Hunter-gatherers were all infected with plague but didn't get sick from it: new archeological discoveries

[cheya]

39 minutes ago, Apech said:

4 hours ago, cheya said:

Our comments about others often — if not usually — describe ourselves much more closely than those we mean to target.

 

Let me first comment how beautiful and intelligent you are @cheya ..... !

 

 

LOLOL

 

@Apech  Even after all these years, you still can make me laugh more than any other DaoBum... actually probably more than all the rest of the DaoBums combined!

 

A good belly laugh is so precious these days.  Grats  

 

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by cheya

[Nungali]

12 hours ago, virtue said:

 

The traditional Vajrayana Buddhist view on this is that the many neuroses of the civilized lifestyles cause increasing provocations towards spirits (both earthbound and celestial types). For example, it's been said that Nagas (a serpentine humanoid creature that associates with fresh water sources) can get seriously injured and have their skin peel off if someone even accidentally pollutes a body of water. Celestial spirits would get upset if anyone tried to subvert the "way of heaven" (filial piety, ethics, vows, etc.) for selfish reasons. The human expansion also causes mankind to come in contact with naturally occurring spirits that are by their personality trait very unkind and hostile. The overall effect is that there are many possible sources of spiritual retribution. When such retributive karma has accumulated enough on the collective level without discharging on individuals one at a time, then there is an opening for new contagious diseases to appear.

 

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche was one teacher that often taught about diseases having some specific type of spirit causing the illness. He said, for example, if I recall correctly, that the HIV/AIDS was caused by a tiny humanoid spirit that acted like a parasite to drain person's vitality. As far as I can tell, the material manifestation of the disease only is the breakdown of the tangible body after vitality becomes affected.

 

Of course, none of this contradicts anything that you have said about the "primitive" humans living in harmony with nature. Such innocence would have granted them natural and undiluted access to awareness that would have prevented formative conflicts.

 

Its interesting to read about Europeans FIRST  *  contact with many Australian Aboriginals regarding their good  health, stature, outlook, demeanour, dignity , stamina  etc .

 

   

 

even these Pygmy east coast rainforest people  ' Mission Aboriginals ' ( ie. after Euro Interference ) ;

 

 

 

*  not later contacts after 'the damage' had been done ... and that 'damage' was a disruption to that ' living in harmony with nature'

 

 

12 hours ago, virtue said:

 

My advice to everyone thus: Live ethically, take care of yourself and others according to your capability, and respect the natural environment as the clean abode of many living beings.

 

'Down here ' , that is called  'Law'  . 

 

 

12 hours ago, virtue said:

 

EDIT: I checked a Norbu teaching booklet and found the following descriptions:
 

 

An image of Theurang:

https://www.himalayanart.org/items/51347

 

[Nungali]

7 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

Were people inclined to publicly call out the perceived flaws in their fellows characters in precivilized times?  I don´t know of course but I like to think there was a  time when such  behavior wasn´t standard. A time before we divided ourselves up into so many factions ---- city dwellers vs villagers, vaccinated vs unvaccinated, Democrat vs Republican. Must have been nice.

 

a time BEFORE  we divided ourselves up  ? 

 

 

 

 

 

what strangers might do  ...

 

from 23:00  onwards

 

 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

Its interesting to read about Europeans FIRST  *  contact with many Australian Aboriginals regarding their good  health, stature, outlook, demeanour, dignity , stamina  etc .

 

*  not later contacts after 'the damage' had been done ... and that 'damage' was a disruption to that ' living in harmony with nature'

 

 

I remember reading a report one of the first European visitors to the "New World" wrote for Queen Isabella of Spain.  I wish I could find that document and quote it verbatim, but I remember it almost by heart.  That official wrote that never in his entire life had he encountered, or could even imagine, people so perfect in their physique and their morale alike -- so stunningly healthy and beautiful, so happy and easygoing, and so devoted to each other. 

 

What was brought about by the newcomers was to change that very fast. 

 

As always, I don't credit Europeans as the only perpetrators of civilization -- I credit civilization itself wherever it was unleashed on populations.  Including of course in South America, where Inca and Maya empires were as civilized or more so compared to their European contemporaries (and without their "help"), and contrasted sharply in their ways with the surrounding "uncivilized" tribes -- which the "empirealists" treated in exactly the same manner the "civilized" always treated the "uncivilized" everywhere.  Inhabitants of the Inca empire especially were loathed and feared by all who came in contact with them, and were perceived as a terrifying gang of thugs and criminals by the natives not incorporated into the empire -- whom the "civilized" continuously raided, hunted, and treated as pools of slaves to capture or animals to sacrifice.  Far as I know, it's the same story everywhere.  No matter which "superior" "civilization" encounters the non-incorporated, it finds, to its chagrin (and murderous envy) a healthy, happy people -- and proceeds to change that state of affairs fast, and forever.    

Edited September 12, 2021 by Taomeow

[senseless virtue]

7 hours ago, Taomeow said:

No matter which "superior" "civilization" encounters the non-incorporated, it finds, to its chagrin (and murderous envy) a healthy, happy people -- and proceeds to change that state of affairs fast, and forever.

 

You will love the following essay and may have already read it somewhere else:

 

Preconquest Consciousness

by E. Richard Sorenson

from the book Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthropology

 

 

A highly relevant excerpt, taken from https://ranprieur.com/readings/preconquest.html

 

Collapse of Preconquest Consciousness

The time-of-troubles in New Guinea was regional. In smaller preconquest isolates such disorders were sometimes confined to single tiny islands, even villages, even segments of the village population (e.g., teenagers often seemed particularly susceptible). Nonetheless in all cases the subtlest affect exchanges faded first with intuitive rapport going into irreversible collapse much later.

 

After loss of intuitive rapport, the sensually empathetic instincts governing sociosensual nurture became cruder and were less often on-the-mark. In large regions a grand cultural amnesia sometimes accompanied this collapse. Whole populations would forget even recent past events and make gross factual errors in reporting them. In some cases they even forgot what type and style of garments they had worn a few years earlier or (in New Guinea) that they had been using stone axes and eating their dead close relatives a few years back. Initially I thought they were dissimulating in an effort to ingratiate or appear up-to-date, but rejected this thought almost immediately. They were simply too unassuming and open in other respects for such a theory to hold up. And when I showed photographs I'd taken a few years earlier, they would brighten up, laugh, and eagerly call their friends as they excitedly began relating their reviving recollections.

 

The periods of anomie sometimes alternated with spates of wild excitement leading to a strange mixture of excess and restraint. It was during such disorders that abstract concepts of rights, property, and possession began emerging. So did formal names for people, groups, and places. These were then used argumentatively in defense of rights, property, and possessions. Negative emotions were applied to strengthen argument. Eventually they became structural aspects of society. As the art of political manipulation emerged, the selfless unity that seemed so firm and self-repairing in their isolated enclaves vanished like a summer breeze as a truth-based type of consciousness gave way to one that lied to live.

A similar type of turmoil and transformation began occurring on small islands in the eastern Sea of Andaman somewhat after the Vietnam War.

 

South East Asia was then rapidly developing economically, and the dazzling scenery, fine beaches, and crystal waters of many of those islands attracted an explosively abrupt tourism trade. As it gathered pace, the intuitive rapport that was still extant on many islands first began to waver, then to oscillate. In some cases a half-way house adjustment would occur, and then another, both without serious psychological disability. However, in cases of accelerated change, a whirlwind psychological debility would sometimes suddenly break loose. The following, abstracted from my field notes, is a firsthand description of one such case:

 

I'm out, back from the Andaman where I've just been through an experience I'll not soon forget. Only by pure chance did I happen to be there when their extraordinary intuitive mentality gave up the ghost right in front of me, in an inconceivable overwhelming week. I'm almost wrecked myself, in a strange anomie from having gone through that at too close a range, and from staying up all night too many times to try to understand just what was going on. I never was much good at keeping research distance, always feeling more could be learned close in. And I'd come straight into the Andaman from two months of tantric philosophical inquiry in a Tibetan monastery. Perhaps that tuned awareness up a notch too much.

 

There really was no way to have predicted that, just after I arrived, the acute phase of their ancient culture's death would start. To speak abstractly of the death of a way-of-life is a simple thing to do. To experience it is quite another thing. I've seen nothing in the lore of anthropology that might prepare one for the speed by which it can occur, or for the overwhelming psychic onslaughts it throws out. Nor does my profession forewarn of those communicable paroxysms that hover in the air which, without warning, strike down with overwhelming force, when a culture's mind gives way.

 

Yet this is just what happened when the traditional rapport of those islands was undone, when the subtle sensibility of each to one another was abruptly seared away in a sudden unpredicted, unprecedented, uncognated whirlwind. In a single crucial week a spirit that all the world would want, not just for themselves but for all others, was lost, one that had taken millennia to create. It was suddenly just gone.

 

Epidemic sleeplessness, frenzied dance throughout the night, reddening burned-out eyes getting narrower and more vacant as the days and nights wore on, dysphasias of various sorts, sudden mini-epidemics of spontaneous estrangement, lacunae in perception, hyperkinesis, loss of sensuality, collapse of love, impotence, bewildered frantic looks like those on buffalo in India just as they're clubbed to death; 14 year olds (and others) collapsing on the beach, under houses, on the pier, in beached boats as well as those tied up at the dock, here and there,into wee hours of the morn, even on through dawn, in acute inebriation or exhaustion. Such was the general scene that week, a week that no imagination could have forewarned, the week in which the subtle sociosensual glue of the island's traditional way-of-life became unstuck.

 

To pass through the disintegrating social enclaves was to undergo a rain of psychic blows, a pelting shower of harrowing awarenesses that raised goose flesh of unexpected types on different epidermal sites along with other kinds of crawlings of flesh and skin. There were sudden rushes, both cold and hot, down the head and chest and across the neck, even in the legs and feet. And deep inside, often near the solar plexus, or around heart, or in the head or throat, new indescribable sensations would spontaneously arise, leave one at a loss or deeply disconcerted.

 

Such came and then diffused away as one passed by different people. Sensations would abruptly wash in across the consciousness, trigger moods of awe, or of sinking, sometimes of extraordinary love, sometimes utter horror. From time-to-time nonspecific elemental impulses arose just to run or dance, to throw oneself about, to move. All these could be induced and made to fade and then come back, just by passing through some specific group, departing, and then returning, or by coming near a single friend, moving off and coming back. That this was possible so astonished me that I checked and checked and checked again.

 

Such awarenesses, repeatedly experienced, heap up within the brain. Eventually the accumulation left me almost as sleepless and night-kinetic as they had become. I did discover that with body motion, mind becomes less preoccupied within itself, therefore less distressed. With kinetic frenzy mind-honor lessens very much. But it left them exhausted during the day, somnambulant, somewhat zombie-like. When night returned, the cycle would re-begin, as if those nocturnal hours, when they would otherwise be sleeping, were the time of greatest stress.

 

Though the overt frenzied movements could be observed by anyone, the psychic states that so powerfully impelled them were not easily detectable to outsiders. It seemed as if one had to have some personal rapport within the lifeway before the mental anguish could be sensed. Then it would loom, sometimes overwhelm. One Westerner looking casually on said, 'How exotic to see these uneducated types staying up throughout the night, dancing strangely, relating to each other in nonproductive ways.' This place must be an anthropological paradise: Tourists happening on the scene thought it a fillip to their holiday. Intimacy and affection seem prerequisite to connecting with these inner surges of human psyche, even overwhelming ones.

 

Eventually I retreated, mentally exhausted, cognitively benumbed, emotionally wrung out. I tried to thwart that siege (when I finally recognized it for what it really was) by getting key people out. A useless foolish gambit; for no one would leave the spot, as if they were welded to it, as if it held some precious thing they very greatly loved, which they neither would nor could abandon.

 

When the mental death had run its course, when what had been was gone, the people (physically still quite alive) no longer had their memory of the intuitive rapport that held them rapturously together just the week before, could no longer link along those subtle mental pathways. What had filled their lives had vanished. The teensters started playing at (and then adopting) the rude, antagonistic, ego-grasping styles of the encroaching modern world, modeled after films and then TV. Oldsters retreated into houses, lost their affinity to youngsters, who then turned more to one another, sometimes squabbling (which did not occur before).

 

It seems astonishing that the inner energy of such passings is so undetectable to minds not some way linked to the inner harmonies and ardors of the place. Research-distance yields abstractions like 'going amok', which could have been easily applied that week, or 'revitalizing movement', which also could have been (in a perverse kind of way). It seems that only by some mental coalescence with the local lifeway can one access its deeper psychic passions, not just those of adolescence, but graver ones like those which for a time were released in inconceivable profusion, when the collective subtle mind of the islands, built up over eons, was snuffed out.

 

Similar processes, perhaps not always so dramatic, seem to occur when any domineering or abstractly focused alien culture (whether Western, Sinic, Indic, or Islamic) impacts on a preconquest people. To the degree that the in-depth readjustment requires new relationships between the awareness and manipulation centers in the cerebral cortex and the centers of emotion in the mid and lower brains, they represent physiological as well as psychological change and therefore raise important questions about the promise and condition of the state of humankind.

[Nungali]

7 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

I remember reading a report one of the first European visitors to the "New World" wrote for Queen Isabella of Spain.  I wish I could find that document and quote it verbatim, but I remember it almost by heart. 

 

same here . The comments Cook made about the natives of the place later called 'Coktown' where removed from his record and a note saying the opposite replaces it !

 

I have been attacked by historians about that and demanded to show the proof, which was hard . But I did it eventually. They where flabbergasted and wanted to know " Who the hell is that ..... guy ? " (the one that wrote the 'new' comments about them) . . Probably someone for the Admiralty  .

 

 

7 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

 

That official wrote that never in his entire life had he encountered, or could even imagine, people so perfect in their physique and their morale alike -- so stunningly healthy and beautiful, so happy and easygoing, and so devoted to each other. 

 

What was brought about by the newcomers was to change that very fast. 

 

As always, I don't credit Europeans as the only perpetrators of civilization -- I credit civilization itself wherever it was unleashed on populations.  Including of course in South America, where Inca and Maya empires were as civilized or more so compared to their European contemporaries (and without their "help"), and contrasted sharply in their ways with the surrounding "uncivilized" tribes -- which the "empirealists" treated in exactly the same manner the "civilized" always treated the "uncivilized" everywhere.  Inhabitants of the Inca empire especially were loathed and feared by all who came in contact with them, and were perceived as a terrifying gang of thugs and criminals by the natives not incorporated into the empire -- whom the "civilized" continuously raided, hunted, and treated as pools of slaves to capture or animals to sacrifice.  Far as I know, it's the same story everywhere.  No matter which "superior" "civilization" encounters the non-incorporated, it finds, to its chagrin (and murderous envy) a healthy, happy people -- and proceeds to change that state of affairs fast, and forever.    

 

[old3bob]

the ancient Hawaiian's fought horrific bloody battles while they lived in one of the most plentiful, beautiful, natural, peaceful environments on earth....anyway I see both  good and evil existing in our human nature,  while our deeper spiritual nature is only inherently good as in the goodness that Spirit is.  So to look back to various times and places and idealize that at one point human nature did not have have both traits  or come under both influences is not realistic to me.  Sometimes small hunter-gather (stone age)  groups of human beings  would figure out and make better weapons to use against the lesser weapons of other small hunter-gather groups, that was if they came into contact when they had vying interests or needs for natural resources or wanted to establish their territory, btw. some of those small groups would resort to running whole herds of animals off cliffs so they could get meat - was that being idealistically in tune with nature and the animals? 

Edited September 12, 2021 by old3bob

[liminal_luke]

4 hours ago, old3bob said:

 btw. some of those small groups would resort to running whole herds of animals off cliffs so they could get meat - was that being idealistically in tune with nature and the animals? 

 

I think so, yes.  Killing gets a bad rap these days, undeservedly so in my opinion.  As a very civilized person myself, I naturally recoil at the idea of any kind of hunting (though I do eat meat) but I know that´s my hangup: a willingness to kill other animals for food is a sign of harmony with nature.  Modern me hopes the tribesman didn´t waste any part of the animal, felt appropriately grateful -- blah, blah, blah -- and maybe the small groups you mentioned did just that.  It´s hard to know at this point.  To me, the idea that human beings should divorce themselves from the natural order by refusing to kill animals is a hallmark of disharmony.  

 

(On the other hand, some of the best people I know are vegetarians.  So go figure.)

Edited September 12, 2021 by liminal_luke

[doc benway]

20 hours ago, cheya said:

Our comments about others often — if not usually — describe ourselves much more closely than those we mean to target.

 

One might say … always

[spanda]

This book will be a useful read for anyone engaged with this discussion.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-New-History-Humanity/dp/0374157359

 

Here's a preview:

 

https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/

[dwai]

moderator note -

 

Old3Bob has made disrespectful comments against another member on this thread and therefore is restricted from posting on the forum for a set period of time.

[Nungali]

10 hours ago, old3bob said:

the ancient Hawaiian's fought horrific bloody battles while they lived in one of the most plentiful, beautiful, natural, peaceful environments on earth....anyway I see both  good and evil existing in our human nature,  while our deeper spiritual nature is only inherently good as in the goodness that Spirit is.  So to look back to various times and places and idealize that at one point human nature did not have have both traits  or come under both influences is not realistic to me.  Sometimes small hunter-gather (stone age)  groups of human beings  would figure out and make better weapons to use against the lesser weapons of other small hunter-gather groups, that was if they came into contact when they had vying interests or needs for natural resources or wanted to establish their territory, btw. some of those small groups would resort to running whole herds of animals off cliffs so they could get meat - was that being idealistically in tune with nature and the animals? 

 

 

I guess this a response to Liminal Luke  and his dream  of how good it would be in the oast to wander around and have total freedom and support and fellowship  ? Because  I dont recall anyone else saying indigenous r uncivilised people where all good and  had no bad traits .  Most of the conversation has been about health and happiness .

 

Regrading weapons and warfare ; sure they had that . I will use the 'local example' again ( which has the advantage of being so recent , in many cases we have photographs and recently recorded accounts  .  eg . so recent that I have personally met  indigenous people that didnt know what a white person looked like until their teens -  no contact In a nutshell - they had war , but it wasnt like the shitfull enterprise today ; the men lined up opposite each other and threw spears , or had a call out for 1 on 1 . When all one side where finished , or gave up, that was it . They didnt go on to  attack the others camp , village ,  kill the women and children , burn the crops, salt the earth, etc . That would have been unthinkable .

 

Regarding driving animals off cliffs  and the like ;  I cant  see why that would be not in tune  with  nature and the animals   ?  Many animals do that  or such like , even dolphins herding fish together for a feast , or driving a school of them up onto the beach - there are many such examples .  Aboriginals would sometimes have huge kangaroo culls , driving them off cliffs , this was to  stop the numbers reaching plague proportions  in favourable years , otherwise that would damage the environment  and put it ut of balance for the other animals . Even today its a problem, numbers get out of control, we need to do a cull, but 'nature lovers' freak out about it . 

 

 

A thing to remember is though ; any keeping of the 'environmental balance ' , living in harmony with nature , 'being one '  with nature , in this case (and many others , if not all )  is within a 'nature' that was created and developed and modified by these people .  Otherwise 'nature itself ' would not have developed  a landscape so geared towards breeding kangaroos  - that took thousands and thousands of years of gradual environmental modification . 

 

And not that I know much about it , but I believe similar happened  in  Nth America with the indigenous ( ie. environmental modification  geared towards human prosperity .)

 

being in harmony with nature was not like some modern concept  about preserving some perceived 'naturalness'   for the sake of it , it was done to preserve the human population so they could live in balance  in the best way possible .

[Nungali]

6 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I think so, yes.  Killing gets a bad rap these days, undeservedly so in my opinion.  As a very civilized person myself, I naturally recoil at the idea of any kind of hunting (though I do eat meat) but I know that´s my hangup: a willingness to kill other animals for food is a sign of harmony with nature.  Modern me hopes the tribesman didn´t waste any part of the animal, felt appropriately grateful -- blah, blah, blah -- and maybe the small groups you mentioned did just that.  It´s hard to know at this point.  To me, the idea that human beings should divorce themselves from the natural order by refusing to kill animals is a hallmark of disharmony.  

 

(On the other hand, some of the best people I know are vegetarians.  So go figure.)

 

Oh Luke !  I had to smile   at that .

 

yes, I suppose that IS a definition of a 'very civilised person'    ;   " I naturally recoil at the idea of any kind of hunting (though I do eat meat)" 

 

Although I agree with the rest -  of course hunting , killing, ripping apart and eating other animals is part of nature .  Actually, unless one is ' in tune with animals and nature ' , that is a hard thing to do, and without that 'attunement ' one would go hungry and starve .

[Gerard]

On 10/09/2021 at 4:47 AM, Taomeow said:

And to think how much progress we've made since then.

  

 

 

NONE. Taoism has covered this in-depth for millennia. The causes of disease have got nothing to do with microorganisms.

 

BTW:

 

Biologists estimate that 380 trillion viruses are living on and inside your body right now—10 times the number of bacteria. 

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/viruses-can-help-us-as-well-as-harm-us/

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Gerard

[Apech]

6 hours ago, Gerard said:

 

 

NONE. Taoism has covered this in-depth for millennia. The causes of disease have got nothing to do with microorganisms.

 

BTW:

 

Biologists estimate that 380 trillion viruses are living on and inside your body right now—10 times the number of bacteria. 

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/viruses-can-help-us-as-well-as-harm-us/

 

 

It is quite amazing to think of the vast community which our bodies comprise.   30 trillion cells, 38 trillion bacteria, 380 trillions viruses ... and still we tend to think of the physical aspect of being as somehow plain, obvious and simple ... actually it is the most complex and mysterious in many ways.  It boggles the mind to think how this huge collection manages to cooperate to make us live.

 

 

[senseless virtue]

6 hours ago, Apech said:

It is quite amazing to think of the vast community which our bodies comprise.   30 trillion cells, 38 trillion bacteria, 380 trillions viruses ... and still we tend to think of the physical aspect of being as somehow plain, obvious and simple ... actually it is the most complex and mysterious in many ways.  It boggles the mind to think how this huge collection manages to cooperate to make us live.

 

 

Some of those non-cooperative mysteries can be solved easily these days.

[Apech]

1 hour ago, virtue said:

 

 

Some of those non-cooperative mysteries can be solved easily these days.

 

It worked for Joe Rogan.

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, virtue said:

 

 

Some of those non-cooperative mysteries can be solved easily these days.

 

Our habit of "easily solving" all mysteries by killing them -- a habit we acquired, on the evolutionary scale, only a picosecond ago --may prove not to be the healthiest after all.  (I suspect we might get that proof in the next zeptosecond on the same scale -- if not sooner.)  
 

https://theconversation.com/they-might-sound-gross-but-intestinal-worms-can-actually-be-good-for-you-49868

 

"For decades, results coming out of lab after lab have shown that some kinds of helminths can be extremely beneficial to their host, and aren’t parasites at all.

These helpful helminths are mutualists, a type of organism that receives benefits from its host, and also provides benefits to the host." 

 

 

   

[Gerard]

13 hours ago, Apech said:

It boggles the mind to think how this huge collection manages to cooperate to make us live.

 

What we truly are is indeed MIND BLOWING!

 

It goes beyond the physical as you know. Try to contain, measure or quantify "spirit." 

[Nungali]

11 hours ago, Apech said:

 

It worked for Joe Rogan.

 

But does it get rid of sand worms ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Apech]

On 9/16/2021 at 7:14 AM, Nungali said:

 

But does it get rid of sand worms ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You need booster jabs for that.

 

[Nungali]

I would have thought you just needed to dump 5 ton of it in powdered form in the desert and stick a thumper on top of it ?

[Toni]

Did hunter gatherers have vaccines to protect themselves? Lol

[Nungali]

38 minutes ago, Toni said:

Did hunter gatherers have vaccines to protect themselves? Lol

 

 

Yes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Nungali