Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: PrimitiveTim on February 03, 2014, 09:11:40 pm
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One of my life goals is to change this culture into one that is more aware and understands nature better. I made a video that encompasses what I mean. I want to show the world the natural beauty and what all nature provides for us that we don't really realize. I don't want to just make video for animal lovers, primitive archers, or survivalists. I want to make videos for everyone and do that in a way that they are interesting to the average human. So let me know what y'all think.
(https://fbexternal-a.akamaihd.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCK5g48LhZO_o4M&w=130&h=130&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi1.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Frsc6aB_ewlY%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&cfs=1&sx=257&sy=0&sw=720&sh=720) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aue7K4MgySg&feature=c4-overview&list=UU9l4lrfkOEV5iNSju5GxM_g)
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And that is why the Black Hills Raptor Center eats 30+ hours of my life every week. That's why someone like me that does not like being around kids did 177 classroom presentations with the birds. That's why I go to large public venues to do programs when I would rather be in the woods alone.
Because when people do not understand nature, they do not value it. When they do not value it, they don't care what happens to it. And you know where things go from there.
Inspire a little wonder, a little awe, a little thrill in everything you do, Tim. I knew there was something I liked about you.
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Pretty nice video. Not sure how smart it was being that close to the gator, though. Reminded me of the guy that shot all of the videos making friends with the Grizzlies.
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Pretty nice video. Not sure how smart it was being that close to the gator, though. Reminded me of the guy that shot all of the videos making friends with the Grizzlies.
You mean "Mr. Scat" ? ::) :P :P
Wayne
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The guy was telling the truth. The bears loved him.
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every little morsel!!!! :o
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Pretty nice video. Not sure how smart it was being that close to the gator, though. Reminded me of the guy that shot all of the videos making friends with the Grizzlies.
Not to mention how illegal it is if the wrong Game Officer sees it. :-X
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You done a good job putting that one together Tim. I liked the frogs and their noises, made me feel like I was outside there for a moment...
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Not to mention how illegal it is if the wrong Game Officer sees it. :-X
What's illegal about sitting next to an alligator? Admittedly it's not the best idea but I've looked at the laws about alligators. No feeding, chasing, or harassing. They don't say anything about proximity. For the record this wasn't your normal alligator. I've had plenty of experience with alligators and even their African cousins. This was not an alligator that wanted to do me any harm and notice how I was pretty far from the business end. Had it wanted to bite me there's no way it would have had a chance.
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Keep up the good work! Just be careful swimming with sting rays. We don't need you to copy the Crocodile Hunter!
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Great video, very well done
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Kinda funny that White folks are getting around to seeing what we Natives have for millenia...Glad that the symbiotic relationship of man and nature is once again being discovered in a modern era. It has been missing(and is missing) from to many peoples lives...
As Chief Seath(Seattle) Stated " When the fish no longer swim the rivers, The deer No longer Roam the woods, and the Eagle no longer soars in the sky, Man shal die of a terrible lonliness"...
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You got a subscription from me. Great video and great editing. ;)
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Tim
I admire your zest for life.
you have it figured out.
there is a lot more to life than cell phones and video games.
Kevin
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Thanks guys for the encouragement!
Mohawk, I'm glad I could give you a chuckle.
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Well, to be honest, we Natives did do our fair share of trying civilization on for size. Look at Cahokia, Chaco Canyon, and so on. We did build cities. The mounds my ancestors built are still standing. The Aztecs built some pretty well-built pyramids also. We had a pretty extensive trade network bringing seashells from California, copper from the Great Lakes area, and many other things including live Macaw parrots up from South America. We had governments and my people had what was basically a pretty large standing army. The Anasazi basically built their civilization around trade and that kind of fell apart on them later when a drought hit and turquoise could no longer buy corn. The basis we had for our kinship with nature had to do with our survival depending on it, as well as certain spiritual traditions and taboos we can't discuss here. Everyone's survival still does, but people can't see it because they really don't know where anything comes from. Everything we have comes from this Earth and the Earth provides it. But people forget that.
A lot of people are conscious of respect for Nature, but consider this. What we call artifacts today is prehistoric litter. Pottery shards, for example. That's the ancient equivalent of a broken bottle. They're over 1000 years old and still there. They're all over the place out here. The difference is that today we're generating more than can be handled. We're filling in canyons with our trash. Valuable material is literally lost to landfills----copper, steel, brass, and so on. Back to those pottery shards, those are from pots that were broken. But what we do today is basically throwing away intact pots. Natives "back in the day" wouldn't have done that. A pot represents a lot of labor and it has value. Today, however, we'll throw away empty coffee cans, glass jars, and so on. Those are items that in certain Third World countries, they'd keep and use over and over until it broke, rusted away, or fell apart. What's more, you'll see these containers all over Nature and along the roads here. You can tell how much "stuff" a country really has by how much "stuff" they throw away; i.e. waste.
Ravens here know that they can fill their bellies at every McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King because people there throw a lot of food away. We throw away tremendous amounts of food because it's cheap and readily available. The House Sparrow and pigeon thrive in cities because they eat what people just drop or throw on the sidewalk. In turn, falcons now take up residence in cities to take advantage of another readily available meal---those pigeons and sparrows. Changes in animal behaviour simply from our habits of wasting food. What does this have to do with Nature? Because food comes from the Earth and wasting it represents wasting a lot of natural resources that went into making it available.
Anyway, rambling, so...
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I hear you all loud and clear, especially Dharma
and Mohawk. I too am an individual who reveres
the natural world and understands that our own
survival depends on it, BUT....
How does one make a living once he has been
disillusioned by the unsustainable and destructive
modern system we currently live in?
I've got 2 kids and another one one the way and
I have to find a new job in the next few months.
I'm torn between doing what's "normal" to pay
the bills, and the aching desire to drop out and live
simply and sustainably. I know I have to do the
responsible thing for my family, but I think about
this choice often and I feel I should be doing more
(or less, depending how you look at it).
I'm afraid that being half-heartedly stuck in the
middle isn't doing anyone any good and is
basically just a big waste of time and effort.
Sorry Tim, I think this may be a bit of a downer and
maybe a hijack, to boot, but this primitive bug has
got me sick with this ugly, modern world I see
around me.
Japbow.
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Oh yeah...Awesome video, by the way!
Japbow.
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Tim, I want to meet you one day. I think you'd be fun to have a chat with!
I work in the packaging industry. Specifically, I work for a company that makes packaging machines. It is completely soul sucking. Every day I see the sheer amount of stuff that we produce. The interesting thing I find is that the companies that produce this stuff are so concerned about waste- before they sell their product. Very few care what happens after that. I took two days off this week after a bad meeting, we had a snow storm- and I went for a walk. Not a two day walk, but I walked a lot over the two days, despite the snow. The walking stick I got during the Christmas exchange came in very handy. Even just walking through the farmlands that surround my house, along snowmobile trails and old railroad tracks was wonderful. I feel that it helped center me. I've resolved to move on in my career, and to get my butt back to Michigan where my family is.
Nature, civilization, technology- all these things can co-exist. Finding that balance is a long way off, unfortunately. Folks like you and the rest of the guys on this site are so needed to make people realize how important that having all three of these legs. Like a milking stool. I guess?
Anyway, I've got robots to program...
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I work selling silver sheet, shaped wire, and also turquoise to the Native jewelry trade. Now, we sell silver and we also take in scrap silver for trade. So silversmiths bring in even the filings off the saw and tiny cuttings to trade for more silver. So they just can't cut silver and let the dust fall to the floor. They have to cut over a box to catch the filings. They're worth around $15 a troy ounce. And they also want back the used food jars and coffee cans they bring it to me in, because they'll use it over again and again. An example of how things could be when value is assigned to what would be "scrap". Even tiny sand-like pieces of turquoise left over from cutting and shaping raw turquoise has value for inlay work. We also sell buckskin and even scrap pieces you'd be hard-pressed to use to make a string keeper is used as backing for beadwork to make earrings.
A lot of these artisans and craftspeople are Native and live on the rez where a lot of stuff is hard to come by. An empty coffee can has value as a container. Empty cloth Blue Bird flour sacks (Blue Bird is THE flour preferred for frybread) are used for all kinds of things. Stuff isn't just thrown away without thinking, "What can I possibly use this for down the road?" I have pet birds that shed feathers. Now, many people that own birds throw the feathers away. But I give them to Hopi people who use them for prayer sticks or Navajo carvers and they're very happy to get them. Again, things have a different set of value out there. As primitive archers, we know this well because we see feathers and wonder if we can fletch arrows with them.
Our modern society has become accustomed to convenience and discarding anything we don't need. But on the rez, that empty food jar might be all you have to keep your silver dust in, so you can't just throw it away when you're done with those pickles or salsa. There isn't a Home Depot a mile down the road to go buy a container. If everyone had to live like that, people would see a different assigned value to what they usually throw away. And not just on the rez, but among any people that live in a culture or area of scarcity of resources. The old Prince Albert tobacco cans were made into lots of storage containers in the South, for example.
With many Navajo, when your hands are chapped or you have cuts and scrapes, you don't always run to the store and get ointment because guess what? The nearest store might be over 50 miles away. You get pinyon sap and make a salve. It works better, by the way. You become accustomed to looking towards Nature first for remedies and find that the medicines are there for the picking. Nature provides your heat and cooking fuel, your medicines, and even your smoke for your pipe since a wild tobacco grows there. Even your incense grows there. This is also one reason why Nature has a much higher assigned value for Native peoples. Nature takes care of us and gives us our medicines, foods, incense, smokes, fuel, art, and certain tools. The Earth looks after us. But this isn't limited to us. The Earth looks after us all and we all need to come to see this no matter where we live or who we are. If the Earth is your mother, as we Natives believe, then you ask yourself, "How shall I behave around my mother and in my mother's house? Do I appreciate what my mother gives me?" It really boils down to that.