, Mammouth and other such species, also including the American horse.

[@klikssiikubra314]

I think the mention of killing of the megafauna isn't particularly relevant, that was 10,000 years before the Native societies that we know of today. That's an absurd amount, and akin to talking about Islamic societies in the Middle East as though they are a continuation of Neolithic farmers in the Fertile Crescent.

[@darkstarr984]

This is a debated issue but I believe humans merely contributed to the final collapse of megafauna. 10,000 years ago there was a massive glacial retreat and a change in plant life happening across the entire planet, while human populations were still too small to do things on a massive scale. Fires started by humans definitely helped clear soft herbs from the soil and make room for grasses and deciduous trees as they moved north from the tropics, but it’s doubtful how much impact that had. This is as absurd as saying that merely the domestication of cattle led to the extinction of the Aurochs. Humans just followed megafauna prey and ended up settling all across the Americas in only a few centuries, and are a reason multiple plants survived the extinction of the herbivores they coevolved with before humans moved here.

[@alganhar1]

@@klikssiikubra314 The impact of Palaeolithic human hunting on the megafauna is also hotly debated. While there is likely to be at least some impact, many do not think that humans were the primary reason those animals became extinct. They certainly did not help, but at the time there were simply not enough of them around to make as great an impact as some suggest. Many, including myself, are more of the opinion that human hunting speeded up a process that was already ongoing and inevitable. The ancient megafauna were mostly adapted to a series of cold ecosystems that themselves were receding in size with the retreat of the ice. Along with the climatic change there was simply a shrinking pool of habitat available for them.

[@toledoh5170]

Just noting that all modern horses are American horses! They evolved in North America and crossed the Bering land bridge into Eurasia before going (locally) extinct in North America.

[@steinarvilnes3954]

@@toledoh5170 I did not know that actually. Never studied the history of horses before being domesticated, just noticed that the other animals I looked closer into like Elephant relatives went the other way.

[@wilgriaus]

The best days of this channel are ahead. This should be a classroom staple for American history classes

[@edmundmiller70]

This should be taught in each school.

[@Myname8315]

lol what happened to the bison. Let me guess the pilgrims were fleeing the persecution of the English to come to America. Thanks giving us not about white washing genocide 😂

[@CM-di1oz]

I’m a college student studying forestry in the PNW. Now I learn a lot about preservation but I learn far more about conservation. I study how to use nature while not totally destroying it. And in the past few decades Native American conservation has been a big part of trying to preserve nature while still supporting people. And combing traditional native conservation methods and modern environmental science has done a lot to slow environmental damage.

[@edmundmiller70]

Problem is that they often encroach on our rights and territories and we have little if any communication, while that is mostly one sided.

[@brettmedley2366]

Eternally one of my favorite creators. Keep going man, you’re a legend.

[@edmundmiller70]

He is an anomaly .

[@Hanssolo93]

Thank you. Please continue to create large insightful and thoughtful historical videos like this.

[@GnarledStaff]

One thing I want to mention, from studying viking culture, and looking into bartering practices to some degree, is that the practice of gift giving is not only a practice of embracing the value of what was received, nor purely transactional. It was/is also a way to create obligations between people. Or alliances and relationships. Not necessarily in a “you owe me” sort of way, but also in a forming respect and alliance sort of way. Think of gift giving during Christmas, now apply that to the relevant cultures. You’re not giving gifts just because you have to, most of the time, you give these gifts because it strengthens your relationship with friends and family, and sometimes just because you care about someone enough to get them a gift. Now apply that to people’s relationship with nature. Its a pretty interesting way of thinking about our place in the world that our modern society is often lacking.

[@andresorozco2871]

Actually you might be interest in the concept of "Gift" and "Reciprocity" of Marcel Mauss who made sociological interpretations of the Potlach and other similar native american practices. It's an old take, but a very fundamental classic of modern anthropology.

[@EvelynnEleonore]

I have to assume you're working on a whole video about the north american canebrake forests that existed in precolonial times- pigs tearing up their rhyzomes are a huuuuge part of why they practically do not exist anymore, and i think 1:02:30 ALMOST touched on that

[@TheFranchiseCA]

Wow. Pigs were an even more incredible force of unintentional destruction for Pre-Columbian America than I'd already known.

[@Emiliapocalypse]

Thanks for leaving your thoughts, Your comment has me googling canebrakes in the US (never heard of it before) and pigs. Very interesting

[@Daynation69]

I think you should look into how Europeans first saw Australia, it mirrors the eastern native Americas in allot of ways, from the way they molded their environment to fit their needs in this “natural agriculture” sorta way. When Europeans first arrived to Australia they described the country as looking like a manicured garden. This was because of the use of fire in shaping the land by native aboriginals. Also the way eastern native Americans see themselves as a part of nature and not as a human who has supreme authority of the world, is also mirrored in a way in the way many aboriginal groups interpreted the world. Amazing video as ever!

[@GoobusBoobus99]

I think some the first British people to set eyes on Australia called it a “well kept park”

[@ungulatemanalpha]

Check out "The Biggest Estate on Earth" if you haven't already.

[@lilamjazeefa9466]

Yeah I was gonna say multiple Aboriginal nations *absolutely did* live in actual harmony with nature.

[@morelia_mia]

⁠@@lilamjazeefa9466 While Aboriginal people definitely were harmonious with ecosystems in the sense they both relied on each other, over the 65,000 or so years they’ve lived here the land has changed drastically because of them. The extinction of megafauna and the landscapes created by firestick farming afterwards are the product of Aboriginal people, the ‘nature’ they lived in harmony with was created by them. I highly recommend Tim Flannery’s book ‘The Future Eaters’ on the ecological history of Australia and NZ, theres a documentary version on youtube too thats really worth a watch.

[@VintageLJ]

@@lilamjazeefa9466 Not the case. You see the results of their environmental damage. it was sustainable for a low population of people, and their methods kept it sustainable for humans. It was not sustainable for many different species who went extinct. The great myth that underlies this videos topic is often a result of conflating a sustainable system for tribal populations, with a sustainable system for the animals who live in it. By the time Europeans arrived in Australia, we only saw the results of millennia of these practices. Just like how in 1000 years, people will see what remains, not what was removed already, from the environment. To put it simply do you think a well kept park is a natural look for the environment? Pastoral cultures always increase in population more than Hunter gatherer cultures. Pastoral cultures also settle and remain in static locations. The biggest threat of this is causing an unstable situation for the humans. Again, people constantly conflate "sustainable for humans" with, "sustainable for the environment". in addition, I do wonder if these practices of sustainable hunting practiced by Native Indians and Aborigines and Indigenous peoples, were not at some point a lesson learned, and morally passed down. I.e., at some point, the ancestors saw what happens when you over hunt a species, and they suffered from it, with just enough people surviving to be able to teach the next generation what NOT to do. Inevitably, people don't come up with these tactics and methods out of the blue, there must have been a punishing reason that led to the development of these techniques. The kind of reasons that would never be seen in pastoral cultures in the same way.

[@mercurialhypersprite9556]

Goddamn it. Why are you the best KZbinr. You're taking all the perfect KZbinr qualities and not leaving anything for anybody else homie.

[@blubbertalk]

Wow. Beyond typical top shelf content from you Atun. You never disappoint

[@AxlPatrol]

Fantastic video, I've always been suspicious of this cultural trope but never knew the specific facts and history. This was very educational and interesting, you earned me as a subscriber.

[@Myname8315]

I’ve always been suspicious too. Like why did white settlers take all those pictures with mountains of dead buffalo skulls. Why did white settlers put native Americans in concentration camps that the Nazis took notes from 🤣🤣 This guy and you are schmucks 🤣

[@Real_Person_Not_A_Bot]

Man will never be able to separate one's self from nature, for man is just another animal. If raccoons with their hands and feet had the intelligence of say a raven, they would be our equals (basically Rocket Raccoon yeah). In a way the hover dam is just as natural of a structure as a beaver dam is.

[@breadman32398]

And New York city is just a collection of abodes for animals. Just an aspect of nature. Concrete is really just rocks and suburban sprawl is just a majestic forest rearranged slightly. /s

[@prodigal_southerner]

Do you think humans are plants? Fungi? Of course we are animals. You weren't made out of clay in the image of god, you are the distant descendant of a relative to apes. That distance doesn't mean that we aren't chordates, mammals, primates, or great apes more specifically.

[@minutemansam1214]

They would not be our equal as ravens are not our intellectual equals. They are equal to a toddler.

[@MultiDonuts101]

I’m definitely sympathetic with this view. We separate the world into categories like “natural” and “artificial,” but we ourselves are products of nature and intertwined with it. In the end, the technologies and civilizations we build, no matter how sophisticated, are still “natural” since they are composed of the natural properties of the world.

[@ecta9604]

Yep. And a farm is an ecosystem, one with its own niches and indigenous plant and animal species, and in which we’re the dominant predator. Funny how the ecosystem of the farm can both be sometimes probably the most compassionate ecosystem on the planet, and sometimes the cruelest.

[@parkerhahaha]

This is one of my favorite videos I’ve watched in a long time. I hope this reaches who it needs to and keep up the amazing work

[@autuer833]

What a wonderful video. Thank you so much for making this. Extremely informative and kept me entertained for the entire duration. You’re an inspiration for many.

[@ThisTrainIsLost]

Good job, dude. This video pulled off the high wire tightrope walking trick of presenting a dense mass of information in a seemingly off the cuff manner that allows the viewer to absorb the content in an almost subconscious fashion. Raw data (the medicine) slides into the mind as entertainment (the spoonful of sugar). It is rare that a documentary (if I may categorise this work) covering such a serious subject can be (dare I say it?) this much fun to watch. I may just rewatch it now. Congratulations on producing such a passionate product! (And thank you....)

[@Rhejdns]

The book "1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" talks a lot about this

[@GreatistheWorld]

Charles C Mann rules

[@pyxelknyght7149]

Very minor thing but when you mentioned Margaret Robinson you used the plural word Mi’kmaq instead of the singular Mi’kmaw. It’s a pretty common mistake, not really known outside of the Canadian maritimes. Loved the video though!

[@johannageisel5390]

"Humans never lived in harmony with nature. They _died_ in harmony with nature." Not sure where I heard or read the quote, but I think it sums it up really well. As long as humans are still subject to the natural regulatory mechanisms that come with being part of an ecosystem, it works. But once humans manage to decouple themselves from those mechanisms by technology things go haywire.

[@edmundmiller70]

When were they not that way?

[@allisonguthrie8257]

I appreciate the nuanced consideration you give. Balancing respecting Indigenous nations’ sovereignty vs dispelling ‘noble savage’ stereotypes is a hard line to walk, and I appreciate the effort you put in to walk it as well as possible.

[@lukeygoof7443]

Dont know what to say more than a 11/10 video, amazing coverage of so many deep topics that open an eye!

[@ungulatemanalpha]

human beings have been reshaping our environments to better suit us for milennia. we just got good enough at it that 'the environment' started feeling like "some place over there" rather than all around us. I highly recommend the book "The Biggest Estate on Earth" for anyone curious about how this process looked in pre-European Australia.

[@keystohellanddeath]

I was going to leave a very long comment with my thoughts only to see that Atun-Shei covered everything I was going to say to a T past 1:50:00. Great video

[@DandelionGum1]

It's a very powerful reflection of the central thesis on a wider context that turns a critical lens back on the audience. It's incredible.

[@jacobstatzer6805]

Fun fact Jaguars used to inhabit most of the United States but were hunted for sport or spiritual reasons by the Native Americans. By the time colonists arrived, Jaguars only existed in small isolated populations below the mason Dixon line. Natives were far from the stewards they have been romanticized as.

[@workingguy-OU812]

They are also far from the stewards of balance within their societies now. Usually the women work their asses off, often multiple jobs, while the men laze about their days. The media is afraid to focus on the unfairness while documenting women's roles in Iran.

[@edmundmiller70]

And where did you hear that? It is funny that people who invaded our nation wish to blame us for the changes resulting from their hands. In no way could we possibly do as much damage as was done to us. I do not believe killing was ever a sport for us. It was a way of survival and we had equally harsh living conditions.

[@yashjoseph3544]

@@edmundmiller70Just because you personally can’t believe it doesn’t make it true. Natives drove many species to extinction and committed atrocities on other tribes.

[@yashjoseph3544]

@aduantasMany cultures around the world have dragons in their mythologies despite massive distances between them. It’s not impossible.

[@notahumanbeing6892]

@@yashjoseph3544 ghosts and extremely large or small people were/are common among many cultures as well

[@odinsboss117]

This was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Well researched, inclusive of experts, idigenous voices, and on a topic I as a biologist and history fan am very passionate about. The saruman exerpt at 29:34 was also brilliant. Have I said brilliant enough yet?

[@keeganrankin2985]

Huh, just opened up my old childhood bible and found “he shall drive the machine of his dominion with the sword and the spear and the iron fist” and “he saw that the Forest of Fangorn lay upon his doorstep, yea, he said unto them “burn it”” in Genesis, weird. (Fantastic video, enjoyed every minute of it)

[@jospinner1183]

So I'm a botanist who studies forests and fire ecology in the Southeast US. I was delighted to hear a discussion of the carefully managed and sculpted landscapes of the pre-Colonial Eastern Woodland peoples. Such landscapes existed for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans, and we have very few reliable, first-hand accounts of what those woodlands actually looked like, particularly in the South. While we've figured out the trick to restoring coastal longleaf pine ecosystems in the South (prescribed burns every 2-3 years), we haven't really made any attempts to do the same with Piedmont areas due to less clear ecological "standards" and more human population centers. As a result, the ecosystems that indigenous peoples managed and shaped are gone and we're still feeling the effects. Certain species of plants require periodic fire to support their populations. This includes some keystone species like many oaks. Oaks, for example, are mast-producing trees, meaning they produce vast quantities of nut-type fruits that fall to the forest floor and serve as an important source of food for many animal species. In eastern forests, a large proportion of our dominant canopy trees are mast-producers (including oaks, beech, hickories, etc). This means when we see a shift from oaks to maples (which flourish without fire), we see proportional reductions in animals that rely on those acorns, such as wild turkeys, black bears, ruffed grouse, and wood ducks. In addition, oaks support a truly ridiculous number of insects who specialize in oak species (either as larvae or adults), and a loss of those insects results in a loss of the dozens of songbird species who rely on oak-specialist insect larvae to feed their chicks. For some reason, maples aren't nearly as interwoven into the larger ecological net as most oak species are through the Southeast, and we're seeing real changes in wildlife populations during the oak decline. We're experiencing entirely new forests here. These aren't the same forests and woodlands that were present prior to the arrival of European colonists. They aren't even the same forests that existed prior to the development of traditional indigenous land practices, due to ongoing climate change effects. They aren't the same forests that greeted those early human migrants who settled here after the last Ice Age, 12,000 years or so ago. I'm not saying that any of these changes are good or bad, but they're changes. There are a lot of debates among ecologists over the "naturalness" of certain environments, over whether Indigenous land management practices could be considered "natural" or not. It's a discussion that needs to be divorced from moral judgment to get anywhere, but in the scientific community it's one that's likely to continue as we move through the Anthropocene.

[@jakobmax3299]

The parralel between genesis and Saruman at 29:45 is incredible.

[@autumnsierra2401]

Makes you wonder what Tolkien really believed.

[@everynametaken]

Tolkien probably would've had some stuff to say about that, given... everything about him.

[@marksanders573]

23 minutes in. As a Mississippianist, I sure hope you address the ecological impact of large cities like Cahokia and civilizations such as the Ancestral Puebloans, pre-contact. (Also, animism and animatism aren’t synonyms😊) EDIT: at 45:00 now. Good. Knowing your research rigor, I assumed you’d get into it at least a bit. I do have to disagree with the archaeologist, though (as a fellow archaeologist. I know, shocking that two archaeologists would have differing interpretations…): the idea that large, established populations of native North Americans within expansive civilizations (Southwest as well as Eastern Woodlands) would just decide ‘You know what? This isn’t working… let’s leave to be more conscientious about land-management’ still has a bit of the ‘back-to-nature’ whiff about it. EDIT: Andy… farming is not easier then other subsistence strategies. It’s actually far HARDER then many others, especially hunting and gathering.

[@arskakarva7474]

I agree, it'd have to be a case of "we don't have enough food to survive, we need to leave the city and find food elsewhere" decision that happened over multiple generations rather than a singular conscious decision to change land management, much less one to reject urban and sedentary lifestyle. Humans by nature are creatures of leisure and luxury, and most of all predictability, so it is unlikely that urban centers and agriculture would be abandoned because the population doesn't like them as that they increasingly run out of options to maintain them. And this is important since this manner of logic is also why the Lakota once they had access to guns and horses abandoned semi-sedentary lifestyle to become completely nomadic, because it was easier and more productive for them for that all too brief window of time.

[@whatabouttheearth]

About the last sentence, I would think it depends on the people's world view as related to "nature". It is absolutely undeniable that an ecological mindset was extremely dominant in many Native American tribes, and still is with many "traditionalist" Native Americans. Many of the early conservationists, preservationists and ecologists like Stetson and Leopold were extremely influenced by what they learned from Native Americans. I think it's odd to compare something like Cohokia, and whatever its alleged "environmental impact" was, to the monstrosities of sprawl that Capitalists developed. This is a bizarre dichotomy which almost wreaks of justifying ones own societies extremely destructive impact.

[@whatabouttheearth]

About the last sentence, I would think it depends on the people's world view as related to "nature". It is absolutely undeniable that an ecological mindset was extremely dominant in many Native American tribes, and still is with many "traditionalist" Native Americans. Many of the early conservationists, preservationists and ecologists like Stetson and Leopold were extremely influenced by what they learned from Native Americans. I think it's odd to compare something like Cohokia, and whatever its alleged "environmental impact" was, to the monstrosities of sprawl that Capitalists developed. This is a bizarre dichotomy which almost wreaks of justifying ones own societies extremely destructive impact.

[@Ccccccccccsssssssssss]

Thank you for making this video!

[@DJDoena]

In Germany this idea is over one hundred years old. Back in 1893 a convicted con man would write a series of novels that described his journeys to the Old West but also the Middle East that let his readers believe he actually went there and had these adventures. His name? Karl May. His main character? Himself. Known in the Old West under the moniker "Old Shatterhand" and in the Middle East as "Kara Ben Nemsi". His faithful companion in the Old West? A youn Mescalero Apache chieftain by the name of Winnetou. So what were the books about? The white immigrant and the noble wild man traveling the lands between St. Louis and the Rocky Mountains, seeing how the Indians are brutally oppressed by white settlers while trying to live in peace on the beautiful land or if they're not oppressed they are bribed with "fire water" and made to fight against another tribe. It's not really well written prose but when I grew up in the early 80s I loved these books and they shaped my view of the American Indians. If you want to see what it looks like look for the trailer "Last of the Renegades" here on KZbin and see how Winnetou is played by French actor Pierre Brice.

[@rileycannon]

Hey I've heard of those books, apparently Hitler was a huge fan too.

[@FischerNilsA]

@@rileycannon He actually planned a similar "wild wild east" scenario for the colonization of eastern "Lebensraum". Imagined german fortified villages dotted on the best land and the local slavic barbarians to be exploited and increasingly concentrated and ghettoized. I think he was unaware of just how many people really lived in the regions he wanted to population-replace. As compared to the americas post contact-epidemics.

[@undertakernumberone1]

@@rileycannon it should be noted that Karl May himself probably would've been rather disgusted by that. While not originally, he very muhc (and that is, despite the adventure stuff, rather noticeable) developed into a rather pacifistic outlook (aforementioned Old Shatterhand/Kara Ben Nemsi usually goes out of his way to spare the villains, for example, which leads every now and then to a note like "Had I known back then what I know now/about what would happen later..."). He also was, or became, a very devout christian (at least in the spiritual sense). While not free from the biases of his time, they were also reasonably progressive for their time. I mean, what was the general portrayal of the natives in the US or Europe at the time and later in a lot of pulp fiction? The generic wild threat to be dealt with. Fun story over all... May was a teacher and then lost that stuff, becoming a small time crook, a swindler and such. Even spent some time in prison (and during one arrest, according to a story, despite being rather slight in build [which the fictioanl Karl May in his stories shares] he apparently managed to burst open police handcuffs and make a run for it) where he read a lot, which lead to the basis of his stories. In fact, for example his US based novels you can follow on a map due o that. And as he wrote his stories, he slowly changed to become as noble in character as his literary hero.

[@rileycannon]

@@DJDoena oh trust me I very much understand where the original commenter is coming from, I was a big fan of Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss family Robinson and a couple of others from that time as a kid myself. If you're a fan of anything then you probably had to explain yes I enjoy this but not like that group. I just thought it was funny that the only other time I've heard of that series was because of that particular connection and I had no idea if the book still had a legacy in Germany and I guess they do.

[@Blacktoothoneil]

@@rileycannonHitler also drank water

[@nicolasnamed]

Been so excited for this video, thank you for tackling this topic and platforming indigenous voices!

[@pc3143]

Incredible video. Thank you for this m8

[@nolunch4908]

Time 30:30 . As a Christian I want to clarify the passage he just read. Everything he said was true. But there's a caveat. And our belief humans are called to have a higher level of accountability. As well as to be steward s of nature. It's hard to take care of something if it's not even in your own backyard. If a bear fights another bear it's territorial. It doesn't know any better. If two men fight over girl. They should be able to talk things in reason things out. But in the Bible it talks about how man squandered it is gifts. And did not manage things correctly. And I destroyed the very gift aka nature and everything in it.

[@mikeymullins5305]

that's only one way to intepret that passage

[@jacobbryant9177]

​@@mikeymullins5305not really

[@thomasallen8833]

As a Christian and a Native American myself, I couldn’t agree more with your interpretation

[@cooldoctor174]

Moreover, Adam and Eve were given a vegetarian diet!!! And the permission to eat animals was circumstantial to the flood..

[@ariabritton9669]

@@cooldoctor174 not necessarily true, and adam and eve weren't around for the great flood. also, god in the bible has demanded animal sacrifices on numerous occasions. and if god wanted humans to have a strict plant diet, he wouldn't have given us the teeth of omnivores (both cutting and crushing), and made the simplest way to get the nutrients needed to live from both meat AND plants. My interpretation is that one of god's intentions for man is to be shepherds of the animals, much like how he is the shepherd of man. and that includes having to lead some to slaughter, making the animal one with us, similar to how we become one with the lord when he says it's our time.