Experience 1

I was particularly interested by the anthropological analysis of the pre-contact Cherokees we learned from Julia Coates in the Cherokee history course. Even before contact with the Europeans, the Cherokee, like many of the tribes living in the Eastern woodlands of the North America, were primarily agrarian. Though they did supplement their diets with meat hunted by the men, the crops raised exclusively by the women comprised most of the diet of the early Cherokee. In fact, the Cherokee corn mother, Selu, represents the height of femininity in Cherokee oral tradition. This early emphasis placed on agriculture is interesting to me.

The Discover Magazine article The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race states that “with agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.” There is nobody on this earth who can deny having ancestors who switched from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to relying almost entirely on agriculture. Feeling guilt for the advent of agriculture is not necessary. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that our generation and the many that came before are responsible for the neglected condition of the earth and of humanity in general.
When humans started cultivating food and modifying plants, transitioning from hunter-gatherers to farmers, people were “forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production … chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.” As hunter-gatherers, humans had benefitted from naturally-balanced diets that prevented illness and even acted as rudimentary birth control. (Women (and men) were leaner and typically nursed children for 4-5 years, a time during which they would not conceive another child. With the dawning of agriculture, diets high in starch and fat caused a boom in fertility and therefore the population grew rapidly.) In Europe, with agriculture came rapid population increase and urbanization, which spelled disease (the ones that later devastated American Indian populations) and social hierarchy (which paved the road for the colonization of the North American continent).
The Cherokee have been farmers since they first inhabited this continent. This is surprising to me based on this article, which I have taken to heart. If the advent of agriculture is really the root of many of our public and environmental health crises today, then how is it that the Cherokee and other Indians, who usually protect and respect nature, could have abandoned a strictly hunter-gatherer lifestyle for agriculture so early on. Before you continue to think I am totally oblivious, I do have an answer and I have recognized what the article was really getting at. Pre-contact, Cherokees were subsistence farmers. They were not overworking the land to produce a surplus for international trade. They kept the earth healthy by practicing Swidden agriculture, letting the land lay fallow to keep it nutrient-rich. They were healthy, with diets containing plenty of lean meats and plants. The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race really applies more to the European model of agriculture, which eventually had a profound and horrific impact on the well-being of Native Americans.
I cannot think of anything to say in conclusion because I am not entirely sure that I have accurately conveyed my thoughts here. I have been working on this post for many days now and I keep drawing new conclusions about agriculture and the Cherokees. A work in progress, I suppose.