Of Leopards and Other Lovely Frightful Things: The Environmental Ethics of Indigenous Rajasthani Shamans

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF

RELIGION, NATURE AND CULTURE ____________________________________

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION, NATURE AND CULTURE Editor in Chief Assistant Editor Managing Editor Bron Taylor, University of Florida [email protected]

Gavin Van Horn, University of Florida

Joseph Witt, University of Florida [email protected]

[email protected] Consulting Editor Book Reviews Editor Reviews Coordinator ( The Americas) Celia Deane-Drummond, University of Chester, UK

John Baumann, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

Luke Johnston, University of Florida [email protected]

[email protected] [email protected] Reviews Coordinator (Europe/Asia/Africa) Albertina Nugteren, Tilburg University, The Netherlands [email protected] Executive Editors J. Baird Callicott (University of North Texas), Graham St. John (University of Queensland), Kocku von Stuckrad (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Kristina Tiedje (University of Lyon), Michael York (Bath University), Robin Wright (University of Florida) Editorial Board Gustavo Benavides (Villanova University), Ernst Conradie (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), Richard Foltz (Concordia University), John Gatta (University of the South), Stewart Guthrie (Fordham University), Graham Harvey (Open University), Adrian Ivakhiv (University of Vermont), Issiaka-P. L. Laleye (Université Gaston Berger), Sarah McFarland Taylor (Northwestern University), Alastair McIntosh (Centre for Human Ecology & University of Strathclyde, Scotland), Ibrahim Ozdemir (Ankara University), Clare Palmer (Washington University in St. Louis), James Proctor (Louis and Clark College), Michael Soulé (University of California, Santa Cruz [Emeritus]), J. Richard Stepp (University of Florida), Donald Swearer (Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions), Victor Manuel Toledo Manzur (Unidad Académica Morelia), Mark Wallace (Swarthmore College), Nina Witoszek-Fitzpatrick (Oslo University/European University, Italy), Egleé L. Zent (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas) The Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture is the journal of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, and is published four times a year in March, June, September, and December. Further information about the society and journal are available at www.religionandnature.com. Equinox Publishing Ltd, Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies Street, London SW11 2JW. Manuscripts should be submitted in accordance with the guidelines supplied for the journal at www. religionandnature.com/journal. Information for Subscribers: For information about Equinox Publishing Ltd, please log on to www. equinoxpub.com. Subscription prices for the current volume (volume 2) are: UK/Europe/Rest of World The Americas Institutions £165 $295 Individuals £50 $90 Students £35 $63 Canadian customers/residents please add 7% for GST on to the Americas price. Prices include second class postal delivery within the UK and airmail delivery elsewhere. Postmaster: Send address changes to Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, Subscription Customer Services Manager, Turpin Distribution Services Ltd, Stratton Business Park, Pegasus Drive, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, SG18 8QB, UK. Sample Requests, New Orders, Renewals, Claims/Other Subscription Matters : for details contact: Journals Department, Turpin Distribution Services Ltd, at the address above or email: [email protected]. Payments should be made out to Turpin Distribution Services Ltd. No cancellations after despatch of first issue. Any cancellation is subject to £10.00 handling fee. Claims for missing issues must be made within 30 days of despatch of issue for UK customers, 60 days elsewhere. Advertising: For details contact Journals Department, Equinox Publishing Ltd at the address above or email: vhall@ equinoxpub.com. CrossRef : This journal participates in , the collaborative, cross-publisher reference linking service that turns citations into hyperlinks. Back Issues: contact Turpin Distribution Services Ltd. Indexing and Abstracting: This journal is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606, [email protected], http: ⁄ ⁄ www.atla.com/. Copyright : All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted by any means without the prior written permission of the Publisher, or in accor-dance with the terms of photocopying licenses issued by the organizations authorized by the Publisher to administer reprographic reproduction rights. Authorization to photocopy items for educational classroom use is granted by the Publisher provided the appropriate fee is paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA from whom clearance should be obtained in advance. © Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2008 ISSN 1749-4907 (print) ISSN 1749-4915 (online) Printed and bound in Great Britain by Lightning Source UK Ltd, Milton Keynes

Volume 2 number 1 March 2008

Special Issue: Indigenous Nature Reverence and

Environmental Degradation: Exploring Critical Intersections of Animism and Conservation

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Contents________________________________

Editor Introduction Bron Taylor 5

Guest Editors’ Introduction:

Indigenous Nature Reverence and Conservation— Seven Ways of Transcending an Unnecessary Dichotomy Jeffrey G. Snodgrass and Kristina Tiedje 6-29

Of Leopards and Other Lovely Frightful Things: The Environmental Ethics of Indigenous Rajasthani Shamans Jeffrey G. Snodgrass et al. 30-54

Relational Epistemology, Immediacy, and Conservation: Or, What Do the Nayaka Try to Conserve? Nurit Bird-David and Danny Naveh 55-73

Where Spirit and Bulldozer Roam: Environment and Anxiety in Highland Borneo Matthew H. Amster 74-92

Situating the Corn-Child: Articulating Animism and Conservation from a Nahua Perspective Kristina Tiedje 93-115

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2008.

The Conflicting Relationships of Sherpas to Nature:

Indigenous or Western Ecology? Lionel Obadia 116-134

Nature is Relative: Religious Affiliation,

Environmental Attitudes, and Political Constraints on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Kathleen Pickering and Benjamin Jewell 135-158

Notes for Contributors 159

[JSRNC 2.1 (2008) 5] JSRNC (print) ISSN 1363-7320 doi: 10.1558/jsrnc.v2i1.5 JSRNC (online) ISSN 1743-1689

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2008, Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies Street, London SW11 2JW.

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Editor Introduction ___________________

I am delighted to present the first issue of the second volume of the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. Entitled ‘Indigenous Religions and Environments: Intersections of Animism and Nature Conservation’, this special issue is ably introduced and guest edited by Kristina Tiedje (Université Lumière Lyon 2, France) and Jeffrey Snod-grass (Colorado State University, USA). The collaboration that gave rise to this important issue was facilitated through a session held during the inaugural meeting of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, which was held in April 2006 at the University of Florida. Additional special issues are still in process from that conference. Moreover, the second international conference of the ISSRNC, which was held in Morelia Mexico in January 2008, and which received rave reviews from participants, energized further ideas for journal articles, focus sections, and special issues. From what was published in the first volume, and what has already been scheduled for future issues and is in development, it is clear that the envisioned synergies between a scholarly society and its affiliated jour-nal, devoted to critical interdisciplinary and international inquiry into the human/nature/culture nexus, are being realized. At the outset of the second year publishing this journal, let me cor-dially invite all readers to participate in these scholarly initiatives by joining or renewing membership in the society, volunteering to its com-mittees, attending its conferences, submitting work to the journal, and otherwise participating in the field building that all of these initiatives represent. Further information about how to do so is available at www.religionandnature.com.

Bron Taylor Editor in Chief

[JSRNC 2.1 (2008) 6-29] JSRNC (print) ISSN 1363-7320 doi: 10.1558/jsrnc.v2i1.6 JSRNC (online) ISSN 1743-1689


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Introduction: Indigenous Nature Reverence and Conservation—

Seven Ways of Transcending an

Unnecessary Dichotomy _____________________________________________

Jeffrey G. Snodgrass

Department of Anthropology, Colorado State University,

Fort Collins, CO 80523-1787, USA

[email protected]

Kristina Tiedje

Centre de Recherches et d’Etudes Anthropologiques, Université Lyon 2,

Campus Porte Des Alpes, Bâtiment K, 5, avenue Pierre-Mendés-France,

69676 Bron Cedex, France [email protected]

Indigenous peoples around the world revere their environment’s trees, rivers, grasses, stones, hills, and forests. Often labeled ‘Animists’,1 indi-genous peoples also personify their environments, treating both their lands and the non-human denizens occupying those lands as persons to be related to as cognizant and communicative subjects rather than as inert or insignificant objects. One would imagine that this reverence and personification of their surroundings would lead indigenous peoples to conscious conservation thought and practice: that they would do every-thing in their power, logic would seem to dictate, to protect the deities; likewise, that they would strive not to harm plant and animal persons who, in many respects, possess a right to life equal to that of humans. Many anthropologists do, in fact, suggest that indigenous religions work to promote balance, harmony, and dynamic equilibrium between humans and their environments, providing evidence for what would seem to be religiously inspired conservation ethics among the world’s

1. We capitalize Animism in order to bestow on indigenous religions the same

dignity as other purportedly ‘world religions’ such as Christianity, Buddhism, and

Hinduism. We do not capitalize this term in its adjectival and adverbial forms.

Snodgrass and Tiedje Introduction 7


indigenous peoples. For example, Roy Rappaport (1967, 1984), taking a systems approach, argues that for the Tsembaga of Papua New Guinea, ritual pig feasts helped to regulate the balance between human and pig populations, preventing overpopulation and resource depletion. Both Richard Nelson (1982, 1983) and Fikret Berkes (1999) argue that tradi-tional ecological knowledge (TEK) and religiously inspired ethics of respect of and restraint toward animal persons and the natural world temper northern Native Americans exploitation of their environments. In a more complex context, Stephen Lansing (1987, 1991; Lansing and Kremer 1993), using agent-based models and computer simulation, points to the way that Hindu water temples and priests help to regulate water usage on the densely populated island of Bali, thus making the traditional agricultural system more sustainable than new green revolu-tion technologies and innovations. These anthropological studies have opened a spirited debate on the relationship between indigenous nature-based religions and conservation,understood here as actions or practices consciously designed to prevent or mitigate resource overharvesting or environmental damage (Smith and Wishnie 2000). Many scholars, following insights in the above-refe-renced studies, see a close relation between the two. For the Amazon, Darrell Posey and William Balée (1989), and also Robin Wright (2007), argue that indigenous knowledge can be combined with conservationist efforts (see also Posey 1985). For the Pacific region, Nancy Williams and Graham Baines (1993) advance a similar stance, showing that indigenous wisdom can be useful for conservation and sustainable development. Similarly, the authors in John Grim’s book (2001c) highlight the ‘inter-being’ of ecology and cosmology in indigenous lifeways, suggesting, implicitly and explicitly, that indigenous religions may lead to more ecologically sound behavior. The increasing interest in indigenous envi-ronmental beliefs as a recipe for better conservation practice is also exemplified by the edited volume by Darrell Posey (1999) on the cultural and spiritual values of biodiversity, as well as by recent discussions on the culture-specific values underlying modern conceptions of nature conservation (Harmon and Putney 2003; Tiedje 2007). Then again, there are other scholars both within and outside anthro-pology who have argued that indigenous peoples’ religious beliefs do not always get connected to conservation thought or behavior. Pointing to actual environmental outcomes in historical and contemporary contexts—that is, to the manner in which indigenous peoples who share an animistic worldview have participated willingly in the dramatic transformation and even destruction of their natural environments—researchers like Shepard Krech (1999, 2005) strive to dismantle as

8 Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture


romantic myth the notion of indigenous peoples living in harmony with an environment which is revered and defended. These scholars would thus not recommend utilizing indigenous worldviews to promote or bolster sustainable development agendas.2

Any polarized discussion of the connection between indigenous reli-gions and conservation, be it romantic myth or an oversimplified counterto romanticism, tends toward an unfortunate and unnecessary dichot-omy, whose roots can be traced back to at least the Enlightenment: indigenous peoples either live in balance with nature (Rousseau’s 1993 [1762] noble savages living harmoniously in a blissful state of nature); or they destroy their ecosystems (Hobbes’ 1958 [1651] state of nature as ‘nasty, brutish, and short’). Though Claude Levi-Strauss (1963) demon-strates that dichotomies are undoubtedly good to think with, we are more interested in this instance to do justice to the subtle life experiences and complex cultures of the indigenous peoples with whom we live and work.3

We are not alone in this endeavor. In his critical reflections on the uses and misuses of spiritual ecology, one of the anthropological pioneers of the study of the interrelation of indigenous religions and the environ-ment, Leslie Sponsel (2001b: 170), calls for a ‘middleground’ to move beyond the ‘philosophical and political polarization’ that views indige-nous societies either as conservationists or as destroyers of nature. Based both on his own research among Buddhist forest monks in Thailand as well as on his interpretation of the cross-cultural record, Sponsel (e.g. 1997, 2001a, 2001b) shows that spiritual ecologies may indeed have politi-cal implications in some circumstances, just as other religions or belief systems might have. Critical of romanticist assumptions that indigenous spirituality in which the environment is respected and treated as sacred leads to conservation behavior, Sponsel (2001a, b, 2005) calls for the importance of more research on the possible relationships between reli-gion and ecology without undermining indigenous land and resource rights, or romanticizing indigenous lifeways.

2. For similar arguments, see also Alvard 1993, 1998; Diamond 1986, 1988, 1992;

Edgerton 1992; Kay 1994; Meilleur 1994; Redford 1990; Redford and Stearman 1993;

Redman 1999; Whelan 1999. Clearly, uncritical uses of studies that portray indigenous peoples as destroyers of nature also hold tremendous political implications, especially

with regards to indigenous resource and land rights. For a useful critique of the

arguments of Krech 1999, see Deloria 2000. 3. Though we do acknowledge that uncritical acceptance of the stereotype of

environmentally destructive indigenes is more dangerous in its implications in the

way it can compromise indigenous land claims and political rights.



In this introduction, we therefore offer seven ways out of what we consider an over-simplification of the ethnographic record of indigenous peoples’ relationships to their environments, drawing details to back our points from this volume’s ethnographic case studies. It is our aim to move beyond the dichotomies that have either romanticized indigenous peoples as the world’s ‘first conservationists’ or blamed them for eco-logical degradation. It should be noted that in the context of an indige-nous animistic cosmos, we understand the term environment to mean an eco-social sphere of a ‘community-of-beings’ (Berkes 1999), where humanand non-human persons co-exist and interact on a daily basis. As a first step to transcending this dichotomy, we would simply point to the tremendous diversity across indigenous societies. The articles in this volume, for example, are based on ethnographic research conducted among indigenous peoples in India, Nepal, Mexico, North America, and Borneo. Some of the groups discussed in this volume appear to be conservationists—if only in Wittgenstein’s (2001 [1953]) family resem-blance kind of way—while others do not. We hope that after reading these case studies readers will be hard pressed to say as a general fact whether indigenous peoples are conservationists or not. Eventually, we hope, one would realize that we function as historical witnesses of par-ticular local–state–global interconnections of the conservation endeavor, of how indigenous traditions are constantly adapting to rapidly chang-ing circumstances. Second, we distinguish between animistic or religious thought on the one hand and conservation thought and behavior on the other. Cognitive anthropologists have devoted considerable attention to the study of models or frames—cognitive structures which help individuals organize and process information about the world around them, and attribute meaning and significance to events and experiences.4 Drawing in part on this work, the authors of the articles in this volume point to the manner that indigenous peoples do typically frame their environments animisti-cally, as inhabited by sentient beings that are recognized and related to as living non-human persons. However, readers will see that the particu-lar forms of these animistic models vary from society to society. India’s Bhil Adivasis (First Peoples), for example, who are the focus of the chap-ter by Snodgrass and his collaborators, frame the hills that surround their villages on a generally benevolent, though somewhat fickle and ill-tempered, grandfather referred to as Magra Baosi; this mountain deity is believed to possess bones, blood, and hair in his rocks, rivers, trees, and

4. On cultural models, see D’Andrade 1995; Holland and Quinn 1987; Schank

and Abelson 1977; Strauss and Quinn 1997.



mosses. Mexican Nahuas, discussed by Tiedje, pay similar reverence to the living and sentient mountains, but they seem even more eager to win the blessings of a non-human corn person, who features in numerous agricultural rituals. In each case, these models of a living and sentient nature are differentially connected to what we might call conservationthought and behavior. Bhil Adivasi shamans, for example, strive to man-age and control the fickle Magra Baosi for the benefit of themselves, their clients, and their communities, but they are not themselves seen as greatly responsible, or even able, to defend these supernatural powers from harm. Likewise, the Nahua corn persons demand field-burning and other activities that can lead to, for example, declines in biodiversity. These ethnographic details lead us to suggest that, to reframe this second point, a distinction should be made between knowledge models of how the world is or is believed to be (animated by sentient persons) as compared to value or ethical models of how one ought to behave in such a world (animals and plants should be protected) (Kempton, Boster, and Hartley 1995). Making this distinction allows for multiple ‘Animisms’, some which get connected to the ethical mandate to conserve one’s environment and others which do not. Some individuals, or even some societies as a whole, connect ideas about an animated nature with a cultural value to protect that nature, whiles others do not give such a value priority relative to other values. In discussing Indian Nayaka’s relationship to wild elephants, Bird-David and Naveh, for example, demonstrate how maintaining good relationships with non-human fam-ily members is a local priority. In this South Asian ethnographic context, conservation may come as a by-product of this Nayaka animist model of familiality and kinship with the natural world, but it is not the explicit intention of these hunter-gatherers.

Cognitive anthropologists are particularly interested in cultural modelsor frames, in the sense of abstract and simplified mental representations of the world that are widely shared by many individuals, and which thus structure reasoning and practice in a range of contexts by many different individuals. This leads us to our third way out of an overly simplistic view of the relationship of indigenous peoples with their environments: Animistic cultural models, like sentiments to defend nature, are not shared equally by all persons in a particular society; nor are they acti-vated equally in all contexts. We would thus point to a great diversity of relationships to the environment not only across but also within individ-ual indigenous societies. In the language of cognitive anthropology, models and ethical sentiments are distributed across individuals and con-texts. This distributional or epidemiological view of culture (Sperber 1985, 1996) reminds us that cultures are not of one piece: yes, animistic



knowledge models, like conservation value models, may be widely shared by members of a given society, but few (if any) models are shared by all members of that society. Rather, we would encourage readers to visualize the indigenous cultures described in these papers as composed of competing models of nature (some animistic, others disenchanted [Weber 1946]) and competing ethical obligations (some ecocentric, others anthropocentric [Stern 2000; Stern et al. 1999]), which are activated and conjoined in particular lives and contexts depending on the exigencies of the situation. This discussion of the manner in which cultural models are socially activated draws attention to the fact how we, as anthropologists, are most interested in how beliefs about the world, or about how one should behave in the world, are played out in actual lives and experiences. That is, we are interested in social and personal reality rather than beliefs, ideals, or norms in the abstract. Cognitive anthropologists, for example, speak of the way that cultural models and values are differentially inter-nalized in individual psyches (Spiro 1987). For many indigenous peoples, animistic models and conservation values guide thought, motivate beha-vior, and get connected to the deepest of personal projects and commit-ments. Still, we need to keep in mind that many other individuals within the societies discussed within this volume are only knowledgeable in a detached way about conservation beliefs and values to which they may only pay lip-service—they might, for example, consciously appropriate the conservation language of state agents in order to win political rights, as described in Obadia’s article on the Sherpas of Nepal. We would hope readers would think of cultural internalization of animistic ontologies and conservation values along a continuum: some individuals’ (shamans in most of the societies discussed in this volume come to mind) personal and professional identities are built upon the ability to communicate with non-human natural persons and forces (though not necessarily to defend those persons and forces); however, other indigenous peoples (we are thinking in particular of those Kelabit of Borneo who have con-verted to Christianity) seem little interested in devoting too much effort or energy to the ‘superstitious’ reverence of unpredictable, and ulti-mately weak and even ‘evil’, forest and animal spirits to which others in their communities are so committed. Based on these details, as a fourth transcending of a dichotomy that would label indigenous peoples either conservationists or not, we would remind readers that the societies under consideration in this volume are composed of individuals that are every bit as diverse, complicated, and even conflicted as Westerners. Not all Americans and Europeans are Christians, nor are they environmentalists. Likewise, even the most



committed of Western Christians—or environmentalists—do not invari-ably measure up to their ideals. We would hope that readers would recognize that indigenous peoples are as diverse in their commitments and projects as are other peoples; and that they likewise fail to embody their highest aspirations, be they religious, environmental, or some com-plex combination of the two. As a result, it is even more difficult to label societies as a whole as conservationist or not. Though we would want to highlight the diversity of individuals within the indigenous societies featuring in this volume, we would wish to distinguish between cultural ideas and collective agreements (see D’Andrade 2006). Cultural ideas, as we use the term here, are those that are widely shared by many individuals inhabiting a given community: as we have said, we do think that animist models and conservation values and ideas are oftentimes cultural in the sense that they are broadly shared and agreed upon by our interlocutors at the level of individual belief and commitment. However, an equally important question is whether such models and values get linked to institutions that embody them on the level of collective agreement. At the community level, we are interested in the ariticles of this special issue to map out whether we find institutions that create and implement rules, regulations, and sanctions related to land and resource use, which express the joint will of the collectivity or of the community. In relationship to land management, indigenous peoples often assign special powers to particular agents to perform specific tasks related to the mandate of the institution and the welfare of the collectivity (Searle 1995). These agents—be they village headmen, shamans, lineages, religious societies, or Tribal councils—are assigned the duty and responsibility to resolve disputes related to access and use of forest resources. In their land management, these institutions and their agents rely heavily on, and indeed create, community norms:‘“the collective shoulds of life, which Searle calls deontic powers’ (D’Andrade 2006), that set the informal rules, related in this case to resource use, as well as to the sanctions that would be enforced if rules were broken. This leads to a fifth important revision on the unnecessary dichotomy being discussed in this introduction: in the various groups considered in these essays, we find varying degrees of presence of meaningful institu-tions that organize indigenous peoples for collective action—in this case, for defending their forests against abuse and overuse by both insiders and outsiders to the community—which becomes critically determinant of the degree of actual conservation found in a given society.5 In some

5. On institutions, see Searle 1995, and D’Andrade’s 2006 discussion of Searle.



indigenous societies, we see little or no evidence of a traditional insti-tutionalization of conservation values. Thus, among both the Bornean Kelabit who feature in Matthew Amster’s chapter and the Nayaka hunter-gatherers discussed by Bird-David and Naveh, we would point to primarily accidental or epiphenomenal conservation (Hunn 1982) in what could be called traditional ecological resource management con-texts, resulting not from explicit or conscious intentions to conserve or from active regimes of land management but rather from low population density, limited technology, or low demand for commodities and unde-veloped markets.6 In other cases, for example among the Bhil Adivasis in India, we find a mix of conservation and anti-conservation institutions in both pre- and post-Independence (1947) settings. In a ritual called ‘spreading saffron’ (kesar bantna), Bhil elders, along with shamans and other members of the clan, ritually close off degraded sections of the forest from further use for five or more years. In another Bhil ritual referred to as a ‘fire bath’ (agni snan), however, Bhils make vows to their gods that if certain boons are granted then the supplicants would reward their deities with a gift of fire, which could leave an entire slope dar-kened from fire. These intentionally set fires often do great damage to the jungle, burning at very high temperatures and thus killing many trees and damaging soils, and local Adivasis know it. Likewise, among the Lakota Sioux of South Dakota discussed by Pickering and Jewell, traditional regimes of land management have largely disappeared from the local landscape in contemporary times, or have at least been stripped of real power and authority over natural resources by nation-states and corrupt tribal governments. Here we find a disconnection between indi-vidually held values and beliefs which are widespread and internalized in more than a majority of individual psyches, on the one hand, and the lack of institutions which incarnate these values and beliefs, on the other. The institutional and ritual gatherings of clan or tiospaye leaders—where religious values, beliefs, and commitments get connected to resource-management decisions, rules, and sanctions through debate, compro-mise, consensus-building, and simple bullying—are no more. In these terms, we might say that Sioux religiosity and commitment remain but their effects have waned. In all these cases, either through traditional absence, multiple and even contradictory mandates, or subsequent loss, this lack of viable local institutions to protect indigenous lands can contribute to unprecedented

6. On debates concerning epiphenomenal conservation as compared to conservation by design, see Alvard 1993, 1998; Hunn 1982, 2003; Hunn et al. 2003; Krech 2005; Ruttan

and Mulder 1999; Smith and Wishnie 2000.



degradation of indigenous territories in the contemporary era when populations are greater, technologies of natural resource extraction are more powerful, and demands for natural resource commodities are unprecedented. When there are few, if any, legitimate (from local per-spectives) collectively held or maintained rules and norms related to resource management—and thus no collectively held attempt to limit individual desires—even environmentally conscious individuals can fail to act on their best intentions. Lacking institutions for monitoring and policing forest resource use, even committed individuals lose the will to behave sensibly in regards to their forests. Individual restraint in these contexts, after all, would mean that conscientious individuals get less of a valuable resource than those who fail to exercise such restraint. In the light of a lack of meaningful institutions that organize joint defense and management of these forest lands, a mad rush for forest resources, even when it goes against one’s personal values, beliefs, and commitments, is an entirely understandable course of action. A ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin 1968; Ostrom 1990; Ostrom et al. 1999)—at least on de facto ‘open access’ lands such as the wildlife sanctuaries and national parks that feature in some of the essays to follow, where indigenous peoples view state control as illegitimate and thus recognize no legitimate owner or authority—is not only logical, but to be expected. It is true that most nation-states, under the pressure of the interna-tional community, are currently striving to institute Western-style con-servation programs on indigenous lands. But as case studies in this volume make clear, such models of conservation remain largely discon-nected from local thought and environmental practice. To launch our discussion, we find somewhat useful the distinction by Paul Dwyer (1994: 91) between ‘modern conservation’ viewed as ‘global in its moti-vation and assertions of responsibility’, and ‘traditional conservation’ of indigenous peoples, viewed as local, based on rights of access and co-operative management calling for immediate action. This distinction does not view modern (or Western) conservation as qualitatively better than traditional conservation.7 It merely distinguishes between the scale and history of traditional ecological knowledge in indigenous societies and more recent scientific knowledge of Western societies. Such a

7. Here, as in other contexts, we oppose ‘modern’ or ‘Western’ conservation to ‘indigenous’ conservation. We realize that such distinctions are problematic in the

way they totalize both the West and also the indigenous societies which are the focus

of this volume. We do try in this volume to show subtle differences between conserva-tion in each of the societies treated in our case studies. We acknowledge, moreover,

the tremendous diversity of environmental commitments even in a single Western

country such as the USA.



distinction proves useful in part in Tiedje’s and Bird-David and Naveh’s case studies—in both cases, Western conservation ideals do not embody or institute indigenous models and values, and thus have yet to win full local support and allegiance. Then again, they do not argue for a simple juxtaposition of modern versus traditional conservation practices. Espe-cially Tiedje’s study of Nahua articulations of traditional environmental narratives with Western conservation guidelines demonstrates that tra-ditional and modern conservation can become two intertwined models, despite persisting power differentials. This brings us to the next point. As we see in case studies from Asia to the Americas, state- and NGO-sponsored conservation still flows largely from a commodity view of indigenous and tribal lands, and indeed a history of clearcuts and state degradation of land, that makes these efforts even more illegitimate in indigenous eyes. Overall, most nation-states are not perceived by indigenous peoples to have the best interests of the forest or local peoples in mind in their laws and policies, an issue amply demonstrated by the increasing indigenous environmental and land rights movements across the world. Further, even when aiming at conservation, state governments are often seen to be largely corrupt and ineffectual from local perspectives, another common indigenous concern that comes through loud and clear in Pickering and Jewell’s discussion of the Lakota Sioux. In fact, governmental land-management policies, in typically reversing indigenous peoples’ historical rights of use and accessto these woods, seem to have been explicitly designed not to win local cooperation and allegiance. These contexts all make indigenous conser-vation success less likely, even when values largely consistent with Western conservation ideals are present and embedded in indigenous cosmologies. Building on these observations, our sixth way out of the unnecessary dichotomy that is the subject of this introduction is to point to the way in which indigenous peoples complexly interact with the global economy and the world system, which makes many of them seem to be conser-vationists at one moment in their history and anti-conservationists at another. As we have already alluded to, some indigenous peoples, through contact with the capitalist and colonialist global systems, have modified or lost those institutions, ritualized or not, that allowed them sensibly and sustainably to manage their lands in the past. In addition, illiterate and tradition-bound indigenous peoples are typically seen both by the state and contemporary NGOs as ‘inappropriate’ for participation in new institutions of forest management, a stance that local Adivasis in India interpret as a sign of the state’s disrespect, and even disdain, for indigenous peoples and their traditions. In this context, state bureaucrats



and employees see local knowledge and values as out-of-sync with prin-ciples of scientific forest management. There is thus little effort to merge state policies and practices with indigenous traditions, which further leads to the decline of local traditions of land management. 8 Likewise, poverty and political marginality, which seems to go hand-in-hand with modernization, make it difficult for indigenous peoples to act on con-servation commitments even when they might wish to. Of particular note is the intrusion in all of the indigenous societies discussed in this volume of ‘world religions’, understood here as the most established religions, such as certain strands of Christianity, Hin-duism, and Buddhism. In their introductory essay to Deep Ecology and World Religions (2001), David Landis Barnhill and Roger Gottlieb (2001: 3) highlight that most major ‘religious traditions were pretty much blind to the environmental crisis until it was pointed out to them by others’, such as romantic poets, phenomenologists, and Western Marxists who challenged the dominant Western treatment of nature. Despite the importance of ‘conservationist’ and ‘animal rights’ figures such as St. Francis of Assisi, it is further argued that a persisting anthropocentrism of the most established religions might have been a disaster for the environment (Devall 1980; Devall and Sessions 1985; Landis Barnhill and Gottlieb 2001a; Sessions 1991). Readers will be struck by the contrast between traditional Bornean Kelabit ritual entanglement with terrifying and potentially destructive nature spirits, and their current heavily Chris-tianized view of sacred mountains as both places of sin and temptation as well as potentially uplifting wilderness retreats. The Lakota Sioux have similarly felt the impact of various strands of Christianity. The Bhils of Rajasthan (India) have abandoned many animistic beliefs in order to become more fully Hindu; and the Sherpas of Nepal are now largely Buddhist. In each of these contexts, we, the authors, attempt to disentangle local religions of nature reverence from beliefs drawn from the most established world religions, as in Pickering and Jewell’s statistical comparison between the environmental values and knowledge of Native American ‘Christians’ and those practicing ‘Lakota Spiritual-ity’ or ‘Combined Christian and Lakota Spirituality’. But the situation is more complex, with indigenous Animism syncretically merging inextric-ably, if not always seamlessly, with the more recognized religions of the dominant societies within which indigenous communities are now embedded.

8. In other cases modern states and NGOs have been inspired to transform their

conservation values and agendas as a result of their contact with indigenous peoples.



Other contemporary situations are similarly complex, and in many cases, contemporary Western conservation ideals may contribute to a more conscious conservation behavior among the indigenous peoples with whom we work. In Nepal among the Sherpas, as briefly mentioned earlier, Lionel Obadia shows how locals sometimes (but not always) reinterpret their local religious beliefs and rituals in an idiom of conser-vation in order to meet the needs and expectations of development experts and state bureaucrats. Framing oneself as a ‘conservationist’, and thus as a good steward of nature, and even selectively and strategically reviving long-dead ritual traditions in order to lend a conservation sheen to indigenous environmental practice, allows locals to manipulate Westerners’ romantic illusions. Such activity should be understood as conscious political acts meant to win increased rights and assert fuller sovereignty over purportedly state-owned lands. Likewise, the Nahuas reframe globally circulating conservation ideas, easily adopting them into their worldview. The articulation of conservation-as-sacred-practice is an example of how they have come to terms with social, economic, and environmental challenges and offers powerful cultural resources to serve local ends that are not merely political. Readers should be conti-nuously aware of the disjunction between indigenous conservation as a deep ethical commitment as compared to a conservation rhetoric, a sit-uation which further complicates our labeling of indigenous peoples as conservationists or not. Overall, and this is our seventh and final attempt to recognize greater nuance in the manner in which we understand indigenous peoples and their thought and behavior, all papers in this volume emphasize that we need to clarify the level or scale on which conservation occurs, or fails to occur, in indigenous areas. In some instances, this means simply distin-guishing between the conservation thought of indigenous persons as opposed to their actual conservation practice. In the Nahua case, poetic adaptations of corn-child narratives and other stories about extraordi-nary persons emphasize that Nahua environmental thought is situational, reflecting recent and ongoing changes in their environmental and social relations, including internal contradictions between economic and reli-gious views of nature. Their conservation practice in turn is out of sync with the environmental needs of their lands. In the papers to follow, we will see that some indigenous individuals or groups as a whole demon-strate powerful conservation ethics; yet these individuals or groups, for a variety of structural reasons, can fail to translate their ethical commit-ments, or conservation thought, into practice. In other instances, attentionto scale means thinking about the manner in which conservation thought and values are differentially activated on the individual, communal, or



extra-communal levels. As we have pointed out, we can have communi-ties of committed individual conservationists, which nevertheless continue to degrade their lands because of failures of cooperative or collective action at the level of the community as a whole or because of failures in the way the community coordinates its action with states and NGOs. Or, by contrast, we can have communities of individuals who are by and large not conservation-minded, which nevertheless do not degrade their lands either because of structural factors like low popula-tion density or successes of local institutions to coordinate their activities with strong-armed extra-communal organizations and entities. And as we might imagine, these scales of analysis are rarely independent of each other—as this volume’s papers will make clear, they instead intersect with, and even determine, in complex manners, the conservation failures or successes on other levels. These points are made especially powerfully in the case study of the Lakota Sioux, where for analytical purposes Pickering and Jewell distinguish between the grassroots, tribal, and American governmental scales of interaction between individual ethics and actual conservation behavior. As is evident from the above discussion, the question of whether or not indigenous peoples are conservationists are not—and how we might best frame or address such an issue—takes center stage in the essays to come. However, readers should remind themselves that we are particu-larly interested to determine whether or not it is their religious or animis-tic models and commitments, in conjunction with other factors, that give rise to variations in indigenous conservation thought and practice (or lack thereof). The authors pursue this question in different manners, and come up with different answers. Snodgrass and his collaborators, in their study of indigenous Bhils in Rajasthan, design a ‘matching pairs’ research design so that the environmental thought and practice of bhopas(shamans) can be quantitatively compared with that of non-shamans. Pickering and Jewell also assess statistically the differences between the Lakota Christians and those practicing Native spirituality. However, most of the other authors in this volume eschew a quantitative approach that attempts to isolate religion as a causal variable, instead suggesting that indigenous relationships to the environment emerge from connec-tions to the earth that are at once socio-cultural, economic, political, and also religious. These authors suggest that studies which focus on the rela-tion between religion and the environment do not necessarily exclude apriori the relevance of other factors. Despite these differences, the papers point to the manner in which reli-gious discourse provides a language for indigenous peoples to express their deepest commitments and concerns. However, we recommend



caution in only seeing religion as promoting equilibrium, balance, and harmony in indigenous relationships to the environment. As we show, indigenous religions are often harnessed to political and economic agendas that are not only not conservationist but in some cases posi-tively antithetical to conservation. Some indigenous societies may use religion to justify an ever-greater exploitation of their natural resources. In the way that the greater exploitation of indigenous lands can some-times seem to promote human flourishing, local actors, from the Kelabit of Borneo to the Sherpas of Nepal, argue that such exploitation is right, ethical, and even sanctioned by non-human entities. When indigenous peoples do not consciously conserve their natural resources in terms of Western conservation standards, a common anthro-pological defense of them is that they have been corrupted by Western beliefs and values, related, for example, to the individualistic pursuit of personal gain. We find some truth to such arguments. Out of economic necessity and in contexts of political marginality, indigenous peoples do pursue short-term interests that they know compromise long-term pros-perity: Krech’s (1999) discussion of Native American engagement with the fur trade would seem to be a case in point. However, we do not see such behavior as an implicit compromise of indigenous beliefs and com-mitments, religious or otherwise. Indigenous traditions and histories are sometimes tied, on the individual, communal, or extra-communal level, to the conservation of their surroundings; but other times they are not.9

In presenting our case studies in these ways, we do not mean to open the door for accounts which blame indigenous peoples, or their religions, for environmental destruction beyond their control and largely the result of the global expansion of capitalist markets and colonialist agendas. Rather, we hope to avoid projecting Western expectations of the mean-ing of indigenous Animism onto their worldviews and cosmologies. Instead, we would argue that indigenous religions, in the way they draw on natural powers and forces to promote human well-being and pros-perity, often but not always in sync with nature’s own well-being, are malleable and multiplex. As such, they can be adapted with remarkable fluidity to a variety of economic and political contexts and agendas. This volume searches for a middle-ground to over-simplified and dichotom-ous construals of indigenous peoples as either conservationists or not: through careful empirical study, we hope to demonstrate how such extreme positions do not capture the economic, political, or religiousrealities of the indigenous lives which are the focus of this volume.

9. In the same vein, Western beliefs and values are not uniform but include

manifold variations—an important point that is beyond the scope of this volume.



The essays to follow are diverse in their ethnographic context, research methods, arguments, and style. There are thus many equally legitimate ways to organize them. We begin, perhaps arbitrarily, with three essays discussing indigenous peoples’ relationship with three different animalpersons. Each of these three communities have a deep tradition of hunting-gathering, though they now also support themselves through other means. Two of these case studies come from India, the other from Borneo. We begin with a chapter by Snodgrass and his collaborators on Adivasi shamans’ relationship to leopards, ‘Leopards and other Lovely Frightful Things: The Environmental Ethics of Indigenous Rajasthani Shamans’. These co-authors argue that shamans do demonstrate a more deeply mystical connection to these wild carnivores as compared to non-shamans, though shamans and other Adivasis feel only weakly bound to defend and protect these animals. If anything, the arrow runs the other way, with leopard-god-brothers protecting weaker humans. In ‘Rela-tional Epistemology, Immediacy, and Conservation: Or, What do the Nayaka Try to Conserve?’, Bird-David and Naveh discuss the relation-ship of indigenous Nayakas from the Nilgiris of South India with wild elephants. They argue that the Nayakas’ ethic of ‘immediacy’ stresses keeping good relations with animal families who share the environment, rather than them having a conservation ethic per se. In his treatment of the indigenous Kelabit of Borneo in ‘Where Spirit and Bulldozer Roam: Environment and Anxiety in Highland Borneo’, Matthew Amster focuseson a local ritual referred to as ‘calling the eagle’. He uses this ritual, along with other ethnographic details, to point to the manner in which older anxieties related to correct or incorrect interactions between humanand non-human persons have been replaced with new political and economic anxieties related to logging. Amster further argues that the Kelabit as Christians who sacralize mountain retreats are now more committed conservationists (if largely in the modern sense) than they were as Animists who revered their environments. Kristina Tiedje’s ‘Situating the Corn-Child: Articulating Animism and Conservation from a Nahua Perspective’ introduces the second collec-tion of three papers, each of which focuses on indigenous peoples with a deep historical relationship to agriculture, either through their own agricultural activity or through interactions with neighboring societies. Tiedje shows how the Nahua engage in reciprocal, spiritual relationships with non-human beings, such as the ‘corn-person’, who is the focus of much of her paper. She argues that Nahua animistic beliefs both promoteand hinder environmentally benign behavior according to modern con-servation principles. Tiedje pays particular attention to conflicts between Nahua environmental behaviors, such as field-burning to prevent



wildfires and degradation, and conservation as imagined within the context of modern regimes of natural resource management. When the Nahuas accepted a recent governmental conservation and development program in their community, they seemed to weigh economic needs over religious ones. But it turns out that they did not leave behind their obligations to the corn-child and other non-human persons. Through stories, elder Nahuas situate the corn-child in the context of modern conservation to retain their local authority vis-à-vis conservation agents. The poetic articulation of conservation-as-sacred-practice offers powerful cultural resources and is an example of how the Nahuas have come to terms with social, political, economic, and environmental challenges. In a Nepalese context, Lionel Obadia’s ‘The Conflicting Relationships of Sherpas to Nature: Indigenous or Western Ecology?’ explores a seem-ing correspondence between Nepalese spirituality and Western ecology. However, he demonstrates the illusory nature of such correspondences, which is the product of a romantic oversimplification of a more complex animistic, shamanistic, and Buddhist context. We end this volume with the contribution by Kathleen Pickering and Ben Jewell, ‘Nature is Relative: Religious Affiliation, Environmental Atti-tudes and Political Constraints on the Pine Ridge Reservation’, which explores the intersection of religion and environmental practice in a contemporary Native American context. We conclude with this essay because of its useful distinction between the grassroots, tribal, and American governmental scales of interaction between individual ethics and actual conservation behavior. We find this distinction helpful in explaining the disconnect between, on the one hand, an often deep and abiding indigenous love for and feeling of connection to their environ-ments and, on the other hand, the environmental degradation charac-teristic of many indigenous lands. We hope that readers will use this analytical framework—along with others discussed in this volume—to help them better understand the complex situations that characterize contemporary encounters between the world’s indigenous peoples and their environments. We have organized our discussion in this introduction around the terms ‘Animism’ and ‘nature reverence’. However, our use of this voca-bulary has been somewhat loose, which is in part an artifact of these categories’ long and contentious histories. Before allowing readers to engage the rich case studies to come, and by way of conclusion to this introduction, we briefly consider the history of the term ‘Animism’, as well as its connection to ‘nature reverence’. We do this further to specify, and also to justify, our use of such a contested and potentially problem-atic vocabulary. In doing so, however, we would prepare readers for



somewhat idiosyncratic understandings of these terms in the chapters that follow. ‘Animism’ derives from the Latin word for ‘soul’—animus. A belief in souls, spirits, and non-empirical levels of reality is found in all societies. As such, it has been argued that Animism is the earliest form of religion as well as the basis of all religion (Tylor 1958 [1871]; cf. Chidester 2005). In this volume, however, we are most interested in the tendency of indigenous peoples to attribute souls, and thus vital life-force, to what A.I. Hallowell (2002 [1960]) refers to as ‘other-than-human persons’. In classic work on the Ojibwa in southern central Canada, Hallowell tells us that eagle-, bear-, and frog-persons, and also stone- and thundercloud-persons, share the world with human beings. Contemporary scholars had largely abandoned the term ‘Animism’, mainly because of its link to evolutionary theorizing and to the idea that indigenous Animists mis-take objects for subjects, and thus are less analytically astute than moderns (e.g. see Tylor 1958 [1871]). However, Graham Harvey (2005a, 2005b), Nurit Bird-David (1999), Philippe Descola (2005), and others, following Hallowell, have stimulated renewed interest in a ‘new Ani-mism’, which frames indigenous encounters with other-than-human persons as a vital alternative to modernist Western cultures that over-exploit and dominate nature. In treating animals, material objects, and even features of the natural landscape as ‘communicative subjects’ (Hornborg 2006) which can be related to much as human subjects, rather than as merely inert and inanimate objects, Animists establish deeper and more satisfying relationships with the natural world. They appreci-ate more fully the subtle and complex relationships between ‘communi-ties of living persons, only some of whom are human’ (Harvey 2005a, b, 2006). As such, their ‘relational’ and ‘participatory’ ways of interacting with the world, in which humans do not stand apart and above nature, provide valuable lessons for a modern West out of balance with its surroundings—that is, with what we might call its ‘environment’.10

In theoretical frameworks such as those described above, Animism can involve the projecting of human mentalities and abilities onto the rest of the natural world: animal and rock persons, for example, think, reason, and feel much like human persons. To anthropomorphize and personify nature in this way—that is, to use the model of the human social world to construe other-than-human beings and processes—might seem to imply an indigenous failure to recognize the uniqueness of

10. On recent ‘new animist’ discussions of indigenous religions, see Bird-David

1999; Descola 1994; Hornborg 2006; Ingold 2000; and also the collection of articles in

Ethnos 71:1.



non-human parts of creation. However, the authors of the papers in this volume, perhaps as ‘new Animists’ ourselves, follow scholars such as Harvey (2005a) and suggest that the animist recognition and apprecia-tion of other-than-human persons represents a truly deep form of nature reverence. Animists typically bestow equal or even greater-than-human qualities on other-than-human persons. For example, indigenous Anim-ists in India deeply revere, and even worship, animals, plants, and the landscape as superhuman gods; as such they are perceived to have equal, and oftentimes greater, rights to life and happiness as compared to humans. More importantly, Animism forcefully challenges the idea of human exceptionalism: in recognizing that animal, plant, and even moun-tain ‘relatives’ have cultures and communities, indigenous peoples reveal their feelings of kinship with the natural world, and thus also display the sentiment that humans and other-than-humans alike are beholden to the same forces and fates.11

Indigenous religions typically appreciate the vital force underlying all reality—labeled mana in Polynesia, wakan in Lakota cosmology, and shakti in India and South Asia—that unites humans and other-than-human communities. This force can take form in person-like desires, abilities, and agendas. But it need not; or, at least, such a form is often recognized by indigenes to be more metaphor and way of speaking than hard and fast reality. Early scholars such as Marrett (1909, 1911; see also Bengston 1979) referred to this life-force as a pre-animistic ‘Animatism’, distinguishing between impersonal energies and personified spirits, and viewing the former as evolutionarily prior to the latter. The authors of this volume do not engage with evolutionary debates of this nature. In fact, we would be hard pressed to distinguish definitively between a ‘spirit’ and the more abstract ‘vitality’ that is seen to animate that spirit, or between a polytheistic cosmology and a belief in a unifying life-force that manifests itself in all nature’s diversity. Instead, we point out that animistic and animatistic cosmologies do not typically maintain boundaries between humans and non-humans. ‘Nature’ is often understood in Western terms to reflect that part of the world that is less heavily impacted by human activity and ingenuity (e.g. Mill 1904 [1874]). We do take the point that Yellowstone National Park is different from New York City. However, in separating human beings from nature in this way, we feel that we give up too much, failing to capture the essence of indigenous ‘animistic’ worldviews. Following our indigenous interlocutors, we choose instead to define nature as those

11. See Bekoff 2007 for an attempt to get at similar perceptions through cognitive

ethology.



forces, processes, and potentials that forms the basis of all life and reality,both human and other-than-human. In this sense, we see much of value in terms like ‘Animism’ and ‘Animatism’, mainly because they represent attempts to capture the way our indigenous informants themselves point to the underlying unity in all nature, human and non-human. We do understand why other contemporary scholars choose not to use the term Animism: the evolutionary baggage alone is dangerous, to which can be added the risk of projecting a unity onto disparate indige-nous cosmologies where no such unity exists. However, the authors of this volume find much in common in the societies described in the fol-lowing pages, not least of which is a deep respect and reverence for that other-than-human world of persons that lies just adjacent to our own. As such, we use the term ‘Animism’ in an attempt to capture the diverse indigenous principles, activities, beliefs, and rituals that orient our infor-mants toward the natural world—a set of diverse but overlapping recipes for how best to interact with nature so that humans, other-than-humans, and the earth itself might flourish. We hope that using such an all-encompassing, and thus imperfect, vocabulary will allow readers to appreciate the important commonalities in the societies described in this volume—without, of course, ignoring their differences.

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___________________________________________

Of Leopards and Other Lovely Frightful Things:

The Environmental Ethics of

Indigenous Rajasthani Shamans ___________________________________________

Jeffrey G. Snodgrass, Colorado State University

Satish Kumar Sharma, Rajasthan Forest Department

Yuvraj Singh Jhala, B.N. Nobles’ College

Michael G. Lacy, Colorado State University

Mohan Advani, Mohanlal Sukhadia University

N.K. Bhargava, Mohanlal Sukhadia University

Chakrapani Upadhyay, B.N. Nobles’ College

Correspondence should be directed to the lead author:

Jeffrey Snodgrass, Department of Anthropology, Colorado State

University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1787, USA [email protected]

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that shamans as compared to non-shamans demon-

strate a deeper connection to wildlife. Shamans display particularly power-

ful love and reverence for leopards. That shamans more deeply revere, even worship, nature suggests that indigenous Animism does impact the

environmental thought and practice of our informants. However, our indi-

genous informants’ pro-environmental thinking is most strongly linked to only particular classes of people (like shamans) and to particular animals

(like leopards). Likewise, shamans do not demonstrate significant differ-

ences with non-shamans on all survey items related to wildlife. Finally, the differences between the conservation sentiments of shamans and non-

shamans are less striking than other pro-environmental feelings. We thus

argue for a complex, and in some instances opposed, relationship between indigenous Rajasthani religion and pro-environmental thought and

practice.

Introduction

Anthropologists have suggested that animist nature reverence works in some cases to promote sustainable relationships between indigenous

Snodgrass et al. Of Leopards and Other Lovely Frightful Things 31


peoples and their environments.1 In our research with indigenous peoples inhabiting protected forests in southern Rajasthan, we aimed to test this idea using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Specifi-cally, we compared the environmental thought and practice of various religious specialists—shamans, bhagats (devotees), priests, midwives, and sorcerers—with that of non-specialists (Snodgrass et al. 2007, forth-coming). In this essay, we report on one aspect of that research, examin-ing the different relationships shamans (bhopas) and non-shamans have with wildlife, and particularly with leopards (Panthera pardus). On the one hand, we do identify differences between shamans and non-shamans in their attitudes toward wildlife. As more committed nature worshippers, for example, shamans display particularly powerful love and reverence for leopards. As masters of the forest and the focus of shamanic prayers and songs, leopards provide shamans with magical inspiration and spiritual force. In this indigenous Rajasthani context, leopards are considered to be particularly powerful other-than-human persons (Hallowell 2002 [1960]), who are ‘animistically’ (Harvey 2005) related to and worshipped as superhuman deities. Based on the different relationships shamans and non-shamans maintain to sacred leopard-persons as well as on other details revealed in the pages to come, we argue that animist religion does structure certain environmental senti-ments in this indigenous context. However, on the other hand, our indigenous informants’ pro-environ-mental thinking is most strongly linked to only particular classes of people (like shamans, and also herbalists [Snodgrass et al. 2007, forth-coming]) and to particular animals (like leopards). Likewise, shamans do not demonstrate significant differences from non-shamans on all survey items related to wildlife. Finally, the differences between the conservationsentiments of shamans and non-shamans are less striking than other pro-environmental sentiments. We thus argue for a complex, and in some instances even opposed, relationship between indigenous Rajasthani religion and pro-environmental thought and practice.

Setting

Phulwari ki Nal (the ‘Abode of Flowers’) is a dry tropical deciduous forest reserve of 511 square kilometers, which sits in the southern por-tion of the Aravalli mountain range in Udaipur District near the Rajas-thani town of Kotra. Before Indian Independence in 1947, this area was a hunting reserve of the erstwhile rulers of the Princely Kingdoms of

1. See the Introduction to this issue.



Bhumat and Mewar. In 1983, the area was declared a state wildlife sanctuary in accordance with the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act, as well as the 1980 Rajasthan Forest Conservation Act. In contrast to American practice, indigenous persons in India—referred to as Adivasis (literally ‘First Inhabitants’ or ‘Natives’), janjatis(often translated as ‘tribals’), and ‘scheduled tribes’ (an official state designation)2—continue to inhabit many of India’s protected and reserved forests, parks, and wildlife sanctuaries. In the case of Phulwari ki Nal, there are 134 villages within the sanctuary (Bhatnagar et al. 2003). Many of these villages are occupied by members of the Bhil tribe, the dominant population in the area (about 75 percent of the area’s popula-tion), and the third largest tribal group in India.3 Others are inhabited by Girasias (about 20–25 percent of the population of Phulwari), a heavily ‘Sanskritized’ or ‘Rajputized’ (Srinivas 1989; Unnithan-Kumar 1997) off-shoot of the Bhils: Bhil headmen, often referred to as Patels, split off from the Bhils and formed separate groups of intermarrying clans in pre- and post-Independence Rajasthan. Kathodias, a small tribal minority in the sanctuary, originally migrated from the state of Maharashtra, brought by Muslim contractors to harvest the bitter heart of a local species of tree (Acacia catechu, locally referred to as khair) used to make a key ingredient (katha) in the Indian stimulant paan betel. Due to over harvesting, khairtrees are now rare in the area, and Kathodias form a poor and generally landless minority, making up less than 1 percent of the sanctuary’s population. It is of note that all three tribes depend heavily on the forest for their economic survival, though in law no one is allowed to take, as we were told, ‘even a single blade of grass’ from within the sanctuary’s bounda-ries. Our typical respondent visits the forest every third day, though usually at least one family member travels there daily, and most describe themselves as heavily reliant on forest produce such as wild herbs (referred to as jadi bhuti or ‘roots and herbs’), fruits, vegetables, gum, honey, and the flowers and fruits of the mahua trees (the flowers of this tree, Madhuca indica, are brewed into alcohol, the fruits made into edible oil). They also gather ‘headloads’ of grass and wood, used or sold as animal fodder and fuelwood. In especially lean years, some villagers,

2. Our informants’ combination of poverty and political marginality helps to explain why they are designated members of the scheduled tribes—they are ‘sche-

duled’, along with India’s low status and formally untouchable caste communities, for

government aid programs aiming to alleviate poverty and ‘backwardness’. 3. Bhils are found widely in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and

Maharashtra, and in lesser numbers in the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,

Orissa, West Bengal, Tripura, and the Punjab, as well as in Pakistan (Bhuriya 1986).



usually in cahoots with a Gujarat-based ‘timber mafias’, illicitly harvest hardwoods and bamboos, which in the rainy season are floated at night downriver where they are sold. Many tribals work part of the year for the Rajasthan Forest Depart-ment (RFD). Some are hired to harvest bamboo, hardwoods, and other forest products under state contracts while others help RFD officials track and count the sanctuary’s leopards and other wildlife. Most are able to earn some income, if they desire, planting saplings, maintaining nurseries, or building the RFD’s many dams (or smaller anicuts and ‘check-dams’), watering holes for wildlife, roads, and stone fences (meant to keep grazing animals from devouring newly planted trees). Despite our informants’ economic reliance on the forest, and in part because of the prestige attached to farming and the ownership of domes-ticated animals in dominant Hindu society, most of our respondents also own farmland and domesticated herd animals. In spite of their many sources of income, forest- and non-forest-related, our informants are generally poor and, though not starving, certainly under- and sometimes even malnourished. 94.1 percent of informants responding to our survey inhabit kacca (‘crude’ or ‘unfinished’) houses constructed entirely of forestproducts lacking in mortar or cement, which they make and maintain themselves; 42.9 percent of our sample hold Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards, which allow them to buy grain and other essentials at deeply discounted prices from government stores. Members of most house-holds, in fact, are generally forced by economic necessity to engage in non-forest related wage labor. Out-migration is common, with many household members spending much of the year, even up to 6–8 months, working on farms and in factories in Gujarat and other neighboring states.

Adivasi Religion

Indigenous tribals in Phulwari ki Nal maintain a deep religious connec-tion to the forests surrounding their villages. They attribute sentience to rocks, rivers, and mountains, and they also deeply revere wild animals. They worship animal and plant totems conceptualized as ancestors (khatris), who are associated with food and use taboos. Based on these details, and following recent discussions, we would suggest that our informants are ‘Animists’ in taking a ‘relational’ stance toward their environments and also toward the ‘other-than-human persons’ (Hallo-well 2002 [1960]) who occupy those environments, so that ‘entities such as plants or even rocks may be approached as communicative subjects rather than the inert objects perceived by modernists’ (Hornborg 2006:



2).4 The god of the mountain, along with other spiritual entities who prefer a jungle residence—animal and plant spirits, but also ancestors and ghosts—are ‘installed’ (sthapa hua) in a network of forest shrines and sacred groves, referred to variously as devrasthans, devrasthals, anddevravans.5

These spiritual entities are tended by various categories of religious specialists. Shamans (referred to as bhopas or rakhus), who are the focus of this essay, employ spiritual energy from the forested mountain for the purpose of healing. Mountain and forest energies are channeled into their bodies, which is how shamans are defined locally—through their direct personal experience with the gods and specifically their experi-ence of the shaking and trembling (dhunni), as well as feelings (bhav),characteristic of trance with spiritual possession. Most shamans in Phulwari ki Nal, like other religious specialists, receive only small remu-nerations for their work and also support themselves as foragers, farmers, and herders like their non-shaman kinsmen.6 Shamans are aided by priests (referred to as pujaris, hajuriyas, or khunts), who tend forest shrines and manage clients while shamans themselves are in a state of possession, and thus somewhat incapacitated. Priests are particu-larly central to the performance of jagarans (waking of the spirits), or all-night rati-jaga puja offerings, in which the gods of the forest are invoked and worshipped through devotional songs (bhajans). Priests, along with shamans, also moderate ritual vows (referred to as manautis). These vows consist of requests related to love, family, health, and work made to the deity which, if granted, entail that the solicitor of divine aid presents tokens of respect and thanks to that god. These gestures of thanks include: actual ‘blood’ sacrifices of animals (usually goats), clay horses constructed and placed on the deity’s shrine (the clay horse is viewed as a substitute for a living animal sacrifice), or a feast thrown in the god’s honor. Shamans and sorcerers who serve as ojhas—whoexorcise demons by ‘magical sweeping and blowing’ (jhad phunk) with peacock feathers and brooms—likewise draw their power from nature and wildlife.

4. On the ‘new animistic’ understanding of indigenous religion as establishing

respectful relations with ‘other-than-human’ persons, see also Bird-David 1999; Descola 2005; Harvey 2005.

5. See Kothari 1982 and Gold 1988b for discussions of shrines in the context of

folk Hinduism. 6. See Seymour-Smith (1986: 256, as cited in Unnithan-Kumar 1997: 215) for a

definition of shaman as a ‘part-time religious specialist, whose abilities are based on

direct personal experience’.



Though Animists, who both personify and revere nature, our infor-mants also count themselves Hindus. This is due in part to centuries of tribal exchange with, and political domination under, Hindu kings. It also shows the effect of several Hindu reform movements that swept through the area. For example, the bhagat movement, although originally intended to wean villagers from their ‘superstitions’ and ‘animistic’ way of life to a more ‘pure’ and abstractly monotheistic form of Hindu monotheism, now meshes readily with local beliefs and commitments in many contexts (Vashishtha 1997).

Research Design

Ethnographic research was conducted within tribal communities in southern Rajasthan in the summers of 2003 through 2006, with a longer 4-month period of research in fall 2005. This provided the insight necessary to develop and meaningfully interpret a 190-item survey used to assess various dimensions of our informants’ relationship to nature.7

Through experimentation with different methods to measure the con-struct of ‘religiosity’—which was somewhat elusive among our gener-ally very religious tribal informants—we decided to compare the environmental thought and reported practice of religious specialists with non-specialists through a ‘matching pairs’ research design. Religious specializations, after all, are categories of self-identification, and our informants could (more or less) easily identify, for example, the shamans (bhopas or rakhus) from the non-shamans. The core of our analysis thus involves a comparison of the responses of various religious specialists to non-specialists matched to them on age, gender, tribe, education, village of residence, and economic status. This kind of design necessitates a matched statistical analysis, with matched pairs as the units of analysis. Overall, this kind of study makes it possible to examine the impact of religious specialist status, while controlling for various demographic characteristics on which specialists differ from other tribals. It thus seems to provide a reasonable way of getting at the question of causality central to our primary research question: that is, whether tribal religious commitments, as opposed to other variables, might lead our informants vigorously to protect, con-serve, and sustainably manage their lands. The final survey was written in Hindi and, after multiple field tests and extensive training of our surveyors by two of this paper’s authors

7. This built upon years of earlier ethnographic research by the lead author—see,

for example, Snodgrass 2006.



(Drs. Snodgrass and Upadhyay), administered orally in local Rajasthani dialects by six masters students in sociology from Bhupal Nobles’ P. G. College (Udaipur, Rajasthan) over a ten-day period in November 2005.8

As a sampling strategy, we administered the survey to individuals inhabiting approximately 20 tribal villages located in or near the pro-posed ecological core of the Phulwari ki Nal.9 This assured that we elicited responses from persons who, in the RFD’s opinion, would be most critical to the conservation of wildlife in the sanctuary’s key ecological areas. We distributed the survey to a total of 238 individuals—119 religious specialists, and 119 demographically matching pairs. We report else-where on the relationship between individual religiosity in general—asviewed through the lives of bhagats (devotees), priests, midwives, sorcer-ers, herbalists, and also shamans—and environmental knowledge and consciousness (Snodgrass et al. 2007, forthcoming). In this paper, we focus only on the responses of the 45 shamans who were paired with 45 non-shamans. Likewise, we devote most attention to those survey items and interview responses related to these individuals’ attitudes toward wildlife such as leopards, rather than to our informants’ more general relationship to plants, mountains, and other features of the natural world. Readers should keep in mind that our research was conducted with the hope of applying our findings to actual forest management decisions within the context of India’s recent ‘Joint Forest Management’ agenda that attempts to bring the state and local peoples together for co-man-agement decisions. We are presenting our results both to the RFD and to local peoples, in the hope that these two groups might find common ground in the protection of resources that are critical to the survival of both human, and other-than-human, persons and communities. Cer-tainly, some indigenous individuals perceived us as bound to, and thus corrupted by, RFD agendas. Their answers may have been biased in this regard—as when they framed themselves as conservationists in an attempt to win increased political rights over lands encompassed by the sanctuary. However, we do not think that we were victims of mere political posturing by the Adivasis of Phulwari. In many cases, our informants scored low on pro-environmental survey items—this was

8. Interviews were usually conducted in Mewari, a dialect of Rajasthani and

lingua franca in the area, rather than in Hindi or in the particular Bhili or other tribal dialects of Rajasthani, Hindi, and Gujarati spoken in the sanctuary.

9. The proposed ‘core’ is a particularly rich ecological area centrally located in

the sanctuary, which may in the future receive even greater protection.



especially the case on many items related to actual environmental prac-tice. We interpret this to indicate that our informants wanted their opinions to be heard rather than to deceive us: if not, an even larger proportion of our sample might simply have claimed pro-environmental action in order to win our approval.

Results: Shamans’ and Non-shamans’ Relationships to Wildlife

Shamans score higher (usually with p < 0.0005) than their matched pairs on each of the 21 survey items related to religious experience, knowl-edge, and practice—as we would expect. For example, shamans are more likely to have been possessed by a god, to have battled ghosts and demons, and to perform a variety of magical and ritualistic services like ‘sweeping and blowing away’ illness with peacock feathers and fashion-ing protective amulets. Of more interest to the arguments of this paper, shamans construct magical amulets to protect their clients from wild animals while they are wandering in the jungle, while non-shamans do not.

We present these results related to differences between shamans and non-shamans in Table 1, though for reasons of space we include only those questions most central to our arguments. In the case of the con-struction of magical items used to protect individuals from wildlife (survey item 1.3), 35.8 percent of shamans (SH) say that they construct such amulets, while none of the non-shamans (Non-SH) report such activity. We then report for each pair whether the religious specialist scored higher, the same, or lower than the non-specialist pair member. For example, a shaman who ‘often’ constructs such amulets scores higherthan a non-shaman who constructs these items ‘sometimes’ or ‘never’.10

Here, we see that for 17 pairs the shamans responded higher in regard to the construction of these amulets than did the non-shamans (reported in the column, f. SH Higher), for 0 pairs the shamans responded lower (f.SH Lower), and for 28 pairs the pair members responded the same (f. Same).11 The “proportion higher” refers to the proportion of all untiedpairs for which the specialist gave a higher response. In this case, in 17 pairs the shamans scored higher, and in 0 pairs the non-shamans scored higher (there are 28 tied pairs); thus, in 17 / 17 (17+0) pairs, or 100

10. The variables summarized here are generally ordinally measured, so only

statements expressing a relative higher/lower, not ‘how much’, are meaningful. 11. In this case, the 17 pairs refer to the shamans who construct such amulets,

while the 28 pairs are the individuals in each group who claim that they do not con-

struct them.

Tab

le 1

. En

vir

on

men

tal

Th

ou

gh

t an

d P

ract

ice:

Sh

aman

s v

s. N

on

-Sh

aman

s (N

= 9

0; 4

5 p

airs

of

mat

ched

in

div

idu

als)

Item

#

Qu

esti

on

S

H

No

n-S

H

f. S

H

Hig

her

12

f. S

H

Lo

wer

f. S

ame

Pct

. SH

hig

her

13

p-v

alu

e14

Like

lines

s to

:

1.1

Ex

per

ien

ce s

pir

itu

al p

oss

essi

on

10

0.0%

2.

1%1

5

45

0 0

100.

0%

.000

1.2

Hav

e d

on

e b

attl

e w

ith

a w

itch

25

.0%

12

.5%

11

4

30

73.3

%

.018

1.3

Co

nst

ruct

am

ule

ts t

o p

rote

ct o

ther

s fr

om

wil

d

anim

als

35.8

%

0.0%

17

0

28

100.

0%

.000

Like

lihoo

d to

kno

w m

ore

abou

t m

edic

inal

her

bs t

o tr

eat:

2.

1 Il

lnes

s in

gen

eral

70

.9%

27

.1%

26

3

16

89.7

%

.000

2.2

Sn

ake/

sco

rpio

n b

ites

62

.5%

16

.7%

25

2

18

92.6

%

.000

Like

lines

s to

3.1

Rep

ort

un

der

stan

din

g t

he

nee

ds

of

wil

dli

fe

91.7

%

93.8

%

12

13

20

48.0

%

.655

L

ikel

iho

od

to

mak

e u

se o

f:

4.1

Wil

d h

erb

s an

d r

oo

ts

72.9

%

43.8

%

26

3 16

89

.7%

.0

00

Num

ber

of ti

mes

spo

tted

(tim

es/3

yea

r pe

riod

):

5.1

Leo

par

ds

1.65

.8

1 16

9

20

64.0

%

.115

5.2

Leo

par

d t

rack

s o

r si

gn

s 4.

38

3.52

14

15

16

48

.3%

.6

44

5.3

Po

rcu

pin

e tr

ack

s o

r si

gn

s 3.

75

1.94

15

10

20

60

.0%

.2

12

Like

lines

s to

agr

ee th

at:

6.1

Wil

d a

nim

als

are

a fo

rm/

man

ifes

tati

on

of

Go

d

87.5

%

79.2

%

6 3

34

66.7

%

.254

6.2

Wil

d a

nim

als

hav

e co

mm

un

icat

ed w

ith

me

in

my

dre

ams

20.8

%

14.6

%

9 6

29

60.0

%

.304

6.3

Wil

d a

nim

als

(lik

e le

op

ard

s) h

ave

inju

red

/d

amag

ed m

y d

om

esti

cate

d a

nim

als

29.1

%

33.4

%

9 12

24

42

.9%

.3

32

6.4

Wil

d a

nim

als

(lik

e h

yen

as a

nd

jack

als)

hav

e d

amag

ed m

y c

rop

s 60

.4%

45

.9%

17

11

17

60

.7%

.1

72

6.5

I re

ally

tak

e p

leas

ure

in

wat

chin

g w

ild

anim

als

79.2

%

87.5

%

5 7

33

41.7

%

.806

6.6

I am

afr

aid

of

the

jun

gle

an

d w

ild

an

imal

s 85

.4%

85

.4%

6

6 33

50

.0%

.6

13

6.7

Th

ese

day

s w

ild

an

imal

s d

o n

ot

hav

e en

ou

gh

spac

e to

liv

e

85.4

%

70.8

%

11

5 28

68

.8%

.1

05

6.8

New

hu

man

set

tlem

ents

nea

r th

e ju

ng

le h

ave

led

to

a d

ecli

ne

in w

ild

an

imal

po

pu

lati

on

s 89

.6%

79

.2%

7

2 35

77

.8%

.0

90

6.9

We

nee

d t

o s

ave/

pro

tect

ev

en t

ho

se w

ild

anim

als

that

do

dam

age

to h

um

an c

rop

s an

d

do

mes

tica

ted

an

imal

s

72.9

%

60.4

%

11

6 27

64

.7%

.0

70

6.10

T

he

loss

of

even

th

ree

to f

ou

r sp

ecie

s th

rou

gh

exti

nct

ion

wo

uld

hav

e a

sig

nif

ican

t im

pac

t o

n t

he

jun

gle

56.3

%

50.0

%

13

10

22

56.5

%

.6.4

6.11

W

ild

an

imal

s ar

e m

uch

sm

arte

r th

an h

um

ans

87.5

%

81.3

%

8 5

32

61.5

%

.291

6.12

W

ild

an

imal

s n

eed

pla

ces

to l

ive

wh

ere

ther

e

are

no

vil

lag

es o

r h

um

an h

abit

atio

ns

75.0

%

77.1

%

9 10

25

47

.4%

.6

76

6.13

T

he

go

ver

nm

ent

sho

uld

mo

re h

eav

ily

fin

e

tho

se i

nd

ivid

ual

s w

ho

ill

egal

ly c

ut

tree

s fr

om

the

fore

st

93.8

%

97.9

%

1 2

42

33.3

%

.875

6.14

W

e n

eed

mo

re g

uar

ds

in o

rder

to

eff

ecti

vel

y

pro

tect

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percent of the cases, the shamans scored higher (reported in the column, Pct. SH higher). The p-value is from a sign test (exact binominal) that the true proportion of pairs with shamans higher, in this case 100 percent, exceeds the chance value of 0.5 or 50 percent (Hays 1981).

Table 1 presents survey items related to our informants’ relationship to wildlife.16 Differences between shamans and non-shamans in item 1.3, for example, demonstrate that shamans understand enough about wild animal behaviors, desires, and character to construct magical amulets to protect humans from them, while non-shamans do not. Shamans are also more likely than non-shamans to spot leopards (item 5.1): in 16 of the pairs, shamans report seeing more leopards than their non-shaman pairs, while in only 9 of the pairs do the non-shamans score higher; this gives us a ratio of 16/25(16+9), or 64 percent, in which shamans score higher than non-shamans, and a p-value of .115.17

Shamans also demonstrate what seems to be more respect for wild animals as compared to non-shamans in the way that they are more likely to worship leopards as gods (item 6.1), and to agree that wild animals are much smarter than human beings (item 6.11). Shamans are also more likely to report having leopards and other wild animals visit them in their dreams (item 6.2), a demonstration of a sacred relationship to leopards that we will discuss further in the following section. Like-wise, shamans are more likely to understand that wild animals do not these days have enough space to live and flourish (item 6.7), and also that the appearance of new human settlements is the principal cause of the decline in current wild animal populations (item 6.8). Many of our respondents, as herders and farmers as well as foragers, are often put in confrontational relationships with wild animals. Shamans, for example, are more likely than non-shamans to report to us having hyenas (Hyena hyena) or jackals (Canis aureus) that have wreaked havoc on grains and gardens (item 6.4). Despite this fact, they are still more likely than non-shamans to report the importance of protecting even those wild animals, be they leopards, hyenas, or jackals, which can harm human crops and domesticated animals (item 6.9). In regard to cooperating with the RFD in its attempts to protect wildlife, shamans are

16. The survey as a whole, it may be recalled, was used to assess many other

dimensions of our informants’ relationship to nature, including, for example, their relationship to wild plants and their general economic dependence on the jungle, and

these results are described elsewhere (see, e.g., Snodgrass et al. 2007, forthcoming).

17. The sample size here of untied pairs is relatively small, 25 (16+9), thus explain-ing the somewhat high p-value, despite the fact that the number of times the shamans

report seeing more leopards than their matched pairs (16) is nearly twice as many as

when the non-shamans report such sightings (9).



more likely than their matched pairs to meet with RFD employees (item 7.2), to help the RFD with its animal censuses (item 7.3), to report forest crimes (item 7.4), and to participate in Forest Protection Committee (FPC) meetings (item 7.6). In the above discussion, we focus on those items where shamans score 10 percent higher or lower than non-shamans—that is, instances in which ‘Pct. SH higher’ is higher than 60 percent or, in other instances, less than 40 percent. We feel this proportion or ratio better captures important differences between shamans and non-shamans than do p-values, which tend to grow in those instances where the sample size is small, thus masking what can be important difference between shamans and non-shamans. Examining the table further, however, we see there are other items demonstrating a similar closeness or respect to wildlife in which shamans are more likely to outscore their paired non-shamans, though not according to the +/- 10 percent rule that guides the above discussion. Thus, for example, shamans are slightly less likely than non-shamans—thought again, not quite with a ‘Pct. SH lower’ ratio under 40 percent—to report damage to herds by carnivorous leopards (item 6.3), their totem animal. Conversely, they are slightly more likely to recognize that even the loss of a few forest species can have a significant impact on the jungle and its ecology (item 6.10). They are also somewhat more likely to stop someone from cutting trees—which often entails confront-ing armed Gujarati ‘timber mafias’ in the dead of night—and thus to protect the forest that is the basis of both their own and also wildlife’s well-being (item 7.5). By contrast, there are a number of items related to pro-wildlife senti-ments in which shamans score either much the same, or even lower than, non-shamans. Shamans are slightly less likely than non-shamans to report an overall knowledge of the needs of wildlife (item 3.1). Similarly, though they do spot more leopards than non-shamans, they do not report encountering more ‘signs’ of leopards in the form of these ani-mals’ tracks, catcalls, claw marks on trees, scat, and the like (item 5.2).18

Shamans also report taking less pleasure in watching wild animals (item 6.5), and about the same level of fear of wildlife and acknowledgment that wild animals need places like sanctuaries where they can be free of

18. The average number of reports of the shaman group (4.38) in this item is actually higher than the mean sightings of the non-shaman group (3.52). In this case,

the shaman group is skewed by a few individuals who report a great number of

sightings. When ignoring the actual number of leopard signs spotted, however, and instead examining the number of times that either the shaman or the non-shaman

spots more than their matched individuals, the non-shamans slightly outscore the

shamans in 15 out of the 29 instances of non-tied cases.



contact with humans (items 6.6 and 6.12). Likewise, they are somewhat less likely to domesticate forest animals like parrots and peacocks (for pleasure) or partridges or rabbits (for consumption) (item 7.1).

Discussion: Shamans and Lovely Fearful Beasts

Our data suggest that shamans, more so than their non-shaman counter-parts, maintain a mystical connection to wildlife. This is evident in the manner that they construct magical amulets that protect their clients, and also their clients’ herds, from predation by leopards and other carni-vores (item 1.3). This ability implies knowledge of mantras and spells that reveals the way that shamans, in local belief, understand the secret habits, names, desires, vulnerabilities, and very essence of wild animals. Shamans’ mystical connection to leopards is also revealed in the manner that they are more likely to deify these carnivores (item 6.1). In the sha-manic worldview, leopards are viewed as powerful animal persons, much more powerful than humans. This explains, in part, why shamans in particular tell us that wild animals are much smarter than human beings (item 6.11). As evidence of this greater intelligence, our shamanic informants spoke of the hunting prowess of leopards, the manner that these animals’ preternaturally heightened senses of sight, hearing, and smell allows them to locate game, as well as the way that their powerful bodies allow them to overcome their prey. Leopards’ intelligence, in these terms, is a total embodied mode of perception and being that surpasses human existence. It is shamans in particular who are able to tap into these special animal powers, both when entering the altered states of consciousness characteristic of shamanic possession rites (item 1.1), as well as through their dreams (item 6.2). In both of these spiritual con-texts, leopards are said to communicate their knowledge and desires to shamanic mounts (ghorala)—for example, pointing the way to plentiful game stocks, or demanding the blood of a goat or an ox in exchange for future protection of herds from predation. It is shamanic consciousness, as opposed to ordinary experience, that is particularly permeable to contact and communication with powerful and potentially beneficial leopard gods. Shamans are also more likely than non-shamans to report spotting leopards (item 5.1), which we interpret as another example of their mystical connection to this carnivore. Our survey does not indicate that shamans spend any more time in the forest than non-shamans (item 7.7). However, some shamans, such as the young Ditarji and the older Kalaji from Khanchan village near the core of Phulwari, were particularly eager on our transect walks to view leopards. Compared to others, they



more actively scanned the jungle for signs of this carnivore, in part due to the fact that spotting leopards is viewed as a sacred boon, and particu-larly so for shamans for whom leopards are totem animals. These two shamans also were more knowledgeable of the location of the caves, watering holes, and hunting grounds where leopards were most likely to be found, in part because these sites were the focus of their shamanic ritual activity. We think the combined eagerness to spot leopards, along with an increased knowledge of leopards’ habits and habitats, explains the greater number of sightings by shamans as compared to non-shamans.19 It is true that shamans are slightly more likely than non-shamans to report spotting other animals listed on our survey—signs of porcupine activity, for example (items 5.3). But the proportion by which shamans are more likely than non-shamans to spot leopards is greater than on any of the other 8 survey items related to wildlife sighting (which have not been included in Table 1 for reasons of space). Given shamans’ mystical connection to wild animals such as leopards, it does not surprise us that they demonstrate greater commitment to at least the idea of wildlife conservation, by being more likely than non-shamans to think that even those carnivorous wild animals that threaten human well-being need to be defended (item 6.9).20 Similarly, shamans report greater damage to their crop (corn) and vegetable gardens by jackals and hyenas (item 6.4), animals that though admired for their cunning (chalaki) are nevertheless sometimes thought of as lowly scaven-gers. We think it no coincidence, however, that shamans are less likely than non-shamans to point an accusing finger at leopards (item 6.3), who are deeply revered as sentient god-persons and among the most impor-tant sources of shamanic power. Shamans’ close relationship to, and even worship of, wild animals also helps to explain the increased environmental awareness these religious specialists demonstrate on certain survey items.21 Shamans are more

19. It is, of course, possible that shamans, in their eagerness and desire, are more

likely to only imagine seeing leopards in brilliant flashes of color that appear and then

just as quickly disappear into the jungle’s undergrowth. Whether real or imagined, this statistic would nevertheless seem to indicate a deeper shamanic connection of

some kind to leopards.

20. We would note that the differences between shamans and non-shamans on this survey item possess a p-value that is highly significant—the only other lower p-

values in Table 1 are found on items related to sacred experiences and responsibilities

that penetrate to the very heart of shamanic identity and profession (e.g. items 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3).

21. On environmental ‘concern’ and ‘awareness’ in a Western context, see, for

example, the ‘Awareness of Consequences Scale’ of Stern, Dietz, and Kalof 1993.



likely to recognize that wild animals do not currently have enough space to live, and also that human settlements are largely responsible for the pressure on their habitat (items 6.7 and 6.8). Likewise, shamans more readily acknowledge that losing even a few species of wildlife can negatively impact jungle ecology (item 6.10), though in less statistically significant terms than the previous two items. Despite a sometimes antagonistic relationship with the RFD which curtails Adivasi access to Phulwari’s forests, and a barely controlled anger at the reputed corruption of forest guards and officials, our sha-manic informants demonstrate a somewhat greater willingness to mingle and even cooperate with RFD employees and officials (item 7.2). They are also three times more likely than non-shamans to help the RFD with its animal censuses (item 7.3), which demonstrates, among other things, their greater knowledge of the habitat and behavior of wild animals like leopards. They are also somewhat more likely to report forest crimes to the RFD (item 7.4), to personally stop illegal fellings (item 7.5), to favor more forest guards (item 6.14), and also to participate in FPC meetings (item 7.6). However, there are a few survey questions that seem to present evi-dence counter to our interpretation of a closer relationship of shamans to the natural world. Shamans are either less likely than non-shamans to support increased fines for forest crimes (item 6.13). They are also no more likely than non-shamans to support the necessity of a wildlife sanctuary (item 6.12). Likewise, shamans do not report a greater under-standing of the needs of wildlife (item 3.1). They don’t report more fre-quent sightings of leopard signs such as tracks or scat (item 5.2). They also don’t report a greater pleasure in watching wild animals (item 6.5); and, finally, they are no more likely to raise wild animals like partridges and rabbits than non-shamans (items 7.1). These details do weaken the correlation between the shamanic profes-sion and pro-environmental thought, a point we would not wish to try and explain away. However, they do not lead us fully to abandon our argument, for a number of reasons. First, we would point out that shamans, like the herbalists we write about in other contexts (Snodgrass et al. 2007, forthcoming), are economically dependent on wild forest resources like gums and resins, honey, grass fodder for their animals, and fuelwood. Being less likely than non-shamans to support fines for taking forest produce illegally (item 6.13) signals this economic depen-dence, and may in fact point to an even closer working relationship to the jungle. We would echo this point for shamans being less likely than non-shamans to favor the very existence of a wildlife sanctuary (item 6.12). The transformation in 1983 of Phulwari ki Nal from reserved and



protected forests into a full-fledged wildlife sanctuary has rendered many formally legal activities—such as the gathering of wild plants for medicine, food, and fuel—illegal. To put this another way, it has increasedthe distance between tribals and the natural world. It is understandable to us why many Adivasis, shamans and others, are not comfortable with the area’s new status. Plus, we would emphasize that in each of these questions the vast majority of shamans—93.8 percent in the first case, 75 percent in the second—still favor both higher fines and the idea of a wildlife sanctuary. This demonstrates their awareness that such mechan-isms are necessary, if regrettable, to conserving the remainder of Phulwari’s natural resources and treasures. We would also point out that 91.7 percent of shamans as a group still report to understand a lot (37.5 percent) or some (54.2 percent) know-ledge of wild animals (item 3.1). The reported knowledge of both shamans and non-shamans is virtually equally high in this survey item. Likewise, the mean number of leopard-sign sightings by shamans (4.38) is actually higher than that of non-shamans (3.52) (item 5.2), and the number of non-tied pairs in which one group scores higher than the other is almost identical between shamans (14) and non-shamans (15). Similarly, in our qualitative interviews, our shaman respondents said they were not able to take more pleasure in watching wildlife (item 6.5) because wild animals either disappear quickly on becoming aware of a human presence, or because such animals had become so scarce in recent years because of habitat loss and poaching. Leopards, of which only a handful are found in Phulwari, are indeed rare, being seen on average by shamans only 1.65 times over a three-year period, and by non-shamans only .81 times (item 5.1). Shamans’ responses in this instance might therefore point to a more realistic assessment of both the habits and the scarcity of wildlife. Similarly, only 3 individuals, 1 shaman and 2 non-shamans, out of the entire 90-person sample even attempt to domes-ticate wildlife like parrots, partridges, and peacock (item 7.1); the num-bers here are small enough to make us wary of reading too much into this survey item.

A Shamanic Conservation Ethic?

This brings us to the tricky issue of the relationship between shamanic identity and nature conservation, which we define following Smith and Wishnie (2000) as actions or practices consciously designed to prevent or mitigate resource overharvesting or environmental damage. To begin to address this complex issue, we would point out that shamanic reverence for wild animals such as leopards is premised upon a conceptualization



of these animals as powerful, even terrifying, persons: recall that 85.4 percent of both shamans and non-shamans claim that they are afraid of the jungle and wild animals (item 6.6). And shamans told us that their primary ethical obligation is not to protect such powerful animal deities. Leopard gods protect and sustain humans—not vice versa. For the most part, we were told, shamans are not even seen as able to defend these supernatural powers. Indeed, taking on such a role can be seen as not only arrogant but possibly a usurpation of divinity’s mandate. Instead, shamans’ primary obligations in their interactions with animal gods is to utilize altered states of consciousness and gifts of perception and know-ledge to bring the power and vitality of animal spirits and other divini-ties into the lives of their human clients. They do this in the most visceral of ways: they channel spiritual powers into their bodies, expressed as powerful bhav (or emotions), which are believed to bring human healing and prosperity. In these terms, we can say that shamans develop personal relation-ships with spirit familiars and totem animals who they ‘serve’—leopards, who communicate both their needs and their knowledge of the moun-tain, are a case in point. Such relationships reveal deep emotional bonds, and even abiding love, between an individual shaman and his or her animal deities. But we should separate such relationships and percep-tions from the felt obligation—or even perception of the possibility—of a need to conserve wildlife or nature more generally. Highlighting shamans’ethical mandate to help humans, we would point out that certain sha-manic mantras are primarily meant to protect human communities fromsnakes, leopards, and other wild animals, rather than protecting these animals from human misuse or depredation (item 1.3). These details help to explain why shamans are not more consistent in their responses to our conservation questions, sometimes demonstrating a greater commitment than non-shamans to such an agenda and some-times not. We find it understandable that shamans possess increased environmental knowledge and consciousness of certain forms: they are Animists and healers who demonstrate a close relationship to the power of the woods, mountains, and wild animals. As healers, it is not surpris-ing that shamans out-score non-shamans on all of the 14 survey items related to knowledge and use of medicinal plants (usually with p < 0.0005), of which we report but 3 (items 2.1, 2.2, and 4.1). But we do not think that their professional calling as healers necessarily implies conser-vation: religious specialists are trained to obtain power from the woods to fulfill their professional mandate; however, they are not themselves trained to curate or protect the source of their power. Wild animals certainly have the right in shamans’ opinions to be protected and even



flourish (item 6.9). Still, having the right to be safe and to flourish is different from locating obligations to protect and assure that right in the bodies, and also in the actions, of these animal-deities shamanic servants. We thus suggest that a distinction be made between animist models and moral obligations. In the first instance, our Rajasthani informants typically frame their environments animistically as animated by sentient beings that are recognized and related to as other-than-human persons. These include a variety of plant- and animal-persons, though in this article we have focused on leopard-persons. In the second instance, our indigenous informants feel bound by a number of inter-related moral rights and obligations. These include rights and duties to other-than-human per-sons such as leopards seen to dwell in nature. But this by no means exhausts such moral duties: shamans and other religious specialists, for example, also feel bound to honor obligations to clients who seek healing and other services from them, to their families, and also to their com-munities. Overall, our research suggests the shamanic obligation to work toward a general human flourishing generally trumps the necessity of protecting a powerful and sentient nature that is believed capable of defending itself. We would also point out that conservation, as currently framed in Phulwari ki Nal, is a highly contested political issue. It thus cannot be separated—and particularly not in our survey’s conservation items, which typically relate to our informants’ reported cooperation with the RFD—from Adivasis’ relationship to the Indian state. We have already mentioned the manner in which tribals in the area rail against the alleged corruption, and perceived incompetence, of RFD employees and officials. However, we would point out that shamans, like other indigen-ous religious leaders, have experienced particular oppression and perse-cution from caste society and the Indian state. Since colonial times in the mid-1800s and continuing into the twentieth century, shamans have been the victims of a number of campaigns to extinguish local religious beliefs termed ‘superstitions’. Bhagat (devotee) reformers who attemptedto purify and Sanskritize local tribals tried to erode the authority and influence of shamans who, as ‘witch-hunters’ (item 1.2), sometimes targeted innocent women, and thus were seen as a locus of particularly virulent and handicapping ‘backwardness’. Based on this history of conflict between shamans and both the state and Hindu reformers, we are not surprised that shamans are not eager to turn over control of their lands to these outsider individuals and institutions (item 6.12). The idea of a sanctuary implies separating humans and wildlife in a manner that shamans do not practice or support, a point previously made. It also entails handing over management of their land to their historic ‘enemies’



(dusman)—their term. Given their history, we find it interesting that shamans outperform non-shamans on any of the survey items asking for their reported cooperation with the RFD and their support for state conservation agendas—for example, thinking that more guards are needed to protect the forests of Phulwari. We think that shamans’ deep mystical connection to wildlife allows them in these instances to relegate historic conflicts to the background, and focus pragmatically on the necessary task of protecting the wildlife they cherish and respect.

Conclusion: Nature Reverence and Wildlife Conservation in Phulwari ki Nal

In our research, we set out to test the relevance of religious commitment to conservation belief and practice. In this essay, the core of our analysis involves teasing out similarities and differences between survey responses of pairs of individuals, shamans and non-shamans, who match in their age, gender, tribe, education, village of residence, and economic status. We have presented our interpretations of statistical results of comparisons between these pairs of matched individuals, rather than relying on simple descriptive statistics of frequencies of environmental beliefs and practices among shamans and non-shamans. This might seem like a counter-intuitive way to understand differences between these two groups. However, our matched pairs design, in the way it controls for a variety of demographic variables, allows us, the researchers, to gain results comparable to a multivariate analysis requir-ing a much larger sample size. Relying on relatively small numbers of informants, we were able to maintain an intimacy with them that helped to assure both that they gave meaningful responses to our survey questions and also that we were able to interpret their responses within the context of their lives. In controlling for these demographic variables, we are able to isolate the way that a single variable, religion, impacts the environmental thought and practice of our informants—a research aim common in other social psychological research in the West,22 but rarely

22. Thus, for example, people who report membership of more fundamentalist

Christian religious groups tend to score slightly lower on measures of environmental

concern (Guth et al. 1995). Likewise, studies suggest a weak negative correlation between commitment to certain specific fundamental religious beliefs—like the Bible

being the literal word of God—and environmental concern (Eckberg and Blocker

1996). Nevertheless, other studies have suggested that Christians hold contrary reli-gious beliefs about nature—not just a belief in ‘dominion’ but also in ‘stewardship’—

and thus argue for multiple dimensions to Christian environmental attitudes includ-

ing both a lack of an ‘ecocentric’ environmental concern but the presence of an



employed in the indigenous contexts of interest to the essays in this volume. Focusing on a subset of questions related to understandings of wild animals such as leopards, we found what we consider important differ-ences between shamans and non-shamans. These data suggest a rela-tionship between animist nature reverence and pro-environmental sentiments. Our research, then, would seem to be in line with previous anthropological studies that argue in this vein, some of which are cited in this volume’s introduction. However, we would wish to qualify our results in a number of ways, and would be wary of proposing a relation-ship between indigenous Rajasthani religion in general and Rajasthani pro-environmental thought and practice in general. To begin, we would point out that the indigenous Rajasthani religions that are the focus of this study are not of one piece, and we find many different sacred relationships to nature among our informants. Shamans demonstrate particular respect for leopard persons who are a potential source of spiritual power. However, other classes of religious special-ists—such as Hindu bhagats (devotees), priests, midwives, and sorcer-ers—show fewer differences in their environmental thought and practice as compared to non-specialists (Snodgrass et al. forthcoming). This makes us wary of connecting Rajasthani Adivasi religion in general to pro-environmental sentiments. Likewise, there is variation among shamans themselves. All shamans are not equally close to the leopard persons that roam their jungles, nor are they equally committed to these animals’ protection. Though shamans demonstrate greater pro-environmental thought and behavior than non-shamans on certain survey items, we would remind readers that not every shaman does so. Thus, 20.8 percent of the shamans have received mystical communications in their dreams from wild animals like leopards (item 6.2). We find this significant, especially given the fact that only 14.6 percent of non-shamans receive such dreams. Still, this means that 79.2 percent of shamans have received no such communica-tion. Likewise, 56.3 percent of shamans think that the jungle will suffer if it were to lose even ‘three to four’ species of animals, which is higher than the 50 percent of non-shamans who agree with this item (item 6.10). Still, this means that 43.7 percent of shamans think such extinctions

‘anthropocentric’ concern (e.g. Schultz, Zelezny, and Dalrymple 2000). Still other

studies demonstrate no significant differences between Christians and non-Christians in regard to environmental attitudes, finding instead that level of education, proper

understanding of science, political conservatism, or other demographic variables are

better predictors of pro- or anti-environmentalism (Hayes and Marangudakis 2001).



make no difference to the jungle, an opinion out of sync with current thinking among scientifically trained wildlife biologists. The simple fact of statistical variation leads us away from equating indigenous Rajasthani religion in the area, be it shamanism or some other sacred profession and affiliation, with pro-environmental sentiments. We would similarly point out that shamans demonstrate more love, respect, and even fear of leopards than they do for wildlife conservation.Likewise, they demonstrate more abstract commitment to the idea of conservation—72.9 percent of shamans think that carnivorous animals like leopards deserve protection (item 6.9)—than they do actual conservation practice. Here, we would draw readers’ attention to the fact that only 20.9 percent of our shaman informants have reported illegal fellings to the RFD and participated in FPC meetings (items 7.4 and 7.6), and that only 31.3 percent of the shamans have personally stopped someone from illegally harvesting timber (item 7.5). These are significant when compared to the responses of non-shamans, which are even lower. Nevertheless, we still find them somewhat low, though understandable given the history of conflict between shamans and dominant Hindu society. Likewise, our qualitative interviews and observations suggest that shamans are more committed actively to protecting leopards as compared to antelope (Tetraceros quadricornis and Gazella gazella), porcu-pine (Hystrix indica), hyenas, or jackals. These details lead us not to see a tight connection between indigenous Rajasthani religion in general and environmental thought in general, and instead limit our argument to a somewhat weak connection between the local profession of shamanism in particular and a mystical feeling of connection to leopards in particular. Further, there are some survey items which lead one to conclude that shamans have lower pro-environmental sentiments than non-shamans. Likewise, the data on the items where shamans outscore non-shamans in their pro-environmental sentiments are not unambiguous. The p-values are oftentimes larger (and thus less statistically significant) than we are comfortable with. This is due in part to the fact that there is a great deal of agreement between both shamans and non-shamans on many questions related to the environment: for example, our informants as a whole fear the forest and wild animals (85.4 percent for both shamans and non-shamans; item 6.7); they also rarely help the RFD in their animal censuses (6.3 percent for shamans, 2.1 percent for non-shamans; item 7.3). This means that we often have a relatively small number of instances of non-tied items, and thus a relatively small number of instances where shamans either out- or under-score non-shamans on items related to environmental thought and practice. This results in a situation of inflated p-values that can mask important differences



between the two groups of matched pairs. For this reason, we have interpreted as significant items where shamans demonstrate 10 percent higher (or lower) values on non-tied responses (Pct. SH higher). Such a rubric gives results that, in comparison to the p-values, better gibe with the differences we observed between shamans and non-shamans in our qualitative interviews and observations. Nevertheless, this interpretive strategy is contestable. To conclude, our data point to a weak influence of indigenous Rajas-thani religion, and specifically of the religious specialization of shaman-ism, on the environmental consciousness of a population in which pro-environmental sentiments are widely shared. In other writings, we argue for the even greater effect of economic and political factors on such environmental consciousness (Snodgrass et al. forthcoming), ideas only alluded to in this essay. Even in these essays, however, the data are not unambiguous. For these reasons, we think more research is needed, both in Phulwari ki Nal as well as in other indigenous societies, into the complex relationship between religion, economics, and politics on the one hand, and environmental thinking and practice on the other.

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__________________________________________________

Relational Epistemology, Immediacy, and Conservation:

Or, What Do the Nayaka Try to Conserve? __________________________________________________

Nurit Bird-David and Danny Naveh

Department of Sociology and Anthropology,

University of Haifa, Israel [email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract

In this paper we ask whether and in what way Animism relates to

conservation, with focus on one group, the Nayaka of South India. We

argue that in order to pursue this question one must first recognize the immediate quality of Nayaka Animism as well as some important aspects

in their relational epistemology (Bird-David 1999a, 2006). Our analysis

shows that Nayaka are not committed to conserve their environment. Their concern lies mainly with keeping good relations with specific co-

dwellers in the shared environment in ways and for reasons which we

explore in the paper. This concern has indeed some conservationist effects, but as a byproduct. Our analysis also shows a valuable way-of-knowing, as

much as the nowadays appreciated ‘indigenous knowledge’. These argu-

ments are supported by Nayaka ethnography, and are further clarified by a preliminary heuristic comparison between the model which can be

identified from the ethnography and the model which informs an ambi-

tious international program for biodiversity conservation which is imple-mented in the Nilgiris of South India, where the Nayaka live.

Introduction

In this paper we address a common stereotype of ‘animist hunter-gather-ers’, which prevails among students and policy makers concerned with biodiversity conservation in protected areas. Put in exaggerated terms, it is that:

a. They revere the spirits whom they perceive to populate their environment.

b. Their religions render them conservationists, albeit in their own exotic idioms and ways.



c. Their ancient traditions going back thousands of years generated an invaluable ‘indigenous knowledge’ that must be preserved.

We seek to introduce recent anthropological insights on Animism into the discussion of indigenous conservation, and meanwhile develop these insights further. We focus on a particular indigenous community, the Nayaka,1 who live in the Nilgiris of South India. This mountainous area was chosen in 1980 to be India’s first biosphere reserve under the Manand the Biosphere program (MAB) launched by the United Nations Educa-tion, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The gist of our argument is that the immediate horizon of animistic worldviews has not yet been paid its due attention in the anthropological discussion; by immedi-acy, as shown below, we mean concern with what can be directly and personally engaged with (see Bird-David 1994a). By recognizing the dimension of immediacy, it is possible to examine more subtly the ways in which Animism and conservation overlap and differ as cultural models. It should be emphasized that we focus on those aspects of Nayaka beliefs and practices that can be read in Western terms as conservation-ist. Nayaka increasingly engage in other activities that can be read, to the contrary, as non-conservationist, whether when working for outside employers or on their own, the discussion of which is outside the scope of this article. Our concern here is to probe seemingly conservationist Nayaka practices, in order to differentiate between them and the agenda of MAB, regarding this agenda as a specific but influential variant of the great diversity of Western senses of conservation. First, we state below our theoretical argument concerning Animism, and introduce our ethno-graphic case, which together we have studied for more than 25 years. Then, we illustrate our argument by our respective ethnographies. Lastly, we elucidate the Nayaka Animism by means of a comparison with the Western conservation model which is expressed through the MAB program.

The Argument and the Case: Relational Epistemology, Immediacy, and Nayaka

‘Animism’ classically reified indigenous ideas and practices which were seen as manifestations of a form of religion that concerned itself with a belief in spirits who populate the natural world. Recent work re-read

1. For a detailed introduction to the Nayaka, see Bird-David 1989, 1994b. See also

Bird-David 1999b.

Bird-David and Naveh Relational Epistemology 57


afresh the same indigenous ideas and practices as manifestations of non-dualistic, holistic understandings of the environment (e.g. Bird-David 1990, 1992, 1999a; Descola 1992, 1994, 1996; Harvey 2005; Ingold 2000;Stringer 1999; Viveros de Castro 1998; but see also Hallowell 1955). For hunting and gathering societies, in particular, it has been argued that these practices and ideas amount to a ‘relational epistemology’ (Bird-David 1999a), which privileges relational ways of knowing-and-being-in-the-environment. It has been further argued that these ideas and practices express valid understandings of the environment, from which Western scientists can learn (Ingold 2000; Merculieff 1994). The new work has been partly motivated and afforded by late twenti-eth-century awakening to the relative cultural stance of the dualist Carte-sian distinction between ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’, and between ‘culture’ and ‘nature’. This realization partly freed the ‘animist problem’ from the terms which helped to create it. In these dualist terms, indigenous peoplefigured as people who curiously impute to ‘objects’ that which by defini-tion only ‘subjects’, uniquely and exclusively, have, namely, life, person-hood, volition, intention, and sociality. By recognizing the cultural specificity of these framing terms, students were able richly to map the indigenous holistic understandings of an undivided world in terms of overarching indigenous notions of personhood, subjectivity, life, and relations. They explored the indigenous trans-species notions, for exam-ple, of ‘personhood’, which cuts across the modern dualistic object/ subject and nature/culture divides, and how within such overarching notions of ‘personhood’, distinctions are drawn between diverse kinds, for example, between human–person, elephant–person, tree–person, hill–person, and so on. Developing this research, we argue in this paper that in describing indigenous cosmoses as ‘full of subjects’, in juxtaposition to a modern one ‘full of objects’, studies exorcise Cartesian subject/object dualism from the indigenous cosmos. Yet, in the same breath, these studies re-situate this dualism between the indigenous and the modern cosmoses. To the extent that studies describe indigenous universes of interrelated subjects, they are still tethered to a modern concern with a total universe, and to an overarching formal category, ‘the subject’, as a means for map-ping its diversity. We maintain that substituting ontological ‘persons’ (or ‘relations’ or ‘subjectivities’) for ontological ‘things’ is crucial, yet not sufficient for understanding indigenous senses of the environment. A twofold move is required which, like the move of the Knight in a chess game, involves both this substitution and, simultaneously, a shift from universal to immediate horizons of attention. This is not a new argu-ment. Bird-David (1999a) mentioned it as part of her conceptualization



of ‘relational epistemology’. But it has drowned in the rest of the argu-ment, and it needs to be drawn out. In some sense, the argument is integral to Ingold’s thesis that personhood in these views arises within, and is the locus of, fields of relations. One can read from this thesis that personhood is contingent on, and so restricted to, the horizons of corpo-real being-with others. But too often even this thesis is read in a genera-lizing and totalizing way to suggest a universe of relations everywhere and everywhen. We set out to elucidate the immediate aspect of Nayaka relational epistemology through ethnographic examples that are drawn from our cumulative work with them for over a quarter of a century. The Nayaka are forest-dwellers, who live in the Wynaad area of the Nilgiris hills, in South India, in the border-area of Tamil Nadu, Kernataka, and Kerala. They were first studied by Bird-David during 1978 and 79, followed by brief revisits in 1989 and 2001. Naveh studied them during 2003 and 2004, following a preliminary visit in 2001. These Nayaka traditionally subsisted on gathering and hunting, which they combined with trade in minor forest produce, then, with wage work, and nowadays, increa-singly, with cultivation and animal husbandry. At the same time, they have been involved in clearing forest tracts whether as casual wage laborers for agricultural neighbors and corporate plantations or, increa-singly, for themselves in order to make their own small tea and coffee plantations. Yet, Naveh found out that the relational animistic epistemol-ogy, which Bird-David observed in the late 1970s, has survived the economic diversification in many contexts of Nayaka life. The Nayaka live in an area which adds a comparative analytical edge to our ethnographic case. As mentioned, the Nilgiris were India’s first biosphere reserve under the ambitious MAB program launched by UNESCO in the early 1970s. From its inception, MAB was international and interdisciplinary in its very nature. Furthermore, it was geared to practical as well as academic concerns. In 1995, MAB was substantially revised with the adoption of the 1995 Seville Strategy for Biosphere Reserves. Its revised aims included enhancement of global networking between biosphere reserves around the world, and incorporation into its work of all levels of government, NGOs, the private sector, and citizens. Its revised aims also included enhanced attention to local livelihoods, local social, economic and cultural conditions, and local indigenous knowledge.2 In 1979 the MAB concept came into practice in India with the establishment of the Indian MAB Committee. In 1986, the Nilgiris became the first designated biosphere reserve in India (Siroli Shekhar

2. See www.unesco.org/mab/mabProg (accessed 10 December 2006).



2001). It now ranks among the 25 globally identified biodiversity hots-pots (Daniels 2006). It is described in the MAB directory3 as the habitat for probably the largest South Indian populations of tiger (Pantheratigris), elephant (Elephas maximus) and other large mammals. Further-more, the MAB directory commends it for being the habitat of ‘the only surviving hunter-gatherers of the Indian subcontinent, the Cholanaikans who concentrate in the Nilambur area’. The Cholanaikans are closely related to the Nayaka on whom we focus: one of Naveh’s fieldwork sites was inhabited by people of both Cholanaikans and KattuNayaka origins, both of whom are referred to in our study as Nayaka. Further to elucidating the immediate aspect in Nayaka relational epis-temology through our ethnography, we tease out its salient features, at the end of the paper, by comparing ‘relational epistemology’ and ‘biodi-versity conservation’ as ‘cultural models’. By ‘cultural models’, cognitive anthropologists mean cognitive structures that help people organize and process information about the world around them, and attribute mean-ing and significance to events and experiences. We use the term ‘cogni-tive models’ in a weaker sense, to refer to cognitive structures which help us—writers and readers—organize, process, and understand infor-mation about the Nayaka and the MAB worlds in focus. We compara-tively refer to the ‘conservation’ model as a heuristic means for showing that immediacy is cardinal, crucial, and characteristic of the Nayaka ‘relational epistemology’ model.

Expressions of Immediacy in Nayaka Engagement with Super-persons4

Devaru is a notion by which late 1970s Nayaka referred to some beings in their environment in certain situations. One can translate devaru as ‘gods’ or ‘idols’.5 In these senses, ‘devaru’ (or, in some places, ‘deva’) is used by Nayaka’s Hindu neighbors, and, since the 1990s, increasingly by Nayaka themselves. One can translate ‘devaru’, instead, as ‘supernatural beings’, ‘animistic beings’, or ‘super-persons’ (Bird-David 1999a), keeping more closely to the Nayaka traditional sense, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s, and, to some degree, still today, especially in the context of trance gatherings (see Bird-David 1990). All of these translations, to some

3. See www2.unesco.org/mab/br/brdir/directory 2/12/06.

4. The discussion in this section is largely based on Bird-David’s 1978–79 fieldwork.

5. Devaru is used by Kanada-speaking neighbors in the sense of ‘gods’ and

‘idols’.



extent, conceal the immediate, relational aspect of devaru. The devaru are perceived by Nayaka not so much in essentialistic terms as entities of this or that natural kind, but more as coevals and, in some cases, even as relatives of diverse kinds. They are considered as other-than-human persons, with whom Nayaka communicate and share, and who consti-tute with Nayaka a joint local ‘family’ (sonta) (see Bird-David 2004). Elephants—whose relatively large population in the Nilgiris is one of the stated attractions of this area in MAB’s terms—provide an illuminat-ing example. Late 1970s Nayaka described some elephants as devaru.They did not apply this word to all the elephants in the world, nor to all those who lived in the Nilgiris, or even just in their own parts thereof, the Nilgiri-Wynnad. In other words, Nayaka did not use devaru for the class at large, that is, for all the elephants everywhere and everywhen because of their assumed, shared, inert ‘elephantness’. Rather, Nayaka used the word for specific elephants, in particular situations, examples of which are given below. These examples demonstrate that these situa-tions are characterized by immediacy not just in the physical sense of close distance, but in a social-phenomenological one, as well. Immediacy in the latter sense refers to a certain way of being-together that can be described as coevalness, to use Fabian’s term (Fabian 1983). A 50 year old Nayaka man, Chathen, related that during the night he had seen an anna-devaru (anna meaning elephant) ‘walking harmlessly’ between the houses. The fact that the elephant had not destroyed any of the houses, as could have been expected, and as had often happened before and after this particular event, had led Chathen to refer to that elephant as devaru. This elephant’s behavior was relatively unusual, compared with other elephants known to Nayaka. Its unusual behavior was read as an expression of the kind of care which one would show towards people one is close to, whom one is concerned not to hurt and live amicably alongside. This elephant’s behavior was explicitly con-trasted with the behavior of two other elephants that in a previous incident trampled two huts in a neighboring Nayaka settlement, luckily not injuring Nayaka, who happened to be away that night. The offend-ing elephants, on the latter occasion, were not referred to as anna-devaru. In another case, a younger Nayaka man, aged 35, a keen honey collector, related how during a foray in the forest he encountered an anna-devaru. The anna-devaru passed by Chellan, and ‘looked straight into his eyes’. Chellan explained that this was how he knew that he met a devaru-elephant. He surmised from the elephant’s behavior that the elephant knew him, and communicated with him nonverbally. Chellan appreciated the care and concern shown by the elephant. It can be seen that Nayaka identified devaru in situations which, in their terms, were



expressive of care and consideration. In observer’s terms, inspired by Gibson’s work (1979), these situations are relatively unusual events, involving what can be constructed in our analytical terms as mutuality, responsibility, and responsiveness. When intimate engagement is preempted by circumstances, as in the next example, the elephant is not regarded a devaru. Its devaru-ness, in other words, is contingent on the engagement with it, and is concluded after this fact. Its devaru-ness is not innate to its nature. One Nayaka man once took Bird-David along on a gathering expedition. They were not far away from the hamlet when Kungan heard an elephant in the direction they were aiming for. He quickly led Bird-David back to the hamlet, aborting the intended foray in order to preempt potential risk. Kungan did not come close to the elephant; he could not have known what the encounter would be like; he referred to the far away elephant as anna,not as anna-devaru. The lack of mutual engagement with that elephant, in this case, precluded from the outset the kind of relatedness which could have constituted this elephant (at that moment) as devaru. It should be mentioned that the word devaru was not used only for elephants in the forest, but also for other certain ‘non-sentient things’ in Cartesian terms. To give an example, a Nayaka woman, Devi (age 40), related how she had been digging deep down for roots in the forest when, suddenly, ‘this devaru came towards her’. She was pointing to a particular stone when she told this story. The stone stood next to several other similar stones on a small mud platform in the village. Devi contin-ued to tell that after ‘this devaru came towards her’ she brought it to the hamlet ‘to live’ with them. The concept of devaru was commonly used in the context of public trance gatherings, which are described at length elsewhere (Bird-David 1996, 1999a). In these gatherings, the meanings of devaru are explicated more clearly, helping us further to tease out the extended use of this concept in such incidences as just described. These incidences take place outside the particular time–space frame of the trance gathering, but in Nayaka terms they are continuous with it. Nayaka do not draw a dichot-omy between the ritual and everyday life. During these gatherings, trance performers fall into a trance, and through them a diversity of ‘persons’ in altered states make themselves present, including local devaru (animistic persons). Attendant Nayaka engage in conversation with them, day and night. The conversation is highly personal, informal, and friendly, including joking, teasing, bargaining, and so on. In its idiomatic structure, it resembles the demand-sharing discourse which is characteristic of Nayaka relatives (and of ‘hunter-gatherers’ generally) (see Bird-David 1990).



A recurring theme in the conversation between Nayaka and their other-than-human visitors is certain illnesses and other misfortunes, called batha, which Nayaka request their visitors to cure and protect themfrom. These illnesses, in the Nayaka view, are symptoms of disrupted relations in the Nayaka world: among Nayaka themselves, between Nayaka and the devaru, and, to some extent, even among the devaruthemselves. The perceived cause, diagnosis, and treatment of batha, as described in detail elsewhere (Bird-David 2004), show that Nayaka are primarily concerned with keeping and restoring communication and good relations with the other-than-human dwellers, at all times. Harm-ing or just hurting the feelings of other beings in the forest, knowingly or unknowingly, beyond what is inevitable in procuring means of subsis-tence from the forest, may result in problems to the offender or his/her relatives. The results can spread in ripples throughout the whole forest community of both humans and other-than-humans. In this section, we have described the relatively unusual situations in which Nayaka engaged with forest interlocutors and other-than-human beings, who they frame as devaru. But how do they perceive and engage with other forest creatures, whom they encounter in the forest, or who arrive at their houses? Put more specifically, how do they perceive and engage with, say, the elephants whom they encounter, but whom they do not describe as anna-devaru? In his fieldwork, Naveh investigated this question, and we therefore turn to Nayaka in the early 2000s in order to pursue it.

Expressions of Immediacy in Nayaka Engagement with Forest Fauna and Flora6

In MAB’s terms, the Nayaka habitat is, among other things, unique for possibly having the largest South Indian population of Elephas maximus(elephant) (see above). This means that it has probably the largest num-ber of elephants in the Nilgiris region; a number which is partly added up during predesignated short-term survey sightings in diverse sites, and is partly based on scholarly estimates according to scientific and statistical conventions. Nayaka engage with unique elephant-beings, in the course of their everyday life, on an immediate, regular, personal, and life-long basis. Elephants commonly enter Nayaka villages, especially in the wet season. Such occurrences often end up with severe damage being caused to cultivated plants, and the destruction of houses, and may also result

6. The discussion in this section is largely based on Naveh’s 2003–2004 fieldwork.



in the loss of human life. These nocturnal visits provoke fear within the village. For instance, when children were woken by the bellowing of elephants at close quarters, they were sometimes unable to control their bladder and immediately urinated wherever they happened to be. Dur-ing the past few decades many people, most of whom were not Nayaka, have been killed by elephants. The majority of Nayaka killed by ele-phants were men under the influence of alcohol. Except for these cases, close encounters between Nayaka people and elephants, although risky, did not result in death. During Naveh’s fieldwork he observed several encounters with ele-phants involving both Nayaka and non-Nayaka people. The difference between the Nayaka and the non-Nayaka approaches was clearly evi-dent. Most of the non-Nayaka responded in a fairly similar manner each time they encountered elephants. Nayaka, on the other hand, reacted differently to each given situation. Non-Nayaka typically chose between two options: running away or attempting to chase the elephants away. The Nayaka responses were much more varied: chasing the elephants away by fire and loud vocal exclamations was a common response. However, many times they preferred other options, such as standing still or speaking with the elephants and reasoning with them. One October night in 2003, elephants entered KK7; they trampled one of the huts, walked through the wetland paddies, and started to eat banana plants. While doing so, they also emitted loud bellows that were heard all over the village. One man went to about eight meters from where the elephants were standing, a distance that, should the need have arisen, would still have enabled him to run away. From there he approached the elephants boldly. In a typical blaming tone he said:

Seri [in this sense ‘ok’], if you want to eat, you silently eat and go. We have

children here!

The elephants, then, stopped bellowing, and a few minutes latter went away, out of the village. When such close encounters occur away from the village, running off may not be a viable option. Elephants can easily catch up with a fleeing person and they do indeed tend to run after those who take flight. Thus often when, to his surprise, a Nayaka finds himself in front of an ele-phant, he prefers to stand still and, as calmly as possible, to address the elephant in a persuasive tone of voice (characterized both by the tone and by the substance):

7. KK is a Nayaka village located about two hours walk Northwest of Gudalur

(the main town in the lower parts of the Nilgiris district).



I am not coming to disturb you, or to do any harm to you.

The most frequently used rhetoric in such cases stresses what is common to both sides of the encounter:

You are living in the forest, I am also living in the forest; you come to eat here, I am coming to take roots (fruits, fire wood etc.)…I am not coming to

do any harm to you.

Talking with elephants is a deliberate choice, as the following example illustrates:

Mathen [aged 45] who was fairly drunk walked from his house towards

Boman’s house. After he crossed the brook (about 15 meters from Boman’s

house) he came across two elephants. When he finally noticed them he was so close that their eyes seemed to him like ‘two electric torches’. He didn’t

know what to do and cried out to Boman’s family for help: ‘I am so close to

two elephants…what to do?’ Until that point, Boman’s family was also oblivious to the presence of these elephants so close to their house. Unable

to reach Mathen they advised him to ‘speak with them’. After a few long

seconds, Mathen came to his senses and said to the elephants: ‘I know you can kill me…I know you can kill me. Hmm? But before you do that I can

hit you with this stick at least one time. So you better go. Hmm?’ Finally,

the elephants moved away and left Mathen unharmed.

Elephants are not the only forest animals to whom Nayaka speak. On several occasions, Nayaka were observed speaking to parrots and monkeys. Nayaka even spoke to snakes, as the following story shows, which was related by a young Nayaka man, Suresh.

One year before, we [referring to himself and another Nayaka man from his village] were going to the forest to collect firewood. We were walking

through a place where there were no trees and the grass is tall. On the way

there was a big snake about 4–5 feet long. We were so afraid we got shivering. This snake also sees us. Suddenly this snake was rising—

standing still for a long time (nera) looking at us without any movement.

We didn’t know what to do. Then we were telling this snake ‘we did not know you are here. We are coming here to collect firewood. In the days to

come we shall not come here again. Leave us today only’. Then we stayed

quiet and after that the snake went along.

Naveh: I saw you talking to elephants, you also talk to snakes?

Suresh: We speak with everyone in the forest.

Nayaka who were asked whether forest animals actually understand what is said to them offered different answers. Some of them claimed that all the animals in the forest understood human language; some thought that they only understand the Nayaka language. Those who thought this way deduced it from the fact that forest animals tend to hurt non-Nayaka more than Nayaka people. There were also others who



thought that most forest animals do not understand any human lan-guage. As one man said: ‘How can they understand us, they got the fear from us and they run away’. This man further reasoned that only ele-phants, and a few other animals such as snakes, understand what is said to them since they do not run away from people. For him, the animals are not inherently incapable of understanding language. It is the lack of sufficient conditions for engagement, because of fear, that prevents communication through language. It is noteworthy that Gardner (2000: 45) similarly notes that the Paliyan address hunted game as well as some other forest animals by using a special set of inoffensive and respectful terms and that ‘animals hearing their true names are said to become ashamed and run off and hide’. Elephants are viewed by Nayaka as idiosyncratic and changing beings, not least in terms of their wisdom and attentiveness to others. Like humans, they are understood to have ‘budi’, which may be under-stood as the ability to interact wisely with others (see Bird-David 2004: 332). Different elephants are understood to have different extents of budi.Their understandings depend on such idiosyncratic and contextual factors as individual life experiences, familiarity with the surroundings, qualities of their ‘heart’, and type of personality.

There are good budi (olle budi) elephants and bad budi elephants. When we

walk in the forest, if there is an elephant with good budi the elephant makes noise to make us know he is there. If there is bad budi elephant the

elephant is not making any sound, just wait silently. When you get near,

this elephant attacks.

The same elephants can act wisely towards others in a way that preemptsunnecessary conflicts, but they may act at other times without budi, especially when they are angry. Nayaka were empathetic to elephants that they perceived as angry, even when the elephants damaged their houses. They theorized and speculated about what particular elephants felt in particular situations. Mathen and Boman told Naveh about the elephant who had killed their [classificatory] ‘brother’\‘cousin’ the previous year, that this elephant had been angry because his elephant-companion had been shot down.

Mathen: There is one more elephant. This elephant always walks alone, he

never joins up with other elephants. This is the elephant that killed my

young brother [Mathen is referring to this man in relational terms]. The forest department wants to catch this elephant and take him to

Mudumalay.8 They came to ask our help but we refused.

8. A dangerous wild elephant may be caught by the forest department and sent

to an elephant-taming facility located in Mudumalay game reserve.



Naveh: Why did you refuse? That is the elephant that killed your younger

brother?

Mathen: There were two elephants, they were a pair. Forest department

were calling some of us to catch one of them. But no one went to help.

How would you feel if your spouse9 would be taken from you? Like this feeling only, this is the feeling of this elephant. These two elephants

sometimes separated at night, going in different ways, one goes this way

the other goes that way; but they would always rejoin in the morning. That day, the other elephant saw the first elephant fall down. If two are always

together and then one is shot down how would the other feel?

Boman [a man in his early fifties]: This elephant saw his friend and the

people around him. He was with so much of anger—ran to the forest and

back to this place where his friend is lying; and again run back to the forest and again coming. All this in 15 minutes. When an elephant is angry that

elephant can cross this distance very fast.

Mathen: This elephant was breaking anything in his way. This remaining

elephant is the one that killed my young brother in CP—this elephant is

still with so much anger—wandering around this forest.

Naveh: How do you feel for this elephant today?

Boman: There is nothing to say about it. We are living in this forest and

this elephant is also living in this forest.

Mathen: If this elephant harmed him, what to do with that? Nothing can be

done.

This instance shows that the idiosyncratic personality and circumstances of particular elephants are considered more important by Nayaka than their elephantness. Empathy towards forest animals and the tendency mentally to view situations from their perspective is not restricted to elephants. In the next example we can see how Nayaka stick to this approach even when it involves personal cost and risk. One afternoon, while working in his small tea plot, Soman, a Nayaka man in his twenties, was bitten by a black (non-poisonous) snake: he had been trying to reach the roots of a tea plant and had failed to notice a snake hole next to it. The snake bit his hand. Soman rushed to his mother Puni who was the most knowledge-able person in KK at treating snakebites. After she had given him the necessary treatment he went on with his work. Soman did not try to hurt this snake afterwards, nor did he chase him away from his hole. When talking about the incident, he voiced his understanding of the snake’s

9. It should be noted that both these elephants were males. The speaker used the

analogy of ‘spouse’ to underline these elephants’ close affinity.



position, explaining that the snake ‘was afraid and had no other option’. ‘Like us’, he added, ‘this snake also lives here’. The snake continued to dwell in the same hole, without any interference, for the duration of Naveh’s stay in KK. Soman could tell that the snake still lived in the hole because no spider’s web covered its opening. He observed the hole and could see that the snake often left the hole daily, at dusk. Out of sheer curiosity, Soman often went at these times to observe the snake as it was coming out of the hole. That was not the only case in which Naveh saw his friends allowing snakes to stay in their holes even if the holes were located close to their dwellings. In another instance, a snake hole was found in an area cleared for building a new deva-mane (house of gods); this time, a poisonous snake was dwelling in it. The snake quite frequently came out of the hole, but it was not disturbed even when the temple was finally com-pleted and attended on almost a daily basis. Eventually, the snake left this hole and didn’t come back. In both these cases the snakes were not treated or engaged with as religious or mythic figures but as co-dwellers in the forest. Empathy was shown by Nayaka not only to animals but also to trees. In contrast to their non-Nayaka neighbors, many Nayaka considered chopping non-dry branches of forest trees, whether for firewood or for any other usage, as a tapu (in the sense of misconduct towards others [see Bird-David 2004: 332-34]). They regarded it as an act that ‘hurts’ the tree that ‘like us has a soul’. As one man said: ‘Every [forest] tree is a living being, a tree has a soul. Like people have blood, trees have water’. Indeed, when collecting firewood for their own consumption, Nayaka tried and usually managed to avoid chopping down non dry branches.

‘Relational Epistemology’ and ‘Biodiversity Conservation’: Two Models

For the benefit of our analysis, we turn now to comparing ‘relational epistemology’ and ‘biodiversity conservation’ as two cultural models (using ‘cultural model’ in the weak sense noted earlier). The former relates to the Nayaka ethnography described above, and the latter to MAB. As mentioned in the introduction, the comparison for us is a heuristic device by which to elucidate the salient features of ‘relational epistemology’, in particular reference to immediacy, in the present context. ‘Relational epistemology’ and ‘biodiversity conservation’ are scales apart. They pertain to what can be described, respectively, as macro and micro scales. They involve, respectively, an overview and a view from



and within immediate engagement (the latter can be described in Ingold’s terms as a dwelling perspective [2000]). This crucial difference simply cannot be overemphasized, especially given the rhetoric of MAB’s objectives. MAB was conceived as a broadly based ecological program, whose aim was to

develop within the natural and social sciences a basis for the rational useand conservation of the resources of the biosphere and for the improve-

ment of the relationship between man and the environment; to predict the

consequences of today’s action in tomorrow’s world and thereby to increase man’s ability to efficiently manage the natural resources of the

biosphere (Eidsvik 1979, cited in Siroli Shekhar 2001).

As can be seen from this citation, MAB concerns itself with a ‘relation-ship’. But this ‘relationship’ is an abstract-logical one. It is a relationship between ‘man’ (written in the singular but meant as abstraction and reification of the entire humanity) and the ‘environment’, which likewise is conceived in generalizing abstract terms. The ‘environment’ is con-ceived in utilitarian terms, and is associated with ‘rational use’, ‘conser-vation’, and ‘efficient management’ of ‘natural resources’ in the ‘bio-sphere’. The very title Man and Biosphere constructs Man as outside the Biosphere, with which it supposedly has a relation (cf. Ingold 2000 for a neat exposition of this point). This relation is a managerial one, at that. MAB, furthermore, is concerned with ‘the consequences of today’s action in tomorrow’s world’. These expressions are used metaphorically for abstracted ‘present’ and ‘future’, in general. The temporal horizons of MAB stretch far into the future. Far from referring to the next immediate day, ‘tomorrow’ in the statement refers to a far away future, imagined in terms of tens, hundreds, and even thousands years ahead. The ‘today’ is of concern in so much as it indicates a projected future, on which care and attention focus. A concrete individual elephant, that Nayaka are concerned with, is almost transparent in MAB’s terms. Underscoring MAB’s aims is an accountant-like view of a stock of items, listed and catalogued in a uni-form way. Biodiversity itself is described in terms of the number and names of different flora and fauna species in the biosphere reserve, and in terms of the major types of habitats and land-cover types. In choosing which site to establish as a ‘biosphere reserve’, preference was given to areas that ‘represent’ the different biogeographic zones of a country. The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, which was the first in the country, is describedin UNESCO ‘Biosphere Reserve Information’ as constitutive of:

Tropical humid evergreen forests characterized by Dipterocarpus indicus,

Mesua ferrea, Palaquium ellipticum, etc.; tropical montane shoal grasslands



with Cinnamomum wightil, Elaeocarpus serratus, Syzygium aromaticum, etc.;

tropical semi evergreen forests including Vitex altissima, Gmelina arorea,

Persea macrantha, etc.; tropical moist deciduous forests with Terminalia tomentosa, Dalbergia latifolia, Schleichera oleosa, etc.; tropical dry deciduous

forests characterized by Albizia chinensis, A. lebbeck, Anogeissus latifolia etc.;

scrub jungle with Zizyphus oenoplia, Canthium parviflorum and Careya arobrea; grazing areas, afforestations areas; agroecosystems; urban areas.10

The Nilgiri is elsewhere described as an ‘ecological paradise’, with more than 3000 varieties of plant species, of which about 80 plants species, including 36 species of orchids, are endemic to the Nilgiris (Venugopal 2004). The ‘biosphere reserve’ program progresses from concept to imple-mentation by means of intermediating international, national, and local politics, removed from the actual biosphere site. The concept moves down from the international centre to national ones, and from there to local sites, which by 2006 numbered more than 480 in over 100 coun-tries.11 ‘[P]olitics permeate all MAB debates’ which has promoted more than 1000 field projects (in the late 1980s) on scientific and political grounds (Dyer and Holland 1988). One of MAB’s main goals has been to abstract general lessons from particular locales, and disperse them globally. MAB’s director and professional staff members come from countries as diverse as Burundi, Romania, Tunisia, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany (1988: 636). The concept of biosphere reserve management came into practice in India in 1979 with the establishment of the Indian National MAB Committee. The Committee identified 14 potential sites for recognition as biosphere reserves, and subsequently national committee, state governments, and experts proposed additional biosphere reserves.

The Nayaka ‘relational epistemology’ model stands out sharply againstthe cloth of this ‘conservation’ model, which, though implemented in their area, emerged from a faraway place, far beyond Nayaka knowl-edge and imagination. Not only the place but also the terms in which the program was launched were far removed from Nayaka relational pers-pectives. Their ‘relational epistemology’ model is concerned with the engagement with particular beings, which particular Nayaka meet, at a particular time and place, in the forest, or near their homes. These particular beings are considered as co-dwellers, and in some cases—including (but not only) ritual ones—as relatives. The local concern is to live and let live jointly in the shared forest, if not live together as ‘one

10. See www2.unesco.org/mab/br/brdir/directory.

11. See www.unesco.org/mab/mabProg.shtml (accessed 10 December 2006).



family’. The temporal horizons of the Nayaka model are the immediate ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’. Engaging with forest beings—whether in the forest or in the trance gathering—is personal. It is embedded in, and is inseparable from, actual immediate ongoing corporeal togetherness, negotiation, and sharing. The engagement involves empathy, rather than managerial control, and it is moved by concern not for ‘rational use’ as much as for sustained conviviality (Overing and Passes 2000). For the latter cause, it is vital to preempt anger and interpersonal tension in relations with other-than-human beings.

Conclusions

In this analysis we emphasized that it is important to recognize the immediate quality of indigenous Animism. In the Nayaka case, this immediacy means that the reverence and care which are shown to the environment are specific to particular situations, and not universal. Fur-thermore, these features do not express commitment to, or even concern with, conservation. They are the epiphenomenon of an altogether different cultural model, in which the main concern lies with keeping good relations with co-dwellers in the shared environment in order to preempt or cure certain illnesses and misfortunes. This concern has some conservationist effects as a byproduct. But these effects are limited in scope and space: Nayaka are not concerned with protecting forest-beings or conserving the diversity of species in the environment. Their main concern is to avoid hurting fellow-beings in the forest unnecessarily. In other words, it can be said that conservation happens but not because conservation is cognized beforehand and then executed. One may misread from the analysis that ‘relational epistemology’ sur-passes ‘biodiversity conservation’ as a model for studying, understand-ing, and living with the environment. But it must be stressed that ‘rela-tional epistemology’ has limitations, which do not afflict the ‘biodiver-sity conservation’ model. Immediacy sets limits on the organizational scope of ‘relational epistemology’. Immediacy ipso facto precludes exporting the model globally, in the way in which MAB works. Immedi-acy, in the phenomenological sense specified above, even sets limits on the extent to which the model can be applied locally: it is restricted to particular situations of actual, personal dyadic engagements. ‘Relational epistemology’, in other words, as a model is unable to handle the prob-lem of accelerating environmental depletion, which at its current state is on a scale far beyond the immediate horizons. Undoubtedly, there is a need for the kind of global, international, and political mobilization of environmental conservation which MAB leads.



This said, our analysis highlights that such initiatives as MAB should aim to preserve not only the indigenous knowledge but the indigenous ways of knowing. The virtues of Nayaka ‘relational epistemology’, we have shown, includes not just what they know, that is, their so-called ‘indigenous knowledge’, but their particular mode of knowing. Their mode of knowing is embedded in and inseparable from the being-together of knower and known. This mode of knowing appears to be highly attuned to processes, mutualities, chains of events, and ripple effects, in ways which are yet to be explored. This mode of knowing is valuable, and should be given the necessary framework in which to prevail.

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__________________________________________

Where Spirit and Bulldozer Roam:

Environment and Anxiety in Highland Borneo*

___________________________________________

Matthew H. Amster

Department of Sociology and Anthropology,

Gettysburg College, USA

[email protected]

Abstract

This paper explores changing perceptions of the natural environment

among the Kelabit, an indigenous people of the Borneo interior. It consid-

ers both traditional and post-Christian conversion understandings about forest spaces. The former animistic ritual practices of the Kelabit centered

on a spiritual dialogue with the natural world and this dialogue was often

marked by active efforts to avoid or mitigate danger through ritual prac-tice. One key example presented here is the former ceremony of ‘calling

the eagle’ (nawar keniu), a ritual employed in times of crisis that exemplifies

the dialogical and entwined relationship Kelabit had to the natural world. Such former animistic beliefs are contrasted with contemporary Christian

practices, including a local mountain retreat on Mount Murud and present-

day political and economic anxieties over logging in the Kelabit Highlands, as a means to consider relationships between religion and attitudes toward

the environment among the Kelabit.

Introduction

Prior to converting to Christianity around the time of World War Two, the Kelabit, an indigenous people in interior Borneo, adhered to a set of

* I am deeply indebted to many Kelabit for sharing generously of their know-

ledge. These include: Tama and Sina Galang, Bekan Ayu@Sina Napong, Pian

Ayu@Sina Bulan, Edto Mengadih@Galih Balang, Ribuh Balang, Bala Paleba, Stanley Mikat Balang, Tama and Sina Raban Bala@Lucy Bulan and David Labang, Robert

Lian@ Balangalibun and others too numerous to name. Special thanks are due to

Poline Bala who worked closely with me in the Kelabit Highlands during May 1995, collaboratively recording and translating examples of ritual speech, including the one

presented in this paper. I alone, however, take responsibility for any errors or

misrepresentations in this material.

Amster Where Spirit and Bulldozer Roam 75


beliefs that clearly deserve to be labeled as ‘animistic’ in that they were concerned with maintaining good relationships with non-human personsand entities that were seen as inhabiting their social and natural world (Harvey 2006). A fundamental concern of this paper is to consider how such an orientation may or may not be thought of as shaping indigenous environmental ethics, both in terms of traditional and post-conversion beliefs, to the extent that it is even appropriate to apply such terms based on the ethnographic and ethnohistorical evidence presented here. The Kelabit were traditionally rice farmers who lived in large multi-family longhouses in the interior of Borneo, with the largest concentra-tion in a region known as the Kelabit Highlands along the Malaysian-Indonesian frontier. Traditionally Kelabit longhouse communities had a single headman of hereditary high status and much agricultural work was organized collectively. The major ritual complexes prior to conver-sion centered on large-scale longhouse ceremonies held in conjunction with mortuary rites as well as protective initiatory rites for children, both of which were linked to headhunting and involved copious drinking of rice beer in multi-day feasts. In converting to Christianity in the post-World War Two years, the Kelabit rapidly abandoned these key rituals, and eventually the drinking of rice beer as well. To a certain degree the former longhouse feasts have been replaced by newly invented ‘tradi-tions’, such as contemporary name-changing ceremonies (Amster 1999), as well as Christian holidays such as Easter and Christmas, which are now major events. The Kelabit have also been directly involved in pow-erful Christian revival movements focused on the advent of the Holy Spirit, notably the Bario Revival of 1973 that took place in the Kelabit Highlands. More recently, they have been involved in a prayer mountain movement that began in the 1980s among neighboring Lun Bawang people, as discussed further below. The majority of the Kelabit population, roughly three-quarters, now resides in town areas, with the largest concentration in Miri along the coast, where the economy is based on an offshore oil industry. In rural communities, the role of the headman and the focal importance of the longhouse have gradually diminished as Kelabit increasingly opt for liv-ing in individual single-family houses and many people have perma-nently outmigrated to town areas. Kelabit today are widely known in Sarawak for their successes in edu-cation and economic advancement as well as a strong Christian religious affiliation, as members of the SIB church (Sidang Injil Borneo, formerly the BEM or Borneo Evangelical Mission). SIB is one of the fastest growing churches in Malaysia and there are local SIB congregations in every rural



Kelabit community as well as throughout urban areas of Sarawak.1 The SIB church is in many respects a focal point of both rural and urban Kelabit life today, with church services taking place literally every day in the highlands and involvement in church attendance serving as a key way to maintain Kelabit ethnic identity as well as broader indigenous pan-ethnic links in town. The paper begins by presenting an overview of the traditional belief system of the Kelabit. This animistic epistemology promoted a close inte-gration of the human and non-human spheres and did so in a manner that, I argue, was also highly anxiety ridden. Prior to conversion virtu-ally all dimensions of the physical and social world were potential sources of fear and spiritual concern, and particularly so with regards to signs communicated by birds, animals, and forest-dwelling spirits.2 In exploring the dialogical relationship between Kelabit and the forces that they engaged with in this merged physical/spiritual landscape, I focus on an example of ritual speech—the calling of the eagle (narar keniu)—asa means to illustrate the nature of this dialogue. In contrast to the former animistic orientation detailed below, I then consider some of the ways that contemporary Christian practice, and modernity generally, has reshaped the Kelabit relationship to the natural world, including a discussion of the ongoing environmental challenges faced by the Kelabit people today. In post-Christian conversion Kelabit society, relationships to natural spaces have begun to take on more ambiguous and diverse—though no less anxiety ridden—meanings. In some cases, Christian worship, such as the religious retreat to nearby Mount Murud, as discussed here, can tentatively be linked to a resacrali-zation of aspects of nature in a Christian idiom. In other instances, one can point to evidence that Kelabit (to the extent one can generalize given

1. The BEM was originally founded by Australian missionaries and today has both evangelical and charismatic orientations as well as some Pentecostal influences.

The individuals who founded the BEM did not link it to a particular Christian

denomination though they personally had Protestant backgrounds (see Southwell 1999). There is considerable variation today among SIB congregations and, at times,

even overt disagreement over what is considered the appropriate level of charismatic

activity (such as speaking in tongues). 2. It is important to alert readers that my own fieldwork, begun in the mid-1990s

and continuing up to the present, was conducted among Kelabit who themselves have

a universally strong Christian orientation. This fact certainly shapes the ways they would discuss pre-conversion traditional beliefs, though I have attempted, to the

extent possible, to be aware of and correct for this bias when presenting ethnohistori-

cal material in this paper.



their heterogeneous lifestyles and beliefs) have not adopted many fea-tures of Western-style environmental ethic or practice, this despite expo-sure to pro-environmental discourses and anti-logging protests among neighboring forest-dwelling Penan—with whom Kelabit have much contact, connection, and sympathy. By looking at both traditional beliefs and environmental engagements in the post-Christian conversion era, my aim is to explore how religious beliefs and practices have positioned, and continue to reposition, the Kelabit vis-à-vis the natural world. In so doing, I argue that the local landscape has gone from being conceived of as a highly problematic—at times a terrifying—source of anxiety in spiritual terms to being an equally terrifying source of political and economic anxiety and stress in the present day.

The Kelabit Animistic Perception and the Natural World

The Kelabit pre-conversion worldview was one of constant dialogue withnature, spirits, and the environment. From the animistic perspective of the Kelabit, it is appropriate to define the natural world quite broadly as including both living things, a range of named spiritual entities, and physical attributes of local space including the earth, wind, sky, and meteorological phenomenon. As I demonstrate below, birds were par-ticularly central to many former Kelabit ritual practices and beliefs and virtually all elements in the social and natural environment— including what we think of in Western societies as non-living things—were seen as having communicative potential. Thus, spirits (ada’) were not only were seen as inhabiting the forests and rice fields, the earth, and the varied layers of the sky, but also capable of entering one’s dream states. Hence it would be misleading in such an epistemological framework to attempt to separate the physical and spiritual realms as distinct from one another,since the ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ were certainly merged (see Hornborg 2006). As Christian converts, much of the former animistic orientation has been forgotten, except among the very eldest Kelabit, and virtually none of the pre-conversion ritual complex is practiced today. Indeed, for the most part, today, the former beliefs are highly stigmatized and often cited as examples of Satan’s influence on the Kelabit prior to conver-sion—with discourses about headhunting and infanticide in particular being used as examples of how they have since emerged from the time of darkness when they were under Satan’s spell or followed adet Satan(the way or ‘custom’ of Satan). That said, bits of folklore about the past



and former beliefs persist even among the younger generation, and those that do remain are quite revealing.3

For instance, a common former belief and one still widely known among Kelabit as well as neighboring groups, is the belief that if one laughed at an animal it could lead to calamity and disorder (masab). The most common example of this, told in many different versions in various locales, is a story of a longhouse feast during which a frog falls into a large jar of rice beer and hops about drunk, causing people to laugh hysterically. As the story is typically told, this leads to the sky turning dark, hail falling, and the entire longhouse and its inhabitants turning into stone as they flee in haste. The message of this parable is obvious: one must not mock animals and such transgressions toward other living entities can have dangerous consequences. In considering the vast repertoire of pre-conversion spiritual beliefs and practices of the Kelabit one is struck, first and foremost, by how the natural and spiritual realms were closely intertwined and how indige-nous beliefs posited potential hazards in many aspects of daily life. As people navigated the social and natural world, rife as it was with mes-sages of spiritual consequence, any number of spontaneous events—often coming from nature but also emerging from people’s dreams or the trance states of shamans—would necessitate ritual response and often immediately. The world was conceptualized as having many layers, with animals, and especially birds, seen as able to communicate signs that portend both hazards and positive messages across these layered dimensions of the spiritual world. Kelabit also had many food taboos and beliefs relating to dream interpretation and to the sighting or hear-ing of particular animals. Among those most often mentioned today, and also considered most onerous and thereby cited in justifying the wisdom of conversion, was the belief that if a pregnant woman sighted a snake during her pregnancy she would have to bury the newborn infant alive, as was also the case with the birth of twins. The death of a woman in childbirth was also considered a particularly onerous event and one that required purification rites for an entire longhouse (Amster 2003b).

3. It is important to stress that any effort to retain aspects of traditional cultural

practices are guided first and foremost by a contemporary Christian orientation and there is no evidence of Kelabit actively reviving aspects of their traditional culture,

except for the more benign elements of expressive arts such as song and dance. As I

have documented elsewhere, Kelabit have, however, selectively maintained and reinvented elements of traditional ritual practice and reconstituted them as Christian

rites, the most notable being recast in the contemporary name-changing ceremonies,

which have their roots in rituals that existed prior to conversion (Amster 1998, 1999).



Discussions with elders sometimes revealed former beliefs and prac-tices that may have helped avoid over-exploiting the local environment. For instance, if one was too successful in hunting or fishing this was considered a potentially dangerous sign that a spirit (ada’) was ‘feeding’ the person and could lead to their early death. As such, I was told people tended to restrict their hunting and avoid having too much success, and perhaps this helped limit the overexploitation of local ecosystems, though given that this was an historical claim, there is no empirical way to demonstrate whether this in fact had such an effect and, if so, whether this was an intended goal. Indeed, as Dwyer points out, ‘Past or present localized practices may have outcomes which are analogous to those desired by conservationists. But analogous outcomes need not imply a common ethical basis’ (1994: 92). The Kelabit also had many foods taboos and restrictions, some of which may have created limitations or at least awareness about species-specific care and concerns and hazards. For example, the meat of a clouded leopard (kuir) could be eaten, but it was considered essential to cover its head when brought into a house; this in order to protect people, especially children, who otherwise might be endangered by this animal’s spirit who, as one elder commented, ‘wants to eat the spirit of people’. Also the meat could not be eaten in an ordinary manner, but had to be placed on a skewer and brought up from under one’s legs. Similarly, one could not step over clouded leopard meat or that of the honey bear (beruang) otherwise it was believed one’s knees would become swollen. Kelabit attributed specific dangers to people entering certain ecosys-tems such as springs and salt licks where animals go to drink (rupan). To ignore such taboos was believed to cause illness that would require the intervention of a shaman (dayung). Kelabit also conceived of certain areas of land as spiritually dangerous, including ‘bad land’ (tana da’at), where people who died unnatural or untimely deaths would be placed (Amster 2003b). Other beliefs concerned locations to be avoided, such as the homes of dragon spirits along the bends of rivers and certain kinds of anthills. Dreams, as well, were viewed as a potential source of powerful signs; in most cases positive dreams were worrisome, whereas bad dreams were generally considered good (with the exception of dreams about drowning, which were taken as bad). Thus, if one dreamt of a bountiful harvest or success in hunting, this was a bad omen and a sign of imminent danger. To dream of someone dying, on the other hand, was a positive sign and affirmation of that person. All of these beliefs, of which this is only a brief and eclectic sample, enforced a kind of spiritual humility and respect in one’s relationship to the natural world as well as people’s social relationships with one another.



Bird omens were undoubtedly one of the central concerns in the for-mer ritual life and something that had a daily impact on people’s lives. This was also true of many beliefs linked to sounds of forest animals, whose calls were seen as carrying a range of specific messages from spirits. Among the numerous bird omens, the most commonly cited werethose linked to the movement of the ngae’ (spider hunter). In the past, anytime the ngae’ crossed a path in front of people traveling, the direc-tion of its movement was viewed as an important sign. Movement from right to left across a path was considered a dangerous sign and would cause people immediately to turn back from whatever task was at hand and return home. If a ngae’, however, crossed from the left to right along a path, it was also a potentially bad sign, but in this case its movement from the left was considered the ‘correct’ direction so long as it could be coaxed with the help of ritual to return back in that direction. When such a sighting occurred, people would pause their journey and perform a ritual, described (though with some variation) as involving making a fireand ‘showing the ngae’ the smoke’ as one person explained, and calling for it to return before proceeding on the journey. Such bird omens, and many other related taboos, would often force people to stop doing a particular task, whether it was working in the farm, setting out on a jour-ney, going hunting, or any number of other activities. In certain extreme cases, people might interpret an omen to mean that one must abandon a farm or move an entire longhouse.

Calling the Eagle (nawar keniu)

Whereas the ngae’ and other lower-flying birds communicated potential danger in a rather immediate way on the ground, the keniu or eagle was considered especially powerful and intentionally called by ritual special-ists to gain valuable information. The calling of the eagle was generally reserved for auspicious occasions, such as when holding a large ritual event, including mortuary rites or initiation ceremonies, in response to illness and epidemics, or when considering moving a longhouse to a new location.4 The keniu was seen as imbued with substantial power (lalud), or at least an intermediary of powerful spirits or deities. In all of the callings, whether to the eagle or other bird or spiritual entities, ritual

4. Metcalf (1989) describes similar practices among the Berawan, for whom the

‘weightiest of all forms of divination is the seeking of signs from the eagle’ (p. 184).

Metcalf suggests that the main difference between the eagle and other omen birds has to do with the fact that the eagle is called upon to ‘give council’ whereas other birds

are limited to providing people with good or bad signs, or as he puts it ‘promise of

success or warning of danger’ (1989: 185).



specialists would always first perform a rite involving the offering of gifts. For the eagle, this typically involved offering a number of pieces of fat held up in the air on a stick festively carved for the occasion. Among the handful of elders who could recite eagle callings, each offered different pieces of information and their narratives, while stylis-tically similar, varied in content. These recitations often had esoteric words and specialized vocabulary that was difficult to translate and even the person reciting them did not always know the meanings of many words.5 Such limitations noted, I offer the following example of a relatively concise calling to the eagle, one that would have been performed for a young child who had fallen ill:6

Oh my powerful friend, the tiger eagle, you of light bones,

where are you now? Oh, listen, lift up your head, hear my request, my plea to you.

It is just this: Piringano’s family is in bad health, their child ill.

Maybe she is ill because her spirit has been scattered by the rain which falls when it is sunny, the rain which falls when there is a rainbow.

Her soul has departed therefore she has fallen ill. She is with fever and

shakes, and so we call upon you. Even if your little eaglet’s mouths are groping in hunger,

even if you are turning your eggs to hatch them,

come and fulfill our request, come and respond to our plea, come and respond to our calling, come and respond to our groans.

Here is a bit of wild durian, a bit of pig fat, a pig we bought from the

headwaters of the Umor River, from the headwater of the Dabpur River. We bought it in exchange for a coffin with the head of a deer

with large branching antlers as well as a water-buffalo

with horns as big as two hand spans. This fat is as thick as a hand span, that’s why we are offering it to you.

And ask you to bring her spirit back.

Even if they’ve kept the spirit in a case, you go and open it and take it. Wherever your wings take you, whether it’s to the seventh sky, the eight

sky, the ninth sky, you shall go there to take her back.

Come and bring her here.

5. In collecting the ethnohistorical material described here, it is noteworthy that none of the elders who could recite callings still believed in their efficacy, nor did any admit to having performed them in actual ritual contexts. One person even referred to a published volume on Kelabit oral tradition as a source of his knowledge on a particular eagle calling (Rubenstein 1973: 799-804). Finally, there was a great deal of variation in the callings as well as in the ways similar rituals were described by differ-ent informants, suggesting stylistic, regional, and historical variety. 6. This calling was recited by Ribuh Balang in Bario in mid-May 1995 and translated collaboratively with Poline Bala.



Then the family will be happy, will be pleased with you that you came.

Come, come and let us see you soar upwards.

Even though there is an eagle that comes near to catch rats, even though there is an eagle that comes near to catch grasshoppers,

we are not calling for him.

Even though you may be as small as a tick, as small as a fly, you, the eagle which soars upward reaching under the white sky, under the black sky,

under the blue sky, you are the one whom we call upon.

This calling illustrates how such recitations were framed as a negotia-tion, with the eagle acting as a kind of intermediary asked to act on the behalf of the ritual specialist. Thus the phrase, ‘Even if they’ve kept the spirit in a case, you go and open it and take it’, seems to imply that there is some other entity, whether a spirit or deity, who is holding the soul of the person who has fallen ill and the eagle is called upon to help release it. As was also conventional in such narratives, pains were made to stress that this was not an ordinary eagle, such as one who ‘comes near to catch rats’, illustrating the respectful manner and tone of the calling. Finally, we see in this calling speculation about what may have caused the illness and the disharmonious condition that brought it about. The ritual specialist, thus, wonders if ‘she is ill because her spirit has been scattered by the rain which falls when it is sunny’, illustrating how contradictions in nature, such as sun and rain together, can cause spiri-tual danger. In this ritually charged engagement, it is of course critical to treat the bird with care and respect, offering gifts to coax it to show the hoped-for signs. In the event the keniu does arrive but soars nearby in a way that was not desirable, I was told you are not supposed to look straight at it but rather only from the corner of one’s eyes. In contrast, if it soared high as desired, it was essential to look at it directly. A number of elders described how in seeking a sign from keniu, it was common to set up a gate or series of gates (awang) on a hillside through which they would request the keniu to pass (at least visually) as a means to provide an answer to their specific question. There was considerable variation with the way this ritual was described; one person described setting up two poles like a door or portal though which the eagle must be sighted. Another described how in divining guidance about an epi-demic, two sets of gates (awang) would be set up using four bamboo poles, with the gate on the left called awang ate (death gate), the one on the right the awang ulun (life gate). If the eagle was sighted through the left gate they believed an epidemic would affect them, whereas if the eagle appeared within the right one, they would be spared misfortune.7

7. Most of the callings and blessings I gathered were recording with the assis-

tance of a video camera. It is interesting to note that after performing eagle callings



The purpose of describing these practices, and the eagle calling in particular, is to highlight the dialogical and agentive nature of the rela-tionship that Kelabit had to their surroundings. The eagle callings serve as a poignant example of Kelabit attempts to communicate with spiritual forces around them and seek guidance at times of anxiety or major ritual undertaking. This example supports recent reappraisals of the term ‘Animism’ that show how animistic worldviews exhibit a form of mutual engagement and ‘constant dialogue’ with the natural world (Bird-David 2006: 35). For instance, Ingold argues that among people with an ‘animic perception of the world’ (2006: 12) that ‘life is not an attribute of all things at all’, and hence ‘does not emanate from a world that already exists, populated by objects-as-such, but is rather immanent in the very process of that world’s continual generation or coming-into-being’ (2006: 10). In such societies, then, relationships with the natural environment are ones of constant engagement and an unfolding process of negotiation,much like a conversation. ‘What we have been accustomed to calling “the environment” might, then, be better envisaged as a domain of entanglement. It is within such a tangle of interlaced trails, continually raveling here and unraveling there, that beings grow or “issue forth” along the lines of their relationships’ (2006: 14). For the Kelabit prior to Christian conversion, as these examples show, the relationship between people and their environment was clearly one of such entanglement and constant engagement. Within this epistemo-logical orientation, anxieties about interpreting signs and behaving prop-erly in response to them were a constant source of concern and never dormant. In this social universe—rife with omens, taboos, and pro-scribed modes of acting and reacting to the signs present in everything from the movement of birds and animals, the winds and weather, and dreams—danger was an endemic theme. Furthermore, most hazards or sources of misfortune had a ritual means by which people could attempt to communicate, plead, or coax these powerful forces that reigned over life and death. While in some instances certain practices might be hypothetically linked to what look to be examples of environmental stewardship, I believe it would be an oversimplification of the broader epistemological framework to reduce these beliefs to serving the func-tion of environmental management.8 Rather, as these practices suggest,

none of the elders interviewed thought to see if an eagle actually came and my inter-

viewees found it humorous when I turned my camera to the sky, suggesting we might check.

8. For a number of case studies from Borneo that directly consider the complex

and historically contingent relationship between ritual practices and environmental



the very notion of the ‘environment’ as a distinct conceptual category is problematic when viewed through the lens of such an animistic episte-mology.

Christianity and Religious Retreat on Mount Murud

In the post-Christian conversion era, such entangled spiritual beliefs relating to the forest and the communicative potential of birds, animals, dreams, weather, and land have become muted. Yet, despite their com-mitment to Christianity, rural-based Kelabit still often cite fear of spirits lurking in the forests, though pointing to the superior power and efficacy of Christian belief, and Jesus in particular, in keeping these potentially troublesome forces at bay. In discussing pre-conversion beliefs, many Kelabit elders described having had no religion prior to conversion, hav-ing accepted the missionary perspective and preferring to refer to their former beliefs as ‘superstitious’. Nonetheless, on many occasions people described troubling incidents involving angry spirits. For instance, after a hunting accident that took the life of a young boy in the Kelabit Highlands people became fearful of his spirit roaming in the forest and would not enter the region for many weeks. When a fire consumed a longhouse for the second time, it was widely commented that the cause of the fires might be that it had been build on former ‘bad land’ (tanada’at), a place of dangerous spirits that used to be off limits. Finally, manyelders openly admitted to believing in a mountain spirit (Pun Tumid) and other dangerous forces lurking in nature, yet expressed the over-whelming belief that Christianity essentially trumped these primordial nuisances. It is safe to generalize, then, that the former system of belief, to the extent that it is still part of people’s awareness, is still viewed as highly onerous and that life as Christians is viewed as a great improve-ment. In light of this, it is useful to consider how, if at all, conversion to Christianity has transformed relationships to the natural environment. In so doing, I turn to a discussion of the emergence of pilgrimage retreats on the slopes of Mount Murud, the highest peak in Sarawak, that began in the mid-1980s and have evolved into regular, usually yearly, retreats. Mount Murud is quite remote and can only reached by foot (or heli-copter), the journey typically involving more than a full day’s walk from the Kelabit Highlands. After two decades of worship on the mountain, there is now a large church on the northern slope, not too far from the

stewardship, see Wadley (2005) and particularly the chapters by Tagliacozzo, Sellato,

Eghenter, and Appell.



peak and surrounding the church are a large number of houses used by congregants, mainly Kelabit and Lun Bawang from surrounding regions but also increasingly other people from throughout Sarawak and Malay-sia, as well as from abroad. During these prayer retreats, some well-known spiritual battles have taken place, including efforts by church members to eradicate primordial spirits from the mountain and to reclaim this natural space for unhin-dered Christian worship. In particular, one of these battles involved sightings of the spirit of a jungle princess and her female relatives, who, some believed, were unhappy with Christian worship. A group of elder rural Lun Bawang women parishioners, who claimed to have received their instructions directly from God, held a ceremony in which they sought to ritually evict the princess and her relatives from the mountain. One possible interpretation of these events is that in challenging non-Christian spirits in this location, people were asserting a new Christian-based spiritual regime in the midst of a remote forest area that had been viewed as spiritually dangerous and off limits in the pre-conversion era (Amster 2003a). In this sense, the battles over spiritual forces that have taken place on Mount Murud may be viewed, in part, as an effort to recast the relationship between people and the natural environment in more positive and agentive terms. Not all churchgoers who worship on the mountain, I should point out, agreed with the claims or even the aims of those who have done battle with primordial spirits on the mountain (implying that they consider such dramas the work of the devil). However, there is little question that these retreats, especially for urban-based congregants, offer powerful experiences that emerge in part from their being located in ‘wild’ nature. Upon returning from a retreat on Mount Murud, one urban-based Kelabit pastor described his experience of feeling deeply refreshed by being in such a remote place where one is exposed raw nature—includ-ing cold, wind, and even ice (a relative rarity so near the equator)—all of which allowed him to feel closer to the power of God. Such an attitude toward nature and spirituality—as a source of posi-tive inspiration rather than anxiety—suggests a new kind of environ-mental ethic emerging and the possibility that a kind of resacralization of the forest is occurring on Mount Murud in the context of Christian worship. This provides an interesting contrast to a study of another indigenous Borneo society, the Rungus Dusun, for whom it has been argued that Christian conversion has lead directly to a process of desac-rilization of land (Appell 1997, 2005). Appell argues that conversion to Christianity led to the loss of the ritual sanctions necessary to protect Rungus sacred groves, though I suspect that the loss of such sacred



forests is actually more multifaceted than this and cannot be so mono-lithically tied to religious change. As other studies from Borneo societies have shown, indigenous environmental stewardship and resource man-agement is often a complex issue to unravel and one needs to take into account a range of historical, cultural, political, and economic factors for each specific case.9

What is also interesting about this church site is how it spontaneously manifested in a wilderness area threatened by logging, and sought to be preserved by environmentalists. The church on Mount Murud thus sits in the middle of a region of forest that activists had been working to pro-tect and which, in 2005, was ultimately protected by the Sarawak gov-ernment and named Pulong Tau National Park (pulong tau means ‘our forests’ in both Kelabit and Lun Bawang). Despite the use of local native terms for the name, indigenous involvement in creating this park has been fairly minimal. Indeed, most Kelabit have been largely unaware of the efforts by urban elites lobbying to create this protected space and those who were informed, I was told by politicians, mainly worried that it would impinge on their right to hunt in nearby forests. Members of the SIB church who wanted to be able to continue their worship on the mountain, also raised concerns about their ability to continue their retreats and subsequently received assurance from the government that they would be permitted to continue to use the land upon which they had established the church. On the whole, efforts surrounding this pro-tected area have had little grassroots involvement and both the creation of protected forests and the arrival of logging—about which rural and urban Kelabit are concerned—have occurred with minimal local con-sultation. Regarding the park, my impression has been that what has mattered most to many local people is that are able to maintain their church.10

In a sense, the former relationship that Kelabit had with the perceived powers in the world at large, negotiated via birds, omens, dreams, and shamanistic intervention, gave them rather more direct channels of com-munication in contrast to the far more opaque and mysterious ways that decisions now get made by government officials regarding their home-lands and native forests. Many Kelabit, particularly those who are edu-cated and live in urban areas, are well aware of the local history of

9. See Wadley (2005). For more general work on this topic, see Grim (2001) and

Greenough and Tsing (2003). 10. As logging operations have pushed closer to the mountain peak and park

boundaries, it has also become easier for worshippers to attend mountain retreats, as

they can use logging roads and shorten the time needed to walk to the peak.



internationally publicized efforts to challenge government-sanctioned timber operations in the state (as well as attempts to resist incursion on native lands by palm oil plantations). For most Kelabit, direct involve-ment in protests is generally considered too risky. Indeed, one well-known Kelabit, Mutang Urud, who was active in international environmental circuits and involved in helping the Penan campaign, was arrested and detained under the Malaysian Internal Security Act. Once he was released from prison, he left the country and moved to Canada where he remains today. Privately, many Kelabit express their personal sympathies to the pro-conservationist views of these environ-mental campaigns, though few would advocate for such tactics in the Kelabit Highlands. Urban Kelabit especially are highly cognizant of various anti-logging environmental discourse as well as the counter discourses that proliferate in Malaysian media and I would characterize these urban Kelabit as politically savvy and aware of what most see as the political limitations of protest movements. That said, there remains widespread concern for preserving forests and historical sites in their native homelands. In contrast, Kelabit in rural areas typically have had less exposure to both Western environmental discourses and the common pro-develop-ment (anti-environmentalist) discourse that proliferates in Malaysian media. In dealing with such issues of development, the overwhelming tendency is to turn to the urban Kelabit leadership for guidance. Among rural Kelabit, I observed a remarkably pragmatic attitude toward the forest, as a source of food and other resources, and never heard abstract conversations about ‘nature’ or ‘the environment’ as one might hear in town.11 Rather, on a day to day basis, the forest is more commonly treated as a resource and a place where one must labor to carve out a cultivated space—an often vigorous force that must be pushed back and controlled in order to make room for paths, farms, pastures, and homes. I recall going fishing with Kelabit and marveling at the skillful way they wielded their machetes in cutting a path to the river, only to find on my next visit that the path had been re-subsumed by the forest. It is no wonder that one would not think twice about cutting back anything that grows in such a lush ecosystem. It was also common for people to clear

11. Similarly, among some Penan, it has been noted that they tend to use certain kinds of environmentally oriented discourse ‘tailored to its audience’, particularly conservation-oriented foreigners (Bending 2006: 48). ‘This is the type of Penan speech that has tended to be quoted in environmentalist work. It is not that it should be taken to be insincere or in some way made up, but it cannot be taken as representative of Penan discourse in general’ (2006: 48).



forest simply as a means to lay claim to land, an especially destructive practice given the valuable resources lost in the process, but a reasonable response given local perceptions of land tenure where rights to land are in part understood to be acquired by modifying and investing labor in it. These comments noted, Kelabit have numerous longstanding and, likely, environmentally sound practices involving the stewardship of wild and cultivated forest products that surround their settlements. What a casual observer might see as ‘forest’ near any Kelabit settlements would far better be conceptualized as a dense and semi-wild mixed-use ‘garden’ that includes fruit trees, bamboo groves, and cultivated and semi-cultivated materials. At the same time, as tourists who trek with Kelabit guides are quick to point out, Kelabit rarely see the point of carrying trash out of the forest and any resting points along a forest tracks are littered with items such as empty sardine tins and plastic food wrappers. Similarly, most garbage—which now includes hazardous items such as batteries—are often simply thrown into the river and few people are aware of the threat of toxic chemicals, such as weed killers that are often sprayed around wet-rice fields. In this sense, Western environmental ethics and notions about pollution and toxicity have not penetrated into rural Kelabit thought and practice.

Loss of Agency and the Contemporary Struggles over Local Forests Environmental politics and logging are hot topics in Borneo and the pro-liferation of logging in the interior forests of Sarawak has stirred interna-tional attention and a number of local responses—most notably the well-publicized blockades by nomadic (or semi-nomadic) Penan during the 1980s and 1990s that engendered widespread support from a range of international environmentalist groups (Brosius 1999, 2003). As the pre-ceding discussion might suggest, Kelabit (again, to the extent that one can make such generalizations) are in many ways conflicted over issues of development and at times respond to both conservation and develop-ment efforts with skepticism, as each draw almost exclusively on non-local discourses of development and change and thereby share the common feature of being perceived as imposed on them by outsiders. The highland area is a plateau at around 3000 feet, with a dozen longhouse-based communities spread over fertile valleys, supporting extensive wet-rice production that could easily be disrupted by logging and the runoff it would generate. In late 2005, logging operations began to penetrate into the settled areas of the Kelabit Highlands, causing grave concern about the future of Kelabit rice farms. Prior to this, it seemed that the region might be immune to the devastation that has



occurred elsewhere in Sarawak, with logging operations hovering many hours walk away from occupied longhouse settlements. The belief that the highlands would not be logged was not entirely naïve. Until recently, prominent Kelabit and neighboring Lun Bawang individuals in influen-tial roles in government and industry had been able successfully to lobby on behalf of protecting the Kelabit Highlands—this in contrast to downriver Kelabit settlements where logging has already taken place.12

Also the modest flow of eco-tourists into the highlands, often touted in guidebooks such as Lonely Planet as a backpacker paradise, has led Kelabit to believe it might be kept as a tourist destination. Such a tourism-centered future now seems unlikely and the current concern of urban Kelabit is that the government will now try to develop the high-lands into some form of plantation economy (as has happened elsewhere in the state with palm oil schemes), taking advantage of the proximity to nearby border settlements in Indonesia, which offer a ready supply of labor (Amster 2005). On the whole, local residents have been taken by surprise and are con-cerned; they have begun calling community meetings to try to make sense of how they might react, and this has led to debates in the commu-nity about appropriate responses. Much of the conversation that has ensued, I am told by Kelabit I spoke with, reflects a resignation that logging cannot be stopped. Some prominent Kelabit have even spoken out in favor of the logging road reaching the highlands, seeing this as a positive development as it allows for heavy cargo such as fuel, costly to fly in to the highlands, to be brought in less expensively. Most Kelabit are nervous about logging, many citing fear that the coming of a road and the ‘opening’ of the highlands could lead to destructive effects that will threaten their way of life and lead to a loss of autonomy and control on their native lands. While most Kelabit are clearly not supportive of having their native homelands logged, most are also resigned to their lack of ability to stop it and thus focus more on reaping some positive benefits from it, such as the convenience of having a way to reach the highlands by road. The International Tropical Timber Organization

12. One explanation for this sudden change of policy is that it is somehow linked

to the death of a prominent Lun Bawang politician, the late Dr Judson Tagal who died

in a helicopter crash near Mount Murud in July of 2004. Dr Judson (as he was known) championed local interests and had been an advocate for indigenous input in the

long-term development plans for the Kelabit Highlands and Lun Bawang regions. Just

prior to his death he had been named as the assistant to Sarawak’s Chief Minister, a powerful position in Sarawak government. The fact that logging operations began to

penetrate the Kelabit Highlands soon after his death strikes some Kelabit as not

entirely coincidental.



(ITTO), in contrast, following up on the establishment of the Pulong TauNational Park, has formally recommended that the Sarawak government extend this newly protected area to include the cultural resources of the Kelabit Highlands and thereby form a larger transboundary protected region linking the park (just to the west of the Kelabit Highlands) to similar protected forests even further to the east on the Indonesian side of the border. In this current state of affairs, in which rural Kelabit have generally looked to the leadership of the urban-based Kelabit ethnic associations to help them navigate an intelligible collective response to logging, little hasbeen done to date to try actively to counter or resist timber operations. While some Kelabit feel that formal requests for compensation ought to be made to the government, others see demands for compensation itself as legitimizing logging on their native land. Meanwhile, state laws are continually being amended to limit claims of title under native custom-ary land laws, effectively disarming any future legal claims. The idea of protesting, such as with the highly controversial Penan blockades that gained international attention in the 1980s and ’90s, is generally believed to be counter-productive as it would only irritate the government.13

While it is too early to predict whether Kelabit, or some coalition of Kelabit and concerned foreigners, will succeed in curbing logging in the Kelabit Highlands, one observation among the Kelabit I have spoken with is that they do not perceive a clear way to negotiate their concerns. My general point, then, is that Kelabit, who have been well-known for their educational and professional success in town as well as their reli-gious zeal and political savvy, now suddenly appear as disenfranchised and passive agents in the decision-making processes that will likely determine the fate of their homelands in the Kelabit Highlands. Such disenfranchisement stands in contrast to their relationships to nature and forest spaces in the past, where they could respond to the various sources of spiritual anxiety through rituals that gave them an active sense of engagement. While I would be wary to argue that their strong commitment to Christianity has specifically hindered them in this regard, it is difficult to see how it has helped them either. As Kelabit listen nervously, then, to the approaching sound of bull-dozers and chainsaws, I am reminded of how they had formerly listened cautiously to the sound of birds and animals in the forest in the pre-conversion era, hoping one might not hear dangerous omens—such as the sound of a barking deer or catch a glimpse of the flight of a bird in

13. For detailed discussion of how these blockades are now perceived by Penan,

see Bending 2006.



the incorrect direction—yet fully prepared to offer an appropriate ritual response by which they could converse with such unseen forces. Now, as people hear the ominous roar of timber operations coming, these new omens portend the destruction of their ecosystem and are propelled by forces so powerful that no ritual response is even attempted.

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____________________________________________

Situating the Corn-Child: Articulating Animism

and Conservation from a Nahua Perspective*

____________________________________________

Kristina Tiedje

Department of Anthropology, Centre de Recherche et d’Etudes

Anthropologiques, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Campus Porte Des Alpes, Bâtiment K, 5, avenue

Pierre-Mendés-France, 69676 Bron Cedex, France

[email protected]

Abstract

This article analyzes Animism and conservation in the context of a conser-vation and development program in Mexico. The Eastern Sierra Madre

mountains have become contested spaces where certain traditional agricul-

tural practices are challenged by government conservation projects. With a focus on the Nahuas, I ask whether and in what context indigenous reli-

gious thought and cultural values translate into conservationist behavior

and how conservation ideals influence indigenous nature views. I focus on ritual behavior directed toward the corn-child as an example of an ethical

model to respect sentient beings. Then, I contrast this model with a Mexi-

can conservation and development program. As an example of seemingly changing perceptions of nature, the Nahuas accept the program by weigh-

ing economic needs over religious ones, but not leaving behind their

obligations to nature spirits. My analysis shows how they articulate new representations of the corn-child with conservation to make sense out of

recent environmental processes. I also demonstrate the cultural agency of

the Nahuas who integrate globally circulating conservation ideas as easily adapted cultural material. The articulation of conservation-as-sacred-

practice is an example of how they have come to terms with political,

economic, and environmental challenges and offers powerful cultural resources to serve local ends.

* The fieldwork for this research was made possible thanks to funding from the following organizations and institutes: DAAD HSP III Fellowship (1999–2000), the

Sasakawa Fellowship from the Sylff Foundation (2000–2002), Ciesas Research Grant

(2002), and the Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Fyssen Foundation (2004–2005).



Introduction

This study builds upon the existing anthropological findings on the connections between indigenous religious beliefs and practices and conservation, while complicating many of the assumptions about nature, culture, and animistic worldviews underlying contemporary conser-vation efforts in indigenous areas. I ask whether there are connections between animistic beliefs, environmental ethics, and conservationist behavior: In what context do religious and cultural values of nature translate (or not) into conservationist behavior? How do modern-day conservation and development projects influence indigenous percep-tions of nature? Under what circumstances do local expressions of spiri-tual relationships to nature become claims to cultural agency? With a focus on Nahua hamlets located in the buffer zone of the UNESCO-Man and the Biosphere Program1 funded Biosphere Reserve of the Sierra Gorda,2 the site of a biodiversity conservation and develop-ment project since the early 1990s, I seek to demonstrate how indigenous ritual specialists skillfully articulate their animistic beliefs while integrat-ing the rhetoric of modern-day conservation. In this area, reforestation and soil conservation is subsidized by the MAB program as well as by several government programs. Fieldwork for this project was carried out between 1999 and 2005. I argue that local understandings of nature differ from, or emerge in dialogue with and resistance to, modern-day conservation rhetoric and

1. The UNESCO-MAB Program proposes an interdisciplinary research agenda

and capacity building to improve the relationships between the people and their

environment. It was launched in the 1970s to target the economic, social, and ecologi-cal dimensions of biodiversity loss with the aim of reducing this loss. MAB is a world-

wide program that promotes knowledge-sharing, research and development, educa-

tion and training, and participatory decision-making. For detailed information, see http://www.unesco.org/mab/mabProg.shtml, accessed 30 May 2007. For the MAB

directory, see http://www.unesco.org/mabdb/bios1-2.htm, accessed 30 May 2007.

2. Officially declared the Biosphere Reserve of the Sierra Gorda (Reserva de la Biósfera de la Sierra Gorda) in 1997, the Reserve comprises an area of 383,567 hectares

in the northeastern part of the State of Querétaro in the Eastern Sierra Madre. It is

adjacent to the Nahua region in the southwestern part of the State of San Luis Potosí where the research for this project was carried out. The Sierra Gorda Biosphere

Reserve is the Biosphere Reserve with the highest ecosystem diversity in Mexico. In

2001, the UNESCO-MAP Program declared it a World Biosphere Reserve. For infor-mation about the history and management of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, see

http://www.conanp.gob.mx/anp/sierra_gorda/sierra_gorda_ caracterizacion.php,

accessed 31 May 2007.

Tiedje Situating the Corn-Child 95


practice through the processes of translation, appropriation, and articulation. By focusing on the creative potential of the social produc-tion of space, place, environment, and society, I demonstrate through ethnography that Animism3 and conservation do not need to be viewed as opposed cultural models separating ‘modern’ and ‘premodern’ cul-tural ideas about nature, ethical values, and environmental practices as conservationist and non-conservationist. I deliberately focus on long-standing agricultural practices imbued with intrinsic values as narrated in sacred stories and origin myths in Nahua cosmology and spirituality. In recent years, governmental and non-governmental agents have tar-geted Nahua by shifting their cultivation techniques on the traditional cornfield (milpa). Traditional field burning is viewed as potentially eco-logically harmful and prone to endangering the last remaining patches of the cloud forest in the buffer zone of the nearby biosphere reserve. My aim here is to demonstrate that the Nahua villagers who cultivate small land plots on the foothills of the Eastern Sierra Madre in southern San Luis Potosí practice multiple kinds of Animisms as they integrate con-servation rhetoric in their subsistence narratives. By articulating Ani-mism and conservation, elder Nahua ritual specialists negotiate their cultural agency in the encounter between conservation practitioners, government agents, and their local community. In this essay, I introduce recent discussions of conservation and Ani-mism, positing them as two separate, yet (as we will see later) inter-twined cultural models. I then present the research context to set the stage for exploring the content of the Nahua animistic cosmos and subse-quently profile Nahua environmental thought and behavior with regard to maize agriculture. Subsistence narratives and agricultural practices demonstrate the ways in which Nahua traditions embody beliefs in sentient beings that may translate into an ethical or value model to protect nature. Finally, I address the questions of how conservation projects may change the ways the Nahuas see themselves in relation to their surroundings. For the benefit of my analysis, I explore how the Nahuas, who integrate modern conservation ideas, easily adapted cul-tural material. The articulation of conservation-as-sacred-practice is an example of how they have come to terms with social, political, economic, and environmental challenges and offers powerful cultural resources to serve local ends.

3. I concur with Snodgrass and Tiedje (this volume) that Animism should be

capitalized to pay the same respect to indigenous religions as to other world religions

(Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.).



Conservation and Animism: Two Cultural Models?

In the literature on the human dimensions of biodiversity conservation, significant developments have occurred over the past two decades, not least the formulation of a paradigm on the potential contributions of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and the importance of spiritual and cultural values of nature to biodiversity conservation (cf. Posey 1999). Conservation is generally understood as actions and practices that are consciously designed to prevent overharvesting or overhunting or to reduce other activities that cause environmental damage (Smith and Wishnie 2000). However, in indigenous contexts, it seems useful to complicate this definition of conservation, going beyond the criteria of consciousness as the prominent factor to determine the presence or absence of conservation. Michael Dove (2006: 197) recently proposed to take the perceived divide between intention and nonintention in indigen-ous resource management as ‘a reflection of difference between mod-ernity and premodernity, rather than between conservationist and non conservationist practices’. This seems adequate for some contexts, especially where conservation happens as a by-product. Paul Dwyer (1994) proposed another distinction differentiating ‘modern conservation’ from ‘traditional conservation’ (my emphasis). For Dwyer, modern con-servation is ‘global in its motivations and assertions of responsibility’ and traditional conservation is based on local knowledge or TEK and localized practices that relate to the immediate surroundings (1994: 91-92). Perhaps it is useful to make this distinction on the basis of scale (global vs. local) and to highlight the importance of TEK and resource management. It should be noted that not all localized practices are conservationist at a local level, nor do they share the same motivations or contribute to the same aims as modern conservation. These conservation types (unintentional and locally focused conserva-tion) are classically associated with societies manifesting a holistic, non-dualistic worldview, also described as a form of religion that can be described as ‘animistic’ characterized by beliefs in sentient persons that co-exist with humans, plants, and animals.4 The interest in indigenous

4. In hunter-gatherer societies, Animism has been described as a holistic, non-dualist worldview, and a knowledge model where animistic ideas operate within a

context of social practices (Bird-David 1999). The beliefs in sentient persons and the

relatedness of all beings are not uncommon in agricultural societies (in particular thosewhich engage in complex ritual practices to perform reciprocal obligations to the non-

human persons). Nonetheless, their religious beliefs and practices are rarely described

as ‘animistic’, probably to avoid classical connotations of ‘animists’ as ‘primitive



knowledge, local resource management, and the cultural and spiritual values of nature first developed as a means to counteract discourses that largely uncritically blamed indigenous peoples for environmental degra-dation. Much of this writing helped foster an image of indigenous peoples as conservationists. While most scholars asserted simply that indigenous peoples possess unique systems of knowledge embedded in their worldview and spirituality that can serve as a basis for successful conservation (i.e. Berkes 1999; Nazarea 1999; Posey 1985, 1999), romanti-cized notions of indigenous peoples as ‘ecologically noble savages’ have drawn attention and persist in the public imagination. Then again, the diversity in the literature on indigenous knowledge, holistic worldviews, and conservation suggests that multiple factors play a role in shaping conservationist or non-conservationist behavior, the cultural and spiri-tual values of nature being one of them. In that vein, studies critiquing the myth of the ‘noble savage’ have introduced new perspectives on indigenous environmental thought and behavior, arguing that while many indigenous societies possess unique knowledge systems and share an animistic perspective of their local environment, they did not neces-sarily intentionally conserve natural resources (Krech 1999; Stearman 1994). The broad range of existing studies demonstrates that beliefs in sen-tient beings may reinforce conservation but are not a guarantee of conservation ethics and of behavioral norms that regulate the use and protection of plants and animals in a way similar to aims and ethical basis of modern-day conservation. In part, this is so because cultural sen-timents to protect nature fluctuate: ethical values to defend nature are not necessarily shared equally by all persons nor are they activated equally in all contexts. A relational environmental ethics characteristic for many indigenous societies does not always coincide with the aims and inten-tions of the various existing strands of Western conservationist ethics. These observations suggest the existence of two opposed cultural models that seemingly stand in a hierarchical relationship to one another,much as the original representation of E.B. Tylor (1871), who described Animism as a ‘failed epistemology’ in comparison to science the only ‘true epistemology’. Modern-day conservation is indeed sometimes pos-ited as the only authoritative model based on Western science, especially since the urgency of the global environmental crisis has given conserva-tion activists a sort of moral legitimacy to make decisions about local people and the global environment. Conservation programs tend to

people’. Here, Animism refers to a form of religion marked by the relatedness of all

beings, human and non-human persons alike.



impose a European way of seeing, understanding, and using nature and the environment, which in many cases has significant material and social impacts on local people and their longstanding environmental practices and lifeways. Conservation projects also tend to simplify the local people’s ecological knowledge, social practices, and religious beliefs to fit existing programs or policy structures without responding to the political, social, and economic realities of the communities (see Dove 2006; Harmon and Putney 2003; West 2006; West, Igoe, and Brockington 2006). The global conservation rhetoric also may change the way people see themselves in relation to their environment, prompting them to adopt conservation as their new mantra. As a result, people who do not conform to the image created of them at the beginning of a modern-day conservation project are viewed as failing.5

These concerns about the hierarchical relationship that separates the two models highlight not only issues of scale (local and global), effi-ciency (conservation and non-conservation), and consciousness (inten-tion and non-intention), but they underline the pressing matter of power (political, economic, social) that needs to be addressed when analyzing the connections between Animism and conservation (Tiedje 2007a). Tak-ing into consideration these insights, I argue in this essay that con-servation projects are sites of social production and interaction that are important because they promote refined ways of seeing, representing, interacting, and producing the world we live in. I examine the symbolic, material, and social effects of conservation programs to understand how modern-day conservation efforts impact people’s lives by challenging their perceptions of nature and related cultural values and norms. The global attention to conservation calls for studying the emic meanings of externally oriented displays of a conservationist ethic in indigenous communities. Looking at the articulation of the global environmentalist ethic with indigenous knowledge one can observe the collaboration and complicity as well as the contestation of modern conservation programs, as this essay seeks to demonstrate.6

Setting

The Nahuas who live in the tropical foothills of the Eastern Sierra Madre in the northern Huasteca in Mexico demonstrate a deep connection to

5. Various case studies that examined conservation efforts in indigenous areas raised these issues: English 2000; Igoe 2004; Pfeffer, Schelahs, and Day 2001; West 2006.

6. For related studies that demonstrate the collaboration between indigenous

peoples and conservationists see, for example, Mathews 2005 and Vasan 2002.



their surroundings, both in terms of local environmental knowledge, and their respect for the land, people, and non-human entities residing in the land.7 Over the past ten years, I have conducted research throughout the Nahua area of the northern Huasteca in different municipalities (Xilitla, Axtla, Coxcatlán, and Huehuetlán) with a high percentage of Nahuatl speakers in the rural communities (between 40 and 80 percent). The Huasteca region has always been an area of rich tropical vegetation due to the high precipitation and elevated humidity for six to nine months out of the year. The Huasteca is also one of the areas in Mexico with the highest cultural diversity and is characterized by a large indigenous population.8 In the northern Huasteca, which extends over 20 munici-palities, the Nahuas are the largest group with 179,000 speakers (fol-lowed by the Teenek with 110,000 speakers, and the Xi’oi or Pame with 20,000 speakers [INEGI 2000]). The research for this study was con-ducted in a mixed (Nahua and mestizo peasants) hamlet located on the outskirts of the municipality of Xilitla that borders the state of Querétaro and the biosphere of the Sierra Gorda. For the purpose of this article, I chose not to reveal the name of the hamlet in order to protect the community.9

Contemporary Huastec Nahua religious beliefs and practices promote moral values and prescribe ethical behavior to regulate their relations with non-human entities in their surroundings.10 Some hamlets of Xilitla municipality are actively engaged in reforestation programs and partici-pate in conservation workshops offered by the local NGO Grupo EcológicoSierra Gorda. When the Nahuas respect the land in certain practical ways, with long fallow periods and crop diversification for example, an ecolog-ical scientist might conclude that sustainability is enhanced. In this sense, Nahua beliefs in sentient beings may favor the adoption of a conser-vationist ethic and act as a scientific concept and frame empirical-rational knowledge.11 Yet, to respect the land, the Nahuas say, is to give

7. Here, I refer to what is known in Mexico as the Huasteca potosina: the north-ern part of the Huasteca region located in the state of San Luis Potosí (see Tiedje 2004

for a detailed discussion of the region).

8. The primary indigenous language groups who call the larger Huasteca region their home are the Tepehuas, the Otomies, the Totonacs, the Nahuas, and the

Huastecs (or Teenek).

9. Detailed maps of the region can be viewed in Tiedje 2004 and 2007a. 10. For the ancient Nahua cosmology and nature religions, see the writings of

Alfredo López Austin (i.e. 1989, 1994, 1996). For account of the spirituality of other

contemporary Nahuas in the Huasteca living south of San Luis Potosí, see Gómez Martínez (2002) and van’ t Hooft and Cerda Zepeda (2003).

11. Roberto González (2001) demonstrates how Zapotec beliefs in the maize spirit

impact the ecological reality of farming. Colin Scott (2006) shows how spirit categories



thanks and feed the gods as the gods provide their staple food, corn. In the agricultural cycle related to corn, the Nahuas engage in reciprocal exchanges with the deities and nature spirits. In practice, this means that there is a flow of gifts from humans to the earth and to other nature spirits and vice versa. This helps maintain the abundance of corn deemednecessary for human survival as well as for animal and plant survival.

The Teyomej and Other Non-Human Persons

Using Hunn’s (1999: 25) definition of Animism as a ‘religious principle’ and as an explanatory theory found among many subsistence-oriented societies such as hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists, the Huastec Nahuas adhere to an animistic belief system and a knowledge system that is based on their daily interactions with non-human persons in their surroundings. Nahua Animism stands on a relational knowledge model (or epistemology, cf. Bird-David 1999) insofar as humans and non-humans communicate and interact as persons. They participate in a community-of-beings, understood as a community shared by human persons and non-human persons (including inanimate beings) in an equal relationship.12

The Nahuas believe that all living things, including non-animate objects such as climatic conditions, stones, and rocks, are animated by a spirit-soul (tonali), and share a vital force (chicahualistli). For the Nahuas, the spirit-soul entails a mode of consciousness, intelligence, and memory comparable to that attributed to human beings. This means that human beings achieve knowledge of the world through dialogue and reciprocal interactions and active engagement with other human beings and with non-human persons. The Nahuas say that ‘little gods’ (teyomej) reside in their surroundings as guardians of the earthly resources, the water, the

that are directed to metaphysical purposes also frame practical knowledge among

Wemindji Cree Hunters. 12. I understand the term ‘community-of-beings’ as a community shared by

human persons and non-human persons (including inanimate beings) in an equal

relationship. Fikret Berkes coined this term, asserting that the community-of-beings worldview suggests that humans share their environment with ‘all of nature’ (1999:

91). Berkes follows Callicott (1982) when he defines the community-of-beings world-

view as a shared belief system ‘in a sacred, personal relationship between humans and other living beings’, locating humans in a larger social as well as physical envi-

ronment. According to Callicott (1982: 306) ‘people belong not only to a human

community but to a community of other nature as well’. While these formulations hint at the dissolution of the nature/culture dichotomy, they are not very clear. Instead, as

formulated, these definitions seem to highlight the importance of ‘nature’ as exterior

to humans and excludes inanimate objects.



springs, the trees, the rocks, the clouds, or the mountains. Their presence can be dangerous to human existence because they are able to inflict sickness onto humans and animals (Tiedje forthcoming). At the same time the teyomej provide humans with necessary elements for survival: food, water, heat, and other earthly resources. The teyomej wear clothes like humans, walk and talk, and live in a community of teyomej, the only difference being that they do not have a physical body. The Nahuas are in constant dialogue with the teyomej that share the terrestrial sphere (tlaltepactli) with humans. It is through these processes of communica-tion and interaction that Nahuas grasp a sense of self and sense of place.

The Milpa and the Corn-Child

The traditional cornfield, the milpa, takes on a central role in the lives of the Nahuas. As peasant farmers they live in a tropical moist habitat where they continue resource management on the milpa for subsistence, while searching for other forms of monetary income.13 The milpa regu-lates human–environmental relations. First, as a product, maize provides 65 percent of the protein and 71 percent of the calories of Mexican pea-sants (DeWalt 1983, cited in Toledo et al. 2003). Second, maize is central to Nahua religious beliefs and practices—expressed in sacred music, stories, and through ritual (Tiedje and Camacho 2005). Finally, the milpais significant for social relations as maize defines land tenure, reciprocity relations, and other social interactions (Alcorn 1989a, 1989b; Alcorn and Toledo 1998; Toledo et al. 2003). When the Nahuas speak about corn farming, they use the term tequiliztli, which means love, care, dedication, and effort. For corn farm-ing to be successful, as a Nahua elder from a hamlet in the lower altitudes of Xilitla municipio, Eduardo, explained to me during a visit at his house, ‘every step needs to be done with care and love, it needs to be done on time depending on seasonal climate changes, the weather, the quality of the earth, and the moon cycle’. Eduardo used the concept tequiliztli, which describes the emotional attachment to the corn-child

13. Most Nahua households engage in a dual economy with subsistence farming

(corn, squash, beans), cash crop (coffee, palm trees, oranges), and home gardens. The

milpa, a rainfed multi-species field system with maize, squash, and beans, is their main production unit. Maize is harvested once a year in the hamlets located at higher

altitudes and twice a year at lower altitudes. Fallow periods range from short fallow

periods (3 years) to long fallow periods (12 years). Some households have cattle-raising areas on grass-dominated pasturelands for livestock (cows, goat, horses). They

also collect firewood in the remaining secondary and mature forests at higher eleva-

tions and hold small domestic animals.



and to the land. The Nahuatl noun tequitl is often translated as ‘work’. However, when Nahuas refer to corn farming, they prefer to use the reverential tequiliztli, meaning love and care (they use the composite term tequitl tlatoquiliztli adding the verb to sow/to plant (tlatoca) and the nominated form -liztli to the term tequitl). The Nahuas also describe tequiliztli as a tiring task (effort), yet fulfilling at harvest. Through the reverential form tequiliztli, the Nahuas express the thought that cultivat-ing the earth is not mundane work, but rather fulfills their obligation as humans to the non-human persons in their community. The concept of love clearly expresses the sentimental and affective nature of the rela-tionships between human and non-human persons. They say that corn farming requires dedication and love, just like the love relationship of a couple, the relationship of a parent to a child, or that of the children to their parents. Similar to a loved one, the earth and the corn-child conti-nuously ask for constant attention, respect and care.

In what follows, I explore the cultural representations of corn in Nahuaoral tradition. The Nahuas tell ‘stories of the wise’ or wisdom stories (tlamachiliztli or tlamatiliztli)14 to recount the lives of extraordinary non-human persons in mythical time when non-human persons had human form. Maize is a person because it has a ‘soul’ (tonali).15 Maize is referred to as the corn-child (zinconetl derived from zintli [corn] and conetl[child]). After a planting ceremony that united all of the men who parti-cipated in the planting of corn and all of the women who prepared a special meal, Nahua elder Dolores (pseudonym) told me this story:16

The Corn-Child (El niño elote)

There was not always corn on this earth. The niño elote is the owner of corn. Corn has a soul (itonal). It is a person (ce macehuali, ce persona), a god (ce teotl), and a great lord (gran señor, Hueytecuhtli). When a young woman was brushing her mother’s hair, there was a serpent in the woods (coatitla). The serpent had corn. And there was a great bird that picked up a cob from the serpent. The young woman was doing her work and while she was brushing her mother’s hair, she looked up to the sky. Her mother told her not to look up to the sky. ‘Why not?’ asked the girl, ‘I have just looked at a

14. Both Nahuatl terms—tlamatiliztli (derived from mati, to know) and tlamachiliztli (derived from machili, wisdom)—can be translated as wisdom or knowledge

according to early Nahuatl dictionaries written by Molina (1944, 1945, 2000). 15. The term ‘soul’ as used here does not refer to the Christian sense of the term

(for other accounts on the soul of maize, see Alcorn 1984; De Vidas 2002; Galinier

1990; Gallardo Arias 1999; González 2001; Hernández Ferrer 2000; Sandstrom 1991). 16. Dolores narrated this in Nahuatl. I recorded her on tape and later translated

and transcribed this recording with the assistance of the elder Nicolas and his

daughter Irma.



bird’, she said. And she did not listen. The young girl kept looking up at the bird, which carried corn in his beak. And when he was right above the girl, a kernel of corn17 landed in the girl’s mouth. The girl was caught by surprise and swallowed it. The mother was angry with the girl because she had swallowed it. It was not good. But the girl had already swallowed it and she could not give it out anymore, it would not come out. And the girl got pregnant and she gave birth to a little boy. Her mother, the grand-mother of the little boy, the corn-child, took the little boy away from the house, and killed him out in the mountains, coatitla. The grandmother burnt the corn-child. And when she wanted to go back to the house after this was done, she looked back and there was the corn-child standing in the field. The grandmother went back and she killed and burnt him again. She did this three times. At last she was satisfied and she went back to tell her daughter that her grandson was dead. Meanwhile, out in the field, the little boy—the corn-child—was whistling. He was just walking around whistling and making music. Wherever he went, he was whistling. This is what he likes. And today, in the cornfield, his itonal is always present. He is the owner of maize field. He walks around in the cornfield whistling and playing instruments. He is dancing, whistling, and playing music. When the grandmother died, insects ate her, and then she was burnt. She turned blue and green and she became a toad. Now it is she who brings us the water from the rivers.

This story is so rich in symbolism that I will only briefly analyze it with respect to its significance for the subsequent discussion of the conserva-tion project. On a general level, this story tells the birth and death of the corn-child who is seen as a person and who lives in the cornfield. The Nahuas say that the spirit of the corn-child (niño elote in Spanish or zinconetzin, conetzitzin in Nahuatl) lives in the milpa and travels with the harvest into people’s houses to watch over his ‘body’ (the corn cobs). As a result, the consumption of maize, which is necessary for human survival, expresses the human predicament: the need to show respect. At another level, this story recounts the fertilization of the earth by divine means. Here, insemination takes place thanks to a messenger bird that links the celestial male sphere (symbolized by the bird) to the terrestrial female sphere (symbolized by the fertile granddaughter). The successful union gives rise to new life in the form of corn, which stands for the beginning of human existence (humans are made of corn). This union between the celestial sphere and the terrestrial sphere is performed in fertility dances and re-enacted in the agricultural cycle with the immer-sion of the planting stick in the earth. The grandmother of the corn-child is considered another extraor-dinary person in the Nahua animistic cosmos. In this story, the

17. Some stories I recorded say that it fell from the bird’s excrements, not from his beak.



grandmother represents the ‘great mother’ (Tohueynana). The great mother is personified in Nahua thought as the earth, mountains, and rivers. Here, the associated with the toad underlines her connection with the terrestrial waters and underwater caves. In this particular story, she also represents the cruel grandmother who kills her own grandson (the corn-child) to punish her daughter for receiving the child. She represents a destructive force as she repeatedly burns the corn-child to kill him. However, it becomes clear through the repetitive re-birth of the corn-child that her action induces the rebirth of the corn-child who appears happier (singing and dancing) and stronger every time. For the Nahuas, field burning is a way to enact the birth and rebirth of the corn-child. The elders say burning is needed to make the corn-child strong, to make the corn grow. Destruction creates rebirth. This explains why the Nahuas consider field burning necessary for successful farming.

Conservation and Development in Xilitla’s Hamlets

Over the past decade, conservation projects and rural development pro-grams have promoted a different view of the environment. Many of these programs were put into place in the mid-nineties, subsequent to Mexico’s adoption of the Agenda 21,18 to improve living conditions and promote sustainable development. The Nahua hamlets where I con-ducted this research are classified as ‘highly marginalized’ according to national census data (INEGI 2000). Many Nahua households live in ‘extreme poverty’ according to these data, with little means to make a living. Therefore, government agencies endorse conservation and devel-opment programs. I will focus my discussion of the conservation and development program Procampo active in the Nahua hamlets in Xilitla, which are located in the buffer zone of the Sierra Gorda MAB-Biosphere Reserve. Procampo is a government welfare program that also promotes con-servation and ecological projects. Procampo targets poor rural house-holds in order to improve living conditions, reduce malnutrition, create new income sources, and maintain relatively high levels of biodiversity. In the Huasteca, Procampo has been actively involved for the past

18. Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action of the United Nations Department

for Sustainable Development to implement the principles of sustainable development

globally, nationally, and locally through organizations such as the United Nations, governments, and other groups active in areas where humans impact the natural

environment (see http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/index.

htm, accessed 31 May 2007). Mexico adopted the principles of Agenda 21 in 1995.



decade in ecological projects, crop diversification, and reforestation. To receive government welfare money destined to support more efficient agricultural production in poor areas, local producers are invited to enroll in different projects. Upon enrollment, they have to declare their land plot size and cultivation types. Participants are also invited to take part in regular and extraordinary workshops on ecology where govern-ment workers and ecologists come to teach the basics of ecology, soil conservation, and crop diversification. Local producers can learn about new techniques and technology adapted to the high mountain slopes that are characteristic of the topography of this area. Enrolled partici-pants receive a monthly welfare check from the government. Generally, the amount of the welfare check is in correlation to the size of their cultivated land area.19

In several rural hamlets of Xilitla, ecologists promote soil conservation to stop land degradation and erosion. A point of contention is traditional field burning and repeated planting. Local producers are encouraged to use composting techniques to produce natural fertilizer to enrich the ground. The reasoning behind this project lies in the observation that shifting cultivation can become one of the major degrading processes in tropical forest areas when population pressures increase and rotation time is shortened. This is the case in those areas where fallow times are cut down to one year or they are not respected. It should be emphasized that Nahua farming requires a sophisticated knowledge of the soil, weather conditions, and crop varieties, and they have managed their surroundings for millenia sustainably. In the past, their culturally valued understandings of good interactions with the corn-child, based on moral values and encoded in the ethical principles described earlier, reinforced a sustainable resource use. Only today, Nahua environmental ethics do not always lead to ecologically benevo-lent practices. Acute land shortage and increasing population pressures are part of the problem, which is not only ecological but also largely social and economic in nature. Shortened fallow time leads land and soil degradation and reduces biodiversity as a result of the repeated inter-vention. Composting techniques are viewed as one possible solution to help increase soil fertility. Another concern is the spread of fire to forested areas in the buffer zone where wildfires have ravaged large areas over the past decade.20

19. For more information, see http://procampo.gob.mx/, accessed 31 October 2006. 20. In Mexico, ecological anthropologists have analyzed the indigenous milpa in

tropical forests as a diversified system of management and as an agroforestry system

where trees are taken into account. When fallow times are respected, shifting cultiva-



The soil conservation project is combined with a reforestation project. Over the past 10 years, a Mexican NGO from Jalpan (Grupo ecológico Sierra Gorda) has provided over 9,000 trees to be planted near the edge of the Reserve of the Biosphere of the Sierra Gorda. Money for trees comes from the MAB Program and the reforestation project intends to increase reforestation in the hamlets located in the buffer zone. This project is linked with the Procampo project to provide temporary work to local producers and landless peasants.

Facing Conservation

Government agents condemned traditional cultivation techniques as a threat to the local ecosystem and forest. For them, Nahua beliefs are an obstacle to, not a plus for conservation. In the hamlets located in the bufferzone, the projects were received with mixed feelings. While community power differentials are complex, a basic line seemed to be drawn according to age and religious factionalism, separating younger households and older ones, and separating traditional Catholics who view themselves as adhering to the old ways by practicing offerings to the earth, and charismatic Catholics, who view themselves as more ‘modern’. The latter seemed convinced that the wisdom brought to them by the government held more authority than the wisdom of their elders. By adopting the language and ecological principles they learnt through their contact with these outsiders, the younger men feel valued by the dominant society. Modern ecological knowledge thus seemed to be a stronger force in their daily social struggles to gain a voice and place in a society that is largely dominated by urban centers and by mestizos. Many elders were reluctant to change their cultivation techniques. In a community gathering, a number of them voiced their concerns that the earth may not produce well if the agricultural cycle is incomplete. They viewed the ecological principles that discourage field burning as a desac-ralizing act. To them, field burning is necessary to show respect and ensure the reciprocal interactions with the corn-child. The elders expressed their pain and sorrow, highlighting that their knowledge was forgotten and devalued by those who had left the communities. Feelings of disempowerment, cultural loss, and vanished traditional authority are

tion and successive forest management are interpreted as relatively stable and

adaptive land-use systems. Recent analyses by ecologists and ecological anthropolo-gists emphasize the conservationist, ecological, and economic, as well as practical

importance of successive forest management to be adaptive (Alcorn 1984, 1989a,

1989b, 1990; Toledo and Alcorn 1998; Toledo et al. 2003).



recurrent in Nahua hamlets that have abandoned traditional corn cere-monies and that have changed their traditional farming techniques. For younger community members, economic factors outweighed reli-gious ones. The conservation projects became a new way to make a living at a time when corn and cash crops do not sustain their families anymore. They have embraced Procampo that sells conservation-as-development. Through the process of commodification, nature is stripped of its social and spiritual values and infused with monetary value (West 2006). The program offers money for trees and money for each hectare that is cultivated according to the project. In some ways, they seem to have emulated elite nature views of ‘what’s green makes the environment go round’ to retake a notion from David Harvey (1998), who critiques the Western view that nature should be preserved when-ever it serves economic benefits. These observations lead to the question whether the conservation and development projects such as Procampo will in the long run fundamentally change or replace Nahua perceptions of nature, turning the economics of conservation into their new mantra.

Situating the Corn-Child

Initial observations indicate that sentiments of gain (through the eco-nomics of conservation) or loss (through the rejection of traditional farm-ing techniques) can also make way for cultural innovation. On several occasions, I have seen how Nahua elders implicitly integrated conserva-tion rhetoric into stories about the corn-child, without desacralizing the act of corn farming. In this process, Nahua elders articulate animistic views of their surroundings with the new ideas brought to them by ecologists through the narration of sacred stories that attribute social, cultural, and religious values to the ecological teachings. The following is a translation of a taped interview in which I asked about the potential dangers or benefits of traditional farming, including the use of fire on the milpa. This question evoked all kinds of mythical stories and origin stories about humans as made of corn, and how the corn-child came to bring them corn. It also evoked this story told by Nahua elder Marcelino (pseudonym) from a hamlet in Xilitla municipality, a story about the corn-child who had run away because of a fire:

It was in 1934 when a granary was burnt. I remember that the fire came

from Apetzco across the woods and it burnt the granary. The corn flewaway. It was with his soul that he left us. And then he was gone. He arrived

in Tampamolón and sat down on the top of a mountain like this one. And

the people there wondered: ‘Where does this maizito come from?’ And they asked: ‘Where are you from dear child’ (usted niño). ‘I come from [another



community]. I came here because they burnt me’, he said. So he had left us.

But we went to bring him back. That same year we [the people from the

hamlet in Xilitla municipality] went to bring him back. And the elders carried him because he was just a child. He was not very big. No, he was

not tall. And when they saw him, he carried all the seeds on him. He had

yellow and white maize [on his arms and shoulders], and beans [around his eyes and by the nose]. This is how I saw him. It was down there, where

Juan lives, that big granary. This is where he arrived. He left in 1934 and in

1934 he came back. He arrived before the year was over. And they sat him down in the middle of the granary. And he was just a little child. But they

still wondered: ‘Why is the child so small? Why?’ This is what they won-

dered: ‘But can’t you see the child is the whole granary; no wonder he weighs so much!’ This is why he had to be heavy. And this is how I saw

him. But he was filled with everything, all the seeds he carried. They were

all on him. This is how I saw him.

This is Marcelino’s version, as told in August 2002, of a story that each hamlet recounts. Marcelino is from the hamlet in Xilitla municipality, so he told me the story from the point of view of this particular hamlet. Among the residents of this hamlet, this story is held as an empirical truth and perceived as a historical fact. It is the custom of the elders to speak in the form of a story when they transmit traditional forms of knowledge. Questions are not usually answered directly but it is the wisdom that is implicit in the story that may speak to past or current community concerns. Mythical stories and narrations by elders often follow extraordinary persons, documenting their travels in the landscape, and explaining the changes in it. These stories about extraordinary persons are powerful. They are invoked in disputes over authority, resource access, and community conflict. The story about the corn-child who ran away emphasizes a number of important issues pertaining to the influence of the conservation projects in the hamlet. First, the story documents a cultural knowledge of envi-ronmental and social change. This story of the corn-child who left the hamlet is about environmental degradation, poor harvest, and poverty, all issues also addressed in workshops on conservation and develop-ment. Second, the story documents a time where humans are at fault for their own misery. Marcelino painfully remembered that the corn-child ran away roughly at the same time as people stopped traditional farming techniques. Humans are at fault because they failed to show respect and care for the corn-child as a loving parent. The story also links a historical event to mythical origin stories of the corn-child and mythical origin stories of the first humans who were made of corn. It shows that failing to fulfill their predicament to care and love the corn-child has inevitable consequences. Third, stories such as this one serve to establish political



power and traditional authority in the community. People use these stories to access social and political power or to manifest their traditional authority against incoming outsiders who claim the authority of the state. Here, the moral of the story (fire can do harm to the harvest) is strikingly congruent with the ecological message brought to the commu-nity by outsiders who have claimed an ethical mandate to know how to treat the local environment better. By reclaiming the wisdom, Marcelino has underlined that the ecologists told them nothing new, and doing so, he re-establishes his authority. Fourth, this story sets the stage for cur-rent events and to integrate local perceptions of why things are the way they are today. Over the years, I have seen a change in strategy by ritual specialists and elder Nahua men and women for their uses of environmental narra-tives in their interactions with younger community members. Nahua elders increasingly draw on conservation rhetoric to reclaim local authority and to connect with younger community members. This is most apparent and most elaborate in hamlets where the gap between older and younger community members has grown due to out-migra-tion, as has happened in this and other hamlets located in the buffer zone of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve. Younger men and women who do not have their own land plot leave the community to work in the cities or north of the Mexican border. When they return for Christmas or Easter, many of them come with a new perspective on the rural lifestyle of their parents and grandparents. Often there is little opportunity to connect with the younger generation who must be convinced to partici-pate in community gatherings and religious festivities that seem old-fashioned to them. Corn-child stories, such as the one above, highlight the importance of reciprocity and trace possible ways to reestablish reciprocal relationships with sentient beings in a changing world. Ultimately, the majority of the local producers accepted the program, seemingly weighing political and economic needs over religious ones. In practice, they did not leave behind their obligations to the corn-child. This also suggests that eco-nomic values do not overturn Nahua religious values of nature. The wisdom of the elders is not ‘lost’ as some elders initially feared. Integrat-ing emic views21 of the environment into their wisdom stories, the Nahuas engaged in the politics of conservation involving issues of

21. Following Kenneth Pike (1954), anthropologists distinguish between ‘emic’ and ‘etic’ perspectives to understand cultural systems. The emic perspective focuses

on intrinsic cultural distinctions that are meaningful to the members of a given society

while the etic perspective relies upon extrinsic concepts and categories.



power, agency, and translation. The self-consciousness by which Nahua elders appropriate conservation rhetoric for their articulation of Anim-ism makes room to exercise agency (understood as the ‘socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ [Ahearn 2001: 112, cited in Dove 2006: 199]) in a context of unequal power relations, where the authority of Nahua elders is openly compromised by outsiders who claim a higher level of knowledge. Through story, they contextualize the wisdom of the ances-tors to overcome perceived incommensurabilities between modern conservation ideals and their ethical prescriptions to care for sentient beings. In doing so, they neither compromise local values of nature nor reject modern conservation, but they integrate both for the revitalization of their community. Identifications with extraordinary persons are social achievements, for it takes not only the single person, but also the support of those around her/him for this identity to become valued. Conserva-tion ideas provide a key into a world in which modern conservation can become an ally rather than an enemy, and one in which local authorities reaffirm their authority.

Articulating Animism and Conservation

The articulation of Animism and conservation is not without precedent. It was first used publicly in 1997 during a regional mobilization of the Nahuas, Teenek, and Xi’Oi people who combined forces to claim the protection of ceremonial caves, the Wind and Fertility Caves located in the Sierra foothills at the edge of Xilitla municipio. As the government was at first reluctant to listen to their cultural claims (‘these caves are sacred’, ‘they are the residents of our mother- and father-deities’, ‘this is where our wisdom of the ancestors comes from’), ritual specialists and elders changed their terminology to phrase their claim in ecological terms (‘these caves harbor rare medicinal plants’, ‘the foothills around the cavesare the home to rare animals’). The Nahua, Teenek, and Xi’Oi activists counted on the help of agents of the Institute of Ecology who empha-sized the need to conserve the last remaining patches of primary forest located on the steep hillsides.22

22. Initially, the regional indigenous organizations claimed these caves as ‘indige-

nous cultural patrimony’ asking the state government to protect them from on-site tourism and road development. In 2001, after five years of negotiations with the state

government, the latter declared the area surrounding the caves a natural protected

area. To reflect the cultural claims, the government subsequently created a new category of protected areas and renamed the cave-site the ‘Sacred-natural Site of the

Wind and Fertility Caves’ in 2003. Presently, Nahua, Teenek, and Xi’oi indigenous

religious specialists manage the site and cooperate with the governmental institutions



The cultural space of conservation itself profoundly feeds the imagi-nation of the indigenous peoples in the Huasteca, shaping a sense of possibility for local action, even if their articulations of conservation-as-sacred-practice are only environmental imaginaries that can be played with. At a harvest thanksgiving ceremony in this hamlet that united young and old community members in the local chapel, phrases such as ‘we have to respect the ecology’ and ‘it is important to protect the envi-ronment’ were integrated with statements about the reciprocal obliga-tions with extraordinary persons: ‘the ecology tells us that we have to protect the corn-child’. It is striking how certain ideas about Western conservation are increasingly woven into the Nahua ethical model of love, care, and reciprocity. This said, articulating older locally embedded environmental ethics with the aims and intentions of modern conservation does not mean that unconscious conservation practices are transformed into conscious ones. Overall, Western environmental ethics have not deeply penetrated Nahua environmental practice. Continuing field burning practices (even where it is presently judged to be ecologically harmful) and lying-around-trash are, but a few, testimonies of this.

Conclusions

At the outset of this article, I argued for replacing the concept of a neat divide between Animism and conservation with something more com-plicated. The preceding discussion emphasizes that the Nahuas are entangled in changing social, cultural, economic, and environmental processes and that Nahua contemporary nature views are anything but neatly defined. There is no doubt that indigenous environmental thoughtand behavior are inseparable from the historical, political, and economic contexts in which they are performed, such as issues of environmental deterioration, economic marginalization, and political disempowerment. Poetic adaptations of corn-child narratives and other stories about extraordinary persons emphasize that Nahua contemporary views of the environment are situational, heterogeneous, and negotiated, reflecting recent and ongoing changes in their environmental and social relations, including internal contradictions between economic and religious views of nature. The Nahuas cultivate multiple Animisms, including ideas about conservation-as-sacred-practice, through fluid constructions of

of ecology and conservation to protect medicinal plant species, animal habitats, and to

preserve the last remaining patch of tropical forest on the Sierra foothills (see Tiedje

2004, 2005, 2007b).



what environmental behavior seems ethically and morally right, may it be in a quest for economic and social justice, the renewal of identity, or the revitalization of community practices. The innovative strategies by which the Nahuas begin to articulate conservation and Animism make it tricky to hold on to the purported division between indigenous nature reverence and conservation as two separate cultural models placed in a hierarchical relationship where conservationists promote the standards of Western science (operating at the level of rational-scientific knowledge) while indigenous societies evaluate human conduct in nature according to the standards of their animistic model. Studies such as this one emphasize the importance of analyzing the skillful articulation of indigenous knowledge production and Western environmental ethics at a local level. The idea of conserva-tion-as-sacred-practice provides a common language for young and old community members, a set of public symbols they can draw on to connect with each other and with outsiders. Globally circulated environ-mental protection guidelines are made meaningful in local ways and offer powerful cultural resources that serve local ends.

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081705.123308



______________________________________________

The Conflicting Relationships of Sherpas to Nature:

Indigenous or Western Ecology? ______________________________________________

Lionel Obadia

Department of Anthropology, Centre de Recherche et d’Etudes

Anthropologiques, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Campus Porte Des Alpes, Bâtiment K, 5, avenue

Pierre-Mendés-France, 69676 Bron Cedex, France

[email protected]

Abstract

Based upon recent observations of the Sherpas’ attitudes towards ‘development’ and tourism, this paper attempts to question the parallel

transformations of the ecological settings and representations of this ethnic

group living in Northern Nepal. The religion and ecology of the Sherpas features a mix of Buddhism, Shamanism, and Animism. While the ecologi-

cal views of Buddhism (especially aimed at the respect of living animals)

have a modest but ongoing impact, the Sherpa shamanistic-animistic beliefs are vital elements of village life and daily human–nature interac-

tions. The environment is ‘stuffed’ with spirits and other transient forces

that reside in the physical environment. One might conclude that the Sherpas should be ecologically benevolent, but ethnographic data suggest

otherwise. The animistic manifestations in specific spaces are instructive of

the fact that the Sherpas are key actors in the destruction of (spirited) forests because of rather than in spite of their religious beliefs. Yet they

nevertheless adopt a language of conservation when speaking about their

environment. This paper argues that the apparent contradictions between Sherpa beliefs and practices are owing both to their culture and to the result

of development ideologies which parallel the opening of Nepal to a global

economy. Sherpa conservation practices are ‘traditional’ as well as infused with Western ideas of sustainability, which the Sherpas have incorporated

and reinterpreted.

Hariyo ban, Nepalko dhan (‘Green forests are the wealth of Nepal)

Nepali proverb

Obadia The Conflicting Relationships of Sherpas to Nature 117


Introduction

The Sherpas are a very well-known ethnic group living in the northern parts of Nepal. Of Tibetan origin, they settled in the Solukhumbu district (at the foot of the Mount Everest) in the early sixteenth century. In the high mountain strip of northern Nepal (ranging from 2000 to 8000 miles high) they developed a unique culture of ‘Buddhist highlanders’ (Fürer-Haimendorf 1964), specializing in trade, farming, and herding, and more recently trekking and mountaineering. Alongside other popularized groups, the Sherpas ‘have captured the attention of anthropologists the world over’, as Kurt Luger (2000: 7) entertainingly recalls, and similar to the Hopi—and to other well-known groups in the ethnological litera-ture—a Sherpa family is made of a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, and an anthropologist. The anthropological studies on the Sherpas have covered a wide range of topics, including social and religious organiza-tion, religious and political history, religious symbolism and ritualism, and religious symbolism and identity, among others. Ecological topics, as Ramesh Kunwar suggested in the early 1990s, were paid little atten-tion, a paradoxical attitude since the Sherpas’ social, economic, and sym-bolic organization is extensively connected with their ecology (Kunwar 1999). In Sherpa Studies, ecological topics mainly concerned the social organization of economic production in a specific environment1 or the social transformations impelled by new agricultural productions (Ortner 1989). However, in all Nepal, and in the Sherpa area as well, ecology is nowadays gaining much scientific consideration due to current ideologi-cal and political circumstances: the problem of ‘development’ (and its corollary ‘resource management’) has become a major political (Bista 1994) scientific (Allen 1994) issue. The relationships between culture, religion, and ecology have thus became a new field in Nepalese and Sherpa Studies. But academic research has been prompt to adhere to two ideas this article attempts to discuss: first, that the local cultures had a ‘symbiotic’ relationships with their environment, and consequently, that all the recent observable damages on Nature must be attributed to exter-nal forces, such as the development of a global economy and a massive tourist industry.

1. Christoph Von Fürer-Haimendorf (1964) has, for instance, studied the social

distribution of productive activities among the Sherpas, and Barbara Brower (1991)

the agropastoral system of the Sherpas from the perspective of resource management.



Development and Conservation in Nepal

While emerging as issues worldwide, conservation and environmen-talism take a particular form and meaning in Nepal. They are, in this small country, among the poorest in Asia, strongly connected to the ide-ology and the politics of development. Their recent emergence is a direct consequence of recent progressive transformations in the political and economical national landscapes. In the early 1950s, and after a century of closure, Nepal suddenly opened to a regional and worldwide economy. A large number of development programs have been set up in Nepal since this period.2 The Nepalese administration’s consciousness of an ‘eco-crisis’ emerged when Nepal opened to foreign exchanges, but this is the result of previous decades of land management, not yet the impact of (imminent) global tourism (Gurung 1994). In the last decade, conserva-tionist issues still are economically and socially sensitive, but are also responses to the quick expansion of the tourism industry and the gov-ernment’s aspiration for ‘developing’ the country: ‘forest conservation’ and ‘natural resources management’ have become major problems3 and are now foremost priorities on the agenda of an Applied Anthropology in Nepal (Allen 1994). Terminological shifts in the ideologies and politics of welfare and development are particularly informative of this environ-mentalist turn: while the term ‘development’ was dominant from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, it was replaced by ‘sustainable development’in the 1980s and 1990s, and this later, in the early 2000s, converted into ‘sustainable livelihoods’ (WWF 2007). The need to improve the stan-dards of lifestyle is therefore associated with a respectful attention to the peoples’ (‘indigenous’—in the latest ideological framework they are cate-gorized by) cultures and environments, and the biodiversity and cultural diversity are now united into a single official and idealized model of development. But, according to WWF terminology, if all the ‘indigenous

2. According to Rohit Kumar Nepali, in the early 1990s there were almost three

hundreds programs of this kind in Nepal. However, this number only refers to official

programs. Local and non-governmental programs are estimated at thousands. 3. Indeed, the new plans for development of the Nepal’s government (since the

1950s) led to a rationalization of natural resources (fields, forests, rivers) by strict poli-

cies, parallel to the attempts of the authorities to engage the country in a more produc-tive economy. The issues of nature ‘degradation’ or ‘overuse’, and the subsequent

threats to the biodiversity have consequently captured the attention of both the state

administrations and the academic milieu, especially because of the resistance of the local peoples to adopt new attitudes and techniques towards their environment. As a

consequence, these issues are relevant to state politics, and biological and social

sciences as well (see Allen 1994).



communities’ have strategies of survival, they are not all ‘conservation friendly’, especially in Nepal (WWF 2007). In addition, the reception of conservationist ideologies and programs by local people has often been ambiguous. Indeed, the peoples of Nepal have, one the one hand, been sensitive to the issue of preservation of nature but, on the other hand, have been reluctant to adopt entirely the corresponding habits. The Sherpas were one of the first ethnic groups in Nepal to be directly concerned by the issue of conservation. The Solukhumbu has indeed been attractive to Westerners since the 1950s, and is one of the few Tibetanid enclaves opened to tourism (Gellner 1997: 403). The Western fascination with Mount Everest is associated with a cultural fantasy of Tibetan peoples and places (a mythic Shangri-La)—or those who are related to them, like the Sherpas. Since Edmund Hillary’s successful ascension of Everest (Sagarmatha, in Nepalese) in 1953, generations of mountaineers and trekkers have rushed to Nepal. They were less than a few hundred trekkers in the late 1960s, but close to 35,000 entered the Solukhumbu district, the ‘Sherpa area’, in the late 1990s. Since the early 1950s, the Sherpas have been actively involved in the industry of tour-ism, while setting up accommodations (lodges), services (guides, furni-ture), and agencies (Rogers and Aitchison 1998). Inevitably, changes occurred in Sherpa society (Fürer-Haimendorf 1984) and especially in an economy that was previously based upon herding, agriculture, and trade (Cox 1985; Ortner 1989). Notwithstanding the permanence of these tradi-tional industries, the whole Sherpa society is now dependent on tourism (Fischer 1990; Cox 1985: 63). But tourism is also dependent on the Sherpas, locally speaking. Therefore, the Sherpas have been actively involved in the transformation of the Himalayan Mountains of the Solukhumbu district.

Sherpas, Parks, and Policies To cope with the side effects of a massive flood of tourists, the Soluk-humbu district had converted into a ‘Sagarmatha National Park’ in 1976, with seven other areas in Nepal. Rogers and Aitchison state that the region ‘has been widely reported as suffering from a serious degradation in its natural resources base, with pollution and deforestation directly related to the impact of tourism’ (1998: 23). In the villages, the Sherpas have been responsive to these new conditions and have adopted the lan-guage and the practices of conservation when speaking about their envi-ronment and the impact of tourism, like pollution and rapid ecological transformations (see Brower 1991; Rogers and Aitchison 1998; Luger 2000). In 1993, the national and local authorities have founded the



Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, aimed at waste management. The Sherpas now attempt to reduce the use of wood fires for cooking, have set up recycling systems for organic waste, and systematized rubbish collection on the trekking and mountaineering routes. Neverthe-less, the Sherpas’ views on ‘pollution’ (Sherpa tip) are somewhat differ-ent and are mainly concerned with the self or social relationships, like house purity,4 and have little connection with the degradation of the biotic milieu (Ortner 1973b; Fischer 1990: 131). It seems as if Sherpa ‘conservation’ practices—such as waste management—are merely infused with Western ideas of sustainability, even if the Sherpas assert that these practices are ‘traditional’, in other words, according to a village supervisor, have ‘always been pursued’ and are ‘related to the tradition’ (Sh. choo tang lungsung) and ‘the religion’ (Sh. cho). However, the authoritative imposition by the centralized administra-tion of Kathmandu of ‘conservationist’ values and practices in parks was contradictory to their traditional modes of economic production, ecologi-cal views, and uses of soils (Colchester 2003: 45). As with other groups in Nepal, their relationships to conversation and environmentalism are ambivalent. On the one hand, as Stevens (1993) demonstrated in the early 1990s, they were hostile to an authoritative alignment on the con-servation program of the Sagarmatha area that seemed contradictory to their proper conceptions and uses of soils and landscapes. On the other hand, according to the more recent survey of Rogers and Aitchison, the Sherpas are supposed to be sensitive and receptive to the conservationist aims since they ‘now fully appreciate the benefits of a strict park policy’ (1998: 53). Undoubtedly, the conservationist ideological framework faced at least a cultural misunderstanding, superficial acceptation, or worse, cultural rejection. The understanding of people’s diverse conceptions of nature and relationships to their environment is nowadays a prerequisite to launching Conservation Programs, namely, to change the indigenous conceptions—as Ulrike Müller-Böker and Michael Kolmair have demon-strated in another context but in the same country (2000). The role of International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) was crucial in this process: in 2006, WWF Nepal set up a ‘Strategic Plan’ for parks and

4. The expression ‘house purity’ has been used by Sherry Ortner (1973b). It per-fectly translates the Sherpas’ conceptions of spatial, physical, and social hygiene. The house (Sh. khangba) and its subdivisions (especially the fireplace, phula) must indeed be protected from certain undesired persons (from other castes), organic and physical elements (for instance, menstrual blood), repulsive smells and malicious spirits, other-wise the whole space becomes dirty (Sh. metseng) and needs a purification ritual.



mountains. However, even if the development and conservation projects in Nepal were, at first, ‘culturally incomprehensible’ for the local people (Nepali 1993: 244), recent changes in international and national politics led to an inflection of development policies towards an active participa-tion of indigenous peoples and the response to their specific needs, as elsewhere.5 The same politics of people’s participation in development programs apply to conservation programs. In both cases, the programs are being set up from ‘below’—from International or National organiza-tions—and attempt to transform local customs. And in both cases, a failure to infuse the excepted changes led to a realignment of conserva-tionist politics towards a participation of local people. There are several reasons explaining the rise of conservationist issues in Nepal directed toward these ‘indigenous’ peoples. At first, the out-comes of a new economy of services—mainly driven from tourism—led the authorities to conclude that pollution was a result of foreign influ-ences, but was also rooted in the Nepalese so-called archaic cultural habits, especially of the less ‘civilized’ groups, that is, the stigmatized ‘tribes’ of the rural areas.6 The political changes—especially the rise of left-wing parties and the Maoist rebellion—threatened the national unity.After centuries of Hindu centralized domination, Nepal has embarked in the recognition of the multicultural mosaic of Nepal (Pradhan, 2002), and a ‘Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities’ (NEFIN) was founded in 1991, especially directed at the preservation of the ‘indige-nous’ communities (Nep. Janjati). ‘Indigenous communities’ is not a ver-nacular category but translation in the local cultural framework of what ‘autochthonous peoples’ are elsewhere: cultural units whose identities are produced alongside political claims for recognition. Even if they werenot deeply engaged in suh a recognition, the Sherpas are nowadays one among the ‘underprivileged’ janjati listed by the NEFIN, and therefore benefit from special rights to preserve their customs, in protected areas.

‘Religious’ Reverence Towards ‘Nature’? Sherpa’s Cultural and Religious Ethos

As Marcus Colchester’s 1994 paper for the United Nations, the World Rainforest Movement, and the WWF, reminded, the foundation of

5. For instance, in Donald V.L. MacLeod’s study of the national parks in the

Dominican Republic (2001). In a rather provocative but realistic way, MacLeod sug-gests that the problem of national parks policies is to conciliate ‘parks’ and ‘peoples’.

6. For an overview of the primitivist stigmatization of rural ‘tribes’ and ethnic

groups in Nepal, and especially the Sherpas, see Pradhan 2002.



national parks, as early as the nineteenth century in the West, was influ-enced by the Romantic (primitivist) idea that ‘savage nature’ was pre-served by ‘savage people’.7 In the Western imagination, the Sherpas epitomize this model of an indigenous harmonious relationship to West-ern views on Nature—in the same way that the Tibetans, their cultural and religious relatives, have been constructed as the model of a primi-tive but very spiritual people, living in an hostile but magnificent envi-ronment which they worship. This relationship is supposed to be deeply rooted in history and to rely upon religious values and beliefs: living in an ‘enchanted’ and ‘enchanting’ milieu, the ‘magical’ Himalayas (criti-cized in Adams 1996), the Sherpas perfectly embody the prototype of indigenous and religious people revering their surroundings. It was nev-ertheless quite difficult for me to find any trace of such a candid fantasy of nature among the Sherpas. I do not mean that they do not have one, but empirically speaking, its expressions are quite diverse and contradic-tory. The term ‘nature’ is one possible translation of the Tibetan expres-sion rang byung, which refers both to philosophical and psychological concepts (how phenomena arise in one’s consciousness, how they build up a vision of the reality) and to physical ones (the environment). Kunwar has accurately demonstrated that the Sherpas’ conception of nature is not exactly the one of their Tibetan ancestors, and is divided into two categories: ‘abiotic’ (Sh. chhi ne ki jikten, or exterior formations without any vital principle, such as mountains and rivers) and ‘biotic’ (Sh. nang chyut ki semchen, the formations with a vital interior principle, namely, all organisms except plants [Kunwar 1999: 53]). While the Buddhist concept of semchen (‘being’) is firmly embedded in a vitalist philosophy, it is widely distributed among different religious traditions, shamanic and animist, that are also different features of the Sherpas’ interactions with their environments.

Sherpa Religion

It is perhaps quite surprising to see the Sherpas in a thematic issue on Animism. Anthropological literature has established that the Sherpas were (Fürer-Hameindorf 1964; Ortner 1978, 1989)—and still are (Fischer 1990)—‘faithful Buddhists’. This anthropological assumption is based on substantial ethnographic evidences that Buddhism played a major role in their social and religious life. Even if the pre-eminent monographic

7. First edited in English in 1994. The French translation, which I am using as

primary source, was published in 2003 and is available online: http://www.wrm.org.

uy/subjects/PA/sauvage.html, accessed 5 May 2007.



works on the Sherpas have stressed the importance of Buddhism in their daily lives, the pioneer of Sherpa studies, Christoph Von Fürer-Haimendorf, called attention to the fact that Buddhism did not actually shape the Sherpas’ lifestyle (1964: 9). Many reports and monographs also mention the existence of ‘non-Buddhist’ religious beliefs and practices, but the political take-over of Buddhist monasticism in the early twentiethcentury led to a domination of the Great Asian tradition over indigenous or ‘tribal’ cults previously in existence (see, for example, Ortner 1989). Anthropologists, it is worth mentioning, have played key roles in the narrative construction of Sherpa culture as predominantly if not utterly rooted in Buddhist values, practices, and beliefs. Consequently, non-Buddhist practices have a relative invisibility in the eyes of foreigners. This is especially the case for Shamanism, which many authoritative works in the Sherpa area have characterized as a ‘relic’, a ‘declining’ (Ortner 1989), ‘fading’ (Paul 1976), or ‘archaic’ tradition (Samuel 1993) despite its vitality in other parts of Nepal (see Hitchcock and Jones 1976). Although peripheral from a Buddhist-centred perspective, shamanic and animist practices are nevertheless surprisingly lively and expressive. How far, thus, is the Sherpas’ religion shaped by Buddhism or, con-versely, by Animism or Shamanism? The theoretical issue has been particularly disputed since the 1970s relating to Southeast Asian Budd-hism—the conflict between ‘Buddhist-focused’ and ‘Animist-centered’ views on religion in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka led to rigid posi-tions in a heated debate (for a synthesis of this debate, see Gellner 2001). The conceptual status of Animism (whether an archaic sediment or a vivid counterpart to Buddhism) is still undetermined. If the category remains loose, it is in general used to depict popular and non-Buddhist beliefs and practices. Among those specializing in Sherpas Studies, few support the idea that the religion of the Sherpas is mainly an Animism hidden under a Buddhist layer (Funke 1969, quoted by Kunwar 1999: 243). Robert Paul has demonstrated that the issue should not be concep-tualized in terms of prevalence of one system upon another, but in terms of coexistence as alternative and complementary customs (1979). In Philippe Descola’s view (2005), Animism is a widely shared framework of ideas and practices based upon the continuity between Man and Nature, rather than a distinct religious system, as in Edward Tylor’s conceptions of an archaic revered and ‘animated’ Nature (1873). Follow-ing Descola, there is no reason to deem Animism distinct from other forms of symbolic and religious thinking and practice, in the specificsettings of Sherpa culture. Ethnographically speaking, the Sherpas’ daily life uncovers a complex religious structure in which Buddhism, Ani-mism, and Shamanism share different locations, and are ‘activated’



according to different spiritual ‘needs’. At the risk of oversimplification, it is even possible to draw the model of a combined ‘structure’ of the Sherpa religion including the three magical-religious ‘spheres’ that encompass different kinds of symbolic relationships to nature. These three spheres are embodied in different socio-religious statuses: the Buddhist lama, the shamanic lhawa or dhami, and the animist vaidya(therapist-magician), each with different way of communicating with the supernatural forces. Schematically, Buddhism supposes the power of gods and godlike saints (bodhisattva) over nature, Shamanism presumes a communication with supernatural forces, mainly personified (deities Nep. deu-deuta; spirits Sh. shriddhi; or ghosts Sh. nerpa) but located withinnature, and Animism encompasses the communication with all the supernatural spirits and forces of nature.

Buddhism and Nature: Conservation and Change

From the point of view of a certain Western theoretical ecology, Bud-dhism is, among Asian indigenous tradition, consonant with ecological themes (Batchelor and Brown 1992; Tucker and Williams 1997). In the Western context, Buddhism has become the archetype of the postmodern ideology, and even—to a certain extent—of deep ecology (Johnston 2006).In these Himalayan Highlands, Buddhist practices are nevertheless limited to protective attitudes towards nature: they ban killing animals and destroying vegetation, and promote a certain kind of conservation—at least for elements with a semchen (i.e. humans and animals), but not plants. Anthropologists who have worked in the Solukhumbu area have all observed the meticulous attention the villagers devote towards natu-ral spaces, and the influence of Buddhist values on such attentions. In farming activity (such as plowing the fields), just as in the most ordinary acts such as walking, villagers are supposed to avoid killing insects (Paul 1979). Herding and agriculture are associated with daily and seasonal rituals in order to appease the soils’ spirits (Cox 1985). In these remote areas, the spaces are, in addition, arranged according to religious repre-sentations: the routes are peppered with mani (prayer) walls, stupas(votive monuments), Buddhist flags, and cairns (rocks buildups). The location of Buddhist temples and altars are, in addition, conditional upon the principles of magic-religious geomancy. The mountains are central in religious life and in the cosmology—for the Buddhist high-landers as for the Hindus of the plains (Bharati 1978). They are both sacred places (some of them being prohibited) and filled with religious sites. The highest one—Jomolongma (in Sherpa and Tibetan languages) also known as Sagarmatha (in Nepalese language) or Mount Everest—is



supposed to be the place where gods (Sh. lha) live. For many years, and before the Sherpas ‘converted’ themselves to the habit and profession of mountaineering, they used to avoid the high peaks, in fear of the gods’ anger. Periodic pilgrimages are organized in the mountains, but they remain circumscribed to human-made trails and sites.

The Animistic Site of Space: A Nature ‘Stuffed’ with Spirits and Forces

These sites are the contexts and spaces where animistic-related attitudes are observable. The Sherpa society is indeed quite intelligible in such terms: many aspects of social life, cultural values, and ecological atti-tudes are connected with territories, places, or locations. The conceptual rubric of ‘space’, however, encompasses many empirical objects: forests, fields, mountains, villages, houses, and roads. Land property and trans-mission, as well as religious topography, are among the foundations of the Nepalese cultures, Sherpas included. There are many spatial dimen-sions in Himalayan cultures, and for clarification, this paper will only focus upon specific natural places, especially the forests. Funeral rites are, for instance, performed in specific locations—mainly high and forested flat terrains, distant from the villages. Seemingly, the fauna is subjected as well to cautious symbolic arrangements and uses. The largest trees adjacent to rivers are supposed to be the residence of snake spirits (Nep. nagas), to which offerings are made (Nep. puja). Large rocks are also conferred powers. All these mineral and organic elements are scrupulously revered and protected through protective rituals, prayers, or attitudes of avoidance. On a microscopic scale, the domestic spaces are culturally codified too, by principles of symbolic purity and impurity that Sherry Ortner described in her work (1973b). Both ecologi-cal (soils, food, smells) and human (within or without social unities such as families, clans, or castes) spaces are potential sources of pollution, and the Sherpas are attentive to avoid or ritually to treat such pollutions (Ortner 1973b).

Paradoxical Attitudes Towards Nature: The Example of Fields and Forests

If the Sherpas’ worldview on nature does not stand for a unified set of values, their attitudes towards their biotic and abiotic environment are similarly contrasted. While Buddhist-based beliefs and attitudes are largely distributed throughout the population, their application as a whole is sociologically restricted to the Buddhist monks. This



demographically limited section of Sherpa society, the non-farming and non-herding one, is a social stratum, which is less concerned than the others with an effective transformation of the environment into a pro-ductive economy. While the lay Sherpas in the rest of the society are Buddhist devotees, they nevertheless rely upon other symbolic resources to understand and arrange their relationship to nature. Here, Shamanism and Animism play key roles in addition to Buddhism. In spite of the presence of these supposedly conservationist magical-religious ideologies, the Sherpas’ ordinary practices could be viewed as disrespectful to nature. A few ethnographic examples, extracted from my own fieldwork, will illustrate this point. One night, several Sherpas and I sat around a household fire drinking some traditional beer (Sh. ch’ang). After many glasses, whose absorption is compulsory with regard to the hospitality rules (Ortner 1978; Adams 1996; Obadia 2004), I asked where I could go to relieve myself. The toilets were quite far from the house, and, as it was monsoon season, the path outside the house was slippery. ‘Oh, you can go in the field’, said one of my companions. When I came back from the elimination of the beer’s excess, all the circle was joking with me: ‘we just hope you did not pee on a spirit’s head. You could have bothered it and it could attack you next time’. Was it just a joke to test the ethnographer? It may have been. But on many occasions, I have witnessed other villagers crossing Tibetan subterranean deities and risking the provocation of the territorial spirits in this way. The forests (Sh. nadhung) also play a key role in the Sherpa culture. They epitomize a complex ecosystem that ‘has been inextricably bound with the life of Sherpa community’ (Kunwar 1999: 54) on both the material and symbolic levels. On the material level, they are the first and foremost sources of energy (Brower 1991). Forests provide fuel (the main supply for firewood that households exploit intensively), shelter (for building materials), and medicinal herbs. On the symbolic level, they are the sites where spirits of many kinds (siddhak, lu) dwell. As forests are supposed to shelter numbers of spirits and gods, I was instructed many times to avoid ‘bad behavior’ that could possibly irritate them. Proper to the dhamis and vaidya (who are also farmers), in contrast to the monks, is the intimate relationships they assume with their natural environment, namely, fauna and flora. Since they collect and use animal and mineral items as well as plants for their protective and curing prac-tices, they are the holders of sophisticated but heterogeneous ethno-ecological knowledge (Ghimirec, Key, and Aumeeruddy-Thomas 2004). When I was working with a Sherpa vaidya, he acquainted me with his collections of amulets, dried plants, animal bones, and magical stones. He explained to me how important it was to collect them in specific



conditions (at night) and locations (in high places), but always in the remotest parts of the forests, where these magically efficient flora and fauna dwell. The forest, said the vaidya, is a magical and therefore dan-gerous place. There live bagh, the tiger (panthera tigris tigris) and balu, the bear (Ursus thibetanus) that are both potentially harmful animals and spirits. However, curative and protective purposes require killing them for their bones, skin, and teeth, in order to make up necklaces and amulets (Nep. buthi). All the vaidyas were very proud of exhibiting the dried limbs, while stating that they defied and defeated the wild animals by themselves, which is a sign of magical power. The shamans’ hats and magical weapons are also made of porcupine (Hystrix brachyura orHystrix indica) spikes. According to the WWF, the Himalayan tigers and bears are facing a danger of extinction, and the porcupines are a ‘vulner-able’ species. As a result, these species have nowadays become quite rare in northeast Nepal, partly because of hunting for the reasons described above, but mainly because of the degradation of their environment, and the diminution of their territories. But the rarer they are, the more ‘magical’ their organs are considered to be. If cultures are coherent systems of meanings and symbols, as Geertz (1993: 93) suggested, and even ‘models of’ and ‘models for’ reality, how can we explain the obvious paradox that the attitudes of the Sherpas are both respectful and destructive to nature? Ramesh Kunwar suggests that the major religious conservationist values—especially those regarding the forests—have vanished in time, due to the internal forces of Sherpa society (1999: 67). But recent anthropological analyses also account for the influence of external factors, such as influences from foreign and developed countries, especially through tourism (Brower 1991; Karan and Ishii 1996; Rogers and Aitchison 1998). The Nepalese governmental management politics—mentioned above—are also accused of accelerat-ing the degradation of the environment (Gurung 1994). These studies suggest that indigenous culture was harmoniously linked to the local biotic environment, and deferential to it by means of religion.

Economic Development, Mountaineering, and the Environment

At first glance, the global forces of development and international tour-ism are accountable for the destruction of the local environment of the Sherpas, and a naïve culturalist (Western-inspired) view on their interac-tions with nature should envision them as ‘symbiotic’. However, an informed anthropology can avoid charging the economically and exter-nally sponsored development with all the damaging actions on the physical environment. The destruction of the local fauna legitimized by



magical terminology and aims is not even the most visible paradox in the attitude of the Sherpas towards nature. Deforestation is much more severe. Historically, the forests of this area were under a ‘traditional’ form of management, based upon clan (Sh. ru) ownership and exploita-tion. In 1957, the forests were nationalized, and later regionalized, in order to rationalize their utilization. But contrary to the government’s initial goals, the forests have been overexploited, and deforestation has become a major economic and political problem in Nepal. Between 1999 and 2003, the high number of deforested areas and woodmen camps was striking. Most of them were a great distance from villages, in the very heart of the alleged ‘magical’ and ‘risky’ forest. The woodmen were proud of their labor and enthusiastic in claiming how effective the use of dynamite was. They were not afraid of damaging the spirits’ dwelling. The well-being of the social system they were working for, which was providing wood for houses, was much more important than the super-natural threat caused by the destruction of forests. In the Sherpas’ views, the forces of social disorder rank among the major causes of symbolic and spiritual violence. While having similar effects, the alteration of ‘natural’ (and therefore ‘supernatural’) sites is only located on a lower rank of symbolic danger. In other words, among the Sherpas, when the society’s harmony is disturbed, the spirits and gods are much more of a menace for men than the same forces when humans have disturbed the order of nature (Fürer-Haimendorf 1964; Ortner 1978; Adams 1996). The paradox is that the functional necessities of village life as well as the social traditions are actually responsible for the destruction of the forests that are supposed to be a significant part of their religious cos-mology. In the early eighteenth century, long before they were involved in transnational fluxes and a global economy, the Sherpas ‘destroyed most of the forest and changed the landscape in cultivated regions of field crops and in the meadow of pasture’ (Oppitz 1968, quoted by Ortner1989: 37). Further, the Sherpas remain faithful to a tradition of trans-mission of the land that subdivides family land holdings into parcels of cultivable soil each time a male relative gets married. Consequently, the newly formed family is compelled to settle in the neighborhood and open virgin lands for cultivation (Ortner 1989: 36). In Western terms, each new generation expands the human spaces and damages the natu-ral ones, in other words, enlarging the human world and reducing the spirited forests. This fragmentation and exploitation of the soils has not been radically changed by the development of a service economy, and despite the outbreak of tourism opportunities, herding and agriculture are still the economic foundations of Sherpa society (Cox 1985).



The settlements in lower Khumbu—named Pharak—are multiplying. In the late 1990s, when I began this fieldwork, a new colony (named Chheubas) was settling and the building of houses was responsible for the excavation of large parcels of mountain, the cutting of forests, and the transformation of the soils. In 2003, during my last field trip, the villag-ers were still planning to establish new settlements. The Sherpas, like other locally settled ethnic groups, thus transform their (sacred) moun-tains into villages, even though the forests remain, for the local religious virtuosi, sacred areas. Some elements (such as sacred trees or rocks) are eventually integrated into these expanding urban landscapes, but still the sacred forested spaces are gradually being reduced. Besides, the issues of land and residence are not the only culprits. Other traditional and religious rites are also directly involved. For instance, the funeral practices of the Sherpas, as I have observed them, differ from Tibetan ones. The Tibetans have opted for rites of dismemberment, a practice significant for Buddhists, but which some scholars have considered an adaptation following the lack of wood in Tibet (David-Néel 1971). The Sherpas favor cremations—just as their Hindu patrons of Kathmandu—a practice that also requires a lot of wood. As a matter of fact, the Sherpa seem to be key actors in the destruction of (spirited) forests because of rather than in spite of their cultural beliefs. For the Sherpas, as well as for other Nepalese groups, ‘nature’ without humans makes no sense: it has to be used as a resource (Kunwar 1999).

Conclusion: Heterogeneous Practices and Discourses on ‘Nature’

Ben Campbell has been instrumental in demonstrating that, in the case of the Nepalese Himalayas, the opposite images of ‘nature-protective’ or ‘profligate and destructive’ indigenous rural people are simplistic char-acterizations (2005: 324), and that the conception of nature underlying the conservation programs or area management is a Western and insti-tutionalized one. Consequently, the main issue of nature conservation in Nepal is the potential compatibility between exported and local concep-tions of the environment (2005: 325). But as Stacy Pigg has demonstrated (1995, 1996), the ideology of development (and its conservationist corollary) has been translated and appropriated by local people in rural Nepal, and now represents new cultural references for their experience of the environment. The relationships between ecology and culture or religion, in this particular case, are concerned with the issue of inter-cultural encounters and cultural change. According to Ortner, the Sherpas’ habits—like any other cultural habits—are ruled by ‘a system of symbols [as] a guide, or program, or



plan for human action in relation to certain irreducible and recurrent themes or problems of the human condition as conceptualized in par-ticular cultures’ (1973a: 49-50). Thus, there exists a consonance between symbols and action, insofar as the former provides potential conditions and scenarios for the latter (Ortner 1973a). But if the symbolic system of Sherpa religion and culture was dominated by a Buddhist ethos, as depicted in anthropological literature, the question of the destruction of the environment should remain unanswered. According to Robert Paul, the apparent contradiction between conservative and destructive atti-tudes among the Sherpas is intelligible when the ethnographer takes into account the existence of two cultural codes that can be alternated in time. One code impels them to save the worms while plowing the field, the other compels them to destroy them when they eat the crop, and there-fore threatens human survival (Paul 1979: 276). However, in this per-spective, the Sherpas’ transformation of their environment should thus be exclusively related to the functional requirements of production and residence, in opposition to cultural and religious values. Such views do not take into account the issue of history and the incorporation of the development (Nep. bikash) terminology in the Sherpas’ rationalization of their relationships to nature. They have indeed been confronted with a substantial transformation of their social and physical environment, and their recent history has proved to be perpetual change. The massive contacts with tourists, the diffusion of environmental conceptions by Western ecological ideologies, as well as regional transformations (the disruption of relationships with Tibetans since 1959, the integration of the Sherpas in the National unity) are all accelerators of this change. Christoph Von Fürer-Haimendorf, the pioneering anthropologist of the Sherpas, stressed the erosion of traditional lifestyles (1964: 11) and was stunned by the rapidity of changes (1984) in occupation, ethnonymy, language (since many young Sherpas actually do not speak fluently their parents’ idiom), matrimonial rules (previously clan-based and now opened to intermarriages, especially with Westerners), habits (as a con-sequence of national migrations and the influence of an assorted ethnic neighborhood), as well as in their cultural values and social projects (Luger 2000). On the contrary, James Fischer (1990) considers that the impact of tourism has only affected the ‘surface’ of a Sherpa society whose structure remains prevalent. But the issue of ‘negative impacts’ of tourism on the culture and the environment of the Sherpas seems more complex: because there are both, according to Kurt Luger (2000: 25), ‘tourism-induced pressure on local forests and associated problems of soil erosion’ and ‘development projects [that] have reduced the stress on the environment’. Sherpa villagers do not contest—at least officially—the



centralized conservation policies or the exported conservation projects in their area of residence. On the contrary, they defend them. However, despite their engagement in participatory activities regarding nature, and contrary to the expected change in their conception of nature, they still adhere to ‘destructive’ habits. As a final conclusion, and to a certain extent only, it is possible to state that the Sherpa traditions are harmful to their environment. And in between the different religious traditions, Animism and Shamanism are more ‘destructive’ than Buddhism is, whose ‘protective’ values offer a kind of counterbalance in the Sherpas’ religious system. Actually, to designate which of these traditions is more destructive or protective than the others does not really make sense. The issue is elsewhere, in the reasons why the Sherpas now designate speci-fic places to be protected but unveil destructive attitudes and practices towards these areas. Contrary to simplistic views on indigenous relation-ships to nature, as Snodgrass and Tiedje criticized in the introduction to this volume, Western ideologies of development as well as the local traditions are both responsible for practices of conservation and actions of destruction in this part of the Himalayas.

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______________________________________________

Nature is Relative: Religious Affiliation,

Environmental Attitudes, and Political Constraints

on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation*

______________________________________________

Kathleen Pickering and Benjamin Jewell

Department of Anthropology, Colorado State University,

Fort Collins, CO 80523-1787, USA

[email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract

An industrial model of conservation defines nature as a relative space with minimal human impacts. For Native communities, such as the Lakota on

the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, nature is part of an extended

kinship system occupied by various relatives, both animate and inanimate, human and non-human. As a result, Lakota beliefs and values enhance

positive environmental attitudes, but are embedded in religious perspec-

tives rather than conservation of an abstracted nature. We conceptualize the interactions between individual ethics and actual conservation behavior

as existing in three layers. At the grassroots layer, defined through individ-

ual and family relationships, spiritual ties to nature are generated through various Lakota philosophies, including equality across species. At the

tribal or political layer, Lakota politicians often use Lakota ‘traditions’ stra-

tegically to reassert tribal sovereignty and control over natural resources and development policy, as well as to legitimize their quest for mainstream

political spoils. At the structural layer of the federal government, individ-

ual beliefs are often violated by the dominant conservation paradigm, using scientific narratives and disembodied economic returns to replace

spiritual values in natural resources.

* This material is based upon work supported by a National Science Foundation Career Award Grant No. 0092527, a USDA-Cooperative State Research, Education

and Extension Service NRICGP Rural Development Grant No. 0190121, an award

from the Oglala Oyate Woitancan Empowerment Zone, and the Monfort Family Foundation’s Colorado State University Monfort Professorship. Special thanks to

research associate Richard T. Sherman and graduate research assistants Beth

Mizushima and James Van Lanen.



Introduction

There has been an explosion of literature on the topic of indigenous knowledge and the potential contributions that traditional ecological frameworks might make to improve natural resource management and environmental outcomes (see, e.g., Berkes and Folke 1998; Berkes 1999; Dove 2006; Hunn et al. 2003; Warren and Pinkston 1998). Underlying much of this literature is a tension around whether contemporary indige-nous peoples do in fact possess valid and useful ecological knowledge that could be implemented as resource-management systems, or whethertheir connections to the land are romanticized and exclusively historic artifacts with no real ongoing resonance (see, e.g., Krech 1999). To deter-mine the expertise and knowledge of indigenous peoples around local natural resources, certain studies have focused on the responses of indi-vidual resource experts within indigenous communities (Atran et al.2002), while other studies look to historical environmental outcomes in areas assumed to be under indigenous control (Krech 1999). Western conservation ideals often place humans in opposition to nature, defining ‘nature’ as relative to the degree of impact human activity has had on an area. Conservation, therefore, relates to activities limiting human impacts ‘on nature’. Lakota cultural philosophies definenature as the all-encompassing relationships between humans and every other animate and inanimate feature of the surrounding environment. Humans, plants, animals, rocks, and stars all share a place in the natural world and, as relatives, have obligations toward and respect for each other. Kinship implies making sacrifices for each other in a dynamic and integrated system, rather than extracting oneself from that system. This study reveals that the framework of Lakota spirituality continues to generate strong conservation values among contemporary reservation residents on Pine Ridge. However, historically developed political and economic structures have detached Lakota people from control of their own natural resources. By exploring the interactions between individual ethics and actual conservation behavior on three levels (what we call the grassroots, political, and structural layers) we argue that the capitalist political economy of market-based resource use and scientific manage-ment have stripped the landscape of the social, relational, and spiritual perspectives. These perspectives are essential to turn Lakota conserva-tion ethics into practice at the grassroots layer. This paper demonstrates the importance of examining structural barriers between the conceptual formulation of indigenous conservation ethics and the physical imple-mentation of those ethics onto contemporary indigenous landscapes.

Pickering and Jewell Nature is Relative 137


The results reported in this paper are based on a six-year longitudinal study of 300 Lakota households, representing more than 1800 individu-als, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. The participants were chosen at random from aerial photographs of the housing units on Pine Ridge, located with GIS coordinates, and stratifiedby the nine political districts of the Reservation, so the statistical results could be generalized across the reservation population as a whole or within any single district. In regards to the data pertaining to nature reverence, responses were collected from 2004 through 2006; a total of 707 respondents provided information as to their economic, social, reli-gious, and health statuses over these three years. In general, women comprise just over 72 percent of the respondents, and ages range from 18 to 91. The average yearly household income was $25,054 in 2005, and household size ranged from 1 to 16 people, with an average of 5.5.

The Political Economy of Pine Ridge

The social, economic, and political context of the Pine Ridge Reservation defines and constrains the environment in which natural resource man-agement and conservation attempts to operate. On the reservation, the market economy is weak, with limited opportunities for Lakota residents to be fully employed in wage work or to develop small businesses in the mainstream model. A purely market-based analysis of Pine Ridge would ignore the significant and substantial forms of economic support for Lakota households that flow through what Polanyi defined as other modes of integration, such as reciprocity, redistribution, and house-holding (Halperin 1984; Polanyi 1957: 256). Thus, capitalism is merely one economic system in operation on Pine Ridge. To refer to market transactions as the only mode of economic integration would obscure the nuanced reality of the economy (Pickering 2004). Kinship relations are the dominant organizational principle for Lakota communities on Pine Ridge, and mirror Polanyi’s argument that all economy is ultimately socially embedded (Polanyi 1957: 249; Mendell 2003: 2). Lakota anthropologist Ella Deloria observed that, while Euro-pean capitalism focuses on objects or goods, the Lakota economic system focuses on social relationships. Reservation residents rely in large part on culturally and historically based non-market systems, such as familial labor organization, extended kinship networks, and community-based support systems, to obtain ‘[s]ecurity…food, clothing, shelter, and an old age free from want… All peoples need that; it is what they struggle for in their respective ways’ (1998 [1944]: 120).



Lakota emphasis on the extended family, known as the tiyospaye, is a central principle of reservation economic life. Reciprocity on Pine Ridge is usually activated between kin networks for alleviation of the difficul-ties inherent in intersecting modes of integration. For example, parents who are able to find wage work often turn to close family members to provide daycare for their children, reducing the costs of taking part in themarket economy (Pickering 2001: 46). Generosity is still valued highly today as it was in the traditional lifeway of the Lakota (2001). In the modern reservation economy, redistribution can be found in expecta-tions of kin to remain generous and perpetuate the egalitarian nature of Lakota culture (2001: 38-39). Goods are accumulated for ceremonial give-aways and redistributed to the community. The giveaway is a means of balancing income disparities and ascribing prestige to the event organ-izer through a demonstration of generosity (Medicine 2001: 144). Sharing food resources between kin, whether purchased or harvested through hunting and gathering, is still an operative force for reservation resi-dents. Householding is a crucial element of the Pine Ridge economy, where subsistence and self-sufficiency are common terms used by Lakota households to describe their economic ideals.

Natural Resources on Pine Ridge: Ethics and Structure

Lakota cultural beliefs intersect with the use of natural resources at three fundamental levels. The first level is at the grassroots layer, where indi-vidual perceptions of natural resource utilization are defined by tradi-tional animistic beliefs and practices. We argue that these beliefs and practices are suppressed by the structural layer, embodied in the policies and legislative initiatives of the federal government, which emphasizes Western science and market-based financial gain. The political layer, embodied in the tribal government, acts as the pivot between the grass-roots and structural layers, creating a complex and often contradictory set of obligations and expectations to which tribal politicians are expectedto adhere. However, the fundamental contradictions between Lakota cultural, familial, and spiritual demands, on the one hand, and the demands of the US political economy, abstracted from spiritual or reli-gious grounding, on the other, means that the political layer ends up satisfying neither side, falling short under both sets of expectations. Furthermore, there is an epistemological divide between grassroots conceptions of natural resources as co-equal relatives, and structural conceptions of natural resources as merely an input in the generation of wealth through global capitalism. This divide lies at the heart of why



Lakota indigenous knowledge and ethics around nature and the envi-ronment are not ultimately implemented in relation to reservation lands. Politically, the colonial legacy disconnected Lakota households from the land, and created contradictions and strife within tribal government. The tribal government plays a major role in the redistribution of resources in the form of food commodities and access to means of employment. The tribal government is the mediator between the federal government and the reservation community. There is a great deal of internal criticism of tribal government, which is often seen as the last vestige of American colonialism (Pickering 2001: 116). One Pine Ridge resident described the problems with the tribal government as being associated with the incongruity between expectations from the social system, and the federal government. The tribal council has the power to make political appointments during their two-year terms, so that ‘people [are] given paid positions by tribal leaders based on nepotism, regardless of their experience’. Although nepotism may be consistent with social expectations, it produces long-running problems for the wider commu-nity. Since tribal government is the only form of Lakota self-rule recog-nized by the federal government, however, reservation residents support tribal government as a superior alternative to discriminatory and dismissive majoritarian governance by the State of South Dakota if tribal sovereignty were somehow undermined.

Grassroots Layer

Spiritual beliefs play a critical, albeit understated, role in shaping the Pine Ridge economy, including the conceptualization of natural resources. Traditionally, Lakota beliefs conceived of the natural world as imbued with wakan or power; all beings, and even inanimate objects, possess this force (DeMallie and Parks 1987: 28). This force was also believed to guide human actions and was to be revered as potentially harmful if not respected (DeMallie and Parks 1987). The world was conceived of as existing in a state of unity, where humans are merely another member of the natural world. The land was more than a base of resources for nutritive survival; the land was the birthplace of the Lakota people and the source of all power (Young Bear and Theisz 1994: 27-28). Disrespect toward the land or the natural world would constitute an affront to the very core of the spirituality which guides Lakota belief and action. Survival for the Lakota meant using the resources surrounding them judiciously (Deloria 1998 [1944]). Thus, for the Lakota, ‘[s]cience and religion were not separate—they were one’ (Hassrick 1964: 246).



From our six-year longitudinal study of Lakota households, it is apparent that many of these cultural beliefs are still operative at the grassroots level. There is a diversity of experience and perspective among Lakota people on Pine Ridge, as may be demonstrated from the distribution of religious affiliations reported by the survey participants (see Table 1A). Religion plays an observable role in forming the conser-vation ethics of the participants, as is seen when comparing the responses of those who practice Christianity exclusively—ranging from Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Evangelical, and Seventh Day Adventist—to those who engage exclu-sively in spiritual practices originating within Lakota culture (‘Lakota spiritual practices’) or those who combine Christianity with such Lakota spiritual practices. As discussed below, the responses of those who report exclusive adherence to Lakota spiritual practices consistently reflect greater involvement with and concern for nature and natural resources. Nevertheless, even among those Lakota participants reporting exclusive adherence to Christian religious practices, there is an observ-able tendency toward conservation ethics in relation to wildlife, wild plants, and natural resource management. While religious affiliation is the focus of this paper, religion is certainly not the only influence on the environmental attitudes and conservation ethics of Lakota people. However, blood quantum, education, and income all vary widely within each category of religious affiliation, indi-cating that religion is a salient factor in interpreting the conservation perspectives of Lakota individuals (See Table 1B).

Table 1A. Religious Affiliation of the 6 year sample (n=293)a

41.30b Christian Exclusively

27.99 Combined Christian and Lakota Spiritual Practices

29.01 Lakota Spiritual Practices 1.71 No Religious Affiliationc

a Participants were asked ‘What is your religious or spiritual affiliation’? These open-ended responses were then coded into the four categories reported above. Of the 121

individuals who reported exclusively Christian practice, 52 described themselves as

Catholic and 35 Episcopalian. Of the 85 individuals who reported Lakota spiritual practices as their religious affiliation, nine described themselves as members of the

Native American Church.

b Unless noted otherwise, values for all tables are percentages.

c Given the small number of participants asserting no religious affiliation, statistics for these individuals are not reported in subsequent tables.



Table 1B. Variation within Religious Af liation (n=293)

Religious Affiliation Blood Quantum Full

Native3/4ths+ Half+ 1/4+ Less than

1/4

Christian Exclusively 26 31 17 19 7

Combined Christian and

Lakota Spiritual Practices

22 44 18 13 3

Lakota Spiritual Practices 37 33 19 10 1

Education More than

High

School

High School

up to 10th grade

9th grade or less

Christian Exclusively 40 28 22 10

Combined Christian and


56 28 12 4

Lakota Spiritual Practices 53 25 15 7

Income (US $) 50,000+ 35-49,999 20-34,999 5-19,999 Less than

5,000Christian Exclusively 11 8 21 51 9

Combined Christian and Lakota Spiritual Practices

16 18 16 40 10

Lakota Spiritual Practices 13 13 23 38 13

Natural resources figure squarely within the ideal of self-sufficiency formany Lakota households. The ongoing importance of natural resources to Lakota households is highlighted by questions about the last time wild game, wild plants, and traditional Lakota foods were eaten (see Table 2).

Table 2.A. When was the last time you ate wild game? (n=261)

Total Christian Combined Christian

and Lakota Spiritual

Practices

Lakota

Spiritual

Practices

Never eats wild game 5.36 7.00 5.56 1.28

One year or longer 25.29 34.00 22.22 19.23 Between six months

and 11 months ago

8.05 10.00 5.56 7.69

Between three and five months ago

0.77 1.00 1.39 0.00

One to three months

ago

18.01 20.00 19.44 14.10

Less than one month

ago

42.53 28.00 45.83 57.69



Table 2.B. When was the last time you ate a wild plant food? (n=252)

Total Christian Combined Christian and Lakota Spiritual

Practices

LakotaSpiritual

Practices

Never eats wild plants 4.37 7.14 3.03 1.30 One year or longer 31.35 39.80 25.76 25.97

Between six months

and 11 months ago

5.95 5.10 4.55 7.79

Between three and five

months ago

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

One to three months ago

17.06 17.35 16.67 15.58

Less than one month

ago

41.27 30.61 50.00 49.35

Table 2.C. When was the last time you ate traditional Lakota food? (n=275)



Practices

Lakota

Spiritual

Practices

Never eats traditional

foods

1.45 1.90 1.32 0.00

One year or longer 12.73 16.19 7.89 12.05 Between six months

and 11 months ago

5.82 7.62 5.26 3.61

Between three and five months ago

1.09 0.00 2.63 0.00

One to three months

ago

20.36 23.81 19.74 16.87

Less than one month

ago

58.55 50.48 63.16 67.47

Natural resources represent more than a purely economic value, however. For example, when Lakota household participants were asked ‘Do you feel your spiritual beliefs are connected to the way you feel about nature?’, just over 80 percent responded ‘Yes’ (see Table 3).

Table 3. ‘Do you feel your spiritual beliefs

are connected to the way you feel about nature?’ (n=199)


and Lakota Spiritual Practices

Lakota

Spiritual Practices

Yes 80.40 62.50 87.72 93.85

No 19.60 37.50 12.28 6.15



Among the qualitative responses provided by the participants, three dominant themes were expressed in relation to Lakota conceptions of humans and nature. First and foremost, humans, animals, and plants are interdependent on one another to survive and thrive. Second, to keep that interdependence successful, humans must show respect for, not dominance over, the natural world. Plants and animals occupy positions similar to other relatives in the overall social economy of Lakota life. Reciprocity, generosity, and personal sacrifice are integral parts of this social relationship with nature. Finally, greed, waste, and selfishness in relation to the ecosystem are the human behaviors that endanger the health of not only plant and animal populations, but ultimately of humans as well. The Christian concept of human dominion over animals is guided by what White Jr (1967: 1204-1206) characterizes as a uniquely Judeo-Christian Occidental tradition. Man’s inheritance from God, the power to transcend nature, and the capitalist paradigm of maximizing economic growth are three examples of worldviews that fundamentally violate Lakota conservation values when implemented in relation to natural resource management. Aspects of traditional resource management approaches have been displaced through contemporary governmental policies. Individual per-ceptions of natural resource use and management reflected an under-standing of traditional Lakota values. For example, when asked about how resources were managed in traditional times, one man said ‘[Lakota]let life happen’. Another participant said that Lakota practices are ‘…not the same as European people. [The Lakota] let them [plants and animals] live. Now it’s totally different. The feds think you need to pen them up. We would never exhaust resources where we were at’. The concept of management seems somewhat alien and unnecessary in relation to tradi-tional beliefs that humans and animals needed each other to survive. Assimilation into the dominant society can play a role in altering tradi-tional cultural beliefs, and therefore the religious affiliation of respon-dents was used to gauge the ongoing saliency of traditional Lakota beliefs in relation to natural resources. Consistently, those who identifiedthemselves as Christian exclusively were less likely to express conserva-tion ethics associated with traditional Lakota culture. For example, when the respondents’ religious affiliation is considered, 62.5 percent of those who identified themselves as Christian felt that their spiritual beliefs were connected to the way they felt about nature, compared to 93.85 percent of those who identified themselves as practicing Lakota spiritu-ality, and 87.72 percent of those who combined Christianity with Lakota spiritual practices (see Table 3). At the same time, even those Lakota participants who identified themselves as exclusively Christian still



expressed strong conservation ethics. These trends are reflected in a series of questions that were asked about environmental attitudes, reported in Table 4. Respondents identified as Christian are more likely to assert values consistent with human dominance over animals, and respondents identified with Lakota spiritual practices are more likely to assert values consistent with humans as co-equal players within an ecosystem.

Table 4.A. Plants and animals have as much right to exist as humans (n=169)


Practices

LakotaSpiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 43.20 31.67 39.22 61.54

Agree 52.07 61.67 58.82 32.69

Neutral 1.78 3.33 0.00 1.92 Disagree 1.78 1.67 1.96 1.92

Strongly Disagree 1.18 1.67 0.00 1.92

Table 4.B. Humans have the right to use nature

and natural resources in any way they want (n=168)



Practices

Lakota

Spiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 18.45 18.03 21.57 18.00

Agree 35.71 45.90 31.37 28.00 Neutral 9.52 11.48 11.76 4.00

Disagree 25.00 21.31 27.45 26.00


Table 4.C. Nature is strong enough to cope

with whatever humans do (n=168)


and Lakota Spiritual Practices

Lakota

Spiritual Practices

Strongly Agree 5.95 6.78 5.88 3.85 Agree 27.38 27.12 33.33 23.08

Neutral 14.29 18.64 17.65 7.69

Disagree 34.52 37.29 29.41 38.46 Strongly Disagree 17.86 10.17 13.73 26.92

Human needs are also given different weight, depending on the reli-gious affiliation of the respondent. While all the respondents valued wild animals and wild plants, those with Christian religious affiliation were



less likely to see the value in having wild animals that were dangerous to humans, and more likely to see the value in introducing plants with commodity values above wild plants, as shown in Table 5.

Table 5.A. It is important to have lots of wild animals on the reservation for people to use (n=163)


Practices

LakotaSpiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 19.63 13.79 18.00 26.53

Agree 53.99 51.72 46.00 65.31



Table 5.B. It is important to have wild animals on the reservation—even

those that may be harmful to humans such as mountain lions (n=160)



Practices

Lakota

Spiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 12.50 1.75 12.00 25.53

Agree 31.25 26.32 24.00 44.68 Neutral 10.63 14.04 14.00 2.13

Disagree 36.25 40.35 44.00 23.40


Table 5.C. Plants that were introduced to the reservation

(like agricultural crops) are more important than plants that are native to this area (like tinpsila [wild turnip]) (n=159)


Practices

LakotaSpiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 4.40 7.02 6.12 0.00

Agree 20.13 21.05 28.57 8.51



Finally, differences appear based on the actual religious practices of Christianity and Lakota spiritual practices. Those affiliated with Christi-anity were less likely to associate spiritual power with nature itself, or to express a spiritual obligation toward animals directly, in contrast to those practicing Lakota spirituality, as seen in Table 6.



Table 6.A. Natural areas are places of great spiritual power (n=164)


Practices

LakotaSpiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 28.66 11.67 31.37 44.68

Agree 50.00 51.67 52.94 44.68



Table 6.B. It is important to make offerings or say prayers for wild animals (n=158)



Practices

Lakota

Spiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 24.68 12.07 29.17 39.13

Agree 44.30 37.93 47.92 45.65 Neutral 13.92 20.69 10.42 8.70

Disagree 14.56 22.41 12.50 6.52


The socially embedded nature of Lakota economic thought is critical for comprehending the foundations of Lakota conceptions of nature and conservation. The cultural belief system also provides the behavioral alternatives available to the individual for resistance to integration into the dominant society and thus rejection of federally imposed practices (Medicine 2001: 177). For example, spending time with the resource appears to reinforce Lakota conservation ethics. As Table 7 demon-strates, those affiliated with Lakota spirituality, who reported higher conservation ethics in the tables above, also spend more time with wild resources which depend on positive conservation behaviors to survive.

Table 7. Average Time Spent Harvesting Natural Resources (Indexed Averagea)

Average Total (n=292) Christian (n=119)

Combined Christian and Lakota Spiritual Practices

(n=81)

LakotaSpiritual

Practices (n=81)

Hunt 0.702055 0.605042 0.580247 0.888889

Gather 1.167808 0.823529 1.246914 1.580247

Fish 1.113014 0.932773 1.283951 1.08642 Combined 2.982877 2.361345 3.111111 3.555556

a Responses were coded as follows: 1 = 1 to 3 hours per week; 2 = 4 to 6 hours per week; 3 = 1 to 3 hours per day; and 4 = 4 to 6 hours per day; each in the seasons when

harvesting activities were appropriate.



Political Layer

Despite widespread concern for the environment across Lakota house-holds, the implementation of Lakota conservation practices appears blocked. The immediate institution responsible for reservation lands and resources is the tribal government. This institutional structure was created in the 1930s with heavy-handed US federal oversight (Biolsi 1992). Several aspects of this federally recognized tribal government contradict Lakota conceptions of political legitimacy that were in place before reservations were established. For example, historically Lakota society respected a great deal of local autonomy and had weak or absent centralized leadership (Price 1996). Individual expressions and perspec-tives were also respected, with great discomfort associated with speak-ing for someone else or representing their point of view. Decisions were reached ideally through a consensus process, with dissent expressed by individuals avoiding the event or activities with which they disagreed (Biolsi 1992). Leadership was based on group support garnered through generosity, wisdom, and personal sacrifice to the people, with the result that leaders tended to have the most meager personal possessions but socially they were wealthy and respected (Price 1996). Historically, the way to obtain political status within Lakota society was the opposite of the capitalist market system. Leaders were moti-vated to accumulate possessions solely to be able to give them away generously, not for personal wealth. Property was clearly defined by the Lakota, but the acquisition of more than what was needed did not bring prestige (Hassrick 1964: 296). One Lakota man described the cultural insistence to give as a reflection of less materialism in traditional society.

We could save things for our kids, and that’s, I see it, the land part, and the

meaning of Lakota, the traditions, the oral history, those are what we save. The others we can’t save, you know, because they’re, when we have money

everybody knows we have money, they come and you know we gotta give

them it… I’m not a greedy person or anything, but it makes us feel like human beings, real good with God when we help… That’s the way, it ain’t

like always the old way, but it makes your blood go good, though you

know, level it out all kinds of ways’ (personal communication, 2003).

As Hassrick reported of Lakota life forty years earlier, ‘Wealth, therefore, was counted in terms of a man’s ability to accumulate for disposal… This principle kept operative by the understanding that to receive a gift implied the responsibility to give a gift in return’ (1964: 296). Social pressure was exerted to encourage generosity, and scorn those who were selfish. These values were institutionalized in ceremonial activities such as giveaways.



In contrast, the structure of the reservation tribal government is a constitutional form of representative governance with ultimate authority vested in a centralized tribal council from each of nine districts elected by majority vote. This imposed form of government also created the concept of professional politicians who would be paid for their political service and have greater personal wealth than the people they repre-sented. A further layer of modernism made tribal government the forum for Lakota people with ‘progressive’ ideas, willing to comply with US governmental notions of development and resource use, often to the detriment or even disparagement of more ‘traditional’ Lakota practices (Biolsi 1992). Lakota spirituality may be used by tribal politicians strate-gically to enhance their cultural mystique with powerful political and economic interests outside the reservation. Internal to the reservation, however, people know that the spiritual authority of the community rests outside of tribal politics. In this way, tribal government became liminal to both Lakota society and the mainstream political economy: inappropriate and illegitimate from Lakota cultural perspectives, but often ineffective and inept from mainstream perspectives. The ambiguous feelings about tribal government are apparent from our surveys of Lakota households, reported in Table 8. There are no vocal supporters of the way current tribal government is operating. The main issues of debate are how to reform tribal government in a way that will improve its operations and the lives of Lakota people on the reservation.

Table 8. How effective is tribal government? (n=204)

Total Population

Those Who Own land

Those Who Would Like

to Live on

Their Land

Full Blood .50 or less

Very effective 3.92 4.19 4.46 3.92 1.59

Effective 15.00 17.93 19.64 15.69 17.46

Neutral 29.17 20.69 25.00 19.61 22.22

Not effective 34.31 35.17 33.04 33.33 41.27

Very ineffective 21.08 21.38 17.86 27.45 17.46

Nevertheless, since the constitutional tribal government is the only form of reservation governance currently recognized by the federal govern-ment, tribal sovereignty depends on the ongoing viability of this notably flawed political system.



This largely imposed and imperfect tribal governmental structure has resulted in removing grassroots perspectives on land use and conser-vation from the political process for the most part (Robertson 2002). Federal policies encourage tribes to lease their lands to non-Indian agricultural interests, particularly cattle ranchers, since agribusiness is a comfortable and politically familiar US conduit into the global economy. Today, it is estimated that as much as 60 percent of reservation lands are leased to non-tribal members, and that 20 people control 42 percent of the land (Village Earth n.d.). As a result, grassroots individuals face strong barriers to implementing land use practices. The lease monies from tribal lands, though far below market values in the region, repre-sent one of the few ways the tribal government has of generating reve-nues to support their own operations and salaries. Therefore, from the perspective of tribal politicians, any alternative to cattle ranching has to generate equal or greater revenues to even be considered. While only about 5 percent of tribal members are involved in cattle ranching them-selves, some tribal members suggest that the regional Cattlemen’s Association exerts undue influence over and has disproportionate repre-sentation on the tribal council. However, the qualitative responses of Lakota people indicate tremen-dous dissatisfaction with the management perspectives of the tribal government. People express the strong desire to treat animals and plants with respect, which includes keeping reservation lands, air, and water in a healthy condition. Unfortunately, less than 8 percent of the participants responded positively when asked how they felt about the way reserva-tion lands are being managed today (Table 9).

Table 9. How do you feel about the way reservation lands

are being cared for/managed today? (n=186)

Negative Positive Neutral/ Don’t know

74.19 7.53 18.28

Among the reasons provided for the poor management of reservation lands today, many respondents pointed to the profit motive as incon-sistent with being good caretakers of the land. Furthermore, cattle are consistently mentioned by people at the grassroots level as the most devastating component to ecosystem health on the reservation, in large part due to overgrazing and the destruction of habitat for wildlife and wild plants. Land erosion, as a measure of ecosystem health, was seen as a problem by two-thirds of participants, regardless of their religious affiliation (Table 10).



Table 10. Land erosion is a serious problem

for the reservation (n=165)

Total Christian Combined

Christian and


Lakota Spiritual

Practices

Strongly Agree 22.42 25.42 16.00 26.00 Agree 45.45 42.37 52.00 42.00

Neutral 13.94 10.17 14.00 18.00

Disagree 15.15 20.34 14.00 10.00 Strongly Disagree 3.03 1.69 4.00 4.00

The desire to get around the fiscal impasse of the tribal government in relation to land-use planning is seen most directly in the responses of Lakota households to the question of who should be managing reserva-tion lands. Paralleling our analysis of conservation taking place on three levels, respondents expressed a distinct preference for giving the grass-roots layer the chance to implement their conservation ethics onto the landscape (Table 11).

Table 11. Who do you think should be responsible

for managing reservation lands? (n=184)


Christian and


Lakota

Spiritual

Practices

Local Lakota People

(Grassroots Layer)

55.43 42.03 54.72 69.09

Tribal Government

(Political Layer)

21.74 30.43 24.53 10.91

Federal Government

(Structural Layer)

5.43 4.35 5.66 5.45

Co-Management 5.98 7.25 5.66 5.45

Don't Know 11.41 15.94 9.43 9.09

Structural Layer

As seen in Table 11 above, there is virtually no interest among Lakota households in having the structural layer dominate reservation land management. Nevertheless, the structural layer, controlled in large part by the federal government, continues to control the use and manage-ment of Lakota lands. While there is a long and complex history behind



how this control was obtained and maintained, we will briefly discuss three of the mechanisms at the structural layer that have effectively removed Lakota conservation values from the landscape: enforcement of market capitalism through land appropriation; privileging Western science over indigenous knowledge systems; and embedding bureauc-racy to hamper change. These mechanisms have been employed by colonial powers around the globe to impose capitalist conception of resource use onto indigenous populations and their lifeways (Gramsci 1989; Niezen 2003). While Lakota people at the grassroots layer have engaged in consistent and prolonged resistance to all three mechanisms of structural control, the imbalance of power in favor of federal govern-ment interests since the establishment of reservations and tribal govern-ments has muted the effect of their resistance. The first structural mechanism for imposing land-management prac-tices that contradict Lakota conservation ethics involves enforcing the capitalist economic system. For the Lakota this has largely been accom-plished through alienation from their resource base. Loss of land has been devastating for the Lakota, but simultaneously beneficial to the rise of the United States in two ways. The first deals with the cultural and spiritual connections of the Lakota to their homelands. For the United States, breaking the Lakota from their land was instrumental in breaking the grip of Lakota culture on the people. Without alienating the Lakota from their land, the United States would never have been able to attempt cultural eradication and economic assimilation. Spiritual interpretations of nature and natural resources were deemed as savagery and supersti-tion by US government forces, and swept aside as backward impedi-ments to economic progress. Even the suppression of native languages, like Lakota, through an imposed and often brutal Western educational system had the effect of distancing the spiritual and social connections between humans and nature that had been reflected in the structure and vocabularies of their traditions. Land use and access was also key to the traditional economy of the Lakota, which was intertwined with their spiritual beliefs, kinship organization, and political structure to compose a whole cultural system (Hassrick 1964; Walker 1982). The Lakota were reliant on migratory game and wild plants as their primary food resources before their forced confinement on reservations (Pickering 2001: 2). The Lakota were major actors in a large regional exchange network that existed long before the formation of the United States, supplementing their wild food resources with agricultural products acquired through trade with Eastern Plains groups (Jewell 2006; Pickering 1995; Wood and Liberty 1980). The



migratory lifestyle of the Lakota became incompatible with the nineteenth-century economic and social world of the United States. While handing out land to immigrants in the name of manifest destiny with the right hand, the US government was simultaneously pulling in land from Native American populations with the left. Reservations provided the element needed for the United States to end the nomadic life of Plains tribes, acquire millions of acres of land, and alleviate some of the growing pains of their nascent economy (Jewell 2006). By removing native peoples from their primary means of subsistence, they were robbed of that most necessary of freedoms, the freedom to control the means of subsistence (Marx 2006 [1859]). Although agriculture was never fully adopted by the Lakota, it has had a significant impact on their current life. In 1868, the Great Sioux Nation encompassed 9 million acres (Stevens 1988: 49). In the process of individually allotting land during the early 1900s, 160 acre parcels of this tribally owned land were conveyed in federal trust to Lakota households in an attempt to fracture the communal residence pattern of the Lakota, and to prepare them for the transition to agriculture (Biolsi 1992). When enough land was set aside to provide all households with a plot of land, the remaining acreage was deemed surplus and made available to white farmers and ranchers (Pickering 2001). By defining what was surplus land based on specific notions relating to a market mode of integration, the government was able to eliminate 78 percent of the reservation lands. Since that time, the original parcels have been divided among five gen-erations of heirs, and their heirs. Thus, the economic potential of modern reservation residents has been determined in large part by the culturally destructive practices of past US administrators, and current administra-tors who base resource-management strategies on non-Lakota values. The paradigm of market-based commodity production continues to permeate federal efforts at development on tribal lands. Often rather than establishing internally focused and operated programs for conser-vation, government-sponsored development has focused on commodi-tization of resources and continued attempts at capitalist assimilation of the Lakota. There has been a constant structural incursion of ‘...outside interests [which] continually make efforts to define what the Lakota poor “need”’ (Pickering 2001: xvii-xviii). For example, more than 72 percent of households reported using wild resources in their consumption, as foods, medicinal products, or for ceremonial uses (see Table 12). Yet, from the federal point of view, none of these activities are deemed to be of ‘real’ economic importance, since their production, exchange, and consumption lie outside of the US market economy for the most part.



Table 12. Does your household make use of natural resources? (n=294)


Christian and


Lakota

Spiritual

Practices

Yes 72.79 65.83 82.50 73.81 No 27.21 34.17 17.50 26.19

The disconnection between Lakota conceptions of economy and the US market paradigm began with the establishment of reservations, when lands used by Lakota people for hunting and gathering were character-ized by Bureau of Indian Affairs agents as ‘unproductive’ or ‘underuti-lized’. This trend continues today, as demonstrated in the efforts of some Lakota extended families to restore bison production to the landscape. In sharp contrast to the destructive presence of cattle, bison are an impor-tant species for restoring Plains grasslands, based on their behavioral patterns, plant consumption preferences, and adaptive relationships withother plant and animal species in the region. As long as market prices for bison on the hoof are less lucrative than cattle, the government assump-tion is that bison production is not economically rational. However, a recent study of Lakota bison producers reveals that, in terms of manage-ment strategies, 90 percent of those surveyed intended to maintain their bison herds in as close to a wild state as possible, and 70 percent started their herds for reasons associated with traditional cultural beliefs in the importance of bison (Sherman n.d.). Furthermore, ‘75% distribute surplus animals for family or ceremonial use…[and] 65% rely on family, friends, neighbors or tribal members to help with the herd’ (Sherman n.d.). Virtually none of these viewpoints are honored in a purely market-based analysis, but they all result in forms of economic support for Lakota households through reciprocity, redistribution, and household-ing (Halperin 1991). Once again, the conservation ethics of Lakota people are a distant voice in how reservation lands are ultimately managed. The second mechanism used to control expression of traditional Lakota patterns for resource use is the imposition of Western science as opposed to Native perceptions of resource use. This has been true for all indigenous populations exposed to the colonizing efforts of European and American governments. For example, the Inuit populations of the arctic region have had to gain institutional approval to continue their whaling activities, which have been limited by the commercial over-exploitation of whales by the rest of the world (Freeman et al. 1998). The Lakota have also had their conceptions of the natural world rejected by the dominant ideology, which seeks objective, definable ‘Truth’ (Bourdieu 1977). Using natural resources on the reservation requires the



approval of one of many representatives of American colonialism. For example, survey participants spoke in frustration of the requirement to acquire eagle feathers, a sacred ceremonial item, through the National Park Service. When asked how eagles are managed by the government today, one Lakota woman said:

They’re managed by the government now; they put a restriction on them [eagles]. I don’t think we can hunt them, not even for ceremonial purposes.

They don’t take ceremonial as a holy thing, you know, now they think…

you’re going to make a sale on it. They got that in the back of their head, gonna make money on it, so then we can’t do that anymore. It’s gotta be,

you have to get a permit from the government. I don’t know if you have to

pay a fee… I think religion is free (personal communication, 2003).

Even though access is granted, the insistence on the approval of Western science disrespects and discredits the alternative Lakota perspective. Since the Lakota have been removed from their means of subsistence, management has been imposed upon them via the structural and political layers. Out of 43 respondents asked about current management practices carried out by the tribal and federal government, only 30 per-cent had any conception of the practices. This lack of knowledge about management practices at the grassroots level is a reflection of the refusal by government agencies to integrate Native ideas and beliefs into natural resource use. The final structural mechanism used to impede the implementation of Lakota conservation ethics is the imposition of a complex and multi-faceted bureaucratic system. While immediate land use is governed in large part through decisions by tribal government, the ultimate manage-ment of reservation lands often involves direct or indirect control by federal land-management agencies. On Pine Ridge, for example, lands interior and adjacent to the reservation’s boundaries are covered by regulations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the US Forest Service. Jurisdictional issues between tribal lands and state lands also insert South Dakota land-management interests into the mix. As a result, there are no clear answers to basic questions like who has management authority over Lakota lands or what is the process for amending current land-management practices. This further distances Lakota people from implementing their conservation ethics on their own lands. This use of overlapping agencies and jurisdic-tions has been a strategy of the government since the inception of the reservation, creating such confusion over who has control of land and resources that the bureaucratic run-around perpetuates the status quo out of sheer frustration.



Conclusions

If one were to look simply at current land-management practices and the health of the environment on Pine Ridge, it would be easy to conclude that Lakota people lack any conservation ethics and that whatever indigenous ecological knowledge they possessed in the past is no longer extant. However, interviews with Lakota households reveal an extensive and integrated conception of nature that places humans squarely on par with other species, and dictates an obligation to respect and provide for these species as one would other close relatives. The disconnect comes not from the absence of indigenous ecological knowledge, but rather from the separation of the grassroots people out of the political and economic structures that historically appropriated Lakota lands and now manage them to the active exclusion of Lakota ethics and preferences. The result of these interacting layers is a dialectical interaction between Lakota culture and the structural elements of the tribal and federal governments. The fundamental disconnect between how conservation programs are formulated at the federal level and Lakota beliefs regard-ing the natural world means there is little grassroots support for existing conservation efforts. The importance of Lakota cultural perspectives are ignored at the political and structural layers when purely scientificexplanations for how to manage natural resources, often geared exclu-sively toward financial gain, dominate. In order to motivate conservationist behavior, there needs to be a greater consideration of Lakota perspectives regarding the spiritual and relational aspects of natural resources, even if these perspectives are not directly related to the Western conservation paradigm. Because Lakota perspectives have been largely eliminated from reservation resource management over the last one hundred years, there is no direct evidence that Lakota indigenous knowledge will, in fact, improve the health of the natural resources on the reservation. However, we believe that, by legiti-mizing and integrating Lakota perspectives into reservation resource management, there will be greater grassroots support for any conserva-tion program implemented at Pine Ridge, as well as potentially greater personal motivations on the part of Lakota people toward conservation behaviors generally.

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[JSRNC 2.1 (2008) 159] JSRNC (print) ISSN 1749-4907 JSRNC (online) ISSN 1749-4915


__________________________________

Notes for Contributors __________________________________

The Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture is the affiliated journal of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. It is fully peer reviewed and published quarterly (simultaneously in print and online) in March, June, September, and December. The JSRNC seeks to publish the widest possible diversity of critical inquiry into the relationships among what people variously understand to be religion, nature, and culture. Further information about the journal can be found atwww.religionandnature.com/journal, including the précis, introduction by Editor-in-Chief Bron Taylor, and sample entries, which provide a sense of the journal’s vision and interdisciplinary range. All JSRNC articles should be free of undefined jargon and written for a general, interdisciplinary audience. Articles and reviews must be submitted exclusively to the JSRNC and must not have been previously published. Sub-missions must cohere with the detailed guidelines found at the ‘Submissions’ link located at the journal website. The website also has a link explaining and welcoming ‘Special Issues Proposals’, and providing additional information, including how to subscribe and apply for membership in the scholarly society affiliated with the journal. Authors should submit their manuscripts through the Equinox website (http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/JSRNC/about/submissions. If this is not possible, or with further inquiries, please contact the editors by email at [email protected], or at the administrative office by regular mail addressed to the JSRNC; Program in Religion and Nature, Depart-ment of Religion; 107 Anderson Hall; POB 117410; Gainesville, FL 32605, USA. Fax: 352/392-7395. The journal office line is 352/392-1625x235.

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