Ode to the Natives

In Bill McKibben’s Wandering Home, he speaks longingly of a society that’s able to exist in a mutually beneficial relationship with the land rather than the parasitic one our current society participates in today. His prospective tone reveals that he imagines this society as yet to arrive. In that sense, it’s clear he views this potential future relationship as a positive progression. Perhaps then, the boon of ‘progress’ the Adirondacks experienced at the hands of European settlers, while deemed ‘progress,’ may not have necessarily been positive. As McKibben looks forward to the formation of this coexisting society, we should all look backwards for the inspiration.

Native Americans throughout North America operated with knowledge of the potential hazards of our current parasitism. Their notion of their people’s collective involvement in ‘The Great Long House’ illuminates a key distinction in approach to the earth’s resources between mutualism and parasitism. Because they viewed themselves as inhabitants within the ecosystem rather than apart from it, they recognized that they were not impervious to the consequences of abuse. The European approach stands directly opposite and positions mankind as only part-time visitors in the wilderness. This perceived temporary involvement in the ecosystem led to a dynamic in which the wilderness existed only to provide resources. After these resources were harvested, Europeans left the wilderness to return home, or at least thought of it that way. In reality, there really is but one ‘Great Long House’ and no one lives outside of it. These dueling approaches to nature explain the Native’s sustainable hunting and farming practices as well as the European method of plunder.

Upon realizing the wisdom of the Native lifestyle, their eradication stands as an egregious error in development. If McKibben is right in believing that mutualism is the true example of progress then perhaps the wrong way of life won. The irony becomes apparent when it is said that the Europeans brought along progress and catapulted society forward. It may be justified when we feel a sense of stupidity upon realizing that those ‘savages’ had it figured out all along.

Works Cited:

McKibben, Bill. Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. Print.

Scheider, Paul. The Adirondacks: A History of America's First Wilderness. New York: H. Holt, 1998. Print.