(Pre)historical Antecedents

Since the term “history” refers only to that tiny recent fraction of the human story that was actually written down, California’s history, in that maddeningly narrow sense, began only with its first chronicled visit by European explorers a few hundred years ago, in 15—to be exact.  And, not surprisingly, all of our subsequent history until very recently was written by, for, and primarily about us newcomers.

Of course, the story (as opposed to “history”) of human life in California goes back a lot longer than that.  For the first couple hundred years, the European “presence” took the form of a few brief visits by ships of several nations during long voyages of exploration.  Only in the next 200-plus years, from 17— to the present, has there been a continuous European presence here, very tiny and tenuous at first although even then having a devastating impact on the native inhabitants.  Assuming, then, that the “Indians” have been in California only 10 or 11 thousand years, the written (i.e. European) history of the place covers at most the last 5% of its real human history.

It is fairly clear, however, than in environmental terms, as much or more was lost during that last 5% as in all the other 95%, and most of that happened only in the last 50 or 100 years.  Whether the trend continues to accelerate or not is in our own hands, a matter of choice.  The only great damage the early Indians may have done—and their part in the affair is still a matter of debate—is having some part in the mass extinction of the “Pleistocene Megafauna” (brief expl. Here).  What is more clear is that the extinctions happened relatively early in the occupation, that is, relatively soon after the people first arrived on the continent.  After that they learned how to life in relative equilibrium (“harmony”, if you like) with this new environment.

Ironic that certain crops developed by “Indians” in the Americas (most importantly corn, beans, and potatoes), having been early taken to Europe, then Africa and Asia, led to great population explosions on those continents, the pressure being relieved in part by mass migrations to the Americas; the Indians were the ultimate victims of their own Green Revolution.  Until by the time of European contact, their effect on the land, in terms of beauty, biological diversity, productivity, and overall environmental health, was not only detrimental, but actually positive.  All this thanks to a sophisticated, finely-tuned knowledge about how their environment and its component elements functioned together, and how best to manage both it and themselves in relationship to it, a knowledge combining both practical/technical and spiritual/aesthetic dimensions.

Our only hope is that somehow, and very soon, we too can come to a new, necessarily different, equilibrium with the place before it is too late.  And for us too, it will have to involve not only the technical/scientific dimension with which our culture is so comfortably familiar, but the spiritual/aesthetic dimension as well.  A relationship between a living being and a robot is not much of a relationship.  We have a long way to go and a lot to learn.

A lot of impersonal forces are against us:  time, as the juggernaut of degradation keeps picking up speed; economic forces, perceived or real; above all, the deadening disconnection between an ever-increasing majority of us an the “natural” world that sustains us in every way whether we know it or not.  One of our big challenges is to reverse that very trend.  For some of us it may be too late; the best, and maybe only, way to build such a connection is by direct experience, direct contact, from childhood.

Like learning a language, it comes naturally if it starts from the cradle; it comes hard if at all if you start too late.  Love—real intimacy—comes from exposure.

[Someplace—here?—add something about the Indian total identification with place—a tight intimacy.]

In fact, there is evidence that many whole Meso-American civilizations rose and fell long before this latest catastrophe, and for almost the same reason: agriculture—overpopulation—environmental/socal collapse—population crash and dispersal, and the cycle starts again.  Nor is this a New World phenomenon only; the same happened over and over again in the Old World, in fact it began even earlier.  The invention of agriculture led to cities, kingdoms, large-scale wars, large-scale famines, large-scale environmental degradation.