What do you think?
Rate this book
Yol Bilenler - Kadim Bilgeliğin Modern Dünyadaki Önemi
Her kültür “İnsan olmanın ve yaşamanın anlamı nedir?” sorusuna verilen emsalsiz bir yanıttır. Antropolog Wade Davis dünyadaki yerel kültürlerin bilgeliğini methettiği nefes kesici bir yolculuğa çıkarıyor bizi.
İlkin Polinezya’da, ataları İsa’dan bin yıl önce Pasifik’te yaşayan seyrüsefercilerle denizlere yelken açıyoruz. Derken Amazon’da kayıp bir medeniyetin torunlarıyla, Anakonda halklarıyla tanışıyoruz. Ardından Andlar’da yeryüzünün gerçekten canlı olduğunu keşfederken, Avustralya’da Afrika’dan yola çıkan ilk insanların her şeyi kapsayan felsefesini, Rüya Zamanı’nı deneyimliyoruz. Sonra Nepal’e gidip kırk beş yılını tefekküre ve yalnızlığa adamış en büyük kahramanla, gerçek bir Bodhisattva’yla karşılaşıyoruz. En nihayetinde de soluğu hayatta kalma savaşı veren son yağmur ormanı göçebelerinin mekanı Borneo’da alıyoruz.
Bu yolculuktan çıkarılacak dersleri anlamak gelecek yüzyılda görevimiz olacak. Zira insanlığın mirası –engin bir bilgi ve deneyim arşivi, koca bir hayal gücü kataloğu– büyük tehlike altında. Kültürün ifade ettiği şekliyle insan ruhunun çeşitliliğini yeniden takdir etmek, zamanımızın en zorlu ve temel vazifelerinden biri.
“Değişim de teknoloji de kültürel bütünlüğü tehdit eden şeyler değildir. Esas tehdit iktidardır, vahşi tahakkümdür. Batı’daki yaygın düşünceye göre, söz konusu yerli halklar, yani Batı’yla pek de ilgisi olmayan ‘ötekiler’, her ne kadar olağandışı ve renkli olursa olsun, adeta doğa yasaları gereği, modernleşmek ve Batılılar gibi olmak konusunda sanki başarılı olamamışlar gibi, öyle ya da böyle yok olup gitmeye mahkumdur. Düpedüz yanlış bir düşüncedir bu.”
İlkin Polinezya’da, ataları İsa’dan bin yıl önce Pasifik’te yaşayan seyrüsefercilerle denizlere yelken açıyoruz. Derken Amazon’da kayıp bir medeniyetin torunlarıyla, Anakonda halklarıyla tanışıyoruz. Ardından Andlar’da yeryüzünün gerçekten canlı olduğunu keşfederken, Avustralya’da Afrika’dan yola çıkan ilk insanların her şeyi kapsayan felsefesini, Rüya Zamanı’nı deneyimliyoruz. Sonra Nepal’e gidip kırk beş yılını tefekküre ve yalnızlığa adamış en büyük kahramanla, gerçek bir Bodhisattva’yla karşılaşıyoruz. En nihayetinde de soluğu hayatta kalma savaşı veren son yağmur ormanı göçebelerinin mekanı Borneo’da alıyoruz.
Bu yolculuktan çıkarılacak dersleri anlamak gelecek yüzyılda görevimiz olacak. Zira insanlığın mirası –engin bir bilgi ve deneyim arşivi, koca bir hayal gücü kataloğu– büyük tehlike altında. Kültürün ifade ettiği şekliyle insan ruhunun çeşitliliğini yeniden takdir etmek, zamanımızın en zorlu ve temel vazifelerinden biri.
“Değişim de teknoloji de kültürel bütünlüğü tehdit eden şeyler değildir. Esas tehdit iktidardır, vahşi tahakkümdür. Batı’daki yaygın düşünceye göre, söz konusu yerli halklar, yani Batı’yla pek de ilgisi olmayan ‘ötekiler’, her ne kadar olağandışı ve renkli olursa olsun, adeta doğa yasaları gereği, modernleşmek ve Batılılar gibi olmak konusunda sanki başarılı olamamışlar gibi, öyle ya da böyle yok olup gitmeye mahkumdur. Düpedüz yanlış bir düşüncedir bu.”
224 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2009
575 people are currently reading
12465 people want to read
About the author
Wade Davis
85 books827 followersEdmund Wade Davis has been described as "a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet, and passionate defender of all of life's diversity."
An ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent more than three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections. His work later took him to Haiti to investigate folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an assignment that led to his writing Passage of Darkness (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an international best seller that appeared in ten languages and was later released by Universal as a motion picture.
His other books include Penan: Voice for the Borneo Rain Forest (1990), Shadows in the Sun (1993), Nomads of the Dawn (1995), The Clouded Leopard (1998), Rainforest (1998), Light at the Edge of the World (2001), The Lost Amazon (2004), Grand Canyon (2008), Book of Peoples of the World (ed. 2008), and One River (1996), which was nominated for the 1997 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Into the Silence, an epic history of World War I and the early British efforts to summit Everest, was published in October, 2011. Sheets of Distant Rain will follow.
Davis is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2002 Lowell Thomas Medal (The Explorers Club) and the 2002 Lannan Foundation prize for literary nonfiction. In 2004 he was made an honorary member of the Explorers Club, one of just 20 in the hundred-year history of the club. In recent years his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the high Arctic of Nunavut and Greenland.
A native of British Columbia, Davis, a licensed river guide, has worked as park ranger and forestry engineer and conducted ethnographic fieldwork among several indigenous societies of northern Canada. He has published 150 scientific and popular articles on subjects ranging from Haitian vodoun and Amazonian myth and religion to the global biodiversity crisis, the traditional use of psychotropic drugs, and the ethnobotany of South American Indians.
Davis has written for National Geographic, Newsweek, Premiere, Outside, Omni, Harpers, Fortune, Men's Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, Natural History, Utne Reader, National Geographic Traveler, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Globe and Mail, and several other international publications.
His photographs have been featured in a number of exhibits and have been widely published, appearing in some 20 books and more than 80 magazines, journals, and newspapers. His research has been the subject of more than 700 media reports and interviews in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, and has inspired numerous documentary films as well as three episodes of the television series The X Files.
A professional speaker for nearly 20 years, Davis has lectured at the National Geographic Society, American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and California Academy of Sciences, as well as many other museums and some 200 universities, including Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Yale, and Stanford. He has spoken at the Aspen Institute, Bohemian Grove, Young President’s Organization, and TED Conference. His corporate clients have included Microsoft, Shell, Hallmark, Bank of Nova Scotia, MacKenzie Financials, Healthcare Association of Southern California, National Science Teachers Association, and many others.
An honorary research associate of the Institute of Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Garden, he is a fellow of the Linnean Society, the Explorers Club, and the Royal Geographical Society.
(Source: National Geographic)
An ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent more than three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections. His work later took him to Haiti to investigate folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an assignment that led to his writing Passage of Darkness (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an international best seller that appeared in ten languages and was later released by Universal as a motion picture.
His other books include Penan: Voice for the Borneo Rain Forest (1990), Shadows in the Sun (1993), Nomads of the Dawn (1995), The Clouded Leopard (1998), Rainforest (1998), Light at the Edge of the World (2001), The Lost Amazon (2004), Grand Canyon (2008), Book of Peoples of the World (ed. 2008), and One River (1996), which was nominated for the 1997 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Into the Silence, an epic history of World War I and the early British efforts to summit Everest, was published in October, 2011. Sheets of Distant Rain will follow.
Davis is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2002 Lowell Thomas Medal (The Explorers Club) and the 2002 Lannan Foundation prize for literary nonfiction. In 2004 he was made an honorary member of the Explorers Club, one of just 20 in the hundred-year history of the club. In recent years his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the high Arctic of Nunavut and Greenland.
A native of British Columbia, Davis, a licensed river guide, has worked as park ranger and forestry engineer and conducted ethnographic fieldwork among several indigenous societies of northern Canada. He has published 150 scientific and popular articles on subjects ranging from Haitian vodoun and Amazonian myth and religion to the global biodiversity crisis, the traditional use of psychotropic drugs, and the ethnobotany of South American Indians.
Davis has written for National Geographic, Newsweek, Premiere, Outside, Omni, Harpers, Fortune, Men's Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, Natural History, Utne Reader, National Geographic Traveler, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Globe and Mail, and several other international publications.
His photographs have been featured in a number of exhibits and have been widely published, appearing in some 20 books and more than 80 magazines, journals, and newspapers. His research has been the subject of more than 700 media reports and interviews in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, and has inspired numerous documentary films as well as three episodes of the television series The X Files.
A professional speaker for nearly 20 years, Davis has lectured at the National Geographic Society, American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and California Academy of Sciences, as well as many other museums and some 200 universities, including Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Yale, and Stanford. He has spoken at the Aspen Institute, Bohemian Grove, Young President’s Organization, and TED Conference. His corporate clients have included Microsoft, Shell, Hallmark, Bank of Nova Scotia, MacKenzie Financials, Healthcare Association of Southern California, National Science Teachers Association, and many others.
An honorary research associate of the Institute of Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Garden, he is a fellow of the Linnean Society, the Explorers Club, and the Royal Geographical Society.
(Source: National Geographic)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 457 reviews
April 26, 2017
The Wayfinders is a passionate exploration of several modern-day traditional cultures - ancient people practicing ways of life which have barely changed over thousands of years, often passed down without written language and rich in social, spiritual and environmental significance.
The book details epic pilgrimages and exceptional feats of human ingenuity rivaling the most advanced technological capabilities of modern times and far exceeding any religious feats of the "developed" world. Perhaps most fascinating is the author's explanations of the various cultural worldviews and how steeped in coexistence and harmony they are - entire ways of life beautifully revolving around rite and respect for the surrounding environment and the elements necessary for the survival of mankind.
Such cultures are being lost at a rate which exceeds that of global biodiversity loss - a tragedy that must be stopped in order to preserve alternative paradigms for mankind's meaning. Within each distinct culture exists a unique philosophy on how to live and for what to live; as these cultures die, so too do our collective abilities to learn from and emulate them. Given the immense wisdom and sustainable essence of ancient cultures inspired by survival, Davis argues that it is critical we both protect and learn from them; especially given the undeniable destructiveness of the dominant Western capitalistic culture. Perhaps we need to adopt a new paradigm before our economic and philosophical systems of competition and wealth accumulation have devoured what's left of our cultural and natural systems.
All in all, The Wayfinders is a poetic, insightful and important read for anyone interested in ancient cultures, especially those who doubt the importance of preserving them. I highly recommend it.
The book details epic pilgrimages and exceptional feats of human ingenuity rivaling the most advanced technological capabilities of modern times and far exceeding any religious feats of the "developed" world. Perhaps most fascinating is the author's explanations of the various cultural worldviews and how steeped in coexistence and harmony they are - entire ways of life beautifully revolving around rite and respect for the surrounding environment and the elements necessary for the survival of mankind.
Such cultures are being lost at a rate which exceeds that of global biodiversity loss - a tragedy that must be stopped in order to preserve alternative paradigms for mankind's meaning. Within each distinct culture exists a unique philosophy on how to live and for what to live; as these cultures die, so too do our collective abilities to learn from and emulate them. Given the immense wisdom and sustainable essence of ancient cultures inspired by survival, Davis argues that it is critical we both protect and learn from them; especially given the undeniable destructiveness of the dominant Western capitalistic culture. Perhaps we need to adopt a new paradigm before our economic and philosophical systems of competition and wealth accumulation have devoured what's left of our cultural and natural systems.
All in all, The Wayfinders is a poetic, insightful and important read for anyone interested in ancient cultures, especially those who doubt the importance of preserving them. I highly recommend it.
November 28, 2009
I found this book a little difficult to follow. It wasn't that it was poorly written, or that the individual parts didn't make sense. I found myself waiting for the kicker in his argument, the part where he told the reader why ancient wisdom really does matter.
The chapters all told very compelling stories about various indigenous cultures, and documented the decline of these same cultures in the face of "economic development". Davis talks about different ways of seeing the world, and various realities that indigenous groups live.
The real argument in the book, where Davis does in fact reveal why everyone should do more to heed traditional knowledge and ways of living, doesn't emerge until the final ten pages. I think the reader would have been well served to see the argument a bit more explicitly. Given the nature of the book - it was written as a series of independent lectures - the onus on the author to make an explicit point should have been pretty clear. A bunch of stories does not make a coherent point.
In any case, the reader emerges with a wealth of new ways of seeing the world, and a profound appreciation for other cultures. It's a good read, and very worthwhile.
The chapters all told very compelling stories about various indigenous cultures, and documented the decline of these same cultures in the face of "economic development". Davis talks about different ways of seeing the world, and various realities that indigenous groups live.
The real argument in the book, where Davis does in fact reveal why everyone should do more to heed traditional knowledge and ways of living, doesn't emerge until the final ten pages. I think the reader would have been well served to see the argument a bit more explicitly. Given the nature of the book - it was written as a series of independent lectures - the onus on the author to make an explicit point should have been pretty clear. A bunch of stories does not make a coherent point.
In any case, the reader emerges with a wealth of new ways of seeing the world, and a profound appreciation for other cultures. It's a good read, and very worthwhile.
August 9, 2012
Why ancient wisdom matters in the modern world is what Wade Davis wants us to understand. He points out universal attributes of indigenous peoples and how they are connected to the land and in tune with the natural world they inhabit. The early Polynesian navigators, or “Wayfinders”, could read the movement of the clouds, the stirring of the ocean currents and celestial movements. Long before European explorers like Captain Cook who claimed so many of the islands in the south Pacific to belong to the English crown, they memorized the stars in the heavens and used them to chart journeys that took them thousands of miles across deep ocean waters. It is the connection to the living world that modern people are losing and what we can learn from ancient cultures. Davis takes us to the Amazon basin where we learn about the people of the Anaconda, Australia and the beleaguered Aboriginals clinging to their Dreamtime, then on to Nepal and Borneo. Davis is a travel writer as much as he is an ethno botanist. He takes up where Joseph Campbell left off in the search for interconnectedness in the human experience and shares these insights in way that the average person can understand.
July 3, 2021
Wade Davis is a legendary figure in the worlds of exploration and anthropology, and this series of essays (he was invited to deliver the prestigious CBC Massey Lectures in 2008/09) is a superb introduction to his work. Five essays dedicated to the proposition that each ancient society, regardless of its lack of “technological advancement” as defined by biased Western standards, possesses a unique genius exquisitely suited to its own milieu, its physical and spiritual culture a thoroughly well-considered response to its particular time and place.
By the time you’ve understood the adaptations of the San hunters to their arid Kalahari homeland, you are sitting up straighter, because your eyes have suddenly been opened, he’s got your full attention. And when you are finally through with the phenomenal chapter on Polynesian seafaring, you need no further persuasion, because he has laid out in front of you a story of human daring and sophisticated adventuring that can only really be compared to man’s voyage to the moon. The purposeful settlement of the Pacific was no less daunting, no less impossible, and in a tour de force analysis, Wade lays out the bones of how it was done and how it continues today.
By the time you’ve understood the adaptations of the San hunters to their arid Kalahari homeland, you are sitting up straighter, because your eyes have suddenly been opened, he’s got your full attention. And when you are finally through with the phenomenal chapter on Polynesian seafaring, you need no further persuasion, because he has laid out in front of you a story of human daring and sophisticated adventuring that can only really be compared to man’s voyage to the moon. The purposeful settlement of the Pacific was no less daunting, no less impossible, and in a tour de force analysis, Wade lays out the bones of how it was done and how it continues today.
January 19, 2013
There is a new book by Jared Diamond that is getting a lot of publicity, but it strikes me that Wade Davis lectured on a similar topic back in 2009 for the Canadian Massey Lecture Series, from which this book was taken.
(The Massey Lectures, a week-long annual series of lectures on a political, cultural, or philosophical topic, given by a scholar, have been around since 1961. The series is sponsored jointly by Canadian Broadcasting Corp. radio, Anansi Press--which then publishes the lectures in book form--, and Massey College of the University of Toronto.)
I stumbled upon this book while looking for something else entirely, and I consider it a sort of serendipity, since the book so challenged my very Western way of thinking. Davis is a botanist and an anthropologist who has studied very diverse native cultures. The point of the book, to me an any rate, is that, although these indigenous cultures are usually viewed by those of us in the West as primitive and backward, their ideas are actually more suited to their lands and climates than those of colonial cultures who have usurped their lands. In the lectures, he takes a closer look at Polynesians, who were navigating among far-flung islands of the Pacific long before any instruments of navigation had been invented; at the peoples living in the rain forests along the Amazon in South America; at the Aborigines of Australia;at the Tuareg of Africa; and at the First Nations tribes of Canada. He touches on other cultures along the way, but this book is so rich I am hard-pressed to do it justice in my own puny words. Permit me to share some quotes from the book with you.
To the rhetorical question, 'what difference does it really make to us if a small culture disappears?', he responds on pg. 166:
"...What does it matter if a single species of life becomes extinct? Well, imagine you are getting onto an airplane, and you notice that the mechanic is popping out the rivets in the wings. You ask the obvious question and the mechanic says, "No problem. We save money with each rivet and so far we've had no problems." Perhaps the loss of a single rivet makes no difference, but eventually the wings fall off. It is the same thing with culture. If the marathon monks cease to run, or if the children of the Mentawai shift their sense of beauty to something more mundane and uninspired, or if the Naxi shaman no longer write in stone and abandon their native script, Dongba, the world's last living hieroglyphic language, will the sky fall? No. But we're not talking about the loss of a single species of life or a single cultural adaptation. We are speaking about a waterfall of destruction unprecedented in the history of our species. In our lifetime half of the voices of humanity are being silenced.
The problem is not change. We have this conceit in the West that while we have been celebrating and developing technological wizardry, somehow the other peoples of the world have been static and intellectually idle. Nothing could be further from the truth. Change is the one constant in history. All peoples in all places are always dancing with new possibilities for life......It is neither change nor technology that threatens the integrity of culture. It is power, the crude face of domination. We have this idea that these indigenous peoples, these distant others, quaint and colourful though they may be, are somehow destined to fade away, as if by natural law, as if they are failed attempts at being modern, failed attempts at being us. This is simply not true. In every case these are dynamic living peoples being driven out of existence by identifiable and overwhelming external forces...."
[end quote]
I have marked many passages in this book, but they are too many to share. Let me continue with this quote from pgs. 193-195:
"We too are culturally myopic and often forget that we represent not the absolute wave of history but merely a world view, and that modernity--whether you identify it by the monikers westernization, globalization, capitalism, democracy, or free trade -- is but an expression of our cultural values. It is not some objective force removed from the constraints of culture. And it is certainly not the true and only pulse of history. It is merely a constellation of beliefs, convictions, economic paradigms that represent one way of doing things, of going about the complex process of organizing human activities. Our achievements to be sure have been stunning, our technological innovations dazzling.......But these accomplishments do not make the Western paradigm exceptional or suggest in any way that it has or ought to have a monopoly on the path to the future. An anthropologist from a distant planet landing in the United States would see many wondrous things. But he or she or it would also encounter a culture that reveres marriage, yet allows half of its marriages to end in divorce; that admires its elderly, yet has grandparents living with grandchildren in only 6 percent of its households; that loves its children, yet embraces a slogan -- "twenty-four/seven" -- that implies total devotion to the workplace at the expense of the family......Our way of life, inspired in so many ways, is not the paragon of humanity's potential. Once we look through the anthropological lens and see, perhaps for the first time, that all cultures have unique attributes that reflect choices made over generations, it becomes absolutely clear that there is no universal progression in the lives and destiny of human beings."
[end quote]
And finally, I'll close with this statement from pg. 198:
"Were I to distill a single message from these Massey Lectures it would be that culture is not trivial."
At the beginning of chapter four, Davis quotes Albert Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift."
This thought-provoking book gave me a nudge to listen to the intuitive and to look for answers outside of my own culture.
If you are interested in hearing Wade Davis speak, he has a couple of TED lectures archived here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_o...
(The Massey Lectures, a week-long annual series of lectures on a political, cultural, or philosophical topic, given by a scholar, have been around since 1961. The series is sponsored jointly by Canadian Broadcasting Corp. radio, Anansi Press--which then publishes the lectures in book form--, and Massey College of the University of Toronto.)
I stumbled upon this book while looking for something else entirely, and I consider it a sort of serendipity, since the book so challenged my very Western way of thinking. Davis is a botanist and an anthropologist who has studied very diverse native cultures. The point of the book, to me an any rate, is that, although these indigenous cultures are usually viewed by those of us in the West as primitive and backward, their ideas are actually more suited to their lands and climates than those of colonial cultures who have usurped their lands. In the lectures, he takes a closer look at Polynesians, who were navigating among far-flung islands of the Pacific long before any instruments of navigation had been invented; at the peoples living in the rain forests along the Amazon in South America; at the Aborigines of Australia;at the Tuareg of Africa; and at the First Nations tribes of Canada. He touches on other cultures along the way, but this book is so rich I am hard-pressed to do it justice in my own puny words. Permit me to share some quotes from the book with you.
To the rhetorical question, 'what difference does it really make to us if a small culture disappears?', he responds on pg. 166:
"...What does it matter if a single species of life becomes extinct? Well, imagine you are getting onto an airplane, and you notice that the mechanic is popping out the rivets in the wings. You ask the obvious question and the mechanic says, "No problem. We save money with each rivet and so far we've had no problems." Perhaps the loss of a single rivet makes no difference, but eventually the wings fall off. It is the same thing with culture. If the marathon monks cease to run, or if the children of the Mentawai shift their sense of beauty to something more mundane and uninspired, or if the Naxi shaman no longer write in stone and abandon their native script, Dongba, the world's last living hieroglyphic language, will the sky fall? No. But we're not talking about the loss of a single species of life or a single cultural adaptation. We are speaking about a waterfall of destruction unprecedented in the history of our species. In our lifetime half of the voices of humanity are being silenced.
The problem is not change. We have this conceit in the West that while we have been celebrating and developing technological wizardry, somehow the other peoples of the world have been static and intellectually idle. Nothing could be further from the truth. Change is the one constant in history. All peoples in all places are always dancing with new possibilities for life......It is neither change nor technology that threatens the integrity of culture. It is power, the crude face of domination. We have this idea that these indigenous peoples, these distant others, quaint and colourful though they may be, are somehow destined to fade away, as if by natural law, as if they are failed attempts at being modern, failed attempts at being us. This is simply not true. In every case these are dynamic living peoples being driven out of existence by identifiable and overwhelming external forces...."
[end quote]
I have marked many passages in this book, but they are too many to share. Let me continue with this quote from pgs. 193-195:
"We too are culturally myopic and often forget that we represent not the absolute wave of history but merely a world view, and that modernity--whether you identify it by the monikers westernization, globalization, capitalism, democracy, or free trade -- is but an expression of our cultural values. It is not some objective force removed from the constraints of culture. And it is certainly not the true and only pulse of history. It is merely a constellation of beliefs, convictions, economic paradigms that represent one way of doing things, of going about the complex process of organizing human activities. Our achievements to be sure have been stunning, our technological innovations dazzling.......But these accomplishments do not make the Western paradigm exceptional or suggest in any way that it has or ought to have a monopoly on the path to the future. An anthropologist from a distant planet landing in the United States would see many wondrous things. But he or she or it would also encounter a culture that reveres marriage, yet allows half of its marriages to end in divorce; that admires its elderly, yet has grandparents living with grandchildren in only 6 percent of its households; that loves its children, yet embraces a slogan -- "twenty-four/seven" -- that implies total devotion to the workplace at the expense of the family......Our way of life, inspired in so many ways, is not the paragon of humanity's potential. Once we look through the anthropological lens and see, perhaps for the first time, that all cultures have unique attributes that reflect choices made over generations, it becomes absolutely clear that there is no universal progression in the lives and destiny of human beings."
[end quote]
And finally, I'll close with this statement from pg. 198:
"Were I to distill a single message from these Massey Lectures it would be that culture is not trivial."
At the beginning of chapter four, Davis quotes Albert Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift."
This thought-provoking book gave me a nudge to listen to the intuitive and to look for answers outside of my own culture.
If you are interested in hearing Wade Davis speak, he has a couple of TED lectures archived here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_o...
November 27, 2015
Easily the best book I've read in awhile, if not ever. I picked it up with no expectations and minimal interest and was immediately sucked into his story telling. He takes you on a journey through science, history, human genius, our natural relationship with the earth, the mistakes we've made and the conquences we are facing now and going forward. Having just finished the book, I feel as though I have a responsibility to the planet and a new respect for the diverse cultures in it. Wade is an exceptional (Canadian) writer with connections to the National Geographic team; he is also an anthroplogist, ethnobotonist, filmmaker and photographer. He has a mind blowing amount of knowledge and experience to his name, and I will definitely be reading his book again!
February 4, 2024
Levhayı başa çakalım: Hazine kitap.
Wade Davis Batı'nın Amazon'da, Pasifik’te, Andlar'da, Borneo'da imha ettiği ve bugün artık sembolik anlamda yaşayan yerlileri bizzat ziyaret ederek, hatta aralarında yaşayarak dünüyle bugünüyle senli-benli bir dille anlatıyor. Davis kitabı bitirirken "kereste ihtiyacı" için dümdüz edilen cennetten köşe ormanların ve "insandan sayılmadıkları" için de yok edilen yerli halkların dökümünü verdikten sonra, gerçekçi bir perspektiften (taraf tutmadan) çok sert tartışmaya girip tatlıya bağlıyor meseleyi: Katliamlar ayrım gözetmeksizin sistemseldir. Yerlilerin anlatıkları, Dünya'nın iflas ettiğinin işaretlerini veriyor. Batılılar olarak yerlileri duymak zorundayız...
Wade Davis Batı'nın Amazon'da, Pasifik’te, Andlar'da, Borneo'da imha ettiği ve bugün artık sembolik anlamda yaşayan yerlileri bizzat ziyaret ederek, hatta aralarında yaşayarak dünüyle bugünüyle senli-benli bir dille anlatıyor. Davis kitabı bitirirken "kereste ihtiyacı" için dümdüz edilen cennetten köşe ormanların ve "insandan sayılmadıkları" için de yok edilen yerli halkların dökümünü verdikten sonra, gerçekçi bir perspektiften (taraf tutmadan) çok sert tartışmaya girip tatlıya bağlıyor meseleyi: Katliamlar ayrım gözetmeksizin sistemseldir. Yerlilerin anlatıkları, Dünya'nın iflas ettiğinin işaretlerini veriyor. Batılılar olarak yerlileri duymak zorundayız...
July 16, 2015
Zamanın olmadığı bir yolculuğa çıkmak gibi...
April 18, 2010
With the converging crises of imminent energy scarcity, environmental degradation, resource depletion and economic insolvency, suddenly I’m recognizing the apogee of our modern civilization may have passed us by a few decades ago. Being on the slope of globalization’s decline as opposed to its ascent or plateau is a precarious position, mainly because the evidence increasingly indicates an ever more bleak definition of the future. But that’s precisely why I found Wade Davis’ 2009 CBC Massey Lectures collected in The Wayfinders so deeply inspiring. The way we define our lives and the meaning of being a human is far from an absolute and objective answer to reality, it has been the result of numerous decisions made in a compounding form over hundreds of years. Because humanity at large expresses itself in the form of modernity is largely a result of the ever growing demand our lifestyle has on ever more hard to reach raw material inputs. Although I listened to this entire series of lectures through the CBC Ideas Podcast, Davis’ presentation hit me with much more gravity the second time around.
The genius and intelligence recognized by modern humanity is only in that of highly advanced technology while the genius of the cultures detailed in The Wayfinders takes many different forms. Each culture is far from trivial but an answer to the questions that come with being human, all of these answers just as impressive as our own. Our tendency is for to look at the naked and painted body of the native as a failed attempt at modernity. A native to be saved by induction into our economic system with all the benefits of employment and monetary exchange. Even until the 1960’s some Australian textbooks included the Aboriginals among, “interesting animals of the country”. To this point Davis quotes from the testimony of a Penan nomad to the UN General Assembly in 1992, “The (Malaysian) government says that it is bringing us development. But the only development that we see is dusty logging roads and relocation camps. For us, their so-called progress means only starvation, dependence, helplessness, the destruction of our culture and the demoralization of our people. The government says it is creating jobs for our people. Why do we need jobs? My father and grandfather did not have t o ask the government for jobs. They were never unemployed. They lived from the land and from the forest. It was a good life. We were never hungry or in need… In ten years all the jobs will be gone and the forest that has sustained us for thousands of years will be gone with them.”
Davis is able to continue his discussion without resorting to the “noble savage” or the Hobbesian, “nasty, brutish and short” dichotomy. For the cultures he touches on from Australia, the Americas, Africa and Asia it is clear that a genius is required to flourish in harsh environments, against any odds we would consider possible. And all of this despite harmful environmental degradation brought about by our lifestyle. Denial of climate change is a luxury provided by a temperate environment and disconnection from the natural world. For native peoples, when the glaciers their ancestors have worshiped for generations are disappearing and the Arctic lands they’ve hunted annually for all of history fail to freeze but for a few months there is no ideology, only survival.
I was nearly drawn to tears by the examples of rituals and lifestyles Davis uses to illustrate the depth of beauty of human experience. The Pacific islanders sailing thousands of kilometers between beautiful islands with wind blowing through their hair to complete the Kula gift sharing ring live the lives we can only experience through fictional characters projected onto glowing rectangles. The indigenous have no sense of paid employment, of work as burden as opposed to leisure as recreation. These cultures are the definition of the human experience that we have lost and try to replace through futile substitutes. These people experience pain and suffering along with glory and triumph, but through the full spectrum of being human, as opposed to our path which fails in its attempts to shield us from the realities of death and darkness.
These cultures have disappeared rapidly over the last hundred years, entire ways of life wiped out in less than a generation. Davis wonders why we have a universal rejection of genocide yet the ubiquitous practice of ethnocide destroys more than individuals but whole solutions to the human experience. We may discredit an indigenous approach to life, but they disdain the fact that so many of our own suffer from abject poverty. A native tribesman from Malaysia when observing the homeless in Canada said, “How can homelessness exist, a poor man shames us all.”
The most important lecture included in this collection was the discussion of sacred geography, of the stewardship shown by indigenous to their land. When the Spanish tore down Incan churches and monuments, building Christian churches and monasteries in their place, the native villagers celebrated because this further confirmed the sacredness of those sites. Likely not the reaction the Spanish intended. If we are to look at cultures in terms of success and failure, wouldn’t the successful culture be the one that has survived for over 50,000 years in the harsh deserts of Australia as opposed to our modern world on the verge of extinction after only 300? An idea of a sacred connection to land may be dismissed as meaningless supersition, but if it does not draw from an actual spirit world, perhaps it was the technological solution created long ago to ensure our species wouldn’t destroy the earth.
Davis has convinced me that when we talk about threats to our planet such as climate change or peak oil, we’re really talking about the end of our globalized civilization and not the extinction of humanity. Our species can exist in many other forms that live far more meaningful lives than the “modern man”. And for that reason, no matter how bleak the global situation may appear to be, the existence of the indigenous and their ability to maintain ancient wisdom despite all odds is a reason for hope.
The genius and intelligence recognized by modern humanity is only in that of highly advanced technology while the genius of the cultures detailed in The Wayfinders takes many different forms. Each culture is far from trivial but an answer to the questions that come with being human, all of these answers just as impressive as our own. Our tendency is for to look at the naked and painted body of the native as a failed attempt at modernity. A native to be saved by induction into our economic system with all the benefits of employment and monetary exchange. Even until the 1960’s some Australian textbooks included the Aboriginals among, “interesting animals of the country”. To this point Davis quotes from the testimony of a Penan nomad to the UN General Assembly in 1992, “The (Malaysian) government says that it is bringing us development. But the only development that we see is dusty logging roads and relocation camps. For us, their so-called progress means only starvation, dependence, helplessness, the destruction of our culture and the demoralization of our people. The government says it is creating jobs for our people. Why do we need jobs? My father and grandfather did not have t o ask the government for jobs. They were never unemployed. They lived from the land and from the forest. It was a good life. We were never hungry or in need… In ten years all the jobs will be gone and the forest that has sustained us for thousands of years will be gone with them.”
Davis is able to continue his discussion without resorting to the “noble savage” or the Hobbesian, “nasty, brutish and short” dichotomy. For the cultures he touches on from Australia, the Americas, Africa and Asia it is clear that a genius is required to flourish in harsh environments, against any odds we would consider possible. And all of this despite harmful environmental degradation brought about by our lifestyle. Denial of climate change is a luxury provided by a temperate environment and disconnection from the natural world. For native peoples, when the glaciers their ancestors have worshiped for generations are disappearing and the Arctic lands they’ve hunted annually for all of history fail to freeze but for a few months there is no ideology, only survival.
I was nearly drawn to tears by the examples of rituals and lifestyles Davis uses to illustrate the depth of beauty of human experience. The Pacific islanders sailing thousands of kilometers between beautiful islands with wind blowing through their hair to complete the Kula gift sharing ring live the lives we can only experience through fictional characters projected onto glowing rectangles. The indigenous have no sense of paid employment, of work as burden as opposed to leisure as recreation. These cultures are the definition of the human experience that we have lost and try to replace through futile substitutes. These people experience pain and suffering along with glory and triumph, but through the full spectrum of being human, as opposed to our path which fails in its attempts to shield us from the realities of death and darkness.
These cultures have disappeared rapidly over the last hundred years, entire ways of life wiped out in less than a generation. Davis wonders why we have a universal rejection of genocide yet the ubiquitous practice of ethnocide destroys more than individuals but whole solutions to the human experience. We may discredit an indigenous approach to life, but they disdain the fact that so many of our own suffer from abject poverty. A native tribesman from Malaysia when observing the homeless in Canada said, “How can homelessness exist, a poor man shames us all.”
The most important lecture included in this collection was the discussion of sacred geography, of the stewardship shown by indigenous to their land. When the Spanish tore down Incan churches and monuments, building Christian churches and monasteries in their place, the native villagers celebrated because this further confirmed the sacredness of those sites. Likely not the reaction the Spanish intended. If we are to look at cultures in terms of success and failure, wouldn’t the successful culture be the one that has survived for over 50,000 years in the harsh deserts of Australia as opposed to our modern world on the verge of extinction after only 300? An idea of a sacred connection to land may be dismissed as meaningless supersition, but if it does not draw from an actual spirit world, perhaps it was the technological solution created long ago to ensure our species wouldn’t destroy the earth.
Davis has convinced me that when we talk about threats to our planet such as climate change or peak oil, we’re really talking about the end of our globalized civilization and not the extinction of humanity. Our species can exist in many other forms that live far more meaningful lives than the “modern man”. And for that reason, no matter how bleak the global situation may appear to be, the existence of the indigenous and their ability to maintain ancient wisdom despite all odds is a reason for hope.
January 2, 2015
I picked this up on my recent Toronto trip. I'd heard one of the lectures (about the Polynesian wayfinders/navigators) on the CBC.
The lectures are an extended discussion about languages (and by extension their cultures) that are in danger of dying out, and why it's important for us to preserve them. Wade Davis has selected a variety of examples of cultures (usually aboriginal) that (1) have entirely different perspectives on the world than the Western cultures and (2) are threatened or still recovering from colonialism.
It often comes across as a condemnation of Western society, but I think what he was trying to argue is that the attitude that the Western notion that Progress (particularly economic progress) is inherently better than all other values is the same arrogance that lead, say, the Canadian government to decide the native population needed "help" and that the best way to help them was assimilation and the elimination of their culture. See also the idea that Australian Aborigines weren't actually part of the human species.
So the West has done amazing things (eliminating smallpox is one example), but the long held, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, notion that all cultures will eventually develop to be like us so we should nudge them along is monstrous and dangerous. (We being the audience of the book, as it's clearly targeted at Western readers)
The book's hope is that if western societies could accept that we haven't found the One True Path and that other cultures have amazing and useful worldviews that bear consideration, then perhaps we could have both vaccines AND environmental sustainability.
Aside from all the heavy thinking the book encourages, it is a fantastic survey of anthropological discoveries.
The lectures are an extended discussion about languages (and by extension their cultures) that are in danger of dying out, and why it's important for us to preserve them. Wade Davis has selected a variety of examples of cultures (usually aboriginal) that (1) have entirely different perspectives on the world than the Western cultures and (2) are threatened or still recovering from colonialism.
It often comes across as a condemnation of Western society, but I think what he was trying to argue is that the attitude that the Western notion that Progress (particularly economic progress) is inherently better than all other values is the same arrogance that lead, say, the Canadian government to decide the native population needed "help" and that the best way to help them was assimilation and the elimination of their culture. See also the idea that Australian Aborigines weren't actually part of the human species.
So the West has done amazing things (eliminating smallpox is one example), but the long held, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, notion that all cultures will eventually develop to be like us so we should nudge them along is monstrous and dangerous. (We being the audience of the book, as it's clearly targeted at Western readers)
The book's hope is that if western societies could accept that we haven't found the One True Path and that other cultures have amazing and useful worldviews that bear consideration, then perhaps we could have both vaccines AND environmental sustainability.
Aside from all the heavy thinking the book encourages, it is a fantastic survey of anthropological discoveries.
August 15, 2015
I picked this little book up not expecting much, and was blown away by it. A times I couldn't put it down, at times I had to take a break from it because it was devastating. I never had a huge interest in history, but this is one of those books that awakens a need to learn more about something. I can say as well that as a non-believer it made me have a greater amount of empathy for religious culture.
I would say this book is really about how humanity has found meaning, understanding, and purpose throughout history, and as such should be required reading for anyone who wishes to be human.
I would say this book is really about how humanity has found meaning, understanding, and purpose throughout history, and as such should be required reading for anyone who wishes to be human.
March 3, 2018
Something like a rebuke of Heart of Darkness, this anti-colonialism defense of tribal cultures is interesting and provides a good summary overview of what might be called anthropology's greatest hits, but it often reads like hippy-dippy sentimentality.
2 stars. Did not finish.
2 stars. Did not finish.
August 24, 2024
Well this was excellent. In the B.C. school systems right now there is a lot of emphasis on incorporating “Indigenous Ways of Knowing…” which is important, but also at times ambiguous. This book demonstrates the undeniable value of Indigenous ways of knowing from across the globe, and continually challenges dominant western perspectives and orientations.
This quote from the conclusion kind of summarizes it:
“Our economic models are projections and arrows when they should be circles. To define perpetual growth on a finite planet as the sole measure of economic well-being is to engage in a form of slow collective suicide. To deny or exclude from the calculus of governance and economy the costs of violating the biological support systems of life is the logic of delusion.
These voices matter, because they can still be heard, to remind us that there are indeed alternatives; other ways of orienting human beings in social, spiritual, and ecological space.”
This quote from the conclusion kind of summarizes it:
“Our economic models are projections and arrows when they should be circles. To define perpetual growth on a finite planet as the sole measure of economic well-being is to engage in a form of slow collective suicide. To deny or exclude from the calculus of governance and economy the costs of violating the biological support systems of life is the logic of delusion.
These voices matter, because they can still be heard, to remind us that there are indeed alternatives; other ways of orienting human beings in social, spiritual, and ecological space.”
August 2, 2023
The Wayfinders
Non-Fiction>non-globalized cultures
It was the premise of the book that drew me in--contemplating other says of knowing and viewing the world to enlighten the human existence. I enjoyed this, but it got a little off track with environmentalism and almost-communism for me to give it 5 stars. The environment is important, but I read this book to learn about other cultures' ways of seeing the landscape and their place as people in the world. I didn't read this book for a lecture on melting glaciers, bad air, mining, logging, and trash in the water. I certainly didn't read this book for a message that we all need to share and worry less about ownership. Now, perhaps I SHOULD be open to these, but the harping of idealized communes just grated on me the wrong way.
I have read a few accounts of the Polynesian settlement of the Pacific Ocean now, and this one actually brought some new perspective for me; or, at least, it reiterated something I learned from Sea Peoples but had stopped remembering--the VAST knowledge and the very unique perspective it takes to navigate through an ocean from tiny island to tiny island with no modern tech to assist you; to be able to just read the ocean the way few Americans can even read an actual map anymore.
The perspectives covered in this book include also the Anaconda in the Amazon, societies from the Andes, the Aboriginal Australians, Nepal, and Borneo.
This is less the revealing of some secrets than a discussion of other perspectives that allow someone from a background like mine the moments in the pages to contemplate a different way of viewing the world and appreciating or realizing our place in it.
Davis has certainly seen some interesting things and I'm glad he has taken time out of all of the 'living' to stop and share that with us here. It would be really fantastic to gain the trust of any of these people and have any of the contact he has described, but the fact that there are several varying cultures that he has had access to is truly a treat.
For those wanting some overarching theme, there really isn't one--the different people are all different and we are different from them. This is just an exploration through all those other worlds.
Just part of what a navigator in Polynesia needs to understand: "Red skies at sunrise and sunset indicate humidity in the air. A halo around the moon foreshadows rain, for it is caused by light shining through ice crystals of clouds laden with moisture. The number of stars within the halo anticipates the intensity of the storm; if there are fewer than ten, expect trouble, high winds, and torrential rain. If a double halo surrounds the moon the weather will move in on the wings of a gale." ... "The navigator must process an endless flow of data, intuitions and insights derived from observation and the dynamic rhythms and interactions of wind, waves, clouds, stars, sun, moon, the flight of birds, a bed of kelp, the glow of phosphorescence on a shallow reef in short, the constantly changing world of weather and the sea."
In Papau New Guinea: "Malinowski understood and wrote of the functional purpose of the Kula ring. It established relationships over great distances among peoples of different languages, facilitating the ultimate movement back and forth of utilitarian objects, pigments and dyes, stone axes, obsidian, ceramics, polished ceremonial stones, woven goods and certain foods."
"Cortes sent his cousin Francisco north along the coast of Mexico to investigate reports of a land of women ruled by a mythical black Queen Califia — hence the name California."
on coca: "But it also contained a considerable range of vitamins, and more calcium than any plant ever studied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which made it ideal for a diet that traditionally lacked a dairy product. It was also suggested that the leaves produced enzymes that enhanced the body's ability to digest carbohydrates at high elevation, ideal for the potato-based diet of the Andes."
Just WOW: "As recently as the 1960s, one school textbook, A Treasury of Australian Fauna, included the Aborigines among the more interesting animals of the country."
And here he goes idealizing this 'back to the earth' way of thinking: "Imagine if all of Western intellectual and scientific passion had focused from the beginning of time on keeping the Garden of Eden precisely as it was when Adam and Eve had their fateful conversation."
If only Westerners had more sense of community: "A Canadian or American grows up believing that homelessness is a regrettable but inevitable feature of life. The Penan live by the adage that a poor man shames us all. Indeed, the greatest transgression in their culture is sihun, a concept that essentially means a failure to share."
Nice definition of culture, though: "...culture is not trivial. It is not decoration or artifice, the songs we sing or even the prayers we chant. It is a blanket of comfort that gives meaning to lives. It is a body of knowledge that allows the individual to make sense out of the infinite sensations of consciousness, to find meaning and order in a universe that ultimately has neither."
Perspective on our current view of 'First World': At a time when Paris and London were small medieval towns, Timbuktu was a thriving centre of 100,000 people, with 150 schools and universities, and some 25,000 students studying astronomy and mathematics, medicine, botany, philosophy, and religion.
Non-Fiction>non-globalized cultures
It was the premise of the book that drew me in--contemplating other says of knowing and viewing the world to enlighten the human existence. I enjoyed this, but it got a little off track with environmentalism and almost-communism for me to give it 5 stars. The environment is important, but I read this book to learn about other cultures' ways of seeing the landscape and their place as people in the world. I didn't read this book for a lecture on melting glaciers, bad air, mining, logging, and trash in the water. I certainly didn't read this book for a message that we all need to share and worry less about ownership. Now, perhaps I SHOULD be open to these, but the harping of idealized communes just grated on me the wrong way.
I have read a few accounts of the Polynesian settlement of the Pacific Ocean now, and this one actually brought some new perspective for me; or, at least, it reiterated something I learned from Sea Peoples but had stopped remembering--the VAST knowledge and the very unique perspective it takes to navigate through an ocean from tiny island to tiny island with no modern tech to assist you; to be able to just read the ocean the way few Americans can even read an actual map anymore.
The perspectives covered in this book include also the Anaconda in the Amazon, societies from the Andes, the Aboriginal Australians, Nepal, and Borneo.
This is less the revealing of some secrets than a discussion of other perspectives that allow someone from a background like mine the moments in the pages to contemplate a different way of viewing the world and appreciating or realizing our place in it.
Davis has certainly seen some interesting things and I'm glad he has taken time out of all of the 'living' to stop and share that with us here. It would be really fantastic to gain the trust of any of these people and have any of the contact he has described, but the fact that there are several varying cultures that he has had access to is truly a treat.
For those wanting some overarching theme, there really isn't one--the different people are all different and we are different from them. This is just an exploration through all those other worlds.
Just part of what a navigator in Polynesia needs to understand: "Red skies at sunrise and sunset indicate humidity in the air. A halo around the moon foreshadows rain, for it is caused by light shining through ice crystals of clouds laden with moisture. The number of stars within the halo anticipates the intensity of the storm; if there are fewer than ten, expect trouble, high winds, and torrential rain. If a double halo surrounds the moon the weather will move in on the wings of a gale." ... "The navigator must process an endless flow of data, intuitions and insights derived from observation and the dynamic rhythms and interactions of wind, waves, clouds, stars, sun, moon, the flight of birds, a bed of kelp, the glow of phosphorescence on a shallow reef in short, the constantly changing world of weather and the sea."
In Papau New Guinea: "Malinowski understood and wrote of the functional purpose of the Kula ring. It established relationships over great distances among peoples of different languages, facilitating the ultimate movement back and forth of utilitarian objects, pigments and dyes, stone axes, obsidian, ceramics, polished ceremonial stones, woven goods and certain foods."
"Cortes sent his cousin Francisco north along the coast of Mexico to investigate reports of a land of women ruled by a mythical black Queen Califia — hence the name California."
on coca: "But it also contained a considerable range of vitamins, and more calcium than any plant ever studied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which made it ideal for a diet that traditionally lacked a dairy product. It was also suggested that the leaves produced enzymes that enhanced the body's ability to digest carbohydrates at high elevation, ideal for the potato-based diet of the Andes."
Just WOW: "As recently as the 1960s, one school textbook, A Treasury of Australian Fauna, included the Aborigines among the more interesting animals of the country."
And here he goes idealizing this 'back to the earth' way of thinking: "Imagine if all of Western intellectual and scientific passion had focused from the beginning of time on keeping the Garden of Eden precisely as it was when Adam and Eve had their fateful conversation."
If only Westerners had more sense of community: "A Canadian or American grows up believing that homelessness is a regrettable but inevitable feature of life. The Penan live by the adage that a poor man shames us all. Indeed, the greatest transgression in their culture is sihun, a concept that essentially means a failure to share."
Nice definition of culture, though: "...culture is not trivial. It is not decoration or artifice, the songs we sing or even the prayers we chant. It is a blanket of comfort that gives meaning to lives. It is a body of knowledge that allows the individual to make sense out of the infinite sensations of consciousness, to find meaning and order in a universe that ultimately has neither."
Perspective on our current view of 'First World': At a time when Paris and London were small medieval towns, Timbuktu was a thriving centre of 100,000 people, with 150 schools and universities, and some 25,000 students studying astronomy and mathematics, medicine, botany, philosophy, and religion.
June 2, 2015
This is a good book to read alongside The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond. Both books affirm the value of indigenous cultures as repositories of wisdom and at the same time bewail their rapid disappearance in our time as a result of Western ''civilization'' (I use that term guardedly). This was a simpler book than Diamond's, coming as it did from a series of radio lectures made by an anthropologist, ethnobotanist, filmmaker, and photographer with extensive field experience in many remote regions of the world. The emphasis he places on how many (if not most or all) indigenous cultures regard the natural world with reverence and have a reciprocal relationship of mutual respect with it that is absent in our own unidirectional and plundering modern culture, is really the most important part of the book in my opinion. And it doesn't matter whether the natural world involves dirt, air, or water (e.g. the Polynesian navigators), this sense of the sacred permeates all the cultures that Davis describes. I was alarmed at the disclosure that a glacier in the Himalayas which is the water source for hundreds of millions of people is rapidly melting - why isn't this front page news? Finally, his account of the disappearance of so many languages in the past fifty years (each of which carries a rich repository of experience) was something I knew about but didn't feel so much the urgency of until I read this timely and shocking book.
Read
July 18, 2017An incredible survey of the diversity of the human species and a reminder that much of what we take for granted about human beings and society is actually a limited view from the blinders that our own culture places on us. Some amazing portraits of different traditional peoples, from the first inhabitants of Polynesia, master navigators who traversed vast expanses of ocean by reading the stars, clouds, and waves, to the shamans of an Amazon tribe who spend the first twenty years of their life in dark caves learning the wisdom of their people before emerging into the world. These are just two of the many different cultures that are portrayed in the Wayfinders. What really stands out is how all of the different cultures described seem to have cosmologies built around a deep connection with their environment and a non-linear sense of causality. Fascinating stuff. Wade Davis shows us that human cultural and linguistic diversity are not inconsequential, they are in fact essential to the ecological diversity and health of our planet.
March 6, 2020
Incredible. Wade Davis explores multiple cultures each blowing me away, deepening my appreciation for different, lost, and at risk cultures. Gives you questions, answers, and hope and feels so tangible. Couldn't ask for anymore. A must read.
June 3, 2024
Who else cried?
March 25, 2015
Long, long ago, Teutonic storytellers told tales by the fire. Many of them mention a deity who was a wisdom seeker, singer, poet, and warrior. Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who daily flew out over the world, observed the events, and returned to report the news. The names of his birds meant “thought” and “memory.” Odin cherished these ravens. He knew that the loss of thought would be terrible, but that the loss of memory would be far worse. Thought is clever and useful, but memory is essential and indispensable. When thought is disconnected from memory, the result is the world outside your window.
Wade Davis is very tuned into the high cost of forgetfulness. Modern folks have not only forgotten who we are, and where we are from, but we are busy erasing the surviving remnants of much ancient knowledge. There are about 7,000 languages in the world today, and half are approaching extinction.
When we wander amidst an endless herd of loud and smelly consumers, it’s easy to forget that our worldview is just one of many. Our culture is a freak in human history, because of its blitzkrieg on future generations of all species. Most perceive this to be perfectly normal; it’s all they know. In his book, The Wayfinders, Davis takes us on a fascinating tour, visiting lucky people who have not been cut loose from their past.
We have been trained to perceive other cultures as inferior and primitive. When the British washed up on the shore of Australia, they failed to recognize and respect the incredible genius of the Aborigines. Through tens of thousands of years of trial and error, the natives learned how to live in balance with a damaged ecosystem that was hot, dry, and lean. The white colonists have attempted to transplant a European way of life, which is starkly inappropriate, and can only exist temporarily.
The Aborigines have a network of travel routes that were sung into existence by the ancestors. The songs describe the landmarks that travelers will find along the route. If you know the song, you know the route. Songs are maps. The routes are called songlines. The entire continent is spiritually alive, and the people have a remarkable awareness of place, and a profound reverence for it.
The Polynesian culture is found on thousands of islands scattered across a vast region of the Pacific. The Spanish first encountered them in 1595, when they arrived in the Marquesas, a society of 300,000 people. Within a month, eighty-five percent of the people died from European diseases. For some reason, the islanders thought that the visitors were demons.
Polynesians were highly skilled at sea travel. They built excellent catamarans, using Stone Age technology, that were fifty percent faster than the floating monstrosities from Spain. Even with their state of the art sextants and charts, Europeans remained primitive navigators who got nervous when they drifted beyond sight of land.
Davis went on a voyage with Polynesians who remembered the ancient knowledge. The navigators always knew exactly where they were. They paid careful attention to the wind, clouds, stars, wave patterns, sky colors. They noted the water’s salinity, phosphorescence, plant debris, and temperature. Sharks, dolphins, porpoises, and birds provided information. For example, white terns indicated land within 200 kilometers (124 mi.), and boobies stayed within 40 kilometers (25 mi.) of land.
On the Sahara, the people who understand the desert do not get lost. They can read the winds, the texture of the sand, and the forms of the dunes. They can smell water. In Canada, the vast province of Nunavut is home to the Inuit people. They were geniuses for surviving in a harsh climate with Stone Age technology. Travelling by dogsled in the long months of darkness, they never got lost, because they were experts at reading the snow.
These older cultures learned how to adapt to their ecosystems, because this encouraged stability and survival. They were blessed to inhabit ecosystems that did not provide ideal conditions for the birth of industrial nightmares. Unfortunately, they have been “discovered.” They now live in the shadow of spooky people from industrial nightmares. Many natives have been absorbed into the consumer monoculture, and have lost their identity.
All species routinely produce mutations. The mutants that can smoothly blend into the ecosystem, and live in balance with it, have a decent chance at continuing in the dance of evolution. Disruptive mutants eventually end up on the bus to Extinctionville.
Experts now believe that the San people of the Kalahari may be the oldest culture on Earth. As humankind migrated out of Mother Africa, folks found themselves in ecosystems quite different from their tropical place of origin. Different regions inspired different cultural mutations.
Social Darwinists typically imagine a hierarchy of cultures, with industrial civilization at the gleaming pinnacle. Every student in our culture has this dodgy notion repeatedly pounded into his or her brain. It is a sacred myth that is commonly mistaken for truth. Colonists felt a religious obligation to illuminate primitive people, invite them into the wondrous world of wage slavery, and provide them with brassieres and Bibles.
Well, Big Mama Nature is in a rather furious mood these days, and she’s in the process of pounding an unforgettable lesson into our cheesy civilized brains. It’s called reality — reaping what you sow. Our culture is a psychopathic mutant, an immaculate failure. We could not be farther from the pinnacle of successful adaptation, or closer to the tar pits of Extinctionville (can you smell the methane?).
Davis takes us on many intriguing side trips. In remote regions of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta we find cultures that escaped from the colonial invaders, and have not been severed from their roots. They call themselves the Older Brothers, the guardians of the world. We are the immature Younger Brothers, the zombie-like demolition crew. They are sure that the Younger Brothers will eventually wake up — when Big Mama Nature pulls the rug out from under us. They invite us to join them, and live with respect for life.
Our culture has created a monster that is a menace to all life on Earth. A culture of perpetual growth is both insane and suicidal. We need to stop destroying ancient cultures. Every culture that goes extinct removes important knowledge for living on Earth. Older cultures provide living proof that there are other ways of thinking and living, and they can inspire us to search for the long-forgotten wisdom that lies outside the walls. Stable long-lasting cultures are far more interesting than flash-in-the-pan burnouts. Imagination gets better mileage than despair or denial.
Wade Davis is very tuned into the high cost of forgetfulness. Modern folks have not only forgotten who we are, and where we are from, but we are busy erasing the surviving remnants of much ancient knowledge. There are about 7,000 languages in the world today, and half are approaching extinction.
When we wander amidst an endless herd of loud and smelly consumers, it’s easy to forget that our worldview is just one of many. Our culture is a freak in human history, because of its blitzkrieg on future generations of all species. Most perceive this to be perfectly normal; it’s all they know. In his book, The Wayfinders, Davis takes us on a fascinating tour, visiting lucky people who have not been cut loose from their past.
We have been trained to perceive other cultures as inferior and primitive. When the British washed up on the shore of Australia, they failed to recognize and respect the incredible genius of the Aborigines. Through tens of thousands of years of trial and error, the natives learned how to live in balance with a damaged ecosystem that was hot, dry, and lean. The white colonists have attempted to transplant a European way of life, which is starkly inappropriate, and can only exist temporarily.
The Aborigines have a network of travel routes that were sung into existence by the ancestors. The songs describe the landmarks that travelers will find along the route. If you know the song, you know the route. Songs are maps. The routes are called songlines. The entire continent is spiritually alive, and the people have a remarkable awareness of place, and a profound reverence for it.
The Polynesian culture is found on thousands of islands scattered across a vast region of the Pacific. The Spanish first encountered them in 1595, when they arrived in the Marquesas, a society of 300,000 people. Within a month, eighty-five percent of the people died from European diseases. For some reason, the islanders thought that the visitors were demons.
Polynesians were highly skilled at sea travel. They built excellent catamarans, using Stone Age technology, that were fifty percent faster than the floating monstrosities from Spain. Even with their state of the art sextants and charts, Europeans remained primitive navigators who got nervous when they drifted beyond sight of land.
Davis went on a voyage with Polynesians who remembered the ancient knowledge. The navigators always knew exactly where they were. They paid careful attention to the wind, clouds, stars, wave patterns, sky colors. They noted the water’s salinity, phosphorescence, plant debris, and temperature. Sharks, dolphins, porpoises, and birds provided information. For example, white terns indicated land within 200 kilometers (124 mi.), and boobies stayed within 40 kilometers (25 mi.) of land.
On the Sahara, the people who understand the desert do not get lost. They can read the winds, the texture of the sand, and the forms of the dunes. They can smell water. In Canada, the vast province of Nunavut is home to the Inuit people. They were geniuses for surviving in a harsh climate with Stone Age technology. Travelling by dogsled in the long months of darkness, they never got lost, because they were experts at reading the snow.
These older cultures learned how to adapt to their ecosystems, because this encouraged stability and survival. They were blessed to inhabit ecosystems that did not provide ideal conditions for the birth of industrial nightmares. Unfortunately, they have been “discovered.” They now live in the shadow of spooky people from industrial nightmares. Many natives have been absorbed into the consumer monoculture, and have lost their identity.
All species routinely produce mutations. The mutants that can smoothly blend into the ecosystem, and live in balance with it, have a decent chance at continuing in the dance of evolution. Disruptive mutants eventually end up on the bus to Extinctionville.
Experts now believe that the San people of the Kalahari may be the oldest culture on Earth. As humankind migrated out of Mother Africa, folks found themselves in ecosystems quite different from their tropical place of origin. Different regions inspired different cultural mutations.
Social Darwinists typically imagine a hierarchy of cultures, with industrial civilization at the gleaming pinnacle. Every student in our culture has this dodgy notion repeatedly pounded into his or her brain. It is a sacred myth that is commonly mistaken for truth. Colonists felt a religious obligation to illuminate primitive people, invite them into the wondrous world of wage slavery, and provide them with brassieres and Bibles.
Well, Big Mama Nature is in a rather furious mood these days, and she’s in the process of pounding an unforgettable lesson into our cheesy civilized brains. It’s called reality — reaping what you sow. Our culture is a psychopathic mutant, an immaculate failure. We could not be farther from the pinnacle of successful adaptation, or closer to the tar pits of Extinctionville (can you smell the methane?).
Davis takes us on many intriguing side trips. In remote regions of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta we find cultures that escaped from the colonial invaders, and have not been severed from their roots. They call themselves the Older Brothers, the guardians of the world. We are the immature Younger Brothers, the zombie-like demolition crew. They are sure that the Younger Brothers will eventually wake up — when Big Mama Nature pulls the rug out from under us. They invite us to join them, and live with respect for life.
Our culture has created a monster that is a menace to all life on Earth. A culture of perpetual growth is both insane and suicidal. We need to stop destroying ancient cultures. Every culture that goes extinct removes important knowledge for living on Earth. Older cultures provide living proof that there are other ways of thinking and living, and they can inspire us to search for the long-forgotten wisdom that lies outside the walls. Stable long-lasting cultures are far more interesting than flash-in-the-pan burnouts. Imagination gets better mileage than despair or denial.
November 4, 2019
What does it mean to be human and alive? Davis has some pretty solid answers.
April 15, 2025
7.5/10
I love cultures
I love cultures
January 14, 2025
This has to be my favourite book to date. Davis so beautifully depicts the thoughts and feelings I never knew how to adequately articulate when learning about indigenous culture. Everyone in the western world must read this book.
September 8, 2023
Read this before watching Moana. Also, read it anyways because it's reaaaally good.
February 13, 2025
3.75/5
Strong beginning and strong end with lots of great tidbits of knowledge and information. The overall message was powerful and important -- culture isn't trivial and were losing so much that could benefit our most urgent issues today. My issue was in the structure. I have a personal preference for storytelling and focusing on characters. It helps me to understand situations and contexts and cultures that much more. So, while the overall message will stick, the details might be more difficult for me to remember since there were so many.
Strong beginning and strong end with lots of great tidbits of knowledge and information. The overall message was powerful and important -- culture isn't trivial and were losing so much that could benefit our most urgent issues today. My issue was in the structure. I have a personal preference for storytelling and focusing on characters. It helps me to understand situations and contexts and cultures that much more. So, while the overall message will stick, the details might be more difficult for me to remember since there were so many.
March 3, 2020
These compiled lectures make for one of the most eye-opening books I've ever read. Wade Davis's storytelling is both educating and absorbing. This book has had an impact on my worldview around progress and ethnographic erasure.
March 15, 2013
The plague of the Aborigine populations in Australia is so shattering that it made me cry...
One of the central question entrenched throughout the book is why people in Western societies can’t seem to have the same appreciation for nature as the indigenous populations he shows us. Why are many Canadians so egoistic towards the natural world, as opposed to the indigenous societies living in harmony with it, that Canadian firms would even go as far as only see profit in a beautiful land in northern BC that has served as a sacred place for the Natives there for more than a millennium. And this point is quite fundamental to Wade Davis’ ideas here, as it points the moral compass of all the underlying stories presented in The Wayfinders.
But I would offer a counter-argumentation to that view, since we have to ask ourselves what is the underlying difference between this view of the world, and the view that is most expanded throughout the planet. Yes, progress has brought a lot of destruction towards nature, and technology has been used to oppress and to increase the differences between the powerful and the weak. But if we consider humanity on a world scale, we will see that indigenous way is only one identity of a multitude others, and we as humans have many different ways to see the world. We have come to differentiate ourselves from animals in the way we view and reflect the world, by the power of our minds. An animal doesn’t have other option that to follow the way of nature, since it cannot come up with an alternative. They are part of the circle of life of biology, but in the case of humans, we know very well that the way we fit into the food chain is not at all as linear as animals. It is the same for nature, though we are as dependent as them on it, and the protection of the fundamental ecosystems should be absolutely necessary. My point is, that, as creatures of mind, we could come of with different ways to do so, we have choices……
One of the central question entrenched throughout the book is why people in Western societies can’t seem to have the same appreciation for nature as the indigenous populations he shows us. Why are many Canadians so egoistic towards the natural world, as opposed to the indigenous societies living in harmony with it, that Canadian firms would even go as far as only see profit in a beautiful land in northern BC that has served as a sacred place for the Natives there for more than a millennium. And this point is quite fundamental to Wade Davis’ ideas here, as it points the moral compass of all the underlying stories presented in The Wayfinders.
But I would offer a counter-argumentation to that view, since we have to ask ourselves what is the underlying difference between this view of the world, and the view that is most expanded throughout the planet. Yes, progress has brought a lot of destruction towards nature, and technology has been used to oppress and to increase the differences between the powerful and the weak. But if we consider humanity on a world scale, we will see that indigenous way is only one identity of a multitude others, and we as humans have many different ways to see the world. We have come to differentiate ourselves from animals in the way we view and reflect the world, by the power of our minds. An animal doesn’t have other option that to follow the way of nature, since it cannot come up with an alternative. They are part of the circle of life of biology, but in the case of humans, we know very well that the way we fit into the food chain is not at all as linear as animals. It is the same for nature, though we are as dependent as them on it, and the protection of the fundamental ecosystems should be absolutely necessary. My point is, that, as creatures of mind, we could come of with different ways to do so, we have choices……
October 13, 2019
This book shows you how different indigenous people “translated” the nature and the world around them according to their own understanding. But that is not the main point. As the author has said himself as well, his goal was not to document the exotic other, but rather to identify stories that had deep metaphorical resonance, something universal to tell us about the nature of being alive. And that is exactly what the book does. It teaches you that there are other options, other possibilities, other ways of thinking and interacting. It creates greater empathy and respect towards all these ancient cultures and people who lived in such harmony with nature. It makes you miss this connection too and it inspires you to take more responsibility for your surroundings.
As someone who is interested in these topics, you just can’t not-love this book. But even if you are not particularly interested in anthropology or ethnography, this book is certainly interesting and eyeopening experience. One of the best books I have recently read. Very well written, storytelling is 5+ and most of the time it is difficult to put the book away. I will definitely read other books from the same author.
“The world can only appear monochromatic to those who persist in interpreting what they experience through the lens of a single cultural paradigm, their own. For those with the eyes to see and the heart to feel, it remains a rich and complex topography of the spirit.”
As someone who is interested in these topics, you just can’t not-love this book. But even if you are not particularly interested in anthropology or ethnography, this book is certainly interesting and eyeopening experience. One of the best books I have recently read. Very well written, storytelling is 5+ and most of the time it is difficult to put the book away. I will definitely read other books from the same author.
“The world can only appear monochromatic to those who persist in interpreting what they experience through the lens of a single cultural paradigm, their own. For those with the eyes to see and the heart to feel, it remains a rich and complex topography of the spirit.”
April 27, 2023
1.5ish
He clearly has a lot of knowledge but exoticizes the indigenous cultures he claims to honor with condescension. He is more worried about telling everyone all the important people he knows that are now family friends instead of actually delineating any point or theory. Indigenous cultures are disrespected, and communities separated by continents and seas are grouped together haphazardly to show off how much davis knows. He says one thing about western humility, but fails to uphold those considerations when actually interacting with people in the field. He glazes over the entrenched impact of colonialism on the cultures he highlights, only interacting with it on a surface level. He has a randomly deep hatred for socialism. Indigenous cultures are important to him as a "side character" to western cultures, reminding them of the importance of respecting the environment. Despite saying otherwise, he describes these people and their traditions as mystical and ancient practices that have little place in today's society. Dissapointing read.
He clearly has a lot of knowledge but exoticizes the indigenous cultures he claims to honor with condescension. He is more worried about telling everyone all the important people he knows that are now family friends instead of actually delineating any point or theory. Indigenous cultures are disrespected, and communities separated by continents and seas are grouped together haphazardly to show off how much davis knows. He says one thing about western humility, but fails to uphold those considerations when actually interacting with people in the field. He glazes over the entrenched impact of colonialism on the cultures he highlights, only interacting with it on a surface level. He has a randomly deep hatred for socialism. Indigenous cultures are important to him as a "side character" to western cultures, reminding them of the importance of respecting the environment. Despite saying otherwise, he describes these people and their traditions as mystical and ancient practices that have little place in today's society. Dissapointing read.
February 12, 2021
The Wayfinders by Wade Davis.
This is such a book that defines as well as explains cultures. It describes the importance of all of the cultures of the world but mostly covering American Continent in this regard.
It states all of the major specifications of the peoples representing any specific culture(discussed), their religious beliefs, their social habbits and customs, their life style and much more. The author also directs our attention to the dangers that the cultures, specific areas, people, languages are facing. He also mentioned the problem of climate change.
Overall, it was an interesting topic to read as it improves our knowledge about anthropology & ethnography. A reader can contemplate over the issues discussed here and may do whatever he can to resolve the challenges raised in the book.
This is such a book that defines as well as explains cultures. It describes the importance of all of the cultures of the world but mostly covering American Continent in this regard.
It states all of the major specifications of the peoples representing any specific culture(discussed), their religious beliefs, their social habbits and customs, their life style and much more. The author also directs our attention to the dangers that the cultures, specific areas, people, languages are facing. He also mentioned the problem of climate change.
Overall, it was an interesting topic to read as it improves our knowledge about anthropology & ethnography. A reader can contemplate over the issues discussed here and may do whatever he can to resolve the challenges raised in the book.
January 4, 2019
This book captured my imagination in a way that lectures never have. As I read I frequently forced myself to only read a few pages in a sitting in order to allow time for the words to sink in, processing every morsel of information that Davis presented. I am not an ethno-botanist and a book like this would not ordinarily appeal to me, however, Davis presented his information in intriguing, bite sized pieces that allowed even a layman to follow along and appreciate his work.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 457 reviews