“Nature really misses us.

We no longer have a relationship with plants and animals, and that’s the reason why they’re going away.”

M. Kat Anderson in Tending the Wild

M. Kat Anderson’s book, Tending the Wild, is a look at the native people of California who practiced what is today called traditional ecological knowledge. It is the story about what was happening – and had been happening for tens of thousands of years – in America, particularly in California, when European colonists arrived.

It is part science and part sacred relationship. It is the story of rocks and rivers, wild animals and fires, weeds and weavers, mollusks and meadows. It is the story of deep intimacy and knowledge, yet does not spare us from the horrors of colonial times. Ultimately, it is the story of how we might find and follow the long and rugged path back home to wildness, freedom and sustainability.

Tending the Wild is one that gives me all the feels. From the rage and despair of grief to the rooftops of hope, from fear of that wild woman calling me to absolute empowerment.

Admittedly, it’s a book that feels very personal. How rare to hear our stories from our own perspective, rather than spun by the tongues of those who never knew us nor our lands. We have only ever heard their stories of who we were and what happened to those who lived in America for millennia, wild and relatively free.

But truth, just like wildness, always finds a way. Through the cracks, light breaks through. And through the cracks, that weed pushes up through the concrete. The stories are still in the land. The plants would still recognize the songs, only if someone would come along and sing it to them, they would sing their part back.

I’m so inspired by the world – the land, the waters – being alive with stories.

How I long to know these stories, to know the songs that people used to sing with it.

Some people wonder about humans as a species, why we’re here, why the universe allowed us to exist at all, so catastrophic we are, just parasites we’ve called ourselves, an invasive species, destroying everything. I, too, have had those thoughts and asked those questions before.

But I had forgotten. We have forgotten who we were. The caretakers, the storytellers, the curators, the makers, the ones who gave back as we were taking, who lived in knowledge and kinship.

Tending the Wild is one of the books that has sparked the memory.

Nature Needs Us Too

When we think of the natural world, we tend to think of it in one of two categories…

1 – as economically productive landscape to be exploited in some way – whether it’s engineered cities where all of the commerce happens, or the countryside where agricultural, mining, forestry and other industries engineer the landscape for human use.

Or 2 – as protected nature reserves that are too precious to be trodden or touched, where we are merely visitors.

In both cases, humans are separate from nature.

This way of thinking was established by European colonists, who viewed America as an unspoiled land of opportunity, and they went absolutely beserk trying to make their wealth on whatever and however they could, while getting rid of those damn Indians who were too savage and stupid to have done anything civilized with their plentiful lands. But it was also due to the “nature lovers” like John Muir, who wrote grandiose exposés on the “pristine” and “untouched” landscapes that indigenous people didn’t seem to appreciate in any way. When Muir looked at the landscapes and waterways of California, he saw only wilderness, when actually what he was looking at was a “well-tended garden” that had evolved over thousands of years with native people, through their way of life and land management practices. They weren’t able to see the cultural refinement of it all.

The explorers, missionaries, settlers and gold seekers entering California from the 16th through the 19th centuries rarely saw it as it was –– a land carefully tended by large populations of people with remarkable and diverse cultures –– but instead saw the landscape and its inhabitants through the lenses distorted by Western ignorance, prejudice, and greed.

The colonizers variously saw California as a foreboding wilderness, a place to do God’s work, a giant untapped storehouse of wealth, and a place of raw, unspoiled beauty. Although these conceptions varied, they were consistent in two important ways: they ignored the essential humanity of the native inhabitants, and they failed to account for the changes in the landscape these people had wrought over millennia.

Tending the Wild, Ch 3, A Collision of Worlds

Indigenous ways of life made no sense to the Europeans. Where were their back-breaking agricultural systems that Europeans were perfecting – yet somehow still suffering from famine and contagious diseases? Where were their clothes, those uncomfortable straightjackets to cover and condemn their own bodies? Where was their sweat and toil? Why hadn’t they turned the gold into power and status? What sort of gods did they worship who didn’t even teach them about sin and dominion?

And because the European worldview was so absolutely dualistic – European civilization on one side, and everything else on the other – they erroneously believed themselves to be superior. In order to retain that sense of superiority, they had to dominate and convert it all to their own ideals. And that they did, not only the vast populations of people who had lived there, but also the land which indigenous people had shaped, managed and meticulously evolved.

In just a very short amount of time, European settlers altered the landscape and wildlife populations drastically and brutally, making the indigenous way of life utterly impossible for those who were lucky to survive the genocide, bringing whole ecosystems crashing down, wiping out untold beauty and natural resources, and precipitating effects of what we’re still witnessing today.

There is Hope Still

Anderson does not just leave us here. The book is only just beginning really. She goes on to tell us how indigenous people managed the natural world – the wild game, the fish, the grasses and berries, the forests and flowers, rivers and seabeds. We learn not only about their foods, but their tools and baskets, their architecture and other cultural practices. How they harvested and cultivated, how they stored and constructed, how they used fire to manage the resources in a way that benefitted the land. How they hunted and fished in a way that benefited every chain in the ecosystem.

“Nature was considered fully alive and sensate: every rock, hill, valley, wind, plant, and animal was inhabited by spirit forces.”

Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson

No bush was ever stripped of berries. Plenty of salmon were left in the rivers. Plenty of acorns were left on oak trees. People thought not only of the plant or animal itself, but also of the birds and the bears and the squirrels who also relied on those same resources.

Although native ways of using and tending the earth were diverse, the people were nonetheless unified by a fundamental land use ethic: one must interact respectfully with nature and coexist with all life forms.

[…]

The rituals that surrounded the act of harvesting, hunting or fishing were as important as the act itself. How one approached a plant or animal – with what frame of mind and heart – was very significant.

In other words, they didn’t rush up to a place, start grabbing and tromping around, and then just go. Rather, they approached it slowly and respectfully, sometimes asking for permission, sometimes singing a song or offering a prayer, always giving thanks. These rituals were considered essential. People believed that the universe responded to their cultural practices. And of course they were important for keeping people connected to the world, to all of life.

Through Anderson’s accounts, the world comes alive. The indigenous people come alive as well. We see them not as idle wanderers but as intimate caretakers. We see them not as culturally or intellectually inferior, but as incredibly inventive, wise and resourceful – and sustainable.

What is traditional ecological knowledge?

“The foundation of native peoples’ management of plants and animals was a collective storehouse of knowledge about the natural world, acquired over hundreds of years through direct experience and contact with the environment. The rich knowledge of how nature works and how to judiciously harvest and steward its plants and animals without destroying them was hard-earned; it was the product of keen observation, patience, experimentation, and long-term relationships with plants and animals. It was a knowledge built on a history, gained through many generations of learning passed down by elders about practical as well as spiritual practices. This knowledge today is commonly called ‘traditional ecological knowledge.’”

M. Kat Anderson

It is quite a different way of knowing than western science, but it still knows a lot too. In fact, in some cases it knows even more than science, which has drawn from indigenous knowledge innumerable times, and which continually proves how accurate traditional ecological knowledge is! But it is much more than research and information – it is practice. It is stories. Stories that have been passed down for more than 10,000 years from ancestors.

10,000 years is a very, very long time. More time than we can really even grasp, as we live in incredibly young societies now. Traditional societies are old – not in a stale way, but in a mature way. They have learned a lot. Survived a lot. Experimented a lot. Adapted a lot.

“This is the human story of the environment that you may be learning through science, but traditional ecological knowledge is a way of life. It’s a role that we have learned for hundreds of thousands of years. And now that role has been taken out of the equation, it’s out of balance. Now science is trying to figure out how to put things back into balance. And this is where traditional ecological knowledge can play that role once again.”

Watch KCET’s film, Tending the Wild

Restoring, Rewilding

Part III of Anderson’s book is dedicated to how we might begin restoring the land and why native knowledge is incredibly relevant in our modern world.

Despite it all, the indigenous people of California and their knowledge have survived. And their ancient management methods might be the very thing to reverse the effects of destructive wildfires, drought, loss of fish populations, soil depletion and toxicity caused by pesticides and bad farming practices, monocropping and monoculture, environmental toxins, loss of edible and medicinal plants due to invasive species, mercury poisoning, extinction and the list goes on.

One of the things that the world hears about us is that we’re not here. That it’s all past tense. All of the books, all of the TV, it all talks about us in the past tense. They lived. They worked. They ate. They were…

It’s important to know that we are. We’re here. And the native plants are here too.

Tima Link, a Shmuwich Chumash weaver

The challenges are monumental, not only in the lands, but in our minds as well. Restoring, or rewilding, will require a huge shift in how we view the natural world and our role in it. We have to begin seeing ourselves not as merely a negative “impact” but as positive caretakers who can manage resources in a way that is mutually beneficial. And we have to begin connecting again to our place, to all of the beings who can thrive in our place without having to use harmful substances or technologies that force them into unnatural rhythms and our own idealized notions of productivity.

The role indigenous people can play today cannot be overstated. It has never been credited fairly either. Their intricate knowledge of many species has greatly contributed to modern-day pharmacology, genetics, botany, agriculture, highway infrastructure and engineering, just to name a few. And while they certainly can, and should, continue to contribute to a number of industries, their greatest asset might be in rekindling the human-nature relationship, which alone would solve scores of issues.

Through restoring the land, we will also restore ourselves. The process of rewilding will seep into us, and it is not something to fear, as early colonists feared so immensely.

The deepest part of us longs for those songs, that connection, the freedom, the wonder. We have overcomplicated things unnecessarily these days, haven’t we?

I look at their photos, and I just yearn.

I feel so close to her now, the one who knows the grasses, the berries, the weeds, the one who saves the seeds, the one who sets the fires, the one who tends, the one who weaves, who keeps the water flowing, who keeps the fish and animals coming, the one who knows the songs and recites the stories, who is wild and daily restored in the common ties of life. I hear her calling, her voice seems closer than ever, quietly murmuring throughout the days, but sometimes, usually at night, a thunderous provocation.

So many nights I have longed to throw the windows open and howl back at her. Sometimes when I close my eyes I see us galloping, I am on her back. This way, this way, she assures me. And I am scared. I know who she is, and she has not been accepted in a very long time.

Yet I know who she is, and she is the source, she is the light, the dawn breaking. She is the future and is galloping backward in time to find me now. To find us now.

This way, this way.

What other way could there be?

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Related Resources

READ

Untold History: The Survival of California’s Indians – or any of the Tending Nature series on KCET

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, Braiding Sweetgrass

WATCH

Tending the Wild: Complete Broadcast Special – a film available on youtube, where you can hear contemporary indigenous people discuss their stories and efforts at land restoration.