Learning from other tribes.

[Tonbogiri]

Before I arrived on this forum, I searched for any tribal culture still in existence in the world with a close similarity to the Na'Vi. I found none, but this did not surprise me (they were not blue, nor ten feet tall, nor had tails). What I did find was a recurring problem for all tribal cultures around today - LAND.

Let us be optimistic, say we have around 50-60 members of our tribe when we set it up.
To put this in better perspective, the average African tribal village contains around 15 people. This number requires almost 50 square miles of ground to sustain themselves in a manner similar to the Na'vi (hunter-gathering).
To maintain our population, we would need (maths moment! )... 200 square miles of land at minimum, populated with a constant supply of game animals and edible fauna. A little daunting, but also impractical for any kind of fixed settlement (would you like to carry a deer 20 miles?)

Only the tribe of Anuta, on an island in the Pacific (see BBC series "Tribe"), were able to sustain around 50 people on an island only five miles across. I recommend that the brains behind this operation look into how these people survive. The people seemed to use a combination of fishing, bird catching, and complete cultivation of the island.

How should we overcome these difficulties?

[bagget00]

good question and a hard one to answer.

[Txon Taronyu]

wow what is that true about only 15 people in a tribe I thought a normal tribe had 100 people

[Fnua Atxkxe]

I suppose there are many different types of tribes, some large and some small. Studying them will undoubtedly prove useful. I think around 50 people would be a nice realistic number for perm tribe members for our tribe.

[Txon Taronyu]

if it gets any large then that we might have to have more then one tribe

[Fnua Atxkxe]

hmms, hope it doesn't come to that myself, don't like the idea of splitting up our community.

[Txon Taronyu]

Neither do I but it might be necicary

[Fnua Atxkxe]

Maybe, but I would rather we tried to get a larger plot of land first, I mean if we have to then we have to but I think that could create great complications and divisions.

[sezawte]

I think we need to look into possible resources more when considering which continent... 

[KettleStrange]

This is an awesome and very valid observation.
In light of land potentially being restricted, foraging may not be the best option (especially if you would like to keep your tribe as one unit).  From a personal perspective, and having been enamored of Native American history and way of living, is farming totally out of the question?  It could be an ongoing food source so that when winter rolls around you'll have enough stashed away to make it.
Just a thought.

[Esmond]

Really I think the challenge here is finding a plot of land big enough and resourceful enough to sustain us. I don't really have any opinion about farming but won't farming require flat lands? We're living in forests, unless we clear a space. I dunno if we want to do that.

[Yeynari]

200 square miles? Yes, but this is based on African conditions. Much of Africa is savannah and bushland, game and vegetables are very spread out.

Most tribal peoples have basic agriculture in one way or another. It might be a good thing to look this up, for reasons already mentioned

Farming does not neccessarily require flat land. It depends completely on what you're farming. You can clear small plots of land instead of one big field (I'm thinking 30x30 meters/10x10 feet or so). They're easier to tend and diseases and pests won't spread as easily. Combining many different types of food gathering is good.

[Txon Taronyu]

I don't like the idea of farming (a small garden perhaps) but I do like fishing

[auroraglacialis]

Hi.
I am new to this forum and usually connected to a different group of people who think about the same topic as you all here, but I could not resist to post on this one.
Land is a major obstacle. I continue to emphasize that the worlds population is not sustainable. And this is also the reason why the human race cannot as a whole go back to hunter and gatherer lifestyle or even traditional farming if population stays the same. 200 square miles seem to be a bit high - I have been in Africa and I have to agree that it is very much a difference if you have a savannah or a rain forest. Especially the gathering part is much easier in wet climates. For any group going on with this I would recommend gardening and above all PERMACULTURE. The latter is ideal for such a setting. It involves maximizing the use of a small piece of land. Like Sepp Holzer in Austria (look him up on youtube) who has fish ponds connected to gardening. The fish feed on algae and on smaller fish and the gardening use the nutrient rich clean water. He also derives electric energy and drinking water from this. Also in a 2010 Scientific American issue, there was an article on ancient Amazonian rainforest tribes. They hunted the forests and supplemented this by gardening in small plots for vegetables and fruit. They had fish ponds and a nearby river to supplement this even further and managed to sustain a population that was quite a bit higher than the current population in that area.
Personally I would recommend staying away from grains though - they are the most work- and space intensive food source of them all.
Greetings, Aurora

[Txon Taronyu]

I don't think our plan was to get the whole world to do this

[Tonbogiri]

Let's not get into competition here - I can just tell that any minute someone is going to kick off about who's idea it was first or something like that.
Auroraglacialis and Txon Taronyu, if our two groups both want the same thing then we must either join forces or ignore eachother.

But as long as we're all still buddies, we should have no problem! 

On the bright side, it's great to know that there are so many like minded people out there.

[auroraglacialis]

No competition intended - did anything I said sound like that? Actually I am trying to figure out how the two groups can benefit from each other and I heed it possible that if it becomes tough in the months and years to come and too many people are loosing their enthusiasm (I've seen some concerned posts on that) we could actually join the clans. Otherwise, if membership stays up, we could form two clans in a global tribe (maybe there are others out there), allowing members to switch clan if they feel they do not fit in or prefer a different location. This could be a very good thing.

Oh and I did not intend to bring the whole world into this it was just general rambling on the state of the world. I just get that sometimes

I meant what I said about mixing hunting and gathering with small scale gardening or permaculture though. The lost tribes of the ancient amazon are just one example - many other tribes also use domesticated animals or do small scale gardening, too. And if land is limited, this is the only option that still allows a close connection with nature. If you already decided to be pure hunters and gatherers, I beg your forgiveness to have brought up a topic already decided (I did not read all your posts here, but I found some mentioning of an ecovillage - an idea we also thought of - as you know, like minds come up with like ideas )

Greetings
Aurora

[Tsawla Eltu Tsamsiyu]

I know this hasn't been posted in a while. I just needed to see if there was a thread similar to what I was thinking about so I wouldn't have to make a new one. Learning from other tribes... what about learning from other societies? What if they are ideas expressed through fictional peoples? Like the problem with money. What if the Tribe didn't have currency and, like the fictional society of Dinotopia, lived by the rule "ask and you shall receive"? We could learn from/borrow ideas from other people/tribes (fictional or real) and adapt them to what we have planned. Learning from real people is awesome, but learning from real peoples' ideas would expand our "pool of knowledge" (for lack of a better term). Like the Noghri. Their kinship based tribal lifestyle and their loyalty and their super-ninja-skills are somethings we could think about. There are a lot of ideas out there.