Tending the Wild
"Tending the Wild is an examination of the extensive knowledge Native Americans brought to bear in managing California's natural resources and the imprint this management left on the state's landscape. M. Kat Anderson presents a wealth of information gleaned from biological research and historical literature, as well as interviews with California Indians who describe the Old Ways of relating to nature they learned from their parents and grandparents and still practice today. The complex picture that emerges dispels the stereotype of Native Americans as hunter-gatherers, a stereotype long perpetuated in anthropological and historical literature."--Jacket.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
13mentions
8people
2018–2026years
54% recommend46% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Another inspiring book in this vein is Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson. It looks at how Native Americans in California lived and managed the landscape. It gets really specific about which plants they'd use and how.
A big part of the book is about reconceptualizing this idea of the romantic "wild" nature. I think it's interesting because it's an example of people who actually lived in a "back to nature" kind of way, but it doesn't look like a rural homestead or anything like that. It's also different in how it's collective not individualistic. The author cites Muir and Berry as influences
- As always happens in these threads - and for good reason - let's be sure to mention the book "Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources", by M. Kat Anderson. I learned about this book here on HN and it has transformed the way I think about this topic.
I particularly recommend the superb audiobook.
Through a series of interviews, this book makes the case the practice of basketweaving by indigenous people living in present-day California - and the massive and well-organized trade of hundreds of different types of baskets - is/was not merely a mechanism of subsistence, but actually a brilliant wildfire control strategy.
Anderson and her many stunning interview subjects - indigenous people recalling the practices of grandparents and their siblings - make a compelling case that by encouraging the hundreds of different species which went into the creation of baskets to grow in certain places and not others, ancestors sculpted the landscape into one in which fires burned out in predictable patterns rather than scorching a significant portion of the continent.
- I cannot strongly enough suggest the book "Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources" by M. Kat Anderson.
It was suggested to me in a comment here on HN, though I cannot now seem to find it by searching.
- You might find this book interesting - Native American management of land via fire is a central theme:
Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources by M. Kat Anderson
- Thanks for bringing up this book. Everyone who lives in California and thinks about nature needs to check out Tending the Wild.
- What you are saying is not really correct. A good book on this topic is "Tending the Wild" by M. Kat Anderson
