Actually, some of the Natives on the Northwest Coast (Northern California up into Canada) were sedentary hunter-gatherers - they lived in areas so fertile and productive that HG’s didn’t have to move around all the time, they could settle in place, build large structures, and develop all sorts of things requiring abundant free time for artisans.
There is archeological evidence that in pre-history parts of the Middle East were fertile and productive enough that HG’s could remain in a permanent village. Also some evidence that in pre-history Japan there might also have been HG’s in permanent villages.
Note that does not eliminate hunting and gathering trips away from home which might last weeks, only that these people had permanent “base camps”, often with extensive wooden, stone, or brick buildings.
It’s not whether you’re nomadic or sedentary that marks you as HG or not, it’s how you get your food. HG’s get their food by - surprise! - hunting and gathering. Farmers and pastoralists raise plant crops and animals to eat. Either one could be nomadic, semi-nomadic, or settled. And of course, because real life is messy, there were also groups that blurred the borders between those two categories.
IIRC there was a scene in Man Called Horse or Little Big Man (Can’t remember which, I think it was LBM) where when the woman’s husband is killed in a raid, the other women simply attack her tent and take everything, and as a woman with no husband she is left to starve. (Just as in AMCH the slave captives were worked all summer and booted out of the tent to freeze when winter came and food was scarce)
I’m guessing the point is many societies, especially older traditonal ones, did not allow for independent women. A woman without a male protector was always at risk of sexual assault. They typically went from father’s house to spouse’s - this patriarchal bias is even evident in the Bible laws and stories. Men held all the property and called the shots. Patriarchal societies are/were reluctant to condemn a man based on a woman’s say-so.
(When I was in grade school, the teacher joked that polygamy was forbidden by the Bible quote “no man can serve two masters…”)
You’re right that perhaps I was a bit sloppy using “sedentary” too interchangeably with “agricultural”. Overall your example is precisely what I was talking about. I think if you go far enough back, before any agriculture at all, you’d find that most Homo sapiens lived like this - as hunter gatherers in a place that’s extremely fertile. I’m sure there were Homo sapiens in less optimal places too, but the densest populations would naturally be in the places that had the most available resources.
As agriculture spread, the even higher population density of agricultural societies allowed them to drive the HGs away from anywhere they could farm. Early farmers had lives that were harder than contemporary HGs, they spent more hours producing food and ended up with fewer calories and a less varied diets than HGs. Genetic evidence suggests that it was pretty rare for HGs to adopt farming from their neighbors for this reason - agriculture sprang up independently in a few different places and then spread through migration of agriculturalists.
As farming societies expanded, they eventually spread into every available arable area; and as technology developed, more and more of the world became arable.
I think if you went back far enough there’d have been similar HG groups in places like the East Coast/Great Lakes region, or the Mississippi Basin; and the common perception among most Americans is that this is what early European explorers would have found - unspoiled HG cultures living off the land. But in fact, most of North America had been taken over by expansive agricultural cultures like the Mississipians, Puebloans, or Iriquous (and many, many more).
You’re right that the PNW is an exception where there were still pre-Columbian HG cultures when Europeans arrived. But I still wouldn’t use them as an example of a HG culture that was recorded by Europeans - by the time European explorers reached these places, the locals had been decimated by smallpox and similar diseases. I don’t think any Europeans ever experienced these cultures as they existed before they were struck by an apicalyptic disaster.
The Museum in Victoria had an extensive display on the smallpox epidemic, which struck after the towns of Victoria and Vacouver were settled, in the late 1800’s. I recall a review of a book about the epidemic in the northwest and Alsaska - the author made the point the natives were not more susceptible than Europeans, despite myths about immune systems. The problem was previously unexposed entire villages succumbed at once, resulting in deaths by exposure, starvation and dehydration. The author went through records, and found where there was even one immune person, survival rates were very good - enough unaffected immune people, missionaries or locals previously exposed - and the fatality rate was about 10%, same as for Europeans. when there was nobody to tend to the sick - as much as 100% fatalities.
The major disruption to the lifestyle of the PNW happened in the century before smallpox - basically, traded iron tools. With wood-working tools instead of stones and charring, the locals could produce the necessities far faster. A canoe from a large single log could be hollowed out much faster than by charring and scraping with hot rocks from a fire. Felling the large trees - even faster. Building canoes easier meant more time for fishing. The massive totem totem poles we associate with PNW natives, and all the associated ornate carvings, were a side effect of the new ease of carving. Rich sources of food - the salmon harvest especially - were even easier. The PNW tribes included tiers of people - chiefs (“noble families”), commoners, and slaves.
Contrary to popular condemnation, there is no evidence from their oral tradition that the Iroquois or other tribes in the area experinced that level of decimation.
The Iroquois are an interesting example too. Natives in the northeast were hunters and farmers, they were probably in the transition toward fully agricultural society. So it seems locals would find out about growing food from their neghbours, but not dive fully into sedenary agriculture. Presumably it was a transition toward full setlement. The Iroquois still suffered from soil depletion and moved their fields with slash-and-burn agriculture every few years.
There’s also a bit in MacKenzie’s diary from when he was first to explore the… wait for it… Mackenzie River in northern Canada. He had a group of native guides, including a chief. They ran across a local native woman who had been captured and made a slave by another tribe, then escaped and was living by herself hiding out. The natives were arguing over what to do with her, now that they’d caught her. The chief said since he was chief, he should make her his wife. One of his existing nine wives asked why should he, since he couldn’t satisfy the wives he already had. Apparently, then the chief to exception to that and beat that wife so badly that she died.
How does this mesh with Islam’s limit on 4 wives? Did these kings divorce some of their wives before taking others?
Or is this a misreporting of the king having 4 wives and a number of concubines? The “not all at the same time” for Salman and Fahd suggests that the divorce thing is the appropriate explanation.
I’m sure it varies with the Muslim/Middle-Eastern ruler. I have some recollection of the Emir of Kuwait never having more than 4 wives at a time, but having a propensity to divorce one of them when a new woman caught his fancy. Which is one “solution”.
The traditional rule was that you could only have 4 wives, but you could have as many “captives of your right hand” (i.e., slave concubines) as you wanted.
The Ottoman sultans’ harems consisted entirely of slaves. People could be enslaved or freed at the sultan’s whim, so being the child of a slave was no impediment to inheriting the throne. Suleiman the Magnificent broke with tradition by marrying one of his concubines.
In most Muslim countries, marriage and divorce are secular, civil matters. While a man is limited to 4 wives at any given time, there is no religious impediment to serial marriages and divorces.
Re. the “Lost Boys” of FLDS mentioned earlier by @Broomstick and @TokyoBayer , the NY Times has a great photo essay on them, which I’m sharing with a gift link:
That’s a great photo essay, thank you and well worth people clicking it.
[rant]
I hate it when even the NY Times is factually incorrect when it takes shortcuts. The article says:
I know it’s unnecessary to go through the entire convoluted history of Mormon fundamentalism, but please NY Times, don’t write factually incorrect statements.
The FLDS Church is one of the fundamentalists sects which eventually emerged after the main Mormon church finally gave up polygamy, but this was well after 1890.
As it’s wondering off from the main topic, I’ll hide the details
Summary
From wiki
Given that a google search on the FLDS Church takes seconds and reading the history takes a few minutes, then there really isn’t any excuse for repeating statements which aren’t factually correct.
The FLDS Church simply does not date back to 1890 and the many of the leaders of the branches of the fundamentalist movements weren’t even excommunicated from the Mormon Church until the early 1930s
The LDS Church has tried to distance itself from its roots in polygamy, and has tried to create a fiction that when they published a single letter in 1890 which then instantly eliminated polygamy then and there, when in fact the top leadership of the church was still actively participating in the practice for more than a decade.
Thanks for pointing out the inaccuracy; I’m not familiar enough with LDS history to have noted it. I did find it interesting that it focused on the effect and aftermath of Warren Jeffs on the boys.
It brings to mind something I saw once suggesting that the appeal of ISIS and similar militant groups was not 72 virgins in paradise, but your own captive “wife” (sex slave) here on earth. It suggested that with polygamy being accepted in the Middle East, there was a contingent (not unliks the LDS “lost boys”) who had no chance of getting a wife the normal way. They joined not out of religious zeal, but from general male horiness. Contrary comments pointed out polygamy is not that prevalent and so not likely a significant factor. However, with most girls controlled by their families, someone without a decent income and good prospects is unlikely to get her family’s approval to marry - so the same issue arises.
I think a lot of people forget that some males suffer in patriarchal societies as well. It’s not to take away from the injustice done to the women, but as an acknowledgement of the complicities involved.
Hi!! I was hoping you would show up.
I think it’s unfortunate that the LDS Church isn’t open with its history. I am curious what a typical member from a convert family (ISTR that your parents were converts) knows about polygamy.
I’m no longer paying attention to the ex-Mormon site, podcasts and such, but it was interesting finding out extensive the church was going to scrub as many references as possible to polygamy.
Given the defiant determination of so many ex-LDS members to retain polygamy, I wonder why the mainstream church chose to refute it. My first guess would be legal and political pressure from non-LDS authorities; but if the LDS church could be pressured that successfully, why didn’t this apply to the splinter groups?
The LDS church held a great deal of property in Utah. An anti-bigamy law had been passed in the 1860s to outlaw the practice of polygamy as well as nonprofit possession of more than $50,000 in property (intended to strike at institutions that could shelter the practice). While it wasn’t enforced until the 1880s or thereabouts, the church hierarchy was eventually forced underground and was losing control of the civil government.
It would be possible for Utah to gain home rule if it was granted statehood, but tthere was no way statehood would be granted if polygamy were still church doctrine. The price for statehood would be to eliminate polygamy in the LDS church. In 1890, the head of the LDS church proclaimed a revelation that the church should cease plural marriage, and statehood came six years later.
The splinter groups, such as the FLDS church, did not own large amounts of fixed property that the federal government, and later the state, could confiscate to enforce the prohibition. Many plural marriages continued to exist (and some more were contracted) and those practicing polygamy were often not bothered or were protected by their neighboring communities. With a lower profile, they could “slip between the cracks” and maintain their practices, though without approval from the civil authorities and without fully contracted marital status.
Yeah, my parents were converts AND I was a pretty un-aware child (for example, I knew my parents’ underwear was different from other people’s, but I had not the faintest idea that it was church related until high school! – I think my parents assumed I knew that and never bothered to explain) and I grew up knowing very little about the, er, negative side of the church. I’m pretty sure it got brought up once in a while at church (mostly by people going “yeah I think it would be hard to live polygamy on earth, but presumably it will be easy to do in the celestial kingdom,” that kind of thing), it wasn’t really covered up, so I knew there was polygamy, but I think I just thought of it as a Brigham Young/creepy-old-man-church-president kind of thing?? and everyone knows BY was weird??
In high school I read Orson Scott Card’s Saints, which I credit with introducing me to the concepts of a) Joseph Smith being married to a whole bunch of random women and Emma not knowing about it (wtf), and b) the church whitewashing and covering up stuff, which is actually brought up explicitly. It’s obviously written from an apologetics point of view, but also it’s pretty clear that Card had spent some time wrestling with these questions and wasn’t just covering them up himself. From the point of view of the Church, it was lucky for them that Card wrote it and that I found it as a teenager – if I’d come across this stuff for the first time when I went through my faith crisis in my mid-20’s, I would definitely not be in the church today. (And I’ve seen that very thing happen to a convert friend.)
When I went through my faith crisis I read a lot more about church history and at one point was reasonably informed (I’ve forgotten a lot about it now), but I think I never really went into what happened after 1890.
On polygamy references: I don’t keep track of this kind of thing anymore (I suppose I’ll need to in a couple of years when we do the D&C, now that I’m a Sunday School teacher again) – looks like I can still see the relevant Gospel Topics essay on the webpage and I’d be surprised if they took those out, but I can imagine them scrubbing the manuals – I’ve heard that next year there’s going to be a single manual that’s used for every class, which is gonna be… exciting. Can you imagine using the same manual for Young Women and Gospel Doctrine?? We’ll see, I guess.
Now you have to tell me: what’s the difference between Mormon underwear and regular one? I know there are all kinds of underwear from mere strings to circus tents, but what does Mormon underwear look like?
