Book Buzz

Jack W. Brinks

For 6000 years First Nations hunters on the prairies used their knowledge of the land and of buffalo behaviour to drive their quarry over cliffs. Archaeologist Jack Brink has written a major study of the mass buffalo hunts and the culture they supported before and after European contact. Brinks draws on his 25 years excavating at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in southwestern Alberta – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “I love the story behind the jump – the events and planning that went into making the whole event work. I continue to learn more about the complex interaction between people, bison, and the environment, and I continue to be impressed with how the ancient hunters pulled off these astonishing kills.”

When the first Europeans hunted bison they would shoot the biggest oldest male. The First Nations hunters would laugh. The meat would not be good for eating nor would the hide be good for tanning. A hunt for meat would take place in the fall when the cows would be fat. For hides they would hunt in the spring when hides would be thinner and easier to work with.

The workers at Smashed in Head were unsuccessful at creating a tipi made of buffalo hides. They found a group of people who made tipis for Wanuskewin Heritage Park, a buffalo jump near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. But when they contacted these people they were no longer process buffalo hides the tradition way. It was too much work!

Filled with facts and stories and beautifully illustrated. An excellent read.

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE REALM OF VANISHING CULTURES

WADE DAVIS

Ethnobotanist and anthropologist Davis has traveled the world for 25 years to study the myriad ways indigenous people live in physical and spiritual intimacy with the natural world. Though listed as a book of photographs, LIGHT is much more. The pictures are amazing but the writing is a synthesis of many of the cultures he has explored. A beautiful, stunning book that is ultimately somber and sorrowful for it is describing “vanishing cultures.” Davis wrote that genocide, the deliberate and systematic extermination of a racial,  or cultural group is abhorred in modern times but ethoncide the systematic destruction of an ethnic culture in many ways is accepted. While discussing Andean culture of South America he wrote how nutritionally important the coco leaf contributing large quantities calcium and other minerals that were not traditionally found in their diet. Gems like this are found throught the book. Much of what he writes is the spirituality of the culture. Davis reflects on the effects of colonialism in these areas and laments the uncertain fate of groups like the Penan of Borneo, the nomads of Kenya and the Inuit in Canada is Russia.

An excellent read and an excellent collection of photographs.

KAREN CONNELLY

This memoir highlights the year Connelly spent living in a small town in northern Thailand. She was seventeen when she left for Thailand and the writing reflects this. It is not a mature work. But I enjoyed it for the insights into daily life of the Thai people, their language and their culture. When I was in Thailand I asked someone to teach me to count to ten. “Nung.” I repeated, “Nung” and the people howled with laughter. I couldn’t hear the tones of the language. The same word can have five or six meanings depending on the tone used in speech. I really never learned any Thai. But Karen lived with families and went to school with the young people. Immersion is the best way to learn a language. But of course it wasn’t easy learning the language and accepting the restraints of the culture. Being the only “farang” (foreigner) in the area she had little privacy. Being a woman she didn’t have the freedom and choices she was used to in Canada. The writing improves through out the book. She calls Thailand “the green country” and the inhabitants “the gentle people.”

What drew me to this book is some of Connelly’s other writing. The Lizard Cage is an excellent novel of modern Burma.

A good read if you are interested in Thailand and Asia.