Calvin Luther Martin

Published in 1978 Keepers of the Game argues against the prevailing notion that the Native Americans joined the market culture of of the European colonists and killed wildlife to point of extinction to supply the fur market because they were awed by new goods, such as iron cookware, tools, and weapons, etc. Instead, Calvin Martin posits that their over-hunting in the colonial period was driven by the collapse of their religious cosmology, not materialism. In viewing nature as an interactive world where beings (animals, species, trees, etc.) could act aggressively against humans, Native Americans had a reason to restrict their kill. However, the introduction of new ideas, technology, and cultures by the Europeans undermined that view of nature and led to the over-hunting. Lastly, Martin argues against a contemporary trend among late 1970s environmentalists to hold up the example of the "Ecological Indian" as a model of ecology. According to his study, it was animism, not ecology, that drove Native American attitudes towards their environment, and this worldview cannot be translated into late twentieth (and early twenty-first) century culture. There is a lot more anthropological information in his book if you are interested in the Micmac and Ojibwa nations.… (mere)