Cultural influences

[Metala Cabinet]

Well perhaps fraud is too strong a word but recent scholarship on 'Walden' has noted Thoreau's convenient neglect of acknowledging the full extent of the domestic and practical help his mother and sister provided.
As for escaping the trap of work: by relying on friends and family to supply needed goods and services (I presume they had to work to be able to provide these things for him) wasn't he rather in the position of living off the work of others while he led the contemplative life. Nice 'work' if you can get it.
Yes he was an interesting and important thinker and I can heartily applaud his desire to not blindly accept the conventional but I also see him as a little self-obsessed and parochial. As I said before Thoreau the man isn't the same as the philosophy (I think he falls within a movement called the Transendentals).
Anyway I suppose we'll just have to differ as it's largely a matter of emphasis, and this is a bushcraft forum not a forum on 19th century literature or philosophy (do such things exist?). Still it's gratifying to know people still read Thoreau and have strong opinions on him.
PS were you aware Thoreau was instrumental in the production of the best pencils for miles around?

 

[Kim]

Part of me is loathe to admit that fact that I have been watching Alan Titchmarsh...yes, I have been watching Alan Titchmarsh and his natural history of the British Isles. It's been dead interesting so far and I'm wondering if he's going to get onto man, their emergence and general survival. It's quite interesting as a backdrop to understanding what kind of environment man was developing in and the way our land has been formed by natural forces.

Just a thought really.

 

[Moonraker]

Part of me is loathe to admit that fact that I have been watching Alan Titchmarsh...yes, I have been watching Alan Titchmarsh and his natural history of the British Isles. It's been dead interesting so far and I'm wondering if he's going to get onto man, their emergence and general survival. It's quite interesting as a backdrop to understanding what kind of environment man was developing in and the way our land has been formed by natural forces.

Just a thought really.

Glad you admitted it first ):

Really can't stand the guy normally but it is a great series mostly thanks to the BBC outdoor broadcast team and their impeccable film work. If nothing else the beautiful images of stunning coastlines etc are a real inspiration. I also like the local aspect of the programme when it moves to 'your area'. Nice. Although I must say I was hoping against hope that Titters went head first into the reedbed when he was discussing pollen stored in lake beds in the last programme

 

[Kim]

He he, rather like a lemming, Moonraker!

I think it adds something to the whole bushcraft experience when the skills you learn are placed into some cultural context, or in some line of narrative. You're not just learning a new skill then, you're learning a little about how and why.

There's nothing wrong with simply picking up stand alone skills for personal use, but I like a good story and if you can get a sense of some medieval blokey rustling up a bowl of porridge oats with the help of his cow's artery, then why not! Certainly helps me remember facts/skills better if I'm relating them not just to an end result, (bow drill makes fire) but to a tasks personal significance to those who may of first used those skills.

 

[Tvividr]

I am curious to now what, if any, culture or peoples have influenced people in their bushcraft learning. Personally I was always interested in the Native American and still find the subject fasinating but recent study has also lead me to decover that the Saami peoples still have a very traditional skill set which we europeans tend to totally over look.

To me it is the Swazi and Zulu people among whom I grew up. Also the tough bushcrafters of the Shangaan and the Matabele, in addition to two or three Tswana trackers that I have worked with. I have the deepest respect for the culture and superior bush skills of the !Kung and /Gwi bushmen of the central Kalahari, and I loathe the things that modern society and certain African governments are doing to these people. Although I don't know much about the Australian Aboriginal people I would add them too.
In the North I would say that I'm heavily influenced by mainly the Sami people, and a few hardcore Norwegian mountainmen, in addition to the First Nations of America and the Nentse and Evenek of Siberia.

 

[Kim]

Follow your own Traditions before they disappear completely?? Why do you want to try and follow someone elses traditions when you have your own?? :?:

Wasn't sure if this would be on interest to anyone but here's some info I found on the good old internet. I'd never heard of it before.

Asatru is an expression of the native, pre-Christian spirituality of Europe. More specifically, it is the Way by which the Germanic peoples have traditionally related to the Divine and to the world around them.

From Iceland to Russia, from the frozen north of Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, the Germanic peoples wandered and settled over a span of thousands of years. Today, their descendants are spread around the world. We may refer to ourselves as Americans or English, Germans or Canadians, but behind these labels lurks an older, more essential identity. Our forefathers were Angles and Saxons, Lombards and Heruli, Goths and Vikings - and, as sons and daughters of these peoples, we are united by ties of blood and culture undimmed by the centuries.

Asatru is our native Way. Just as there is Native American religion and native African religion, so there is native European religion. Asatru is one of its expressions.

From Runestone.org

 

[Swampy Matt]

Originally, my cultural influences were the those of the first nations of North America and Australia. Their cultures were introduced to me through school projects. But it was my Grandfather, a scot, rumoured to be of itinerant descent (possibly roma - he has always been really vague about his family history) who showed me the first practical lessons in bushcraft.

Over the years i've realised that in western europe we do have our own traditions, but in many cases they are buried very deep and have been hidden for a very long time.

By looking at other cultures however, we can find things that reawaken our understanding of our own traditions. Just as the hand drill has been used all over the world to make fire, there is evidence that many other areas of culture are just as universal.

in Ireland there is evidence of buildings that appear to have been used very much like the sweat lodge of north america. Artefacts found show that western europeans would have used feathers, bone, antler, stone and hide in much the same way the Pre-columbian Americans and Aboriginal Australians.

And the picture of the European figure Cernunnos from the Gundestrap Cauldron is very remenisant of pictures of the Hindu god Shiva. Same medative position, same phallic imagery, same snakes.

Ultimatley, by looking into other cultures, religions and beliefs we can often take the first step on a journey that takes us deep into our own traditions, showing us things that we thought we had lost. :super:

The 'animism' at the heart of all culture has just evolved, like the humans who follow it, to reflect the nature of the world around them.

 

[Wayland]

Another blast from the past....... :welcome:

Came across this while looking for a hobo stove picture. Some interesting thoughts here but what really caught my eye was:

So is BCUK a cultural influence?

With the internet being so international do our cultural influences inevitably also become as pan-cultural?

For a long time I have felt drawn to the Northern cultures, not Asatru which is a modern phenomenon roughly based on Norse scripts, but upon the lives of the real Germanic peoples and cultures like the Sapmi and Inuit.

In this so called "New Age" though it is all too easy for other influences and comparisons to distort our view of such cultures.

In terms of Bushcraft influences I freely borrow from any culture that has an answer to the practical problem I'm facing but in terms of my connection to the landscape I definitely look to the North.

 

[WhichDoctor]

This is a very interesting thread, I will have to read through it, my personal cultural influences are as European as possible.

This stems from when I first started looking at primitive and survival skills (which is what this area was called back then) on the internet, everything I found was American and Native American. That wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that almost everything used things like hickory, porcupine quills, dogwood, turkey feathers and redwood sap, at the time I was too young too take the skills and translate them into local materials.

So I had a bit of a backlash away from native American towards Ice Age European culture. That meant I spent a lot of time trolling through very dens archeology reports on the web, this was spurred on even further when I read the Jean M Auel Earths Children series.

Now like you I'm willing to take knowledge from anywhere but I still have a affinity with the culture of Ice Age Europe, what ever that is .

 

[John Fenna]

Cultural influences?
Everything that touches me influences me in some way:in a multi-cultural society and with historical cultural influences being explored by Adam Hart wassisname on TV, info on forign histirical cultures in libraries and on the net, and most of all, bushcraftuk's info from members around the world, cultural influences on my bushcraft(and everyday)practices are endless - and I love it!

 

[Wayland]

It's certainly the case that this country has benefitted greatly in history from a diverse range of cultural influences and dispite right wing protestations to the contrary I think it is one of our true national strengths.

I find the ability to get information and advice at the touch of a keyboard for any part of the World an incredibly powerful tool and every now and again it strikes me just how lucky we are in this respect.

I think the internet is becoming a culture in it's own right.

 

[BOD]

yes other cultures such as american indians or the pygmies of borneo are interesting, but perhaps not so relevant to our specific environment here in the uk

palm huts dont do too much good in a sleet bearing force ten gale :yikes: for example


Tant

I agree with most of what you say. Just to correct some misconceptions though. There are no pygmies in Borneo that I am aware of though there is mention of pygmies in some early and fanciful writings.

The traditional dwellings of some of the tribes up river or in the mountains are not palm huts but over 300 feet long and 2/3 storeys high of iron wood floor as and sturdy beams. I think they would compare with any traditional wooden dwellings in ancient Britain and they have to cope with the monsoon winds.

As for palm huts the idea is that one is not killed by falling walls and roofs and it is quick to re-build. Pacific Islanders cope with hurricanes