HIST 261

The following is in response to the first several chapters of Brett L. Walker’s The Lost Wolves of Japan:

Walker points out that the “westernness” of the Linnean taxonomic system makes historical inquiry into Japanese wolves difficult. He says “the emergence of Nihon ōkami, or the Japanese wolf, became possible only with the emergence of many other distinctly ‘Japanese’ things at the turn of the century, such as Japan’s unique brand of ethnic nationalism and its imperial ideology.” The identification of a distinct species of Japanese wolf was therefore somewhat of a product of globalisation, whereby Japan began both to export elements of its culture and to import western science, among other things.

This helps to explain the strange polarization of historical Japanese attitudes toward wolves. Walker comments on the rapid shift from Japanese reverence of wolves (“grain farmers worshipped wolves at shrines, beseeching this elusive canine to protect their crops from the sharp hooves and voracious appetites of wild boars and deer”) to the persecution of the same. Prior to the introduction of western taxonomy, wolves and dogs were not so distinct from each other in Japanese reasoning—indeed, wolves have variously been referred to as “mountain dogs.” This is because Japan, a culture which prioritized grain-farming over animal husbandry, did not have the need to villain-ize wolves as distinct from dogs. This changed with the introduction of western taxonomic distinctions and the introduction of cattle ranching. This both made wolves into a species distinct enough from dogs to cast one as good and the other as bad, and provided a context for wolves to be cast as the villain (as they now could prey not on the defilers of the crop, but on the “crop” itself).

Finally, some linguistic speculation: Walker mentions that the people of Morioka “referred to the wolf as oinu, attaching the honorific o to inu, ‘dog’ in Japanese and thus rendering it ‘honorable dog.’” Walker uses this point to illustrate the honor attached to the wolf in this region, but it also appears that the modern Japanese name for the wolf, okami, attaches the honorific o to kami, or deity. This serves to highlight the venerated status of wolves. Furthermore, the word inu also appears as a constituent part of the name of the Ainu people, who featured wolves in their origin stories, had hunting patterns based on the native Hokkaido wolf, and, like much of Japan, revered wolves in their religious ceremonies.

(Edit: after some research, it appears that my linguistic speculation hits off the mark. Oh well, it was worth a shot!)

Isolation: The utopian society exists on an island, unknown to the rest of the world. The Governor’s description of Bensalem’s history says that “navigation did everywhere greatly decay; and specially far voyages…were altogether left and omitted.” This calls to mind the cessation of the voyages of Zheng He, which had occurred approximately a century prior to this writing. The theme of isolation is also shown in their ordinances regarding strangers, and in their prohibitions for their own people of leaving the island.

Scientific and cultural advancement: The Governor describes Bensalem as a relic of a more advanced time. As such, they have many societal advancements. For example, their medicine is able to quickly cure the sick of the narrator’s party, the establishment of their order of Salomon’s House reflects their dedication the “study of the works and creatures of God,” and their Feast of the Family reflects a cultural reverence of the familial institution which could be likened to that of Confucius. The governor describes the voyages which they make for the purpose of sustaining this advancement, bringing back “knowledge of the affairs and state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and inventions of all the world.”

Piety/Purity/Chastity: The first point of exchange between the narrator’s party and the representatives of Bensalem is based on their shared christianity, and the Governor tells them the story of the revelation which had brought christianity to their society. Later, when the narrator is speaking to the trader Joabin, he hears that “there is not under the heavens so chaste a nation as this of Bensalem; nor so free from all pollution or foulness. It is the virgin of the world.” The notion of piety is constantly couched in the terminology of purity by omission—”there are no stews, no dissolute houses, no courtesans, nor anything of that kind.”

The following paper, From Deficient To Dominant: Technological Development and Human’s Relationships with their Environments, explores the idea that many cultures’ origin stories depict humans as initially deficient relative to their environments, only to achieve dominance through mastery of fire and tools, especially though the development of agriculture

The following is part of a response to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Diamond’s most shocking point in the account of Pizarro’s victory at Cajamarca is the sheer magnitude of the advantage given by his steel weapons and armor, in addition to horses and occasional guns. It would be easy to attribute part of his victory to the shock and surprise which his attack had, but it would be difficult for surprise to allow 168 men to defeat 80,000. Indeed, the account of the slaughter describes the spaniards needing to kill wave upon wave of Incan lords before they were able to get to Atahuallpa. The advantage that the spanish weapons had against the incan armor, and vice versa, was completely overwhelming.

In his discussion of livestock, Diamond points out that they were not only advantageous as a form of food production, but as a Darwinian stimulus to evolve resistance to disease.  Acting as sources of pathogens, humans who were in close contact with livestock would need to evolve ways to cope with the diseases they carried (and so pass on their genetics) or die (and so not likely be able to). Livestock thus acted as a catalyst for a disease-resistant population.

Diamond then brings these two ideas together, showing how they were not separate, but rather interconnected factors that allowed Eurasian cultures to take over the new world, rather than the other way around. The availability of large mammals for domestication in Eurasia created the possibility of densely settled societies where sedentary food surpluses could allow artisans to specialize in the innovation and creation of steel weapons. Add to that that the diseases themselves carried by Europeans often decimated New World populations, and the influence of livestock both in developing technology and in passing on pathogens is evident. In this way, the factors that gave eurasian societies an advantage over american ones should not be seen just as additive, but as multiplicative.

Stephen Pyne identifies “first fire” as that fire which occurs external to human influence, the product of lightning strikes or other climatic phenomena. In all likelihood, humans would have seen this fire before they were able to generate it themselves. Perhaps this is why so many origin stories reflect that fire was stolen for the benefit of humans, rather than created by them. The story of Prometheus is the most classic example, but the Popol Vuh makes reference to the Cakchiquels stealing fire from the original four humans, and Reed’s Aboriginal Legend of The Meat Ants and the Fire tells of the theft of fire from another tribe. Nonetheless, the differences in these three accounts merit additional examination.

In Plato’s “Protagoras,” Prometheus finds that “man alone was naked and shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defense.” Prometheus then steals not only fire, but also the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athena which come along with it. These he gives to man to make up for a deficiency which he has, and afterwards is prosecuted for his theft. Overall, the story presents an image humans as defenseless—until they are given the tools of the gods, which allow humans to emulate them.

In the Popol Vuh, the original four humans have fire, which was given to them by their god Tohil. When the other tribes of humans ask Tohil for fire, he agrees to give it to them if they allow him to “suckle” them—removing their hearts through their sides. In this way, the other tribes are said to have been defeated by the dominance of those who had both fire and the favor of their god.

One group, however, stole fire, and so escaped defeat. The Popol Vuh recounts “those fiery Cokchiquels didn’t ask for their fire. They didn’t give themselves up in defeat, but all the other tribes were defeated when they gave themselves up to being suckled on their sides, under their arms.” Despite the fact that fire is used to illustrate the dominance of the original humans and their god, the Popol Vuh still seems to celebrate those who escaped their defeat through stealth.

In Reed’s Aboriginal Legend of The Meat Ants and the Fire, by contrast, the people stealing the fire defeat those previously in possession of the fire. The young man central to this story does not come from an impoverished, deficient people the way that the fireless humans of the previous stories do. Rather, he steals fire from a far-off tribe to improve the welfare of his people by allowing them to cook meat. As he flees the people he has stolen from, he tricks them into climbing down a cut vine so that they fall to their death. Their defeat is illustrated when Reed recounts that “the children of the people from whom the young man took the fire turned into meat ants and meat ants they are to this day.” The aboriginal legend seems to be moreso a story of man’s triumph over his environment.