Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western Stem and welcome to a
Speaker 1: special bonus series that I'm going to be doing about
Speaker 1: Native American culture prior to the arrival of Europeans in
Speaker 1: North America. There's a lot of information about the Aztec,
Speaker 1: the Inca, the Maya, but there's much, much, much less
Speaker 1: that's been written about North American Indian societies and their culture.
Speaker 1: And that's a mistake because we need to understand how
Speaker 1: these two cultures are going to interact throughout this period
Speaker 1: that we tend to refer to as European colonization. And
Speaker 1: while we'll be focusing on the Europeans quite a lot,
Speaker 1: we can't ignore the other side of the equation here now,
Speaker 1: before the sales of European ships ever broke the Atlantic horizon,
Speaker 1: the land that we today called North America was not
Speaker 1: an untouched wilderness by any stretch of the imagination. It
Speaker 1: was a place of cities, bustling cities, sprawling trade networks,
Speaker 1: cultivated fields, and a deep reciprocal relationship between people and place.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a blank slate waiting to be discovered. It
Speaker 1: was a landscape that had long been shaped by human hands.
Speaker 1: To imagine, pre Columbian America as a wild and silent
Speaker 1: expanse is to misunderstand the very nature of the continent.
Speaker 1: Before fourteen ninety two, the forests, rivers, and plains teemed
Speaker 1: with life, not just animal and plant, but humans as well.
Speaker 1: Generations of indigenous people's transform these landscapes, creating environments that
Speaker 1: were both beautiful and bountiful. Forests were open through controlled burns,
Speaker 1: prairies managed to encourage game, orchards, and cultivated fields lined
Speaker 1: river banks. To quote one particular historian, quote, the natives
Speaker 1: did not live lightly upon the land. They changed it
Speaker 1: dramatically and in ways that made it more productive end quote.
Speaker 1: Among the marvels of this world was a great city
Speaker 1: that rose alongside the Mississippi River, Kahokia, Larger than London
Speaker 1: in its time, Kahokia was no scattered village. It was
Speaker 1: a true metropolis. Its population numbered in the tens of thousands,
Speaker 1: Its center dominated by massive earth and mounds, the largest
Speaker 1: of which rivaled the size of the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
Speaker 1: Wide ceremonial plazas, wooden palisades, and astronomical markers shaped a
Speaker 1: city built with purpose and vision. To quote now historian
Speaker 1: Stanley Rice, Kahokia was not a mere village. It was
Speaker 1: a city, possibly the largest north of Mexico before modern times.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: Here people gathered for feasts, rituals, and trade, bringing together
Speaker 1: the rhythms of agricultural life with the celestial patterns above them.
Speaker 1: And this city, Cookia was no isolated marvel. Across the continent,
Speaker 1: Indigenous societies formed vast and interconnected networks. Obsidian from the
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountains, copper from the Great Lakes, seashells from the
Speaker 1: Gulf coast, all moved along trade routes that wove of
Speaker 1: fab of cultural and economic exchange. These goods passed from
Speaker 1: hand to hand, village to village, carried by people whose
Speaker 1: footsteps left I'll admit it faint, but nevertheless enduring marks
Speaker 1: on the land. Each exchange told the story of relationships,
Speaker 1: of shared ideas, and of a continent humming with life.
Speaker 1: Again quoting Rice, quote vibrant, networked and full of life,
Speaker 1: not silent, uninhabited wilderness end quote. This was a land
Speaker 1: of people. As much as we like to think of
Speaker 1: it as a pristine, untouched land, which is what Europeans saw,
Speaker 1: That's not the lens that Native American peoples would have
Speaker 1: looked at it through. Even in the absence of the
Speaker 1: monumental architecture of Kahokia, the land bore witness to this
Speaker 1: human touch. Great stretches of prairie and forest weren't touched
Speaker 1: at all, but they were actively tended. Fire used with
Speaker 1: skill and critically restraint, shaped ecosystems to encourage certain plants
Speaker 1: and animals in the northeast, the so called Three sisters
Speaker 1: I grew up with. In the Midwest, corn beans and
Speaker 1: squash were cultivated in harmony. It's not easy to grow
Speaker 1: them all, by the way, Trust me, I've tried. Farther west,
Speaker 1: there were terraced fields and irrigation systems that brought fertility
Speaker 1: to arid soil. This wasn't the domination of nature in
Speaker 1: European forms, but the conversion with it, one where people
Speaker 1: both listened to, adjusted, and lived with their surroundings. Not
Speaker 1: changed them and.
Speaker 2: These people themselves.
Speaker 1: But what we can say is, prior to the arrival
Speaker 1: of Europeans, they were strong, they were healthy, and they
Speaker 1: were thriving. Skeletal remains reveal robust bones, low rates of disease,
Speaker 1: and shockingly good dental health, which was a striking contrast
Speaker 1: to the often sickly populations of medieval Europe. According to
Speaker 1: all statistics before fourteen ninety two, the people of the
Speaker 1: Americas were among the healthiest of the world, with low
Speaker 1: rates of dental decay and strong, robust skeletal remains. These
Speaker 1: weren't populations desperately eking out a marginal existence. These were
Speaker 1: communities nourished by diverse diets, clean environments, and sustainable practices.
Speaker 1: But flourishing, of course, was not eternal. Around the year
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred, the Mississippian world began to contract.
Speaker 2: We don't know why.
Speaker 1: Maybe the climate was changing, maybe there was an internal strife,
Speaker 1: maybe there was an outbreak of disease. After all, we
Speaker 1: still don't fully understand. The Bronze Age collapsed, and this
Speaker 1: is essentially what we're seeing. Cities like Khochio were slowly abandoned,
Speaker 1: their plazas left silent in the mounds, untended until they
Speaker 1: were simply covered by the earth. By the time Europeans
Speaker 1: arrived two centuries later, the monumental civilizations were gone, and
Speaker 1: this illustrates the importance of timing in history. Had Europeans
Speaker 1: arrived in the thirteen hundreds instead of the late fourteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: basically the year fifteen hundred, they would have encountered a
Speaker 1: totally different civilization, a totally different groupings of people, perhaps
Speaker 1: peoples in a much stronger position to resist them. What
Speaker 1: remained instead was a world in transition, populations that have
Speaker 1: been dispersed, forests, regrown fields, reclaimed by weeds. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: to European eyes, this looked like a virgin land, unworked
Speaker 1: and unclaimed.
Speaker 2: But that illusion had consequences.
Speaker 1: When colonizers saw orchards they assumed were wild, when they
Speaker 1: stumbled upon cleared meadows, or followed game trails that had
Speaker 1: once been footpaths, they didn't realize that this was all
Speaker 1: by design. Again quoting Stanley Rice, quote, Europeans did not
Speaker 1: walk into an untouched world. They walked into a ghost world,
Speaker 1: shaped by those who came before, and emptied by their
Speaker 1: mysterious disappearance end quote. This misunderstanding, which shape centuries of policy,
Speaker 1: myth making, and of course violence and the erasure, was
Speaker 1: more than just historical oversight. This was a philosophical decision.
Speaker 1: To imagine this continent as unpeopled was to simply erase
Speaker 1: its legacy. And yet even in the traces left behind
Speaker 1: in all those mounds, in those earthworks, in the stories
Speaker 1: that would be passed down is another truth. I don't
Speaker 1: think North America was ever waiting. It was already made.
Speaker 1: The landscape that we talk about that we live in today,
Speaker 1: if you live in the United States or in North
Speaker 1: America at all, is the descendants of those earlier, carefully
Speaker 1: shaped environments. The myth of a primeval wilderness has long
Speaker 1: obscured the wisdom of those who lived with rather than
Speaker 1: over the land. We can never return, of course, to
Speaker 1: what the North America was before Europeans came, but we
Speaker 1: can learn from how the native peoples that lived there
Speaker 1: before lived with the land rather than constantly fighting against it.
Speaker 1: Safe to say that in modern culture, especially in North America,
Speaker 1: we don't think about fire the same way that the
Speaker 1: Native American cultures that came before us did. In our
Speaker 1: popular imagination, fire is a force of terror. It destroys forests,
Speaker 1: it swallows homes, It drives wildlife.
Speaker 2: In a smoky sort of panic.
Speaker 1: Our stories have all taught us to fear it, whether
Speaker 1: those are fairy tales or frontier myths. Of course, in
Speaker 1: modern memory, all of us will remember the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: fires from just not even twelve months ago. These wildfires
Speaker 1: some images of charred cities and emergency evacuations, but long ago.
Speaker 1: To the Native American cultures of America before the Europeans,
Speaker 1: fire was something else entirely. It wasn't the destroyer, It
Speaker 1: was the planner. It was the architect. It was the
Speaker 1: good medicine for the earth. In the great tapestry of
Speaker 1: pre Columbia, North America, fire was woven into nearly every thread.
Speaker 1: Where forests and are now thick with impenetrable undergrowth, there
Speaker 1: were one's open woodlands where wildflowers bloomed, Where thickets now
Speaker 1: choked the hillsides, there were ones tall grasses beneath clear sides.
Speaker 1: The difference was fire. Fire set by Native American groups
Speaker 1: with intention, guided by knowledge, and lit by human hands.
Speaker 1: Across the continent, Indigenous peoples set fires to shape their environments,
Speaker 1: from the pine forests of the southeast to the oak
Speaker 1: savannahs of the Midwest, from California to the tundrant margins
Speaker 1: of the far North. Fire was used as a tool,
Speaker 1: to quote one historian, if there was anything to burn,
Speaker 1: Indians set fire to it. This was an early record
Speaker 1: from centuries ago. But this wasn't reckless burning. It was
Speaker 1: an ecological craft learned and passed down through generations. They
Speaker 1: knew what they were doing. Indigenous peoples used fire to
Speaker 1: make the landscape more fruitful. This cleared away old, dry
Speaker 1: vegetation and made room for new shoots to emerge. It
Speaker 1: opened up the forest floor, allowing light to reach the soil,
Speaker 1: coaxing out some hungry herbs and berries. These ashes promoted
Speaker 1: new growth, releasing nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. In the
Speaker 1: wake of flames, came not destruction, not evacuation, but abundance,
Speaker 1: lush grasses, fresh wildlife, flowers and bloom animals drawn to
Speaker 1: the new floorage. In places like the tall grass prairies,
Speaker 1: the burning wasn't just beneficial, it was essential. Without fire,
Speaker 1: grasslands would disappear beneath a creeping tide of shrubs and
Speaker 1: young trees. Without fire, the great open landscapes of North America,
Speaker 1: especially in that central zone, would have all vanished. These
Speaker 1: ecosystems needed the flame to retain what they were. Perhaps
Speaker 1: every grassland in the world depended and depends still on
Speaker 1: a recurring fire cycle. Even in the forests. Fire shaped
Speaker 1: what lived and what didn't. Some trees, like the closed
Speaker 1: pines of California, could only actually reproduce after fire burst
Speaker 1: their seeds from the resin sealed cones. The story goes deeper. Still,
Speaker 1: fire to the early Native Americans wasn't just ecological, It
Speaker 1: was cultural. It was the expression of these people's relationship
Speaker 1: to the land. Indigenous communities burned for countless reasons, to
Speaker 1: improve hunting, to gather food more easily, to prepare soil
Speaker 1: for planting, to promote safety by reducing fuel for uncontrolled wildfires.
Speaker 1: We still do this today. They burn to protect their homes,
Speaker 1: to clear trails for their hunters, to help animals, and
Speaker 1: to grow straighter basket weaving stems and better even harvests.
Speaker 1: They burned not to destroy the world, but to renew it.
Speaker 1: In one early account, Native peoples explained that they burned
Speaker 1: the forest quote to render hunting easier end quote. The
Speaker 1: idea was that underbrush would crackle and alert games, you
Speaker 1: had to get rid of it. In another early account
Speaker 1: of Native Americans, it was said that they set fires
Speaker 1: quote to clear the woods of dead substance and grass
Speaker 1: end quote, making way for the springs new life. And
Speaker 1: always they knew how to control it.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: Indian countries are clean countries, observed a nineteenth century military officer.
Speaker 1: No underbrush or decayed logs. The annual fires clean up everything.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: The technique was precise. Fires were set at certain times
Speaker 1: of the year, often in the spring or fall, when
Speaker 1: moisture levels were higher and it was easier to control
Speaker 1: the flames. Fires were kept as we now say when
Speaker 1: we do barbecue, low and slow, burning the underbrush but
Speaker 1: leaving the trees alive. And people built their homes with
Speaker 1: this knowledge and mind, structures temporary enough to be rebuilt
Speaker 1: if needed, or placed where fires rarely reached. This was
Speaker 1: never an attempt to conquer nature, but to express the
Speaker 1: humility of coexistence, and the results were astonishing. One early
Speaker 1: North American settler rode quote, you could gallop your horse
Speaker 1: among the trees end quote. The forests were that open.
Speaker 1: Others were called fields where strawberries grew wild under oaks. Quote,
Speaker 1: so that your foot could hardly direct itself where it
Speaker 1: would not be dyed in the blood of large and
Speaker 1: delicious strawberries end quote. Forests weren't tangled and dim. They
Speaker 1: were open, sun dappled, and full of life, and those
Speaker 1: meadows well, According to some, they were not ablaze with fire,
Speaker 1: but with color quote a mass of blossom, larkspur poppy,
Speaker 1: sage in bloom. What grace the fields most of all
Speaker 1: was the sight of all the different sorts of colors
Speaker 1: together end quote. Even those grand Sequoias, the tallest trees
Speaker 1: on earth, owed their survival to fire. Without periodic burning,
Speaker 1: their seeds could not germinate. Fires cleared the competing underbrush
Speaker 1: and gave seedlings the light and the space they needed
Speaker 1: to grow. There were towering trees charred by flame, but
Speaker 1: alive beneath them, lush, fresh green shoots reaching for the
Speaker 1: ever distant sky. This fire driven landscape, it wasn't an accident.
Speaker 1: It was the result of sustained in deliberate action where
Speaker 1: indigenous communities were removed through war, disease, sometimes forest relocation.
Speaker 1: Immediately a traveler would note the absence of fire, who
Speaker 1: was visible. Forest suddenly thickened with underbrush. Prairies disappeared completely.
Speaker 1: Deer and bison vanished from areas where they had once thrived.
Speaker 2: One account notes.
Speaker 1: Quote, within a century, forest grew where prairies had formerly
Speaker 1: dominated end quote. The land had gone natural it was
Speaker 1: no longer being tended.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Some scholars refused to believe what was right in front
Speaker 1: of them. They couldn't accept these so called primitive societies
Speaker 1: had managed ecosystems with such sophistication for decades. Anthropologists dismissed
Speaker 1: the idea that Native Americans were anything more than passive foragers.
Speaker 1: One forest re official scoffed, quote, it would be difficult
Speaker 1: to find a reason why the Indians should care way
Speaker 1: or another if the forest burned.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: Clearly he didn't ask any of the Indians, but the forest.
Speaker 1: They told a different story. Fire scars etched into tree rings,
Speaker 1: several centuries of regular, low intensity burns. Paulin trapped to
Speaker 1: the layers of ancient lake bed mud shows transition from
Speaker 1: dense forest to open grassland at times that correlate with
Speaker 1: human habitation, and accounts from early European settlers speak not
Speaker 1: of untouched wilderness, but of carefully tended landscapes managed never
Speaker 1: by the plow, but only by the flame. One study
Speaker 1: even suggests that the cessation of native burning after fourteen
Speaker 1: ninety two helped to actually cool the earth when millions
Speaker 1: of Indigenous people died from European diseases, their fires went
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: The forest grew back, and.
Speaker 1: In doing so they pulled billions of tons of carbon
Speaker 1: from the air. This reforestation may actually have contributed to
Speaker 1: this so called Little Ice Age, a century's long period
Speaker 1: of global cooling. It's actually kind of a scary thought, right,
Speaker 1: The silence of extinguished fires, by the death of so
Speaker 1: many people, might have been felt all the way in
Speaker 1: distant Asia.
Speaker 2: Fire was not merely a tool.
Speaker 1: It was a form of knowledge, a way of living
Speaker 1: with the land, not upon them. To quote again Stanley Rice, quote,
Speaker 1: fires was always the servant, never the master end quote.
Speaker 1: And in those controlled burns, those black and meadows, those
Speaker 1: scorched oak groves bursting with new life, lies the memory
Speaker 1: of a people who understood something this modern world is
Speaker 1: just starting to relearn. We're just starting controlled burns on
Speaker 1: a major level again here in the last century. It
Speaker 1: took us that long to recognize what native peoples always knew.
Speaker 1: Fire was essential to this land. For them, fire was
Speaker 1: never destruction, It was restoration.