Current conditions Duluth, mostly sunny -4 mostly sunny in St. Cloud and 11 degrees and in the Twin Cities sunny skies and a temperature of 12 and marks it act. Like that's the latest news. Thanks a lot. Chris Roberts at 6 minutes past 11 and you're listening to mid-day on the news and information station Marc sicklick here along with Jack Weatherford today will be talking about whether Ford's newest book Savages and civilization Will Survive and we'll be taking your calls Jack Weatherford is also the author of native roots and Indian givers. He is a professor of anthropology at Macalester College in St. Paul in Savages and civilization Jack weather for travels the world more often than not on back roads to explain the social evolution of human beings. How did we make the transition from nomadic foragers to Farmers and City dwellers as a Collins how has colonization world trade and the depletion of Natural Resources shape the way the world is organized as we approach the end of the twentieth century are Urban cities of today far more dangerous and uncivilized than most.Savage tribes of Headhunters and cannibals Jack Weatherford, that's just a brief description of your book as I see it. Thanks so much for being here this morning. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me here. I think you kind of wrapped up the whole book. That's an excellent summary there. So we have another hour to work on it when I get the phone numbers out before I asked him my first question. If you listening in the Twin Cities metropolitan area have a question or comment for Jack weather for call us at 227-6000 at side of the Metropolitan. Are you can call us toll-free with your question it one 800-242-2828. That's 227-6000 in the Twin Cities are toll-free and one 800-242-2828. Well Jack weather for the first thing I wanted to ask you about. It's obvious from reading the book that you've literally been around the world in your search to explain how we got to where we are. How did you decide where you'd start?Well, I want to do it to look at many different places where the first things I want to do is make sure that I had examples from every continent in the world. I didn't want this to be a bias study just towards one part of the world. I wanted to be Global in that sense. And then I want to look around for some of the people that that we have traditionally thought of his the most Savage in the world. And so you have for example in Fiji traditional that was the home of the tremendous amount of cannibalism. So people often associate that with savagery the Amazon is associated with headhunting and head shrinking. So I chose areas where the people were supposed to be the most Savage Minnesota Public Radio. It's about eight minutes past 11. How what are you trying to say in your book in one respect your book talks about how the world is falling apart and how we're losing touch with our native cultures, but in another respect your book says technological advances things as simple and seemingly mundane is a cassette tape recorder are helping different ethnicities Embrace their their their background and end.Expand on it. That's the strange thing going on there. It seems the same time. We have people who are are rediscovering. It's a new tribalism that's going on in the world today and it's through technology. I think that able to do that and that's why we have so many thousands of new groups rising up in the world their new one is sent to most of us and never heard of them that they've been there for tonight for thousands of years. They are rising up at the same time. Some of the oldest cultures the indigenous people in the world. They are now under stress and are collapsing in many parts of the world. Those really a two-pronged a situation. We have a new tribalism that's often very Savage on the other hand. The truly terrible people are the past are often in great danger now to 276 thousand is a number if you're listening in the Twin Cities area. You have a question for Jack Weatherford. Who is the author of native?Roots indian givers and his latest book Savages and civilization who will survive that's what we're talking about this morning. If you have a question and you're in the Twin Cities call sa227 6000 if you're listening outside of the metropolitan area, in fact anywhere you can hear this program. You can call with your question toll free at one 800-242-2828. That's 227-6000 in the Twin Cities outside of the metropolitan area. The number is one 800-242-2828. When you are traveling throughout the world looking at and researching back to what the people that you're traveling with what are their beginnings and how their Beginnings were what what's most striking but what did you want it? I mean cuz you been all that you've been all over the place of the most striking thing of all that the people that we often think of his Savages because their ancestors were the cannibals. I meant to know the Headhunters that they're some of the most loving trusting family-oriented people in the world. The tribal people have really been much-maligned in our history books. And in Ann Arbor.Understanding of them because they're they're so friendly. I was out travel with people for example in the Sahara. I travel with a Touareg they're fierce Warriors. They have been Fierce Warriors for hundreds of years. And even after I left they later attacked the city of Timbuktu and they they held the city for 3 days in a fight. But the government they're fierce Warriors yet you walk into them as I did unarmed and unknown and they are bound by the code of hospitality and protection they have to take you in as a stranger they have to offer you what little they may have and sometimes they don't have very much food now and return of Court you should also share what you have with them, but they have a code that works there in the desert and I feel perfectly comfortable there or in the Amazon and yet the tragic part is there parts of St. Paul that I won't walk around even in the daytime lights lights in the night time because I'm not sure I don't know that neighborhood and I don't know what might happen. There was a strange thing that in the so-called Savage people in the world. Do you find the greatest amount of trust I think and acceptant and yet inCivilized parts of the world that is not the course just saying Paul the way young Dolph London Berlin St. Paul. You're going to find much higher rates of crime. How do you explain that? I think in your book some in some cases to make an argument that. In the beginning when we were scribes are foragers with maintenance stuff together and we knew each other end through the process of colonization and slavery and some other things. We were sort of split up almost like a deck of cards start up in the air Shuffle and rearranged and then established a neat little areas with neat little boundaries and borders. It really made no sense. Other than that somebody decided that's why they should be put together. Is it your contention that all that maybe some of these Savage tribes people refer to them as Savage tribes are actually indeed civilized because they they pass things on to one another and they have a sort of a code of living every culture that survives for very long has got a corset of value something that that gives it an identity and keep going and among most of the tribal people that core set of values is usually around family and a very tight sense of community. Well in so-called civilized society our core values and our main emphasis really isn't so much in that area is it isn't technology and we've been very good. Acknowledging the technology has brought us many good things, but it's also cost us a great deal and part of that. I think has been there the crowding of the cities and the deterioration of the moral code in the ethics ethical values. The tribal people have a strong sense of ethical values. They have very poor technology often. We have great technology, but I think we're lacking an Ethics. Okay, Jack Weatherford is against your listening to mid-day on this Saturday, February 5th. It's about 13 minutes past 11 and let's go down to the phone line. We have Byron from Edina on the line. Good morning. Well, good morning and nice to see things warming up a little around here. I've been trying to understand what's going on in places like southern Mexico and wondering if those people so wet Castro accomplished and whether there's any evidence that the Castro still trying to Pushkin's ideas as to how you can overthrow the government and take over. I buy when I really can't answer the part about Castro, but at its other you would ask the first question on that southern Mexico, cuz that's where my book end. I start the book Savages until the station in Tibet. But the last chapter said in Chiapas the place where we've now had had the fighting going on and that is one of the places in North America and it was Mexico's a part of North America with the worst conditions for native people. And that's why I ended the book there that the Indians of of of Chiapas have been mistreated probably as much if not more than any other group in that area and I think that the trouble that are going on their part of this long-term Injustice if use of Human Rights down there, but the people who are soaked standing up now and acting in the name of the Indians, I'll be honest. I do not know really who they are and exactly whose name they're really acting under so I wouldn't be able to judge them right now, but the problem is there are severe and I think it's good that we paid attention to the problems. It's a shame that had to come about in such a violent way. Let's take another called bill is on the line for Minneapolis. Good morning on the air with Jack Weatherford. I should be in I like that comment bill. It's great one beautiful places you visited and then secondly, I know you kind of a loaded question. Just kind of for you two to two content on Micah tattoo would be that in areas where there is the most government you would find the most savagery. Bill, I tend to like places of beauty there rather austere and the Himalayas for example, I think are extremely beautiful. There is a valley and Bolivia which I'm very fond the valley of Cochabamba and most people might not find it exciting. But I like the fact that their hide very dramatic mountains on one side and then it begins to slow down on the other side into the jungle and I like the fact that there's a high rate of indigenous people who are still leading their traditional lies. Do I like those places very much. I also like places in the Arctic again because the real austerity that you see up there on some of the islands. For example, one of the chapters in the book is set on the island of st. Paul appropriately named which is in the Bering Strait and it's a and island with absolutely no bushes, no trees. Nothing growing on it except for very small plant and yet it's a very beautiful place. You know your book Savage in Civilization, you don't go to you're not visiting Cancun and Paris you're visiting Fiji Tahiti and some very exotic destinations for yourself. Whether dangers involved in taking some of these back roads you write about paddling through the the night of the Delta of the Nile and it just all kinds of Vera remote places and it sounded to me too. And this will be interesting to clarify this to that. Maybe you can buy yourself out a lot of these trips. They are remote places. That's true. But I have I don't travel by myself very often my wife's with me and in many areas, but it until the other areas of your time about in The River delta until I always travel with people from that area because they are the people who know it I don't believe in going in by myself. It's so I can figure it out with a compass or something. That's absolutely the wrong approach you travel with the people. They know the conditions that are the physical conditions natural conditions, but also the social conditions are the different people there. So I'm always with a group and across the Sahara for example or in the Jungle, so I want I'm down in the jungle in South America. My son went with me and then we went with some native people there and sometimes you're stuck in a place for several days because there's no ride. There's no canoe that comes along but despite that we always felt pretty safe. I find that the people in those austere places and very remote places are extremely helpful to one another and also helpful to us as Outsiders. So no, I never felt in any real danger. They were few episodes that happened that I mentioned in the book, but I don't think real danger. Okay, Jack weather for to suggest you listening to mid-day on this Saturday, February 5th, March sat act. Like you're if you have a question for Jack Weatherford about any of his books native roots indian givers or his latest Savages and civilization who will survive you can reach our Studios. If you're in the Twin Cities metropolitan area by calling 227-6700 Paula teneria anywhere. You can hear the broadcast. You can call us toll-free with your question and one 800-242-2828. We now go to Dan from Michigan. Good morning. You're on the air with Check weather for concerning health care now in contemporary Society. We're pretty much depended on the healthcare Improvement of society and longevity of eight. Not being a doctor or having medical training. My answer may not be at the best in that area. But my observation is that if the people are living more in their traditional way the very often they have a reasonably good health care it sometimes when they mix up parts of their culture and parts of the outside culture, for example, if the people are traditionally not worn very much clothing and then they start wearing clothes from the outside. They often don't know how to take care of and how to wash them and when to change them and that leads to more skin diseases so by and large I found native people tend to be fairly clean their there are some exceptions and I think you for that sometimes are reasons that people put mud on their bodies and other things in order to keep insects off and I'll bet of course one of the odd things about it. So many of our medicines have come from native people. If you look at the Indians of the Americas, for example, very large percentage of the medicine that we have out there today originated with them and I keep wondering, you know today one of the worst plagues we have out there as age well, maybe one of the groups of people that we just killed off in the 50s. Car just died off in the forties are the 30 maybe that group had a medicine that would actually treat a to maybe we've lost that now because they're gone and I think that's important that we need to preserve those native people who are out there now because we don't know what the diseases of the future are and what knowledge they have now that may help us not today, but help us a hundred years from now is it talk about health and disease maybe now would be a good time to talk about how you explain the evolution of people we started out as groups of foragers. We had nothing more than we could carry. We didn't need anything more than we moved into Agriculture. And then we moved in the cities. We talked a little bit about that and how that began to introduce some of that the modern problems we have right now that we're still suffering from as we now I make our way into the 21st century will for hundreds of thousands of years humans did Livin these foraging Bantu a fish they would hunt they would gather and then that will not change about 10,000 years ago and people started settling down on the land. Then there was a radical deterioration. Health because as soon as people settle down and started farming than the variety in their diet stopped and then started eating a few crops and the teeth Decay for example is it is very evident among the the skeletons of the early people who the early farmers so diseases became much much higher and it's taken us a long time to get over that impact some anthropologists of refer to that is probably the worst decision humans ever made was to settle down once I settle down this whole set of events with the creation of cities of creation of governments large scale economies, all of that happened and we know there been any benefits from it, but I think sometimes we're not able to exactly understand the the cost that it is made for us and now we're beginning to pay the costs in our societies with the deterioration of life in our cities. That's something that I think a lot of people would be surprised upon hearing that that actually people were probably better off and probably in a better position to stay healthy when they were out roaming the land. Cape so to speak when they weren't life expectancy with much longer when people were foragers and it became much shorter when they settle down on the land. Let's go back to the phone line question for author Jack weather for morning Jack. I have a question. That's a little closer to home and the closer in time to do you see any solution or us for changing the direction of the acceleration of Native American traditions? And what impact do you think the gambling casinos being run by Native Americans will have on these Expeditions. I think that the best thing for the native people. The best thing that we can do is to abide by the treaties that are already in place. We can abide by those treaties and guarantee the native people there their rights of the lands that they already are supposed to have and guarantee them access to their religious sites and those things. I think that's the most that we can do. Now. I favor the native people being abled into the site for the Cells what route they want to take and even when they make decisions that I personally might not like that is what living in a Democratic Society is about my neighbor's make decisions that I may not like what they have the right to make that so if we defend their right to own their land and to do with it as they see fit I think that's the greatest that we can make towards helping the Improvement of situation for native people step out and let these people run their own lives by and large. I am not a fan of the WIA. I hate to get that political about it, but I think you're right that the more autonomy the native people have in their own community. And the last power the Bia has probably better off we'll all be how much is a hyperlink wishing its power. I mean we hear stories from not even that long ago 2340 years ago that Native American kids were their moms were washed out with soap for speaking their native language in these sort of things. Is that the changing our isn't it was kind of things have changed. Yes. I don't think that's going on anymore. But people anytime you have a bureaucracy running. Five, I think you're in terrible danger and the Indians have been some of the most over bureaucratized people in America. They've had a huge bureaucracy bureaucracy set up there for a relatively small number of people. So they've had a lot of bureaucrats to meddle in their everyday lives for this how they raise their children how they educate them what the answers they do everything else and I think the less of that they have and less of that that we have probably the better off we'll all be live in this part of the country. You really don't have to go far from home to examine the mistreatment of indigenous people clearly aren't exactly it starts right here. Let's go back to the morning. I had a question for Jack there or up. I thought go back to what you said at the beginning of the program. That these so-called Savage tribes had certain codes which they live by maybe they may be one of the problems with the quote-unquote civilized society is it we've all Blended together and we've lost our codes just buy all these tribes coming together and these other Savage tribes have stayed remote stayed isolated. They've kept their coats and very strict codes and therefore there they stay within those boundaries. Because I think you're right. We have a problem there. I'm not sure if it's the mixing that causes it because if you look at populations that don't mix and the classic example of this I one chapter in the book on the tasmanians the tasmanians were the most isolated people in human history because they were cut off from contact with any Outsiders for about twenty thousand years have a cut off from all the other people of Australia they lived in isolation and over 20,000 years is their society basically deteriorated and I think the reason it deteriorate is cuz there was no outside contact. If you look at the history history has been propelled by contact between groups. Even Tom X Violet contacts. I just when the Mongols made contact with between the Asians and Europeans created great changes are closed today have been changed by that because we now wear pants the way the Mongols did rather than wearing togas the way the Greeks and the Romans did and also we carry paper money. Now the Mongols not able to carry around very large Sex and Money really spread the use of paper money. So you have all these odd things that have happened. In history, and it's the interaction of groups. I think that if made the change by you're right about our ethical problems, I think right now it's not so much that it's because we have a blending of different ethical values as we just kind of have an ethical paralysis in our society. I think that we have reached a certain point that we don't seem to know which way to turn and you see it where there's a very small case such as a jury trying these two cases that have been the news so much lately. They don't know what to do and then is a whole society. We don't quite know what to do. We have to get over this ethical paralysis, but I think the more variety we have the better off we're going to be are there still Jack Weatherford groups tribes the people living somewhere on this planet that you are not yet exposed to some of the modern things and civilization whether it be a can of Pepsi or a t-shirt. I talked about that you keep people a lot but because it's a very small band in Bolivia near where I was talked about before Cochabamba, and they are probably the last people to be contacted if there any other groups out there. I think they're extremely small. And I think it'd be a very unusual to find them now but the Yuki of Bolivia were first contacted in 69 in the last groups or contacted over the last three or four years. I didn't now all the groups in the world are probably at least in contact with the outside world. Jack Weatherford is a guest you're listening to mid-day on this Saturday. Jack Weatherford is the author of savages and civilization who will survive that's his latest book. You may know him from some of his other works native roots and Indian givers if you have a question or comment for Jack Weatherford call us at 227-6000. If you're listening in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, if you're listening outside of the Twin Cities call us toll-free at 1 800-242-2828. Let's go back to the phone lines. It's my understanding Tracy from Minneapolis is on the line. Good morning. I'm a student at the University in women's studies and I'm wondering if your book explores how the oppression of women is linked to the degradation of human life and if you could comment on it Tracy overall, I try not to to concentrate so much on a price and it comes in through issues such as slavery, but I usually try to show the great creativity of tribal people rather than just concentrating on the problems that they've had put him in some areas though. I think that there's a very important part of the creativity of women that's been overlooked. For example, the great ice age that changed human history so much we often think about that in association with big game hunting and then I right in there that the one human tool that really got us through the ice age. Do you think about the most important tool of all wasn't that the spear out there for big game hunting? It was the invention of the needle the sewing needle that allowed for the creation of form-fitting clothes that allow people to get through. So I usually would rather talk about some creative aspect of something that people have done and it's been overlooked rather than just talkin about the oppressive Parts. Although that is occasionally part of the story the risk of generalizing as you visit different peoples around the globe what Generally is a role of women in these groups. Is it normally subordinate to that of man or not? You are very foraging Society people who are not growing any kind of crops. You almost always find a certain kind of egalitarian is that there's a much more easy give-and-take there. When you have the development of of of the first crop growing people's a Horticultural people then their starts to be a decisive change by the time you get to agriculture Agricultural Society. It seems to be the worst as far as women is concerned then it starts to ease up again with the industrialized Society Minnesota Public Radio news and information station will go back now to the phone lines run from Eagan. Good morning around the air. I have a question or comment about the educational system that we have here. The fact that we really do still talk about Savages and and we don't discuss the contributions of various societies and cultures in RI. Vacation systems in particular from grades 1 to 12. I'm wondering if you could comment on that and also what you may have seen in other parts of the world. Well, it did answer the first part first. I think that we certainly do need to make some changes. But as I've talked to teachers around the country there was a real effort going on among teachers and I applaud them for the work. They're doing trying to incorporate so much new material into the curriculum. It's very hard because off and they're kind of out there on their own trying to put this stuff together. And one thing I try to do is give resources to people who want to do this because you just can't be an expert in everything in the world. And I think the teachers are really pretty bird with that right now. I think it's important for us to include all of this in our education system. And if I got the second part of the question now to call are still in the line by any chance as it relates to teaching other cultures that is another part of the world do they teach about us as an example know? I don't find a system out there. That works. Well, I can't point to you point out to you one part of the world say yes if they have real. That is well integrated curriculum there no question for Jack weather for find that the people who you visited are the native people in remote areas had what kind of relationship did they have with nature? And do you think that that is some kind of significant? Is there a significance between that and City people that you described in the same Paul being afraid to to maybe walk in certain areas being so far removed from nature. It ain't think certainly the people who live out on the land. They tend to know that land or else they don't survive very long. So you find a very intimate awareness among the Aborigines of Australia for example with the desert in which they live in the desert where I would be dead certainly within 3 days. I'm not even sure I'd last 3 days and yet you find people there who know how to dig into the sand that seems to meet bone dry and find that one particular route that has has some fluid in it. So those people have to know that area just like we have to know bus system to get around the Twin Cities and so on but you know, sometimes the whole issue of native people in nature, especially today has been a little bit romanticized and I think of native people is like ink blot that you can look into it and you can see what you want to see in the 19th century Victorian society saw tremendous amount of sexuality of my native people. It's all the sexuality that they were afraid of or that they wanted to have they couldn't have all of that was there today in the 20th century. It seems that we look at native people around the world and we see the strong emphasis on environmentalism the date they know tremendous numbers of secrets that we might not know and I think that we can exaggerating romanticize it overly because these people do often know their particular environment very well and we should learn from them and follow their example, but we took shouldn't try to romanticize them too much civilization for the fact that maybe That are in these big urban areas that they they just don't understand anything outside of their urban area anything to do with the environment the idea that yes, if they're building all these houses out of wood that the woods coming from somewhere and is depleting a forest where you make that case to don't you remember we are totally cut off the same technology that allows us to communicate so well around the world also helps to cut us off from The Real World and natural world out there. And that is a growing problem everywhere in the world. These giant cities that have grown up and in these cities, we now finding more and more people who are not exactly title people but they're not exactly a part of the city either. They're often III call and cultural Castaways there in South America. You have millions of people who used to be Indians living in the mountains understanding their world very well today. They're no longer really Indians because I can't speak their language. They don't know their culture yet. They haven't been admitted into the Society of the nation's where they live. So they live in these huge squatter camps around the cities. You see that particular in Africa and South America and parts of Asia and these cultural Castaways doubt there I think offer a huge reservoir for terrorists. For example who want to start Guerilla movement a huge reservoir for illegal gangs. And for a drug Syndicate is operating out of Latin America today. And I think that they are going to become much more important in the future with these ethnic Wars increased. These are the people who are the recruits for those Wars because they basically have no families. No backgrounds. Nothing left there. Just as you said cast of pavement cut off an extreme example I give in the book is there you can find Tan x man in Peru. Who would they just sort of so socially paralyzed that they have stripped off all their clothing and they just go naked in the streets and I usually only lasts about six months as long as they can live, but they live literally like animals like dogs in the street. They are people with no culture at all left 25 minutes now before 12, you're listening to mid-day on the news and information station. This is Mark said act like Jack weather for this suggests who's the author of savages and civilization. I want to get the phone numbers out to real quickly and then we'll go back to the phone lines if Listening the Twin Cities to 276 thousand is a number to dial if you have a question for Jack Weatherford outside of the metropolitan area. You can call us toll-free at one 800-242-2828. Let's go back now to the phones. Good morning around they are good morning fascinating subject. I had a question leaving meant primarily of the rainforest and you passed on The Marvelous adaptability of some of these primitive peoples. I wonder if you could comment on the loss of variety worldwide in our food Forge crops in our domestic animals, is it not possible that these isolated people peoples primitive not necessarily Savage over many Millennia must have had the knowledge of and developed so many varieties of crops. I'm thinking of rust resistant small grains from Ethiopia. If the right potato have been brought to Ireland might not the blade it not occurred one of you could come in You're absolutely right about the potato issues that the natives of the Peru where the potato originated they grow thousands of kinds of potatoes and they never had the kind of blight problem that Ireland had the problem was Ireland took one kind of potato. They thought it was the best potato because it was a large fleshy potato produced a lot. And of course it was an excellent potato as long as there's no problem. But once there's a problem and it could have been a blight a bug anything that affected one plant could then affect the entire a crop of the whole nation and that's what happened and by losing the variety the point I make about losing the riding human cultures and the point you're making about losing the variety and domesticated animals and domesticated crops. Nothing is basically the same one if we lose that variety out there and we've lost something forever and it's very important to preserve that variety animals the variety in crops of writing cultures. All of those may be needed in the future and the problem is we don't know which ones will be needed. How do you make a cancer that how do you convince people? That you also write in your book about sort of how our diversity now is limited to almost amusement park type settings where you can go visit for the weekend and it's all fenced off and then you can go have that experience and some people I suppose would say that that is preserving part of the past. I would probably think you would disagree with that because I don't believe in preserving in the sense of a zoo or in a reservation where you keep people there on display all human cultures change over time, but if people have the right to determine the changes for themselves, then I think they will guide their culture in the right way and they will preserve those part of their culture that are important. So I don't believe in doing an artificial way. I believe in allowing it to happen. Naturally. Okay. Let's go back to the phone lines Richard. You're on the air with a question for a jack Weatherford. Good morning. Aboriginal people have a lot of wisdom and knowledge that would be useful to us as civilized people and yet our institutions in our society are churches and education Aboriginal wisdom has backwards and so forth. It's it's heretical. Have you thought about how we can change our worldview to China get Kinder lights on the original thoughts and ideas and ways of living that is one of the quest of all my books is to try to find what what it is about the different cultures in the world that makes them unique and gives them value that they have things often that we have lost our that we never had and I think that the Aborigines of Australia or an excellent example because that was the only kind in the world that never had Agriculture and part of the reason that they never developed it there was of course because of the extreme climatic conditions are and yet despite these extremes. The Aborigines were able to Drive now they survive by eating things that we often might not like to eat today grubs and insects for example, but on the other hand, they have a kind of knowledge of the different plants of Australia and we still don't know yet what the real properties of many of these plans might be and what role they may have in the future the Aboriginal people. There are still have knowledge that we don't have let's go back to the phone lines Bob. You're on the air from Minneapolis with a question for Jack weather for the morning. Bob. Great. Thanks been wondering where you influence At All by Carole, you know, he did a similar study, you know getting in touch with various tribal peoples and one thing that comes to mind listening to you. And from what I've read from Carl Jung as kind of talked about how some of the cold the way people treat each other if has been lost to technology and I know the way that tribal Peoples passed on their Traditions way they treat each other in that coat is Kyle calls it an archetype. There is is passed onto song art literature those kind of things more in touch with the Earth and in a modern-day man is so I guess number one where you have you done much reading about Carl Jung it all for me with his work. I think there's a there's a big difference was he is much more in the intellectual and psychological and mental line. I was often out looking at that detect a lot. Jacqueline looking at how the people live. How did they what kind of crops do they are working plants do they interact with? How did they interact with the animal world by technology did they use? But ultimately I think that we are headed in the same direction young had a tremendous respect for all kinds of human beings. And I think that's one of the main messages that comes through in his work and I share in that and in that regard I very much feel that that I have been influenced by him along with many other people who shared that what motivated you jack Weatherford to go out and travel around the world and write Savages and civilization, you know, when it gets down to a personal question is hard to answer. It's a a drive that's inside and I cannot exactly say where that comes from but it's a tremendous curiosity about this world. I think growing up as a kid in South Carolina on a small farm. I wanted to see the world. I just desperately wanted to know what was going on in other places and understand it and actually some of that influence I think King books. To the radio when I first started hearing the radio as a child is a small child. We didn't have radio or electricity. And so when the radio came in and I could hear these voices of people I did not know and they weren't aware that really from very far away is probably only 50 miles, but the time just seems like there's a huge world out there these people doing things and I could hear it on the radio, and I was very interested in and going out and seeing it and it's a sort of thing that it's never quenched. You still don't know enough about the world is the history of the world different peoples of geography. I am fascinated by that. It's almost an addiction Jack Weatherford is a guest and you listening to mid-day on this Saturday, February 5th. If you have a question, you can call us at 227-6000 the Twin Cities outside of the Twin Cities. Call us toll-free 1-800. 242-2828 Buster from St. Cloud you been on the line waiting for a couple of minutes. You're on the air now. Thank you. I'd like to ask about the island of Vanuatu. Western South Pacific about 500 miles west of Fiji and I'm wondering what you see is the future for islands like that. I visit that Island last year and one of the things I like about it is that it seems to be pretty much up pristine agriculturally topographically wondering if you if you have any opinions on the future of maintaining that kind of pristine condition of these very small countries, which used to be called the new Hebrides, but now it's an independent nation in melanesian this Southern Pacific. I'm very hopeful for those places as I travel through some of them and I have been sailing I will say through Vanuatu but I have not spent any time there really so it's hard for me to address that particular place. But I think that these countries you're just feeling their way towards their role. The world today and I think that they are just beginning to understand some of the resources that they have to what it means to have the environment to they have that the people have grown up there and they have often seen the destruction of their environment and they they serve accepted as a way of life. But now you see more and more the people themselves are realizing know. This is our future where there were going to use this in some programmed way to get to it to its like the trees without destroying the forest. Are we going to use it for tourism or going to use it for fishing or what are becoming more aware of that? So I'm basically optimistic about those people if we let them make the decisions for their own life. I think in the long run, they will make the right decisions any concern when they make the decision to to go tourist for example, and that invite the door is so I'm not anti too or is that a lot of the things that go along with Tories in my I think are questionable anti-terrorist because basically that's what I am really an anthropologist. I'm a Taurus a journalist Marco Polo was a tourist. It's just that very often. We think that we do it. It's a higher calling me when other people do it. I believe in the interaction of people and if people travel and get to know other people more I think is very important. So tourism industry is one of the largest Industries in the world today. And I think it's extremely important and rather than just criticizing. I think we need to find ways to try to work with it in order to to help it benefit both sides the people who are being visited and the people who are doing the visiting. Let's go back to the phone lines marked for Minneapolis. You're on the air with the morning. And now that might be unconnected maybe to the technological Society. I'm kinda interested in that. I've been a neighbor of both of you at one point. So I've been moving around within a city and I'm sort of a new Nomad myself and I thought maybe one way is it that the lot of your ideas about the differences between modern civilization in Old San Jose? Might be related to the technological aspects, you know, Matt is a miss that a lot of the ways that group's function before and Nations for example are now taking over by individuals individuals acting amongst themselves in many ways that the groups did before and instead of a group moving about it in a sort of a a real-world landscape. It's individuals running around in a technological landscape. So I guess the question is is there a return to nomadism a modern Nomad help free us up from many things and not only just from owner s works but it also frees us up tonight from particular location that you can now working more parts of the world and still communicate with the rest of the world. You can send a fax from the Arctic are you can send a fax from the middle of the Sahara desert today interview Italian on a modem a computer. You can work around the world and I have certainly benefited greatly from that and I like that that part of it very much it also allows for Community still exist no longer Dustin one place, but around the world for example today, you have people from Eritrea the small country that just broke away from Ethiopia. You have them living in Washington DC. You have been living here in the Twin Cities and all their Retreat into the world can stay in contact now and keep up through these modern Communications with what's going on for the same time. It does give us greater individualism. We don't have to be necessary for the jobs used to be now. We can live out in the middle of the desert in the middle of the mountains and commute in electronically gives us that individualism, but it also gives us the ability to maintain stronger Community ties because now we can maintain the ties with those people back in another country another part of the world and the last century few immigrated from Europe to America. It was almost a permanent severing of those relationships today. You can come to America from any country in the world and you can still keep close ties with those people. So I think that the technology works both ways story in the book when you're I think you're in the Nile somewhere in the Dell Denial in somebody's going to tape recorder and they're turning it on from time to time in the first two drives you nuts. But then you come to this sort of decision that you're this theory that that that the tape recorder something as mundane as a cassette player actually could go a long way in and helping people bring a little of their culture wear them where they end up right back to that was in the in the Niger River delta, right? And and I did like the fact I was constantly hearing which I'm done with this group. They were always playing these religious recordings, which of course in Arabic and I couldn't understand at first why they would listen to it over and over and over but then gradually I began to understand that that is strengthening their culture there and they have chosen to use the technology in that way and they're finding in technology way to strengthen their traditional culture. You also argue in the book that Although we're supposed to be you know, you're the talk about America for example is a big Melting Pot. Nobody said you're not Italian. You're not German. You're not Czechoslovakia and you are an American but at the same time you say in the book and correct me. If I'm misunderstanding this that these differences the ethnic backgrounds differences between them are growing stronger and then read more profound with the abundance of techno techno technology now executive I think internationally that's happening not just here, but around the world we have this greater sense of ethnicity in town times. It could be a very positive force and we've seen that many cases of that people learning who they are and getting a better sense of who they are new to the other times. It can be a very negative forces we see is going on in places such as the former Yugoslavia now and in the wars are going on there, but I think that it's a technology as we have a global culture everybody in the world today just about has access to the same international news either through CNN or the BBC over radio or somehow they could tie in in that in the world. They can tie in with rap. Music. They can't I With are soft drinks a business if they want to they can tie into that world culture. But at the same time everywhere in the world. I find that people are becoming more aware of who they are that technology also makes them aware. We are different. We are Eritrean. For example, are we are we are Armenians we are azerbaijanis. We are whatever this group is in the group seem to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller and many of my have never heard of I will say that I can open up the paper and almost any day and there's at least one ethnic group. I never knew was out there. So it's strengthening those ties. It's a very good ways, but it can also be problematic when they become such a strong ethnic identification but a strong form of nationalism. So in each group then starts demanding its own Homeland and its own territory and exclusion of other people and believes in the right of ethnic cleansing to make their Homeland pure. That's when it's a course gone crazy and I suppose with the more information more technology people can sort of look over the fence that they couldn't see over before and see that maybe the A boundaries of their country or their Province or wherever they aren't organized the way they want them organized and they may be organized for some political purpose. That doesn't make a lot of sense from an ethnic standpoint it with all the information available. They can always find it a historical argument for why their territory should be larger than it is today. But cuz in the year 1312 for 6 months some ruler came through and actually double their territory and now they feel they still have a right to that is so the technology is neutral itself. It's how people use it. What uses they put to it Minnesota Public Radio weather for this year. He's the author of savages and civilization who will survive. Let's go back to the phone lines Darlene from Cold Springs are on the earth morning austerity of an Arctic Island. I'd like to have you comment on I understand what you said about moving from foraging to farming in the disease that resulted. I'd like to have you comment on the Advent of disease among the Alaskan native and also to clarify for people who think that perhaps the Eskimo and the Alaska native are one in the same to to clarify the fact that there are separate Indian tribes the height and that clean cat nail use and so forth in the Eskimo by another entity. Thank you. We have basically up there in Alaska three major groups the Eskimo. I'll also call the end with then we have the aleuts who are related to the Eskimo and then we have other Native Americans many of whom were athabascans tradition and then some other types of a great variety up there with these different kinds of people and one interesting fact about all of them is of course, they did not have any of the epidemic diseases that we have today such as measles or whooping cough. They said he didn't have the Dubai Killers of the past is smallpox. They did not have any of those kinds of diseases because almost all of those are associated with people who lived in tongue kind of hurting Society on farming Society where they had very close contact with animals. So none of those diseases existed in Alaska or anywhere else in the Americas prior to 1492 when the Europeans started coming and then they brought all of these basically animal diseases with them. Okay, let's go back to the phone lines Carolyn from Fargo. You're on the air could morning. Thank you. I have studied with Michael Harner and Bill brunch in a cultural Anthropologist from this area. I wondered if you would come in please on your ideas about Shamanism and if it would have a place in our society if we were to learn it as a society. I also would like you to come in. I believe the name of the people is the togi in South America who believed that the disrespect for the earth that is showing now signals the end of civilization. Thank you and I'll hang up and listen, nism is before we talk about if it's a It was Shamanism. Is it sometimes the time is better Call which doctors are are herb doctors are many things over their people primarily in the Americas and also in Northern Asian Siberia where the been the great stronghold of shamanism and which people did curing through religious ceremonies at off involve going into a trance and then there'd be some kind of of singing Sometimes some kind of artwork Incorporated with it until it's a very interesting phenomenon in my homework. I have tried to stick mostly to material things because I find that is easier to explain those and is easier to learn about them. And when you start talking about a people's religious beliefs, it's very easy to say it in the wrong way. So I try to be very cautious I can explain how they grow a crop or how they hunt a certain animal how they fish because you can see that may explain it but explain how they believe what they believe or how that works is a very difficult task and I think there are people who are qualified to do it and I'm not one of those who is qualified. To do it. So I tend to take my hat off to those people who can can explain those parts of religion better than I can. It takes a lifetime of study. I need to understand any people's religious beliefs and the other part of the question about the Coqui of Columbia. They are very interesting group of people in their pockets of indigenous people like them around the world who have chosen basically, they have made the decision not to be involved. They have said we want to keep our way of life. We do not want your way of life. You find them in scattered pockets of Hoagie and there is one example to my side is home extended. Can you are like that? They want to keep their traditional life and I again say that's their decision and I respect it on the other hand for those tribes who said no, we are going to change we want to have radios and TVs in it in our homes. I also respect that. I believe that we have to let them make the choice and as long as we give them access to their their land so that they have the choice in their hand and not in our hand then we'll be doing the right thing. But the idea that maybe some of these people aren't exposed enough to the maybe the trickery is of the real world the modern world and maybe aren't capable of Defending themselves against certain contracts and Outsiders might want to bring in that say these are the good choices at these are vulnerable people do I think we do need to protect him in the sense of protecting their land and protecting their control over that we should set it up and say well, alright there was swindled out of their lands because some developer came in and is giving them a fraction the value of because they're going to put in a tourist know we should allow that to happen. But within that land if they do decide for example to go to the route of Tourism, or if they do decide that they want to modernize in some way and bring in outside businesses. We should respect that. And even if they make a mistake we make mistakes too, but we don't want people coming in and telling us what we can and cannot do with our life and we shouldn't do that with the tribal people around the world just a couple of more minutes left on this edition of midday. Jack Weatherford is here talking about Savages and civilization who will survive that's his latest book. I think Ron from Burnsville is on the air right now. Good morning. I know him very well. I was wondering if in and all your Journeys if you had any spiritual mister or mystical experience similar to what Margo Marlo Morgan Road about a New Mutants message of the real people that have read me the last ride in that any experience that you connect with any of the Prophecies of the ancient ones of the Maya or you know, indigenous people of America or the Aborigines run it I think the deepest spiritual experiences. I have are in some of these places that are the austere place. I talked about before and one of those eye in the book in Chiapas in the ruins of Joseline and I think a coming together they are seen the ruins of the actual on the current lock on dunmire who live there in the jungle and all of that together. There's an extremely powerful spiritual sense there. But I don't seek out any artificial kind of spirituality, but I do appreciate this. Child to die encountering these natural situations. Okay, and we're going to have to end this edition of midday news and information station of Minnesota Public Radio, Jack weather for the author of native roots indian givers and most recently Savages and civilization who will survive has been in the studio this morning check. Thanks so much for coming in has been a very interesting hour and we hope you'll give us a call next time you travel around the world and come back with another book. Thanks bark. I appreciate that that about wraps up midday for today. That's a neck technical director rather is Clifford Bentley Sasha slaney improves the program. I marked it act like thanks for joining us. Midday on Saturday is supported by the oriental rug company specializing in sales and service of handmade oriental rugs in located in Minneapolis at 50th and Bryant. Thank you very much marks exactly. The time now is one minute before noon and you're listening to the news and information station of Minnesota Public Radio will check the weather forecast for the state increasing clouds near Duluth with snow likely around Roseau. Probably the most cloudy elsewhere this afternoon highs will range from about six degrees below zero near Warroad to around twenty degrees above in the Marshall area for the Twin Cities the updated forecast calls for partly cloudy skies this afternoon with highs ranging in the upper teens, mostly cloudy tonight at 20% chance of light snow and aloe near 5 above and then more clouds than sun in the forecast for the Twin Cities on Sunday the high tomorrow in the upper teens some current conditions mostly sunny in Duluth -4 degrees mostly sunny in St. Cloud and 11 sunny in Rochester and eight and under sunny skies in the Twin Cities. The temperature right now is 12 degrees. Hi, this is Terry Gross reminding you that there's much more fresh air after the week is over soon and Saturday afternoons at 3 for the best of fresh air here on the news and information station of Minnesota Public Radio know 91.1 FM. This is know 91.1 FM and know 1330a Minneapolis-Saint Paul the Twin Cities news and information station.