Just like the omnipresent risk of starvation to be discussed later in this chapter, environmental hazards influence people’s behavior far more than one might guess from the number of deaths or injuries caused. In fact, the number of deaths may be low precisely because so much behavior is invested in combating the hazards. For instance, lions and other big carnivores account for only 5 out of 1,000 !Kung deaths, and this might mislead one to the erroneous conclusion that lions are not a big factor in !Kung life. In reality, that low death toll reflects the profound influence of lions on !Kung life. New Guineans, living in an environment without dangerous carnivores, hunt at night; the !Kung don’t, both because it then becomes difficult to detect dangerous animals and their tracks, and because dangerous carnivores themselves are more active at night. !Kung women always go foraging in groups, constantly make noise and talk loudly to ensure that animals do not encounter them by surprise, look for tracks, and avoid running (because it incites a predator to attack). If a predator is seen in the vicinity, the !Kung may restrict their travel out of camp for a day or two.
Most accidents—those caused by animals, snakes, falling trees, falling out of a tree, bush fires, exposure, getting lost, drowning, insect bites, and thorn scratches—are associated with going out to forage for or to produce food. Most accidents could thus be avoided by staying home or in camp, but then one would acquire no food. Hence environmental dangers illustrate the modified Wayne Gretzky principle: If one takes no shots, then one will miss no shots but one is also guaranteed to score no goals. Traditional foragers and farmers, even more than Wayne Gretzky, must balance hazards against the overriding need for a steady stream of scores. Similarly, we modern city-dwellers could avoid the major hazard of urban life, car accidents, by staying home and not exposing ourselves to thousands of other drivers roaring unpredictably at 60 to 100 miles per hour along the freeways. But the jobs and shopping of most of us depend on driving. Wayne Gretzky would say: If no drives, then no pay check and no food.
Vigilance
How do traditional peoples respond to their reality of living lives always at danger from environmental hazards? Their responses include the constructive paranoia that I explained in Chapter 7, religious responses that I’ll discuss in Chapter 9, and several other practices and attitudes.
The !Kung are constantly vigilant. While out foraging or walking through the bush, they watch and listen for animals and people, and they examine tracks in the sand to deduce what animal or person made the tracks, in which direction it was traveling, at what speed, how long ago, and whether or how they should modify their plans as a result. Even while in camp they must remain vigilant, despite the deterrence value of people and noise and fires, because animals sometimes enter camps, especially snakes. If the large poisonous snake known as the black mamba is seen in a camp, the !Kung are likely to abandon the camp rather than try to kill the snake. That might seem to us an overreaction, but the black mamba is one of Africa’s most dangerous snakes because of its large size (up to eight feet), quick movements, long fangs, and potent neurotoxic venom; most bites are fatal.
In any dangerous environment, accumulated experience teaches rules of behavior to minimize the risks, rules worth following even if an outsider considers it overreacting. What Jane Goodale wrote about the outlook of the Kaulong people in the rainforests of New Britain could apply equally well to traditional peoples elsewhere, with just substitutions of the specific examples: “Prevention of accidents is important, and the knowledge of how, when, and under what circumstances any particular endeavor should or should not be undertaken is necessary to personal success and survival. Significantly, innovation in any technique or in behavior relating to the natural environment is considered to be extremely dangerous. There is a rather narrow range of correct behavior, beyond which there is the distinct and oft-stated danger of the sudden opening of the ground under one’s feet, the falling of a tree as one walks underneath, or the sudden rise of flood waters while one is attempting to cross over the other bank. For example, I was told to stop skipping stones on the surface of our river (‘a flood will come up’); not to play with fire (‘the ground will open up,’ or ‘the fire will burn you, and not cook your food’); not to call the name of cave bats while hunting them (‘the cave will collapse’); and many other ‘don’ts’ with similar sanctions carried out by the natural environment.” The same attitude underlies the philosophy of life that a New Guinea friend summed up for me: “Everything happens for a reason, so one must be cautious.”
A common Western reaction to danger that I have never, ever, encountered among experienced New Guineans is to be macho, to seek or enjoy dangerous situations, or to pretend to be unafraid and try to hide one’s own fear. Marjorie Shostak noted the lack of those same Western macho attitudes among the !Kung: “Hunts are often dangerous. The !Kung face danger courageously, but they do not seek it out or take risks for the sake of proving their courage. Actively avoiding hazardous situations is considered prudent, not cowardly or unmasculine. Young boys, moreover, are not expected to conquer their fear and act like grown men. To unnecessary risks, the !Kung say, ‘But a person could die!’”
Shostak went on to describe how a 12-year-old !Kung boy named Kashe and his cousin and his father recounted a successful hunt in which the father had speared a large gemsbok, an antelope that defended itself with long razor-sharp horns. When Shostak asked Kashe whether he was helping his father with the kill, Kashe laughed and proudly answered, “No, I was up in a tree!” “His smile became an easy laugh. Puzzled, I asked again, and he repeated that he and his cousin had climbed a tree as soon as the animal had stopped running and had stood its ground. I teased him, saying everyone would have gone hungry if the animal had been left to him and his cousin. He laughed again and said, ‘Yes, but we were so scared!’ There was no hint of embarrassment or of a need to explain what might have been seen, in our culture, as behavior lacking in courage…. There would be plenty of time for him to learn to face dangerous animals and to kill them, and there was no doubt in his mind (or his father’s, to judge from the expression on his face), that he would, one day. When I questioned the father, he beamed, ‘Up in the tree? Of course. They’re only children. They could have gotten hurt.’”
New Guineans, !Kung, and other traditional peoples relate to each other long stories of dangers encountered, not only for entertainment in the absence of television and books, but also for their educational value. Kim Hill and A. Magdalena Hurtado give some examples from Ache campfire conversations: “Stories of accidental death are sometimes told in the evening when band members relate the day’s events to things that happened in the past. Children are fascinated by these stories and probably learn invaluable lessons about the dangers of the forest, which aid in their own survival. One boy died when he forgot to pinch the head of a palm larva before swallowing it. The jaws of the larva clamped onto his throat and he choked to death. Several times an adolescent boy strayed too far from the adult men while hunting and was either never seen again or found dead several days later. One hunter who was digging an armadillo burrow fell into the hole head first and suffocated. Another fell out of a tree almost 40 m [meters] to his death while he was trying to recover an arrow that he had shot at a monkey. One small girl fell into a hole left by a bottle tree that had rotted away and broke her neck. Several men were attacked by jaguars. Some of their remains were found and others simply vanished. A boy was bitten on the head by a poisonous snake in the camp at night while he slept. He died the next day. One old woman was killed by a falling tree chopped by an adolescent girl for firewood. Henceforth the girl became known as ‘Falling Firewood,’ a nickname that reminded her daily of her misdeed. One man was bitten by a coati and later died of the wound. In a similar incident a hunter was bitten on the wrist in 1985. His main arteries and veins were punctured and he certainly would have died if he had not received modern medical attention. A small girl fell in a river while crossing on a log bridge and was swept away…. Finally, in an event that seems a stroke of truly random bad luck, six people in one band were killed when a lightning bolt struck the camp during a storm.”