MAN. . .WE USED TO BELIEVE THAT. . .PART II

What then occurs is truly transformational: One gets recognition from others not on what you TAKE – like the baboons – but on what you GIVE. Even among primitives today, a great recognition is given to the person who kills a big animal and then distributes the ‘kill’ to others [frequently the person also takes the smallest share for himself]. [AN ASIDE: I well remember my father – the ‘breadwinner’ – who made sure that all seven of us had ‘meat’ and only then would he take a smaller portion for himself. I was also impressed by his behavior.] The baboon nourishes himself by gluttony man nourishes himself mostly on self-esteem [although today, in our culture, it does seem that we behave more as the baboons as we glut ourselves on ‘things,’ on ‘money,’ on ‘status’ and on ‘power’].

If these groups were to survive – and thrive – they needed the security of internal peace and cooperation and they had to ensure that all had enough to eat.

This gave rise to the two great uniquenesses of human life: food-sharing and cooperation – these are unknown among the subhuman primates. To the baboons if they could understand all of this it would still be a mystery and would seem tame and weak. But the result of such organization is anything but. . .the fact that we might hunt them and they not us is one result.

Given all of this, it is easy to imagine that the hunting band could then go on and develop even greater brain size and sensitivities, once it had made these basic social inventions. The fashioning of better tools and the planning with others for the use of these tools in the hunt sharpened dexterity and foresight. Hunting develops tenacity and cunning: which one of several possible paths did the animal take? How badly is he wounded? If we track him into that area what will we have to watch out for, what would be our chances of getting back – with the game, without the game, etc.? There is a great complexity of analysis, planning and conjecturing in simple hunting activities. When I had the privilege of spending some time in Australia, I learned that the Australian aborigine had a richness of perception, a refinement of analysis, a wisdom of his world, that would make most of us seem like an imbecile in that setting.

It does not seem possible today to untangle the influences on the early growth of mind: all the hunter’s activities were mutually reinforcing and grew within cycles of repetition. Our uniqueness as human beings is not due to any single activity. The ‘home’ of the clan became a safe place to relax and renew; not only to create tools, but to re-enact the hunt with story and ritual; not only to distribute the ‘spoils’ of the hunt, but to glorify the hunters with story that became myth. It seems that man became man in a total celebration of himself, in inner urges to distinctive self-expression.

Our primitive ancestors provided us a gift: a blueprint for cooperation, safety and physical, intellectual, emotional and even spiritual development. To what extent are we, now a global community, using the gifts they provided us? This question gives me pause!