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Peter Farb

86 quotes

“A human being cannot survive alone and be entirely human. It is through the nature of their social and political institutions that the differences and similarities among cultures are to be accounted for.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The members of a society do not make conscious choices in arriving at a particular way of life. Rather, they make unconscious adaptations. ...they know only that a particular choice works, even though it may appear bizarre to an outsider.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Culture is all the things and ideas ever devised by humans working and living together.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The astonishing cluster of them [geniuses] that appeared in Athens during the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. ...what changed was the culture, which allowed exceptional minds to flourish.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Shoshone, as well as those peoples around the world who still survive at the least complex levels of social organization, know that romantic love exists. But they also recognize it for what it is—in their case, a form of madness. ...they regard the participants with tolerance and patience, for they know that the illness will soon go away. ...To them, only someone mentally backward would base an institution so important to survival as marriage on romantic love. ...it is a life and death business.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An isolated human in a simple society is usually a dead human...”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An incestuous marriage establishes no new bonds between unrelated groups; it is an absurd denial to the right to increase the number of people whom one can trust. Marriages in simple societies are... usually alliances between families rather than romantic arrangements between individuals.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Complex civilization is hectic... such hunters and collectors of wild food as the Shoshone are among the most leisured people on earth.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The more simple the society, the more leisured its way of life.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Shoshone did not wage war, because it served no purpose.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the far north, where humans must face the constant threat of starvation, where life is reduced to the bare essentials—it turns out that one of these essentials is art. Art seems to belong to the basic pattern of life of the Eskimo, and of the neighboring Athapaskan and Algonkian Indian bands as well.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The environment does not determine the character of human culture; it merely sets the outer limits.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Balanced reciprocity is as much a social compact as it is an economic advantage. It is particularly important in hunting-gathering societies, where no individual could possibly accumulate a surplus, live independently of other members of the band, or become so successful in the quest for food as never to need meat from someone else's kill.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sharing is a kinsman's or a friend's obligation, and it is not in the category of a gift.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The debate as to where "magic" ends and "religion" begins is an old one, and it appeared to have been settled some decades ago when scholars concluded that no discernible boundary was to be found. As a result, the two were often lumped together in the adjective "magico-religious"...”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The League [of the Hodenosaunee] favorably impressed the White settlers, and some historians believe it to have been one of the models on which the Constitution of the new United States of America was based.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are in the habit of thinking in terms of great leaders largely because the leaders themselves want it that way. The pharaohs ordered that a record of their accomplishments be carved on stone; medieval nobles subsidized troubadours to sing their praises; today's world leaders have large staffs of public-relations consultants. No culture can be explained in terms of one or more leaders...”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To say that the invention "was in the air" or "the times were ripe for it" are just other ways of stating that the inventors did not do the inventing, but that the cultures did.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For a tribe to endure, it must find some way to achieve internal unity—and that way usually is external strife. The tribe exists at all times in a state of mobilization for war against its neighbors. The slightest incident, or often merely a desire to increase prestige, is enough to set off a skirmish, and in such circumstances hatred against external enemies must be unremitting.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the time of the Europeans discovery of North America, the American Indians already cultivated a wider variety of plants than did the Europeans.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Social scientists of the past spoke glibly of an "agricultural revolution," a time during which human populations suddenly soared, cities were founded, and many trappings of civilization made their appearance. ...The food-production revolution turns out to be a slow evolution, a long period of experimentation rather than a sudden explosion.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Numerous sophisticated inventions undoubtedly originated in the New World. They include many aspects of plant domestication and horticulture, the hammock, the tobacco pipe, an intricate system used for ventilating and cooling ceremonial chambers, the enema, the hollow rubber ball, the toboggan, and numerous other objects and ideas that were brought back to the Old World after Columbus.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What makes the Hohokam noteworthy is the development of irrigation works. The earliest... dates from some 2,000 years ago. ...They built dams that redirected the flow of water into irrigation canals, some of them... extending for more than twenty-five miles. ...They built flat-topped pyramids and ball courts, where they used rubber balls imported from Central America. The Hohokam may also have been the first to use the technique of etching with acid in their remarkable designs on marine shells.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The culture of the Anasazi is still the best known of all prehistoric southwestern cultures. ...Their architecture... is distinctly their own, and unique among all the southwestern cultures.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Hopewell fused elements of the Adena, the Archaic, and other Woodland patterns of life. Thus, it cannot technically be identified as a culture. ...Rather, the Hopewell people were an amalgam of many societies whose customs varied greatly, but who were bound together by... a cult of the dead and a trade bond... a network of trade linked widely separated areas of the continent.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most imposing characteristic of the Mississipian is the pyramidal mound, built not to cover a burial but as a foundation for a temple or a chief's house.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At various stages of evolution, the Indian cultures were presented with only a limited number of possibilities. The members of certain kinds of societies—the small band, the large band, the tribe, the chiefdom, the state, and variations of these—tended to make characteristic choices concerning religion, law, government, and art... Such choices were not... consciously made... For a particular society, they either worked or they did not work.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only a few years after the permanent settlement of Virginia, some fifty missionaries arrived to begin the massive task of converting the heathen. The Indians on their part, did not respond with alacrity to the idea of adopting a culture that to them, in many cases, seemed barbarous, indeed.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the Pequots resisted the migration of settlers into the Connecticut Valley in 1637, a party of Puritans surrounded the Pequot village and set fire to it. About five hundred Indians were burned to death or shot while trying to escape... The woods were then combed for any Pequots who had managed to survive, and these were sold into slavery. Cotton Mather was grateful to the Lord that "on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Puritans failed miserably in their dealings with the Indians of New England, with scarcely a glimmer of kindness to illuminate black page after black page of cruelty and humiliation. ...conversion of the heathen was not one of the compelling motives—or justifications—for the Puritan settling of New England...”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Following the War of 1812, the young United States had no further need for Indian allies against the British, and as a result the fortunes of the Indians declined rapidly. By 1848, twelve new states had been carved out of the Indian's lands, two major and minor Indian wars had been fought, and group after group of Indians had been herded westward, on forced marches, across the Mississippi River.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the intensity of the indignation was in direct proportion to a White's distance from the Indian. On the frontier, the Indian was regarded as a besotted savage; but along the eastern seaboard, where the Spaniards, Dutch, English, and later Americans had long since exterminated all the Indians, philosophers and divines began to defend the Red Man.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“About 1790 the Cherokee decided to adopt the ways of their White conquerors and... established churches, mills, schools, and well cultivated farms... they adopted a written constitution providing for an executive, a bicameral legislature, a supreme court, and a code of laws.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...they were set off on a thousand mile march—called to this day "the trail of tears" by the Cherokee—that was one of the notable death marches in history.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Up to 1868, nearly four hundred treaties had been signed by the United States government with various Indian groups, and scarcely a one had remained unbroken. By the latter part of the last century, the Indians finally realized that these treaties were real-estate deals designed to separate them from their lands. In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Indians and Whites skirmished and then fought openly with ferocity and barbarity on both sides. Group by group, the Indians rose in rebellion only to be crushed...”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“General Phil Sheridan... had urged the destruction of the bison herds, correctly predicting that when they disappeared the Indians would disappear along with them; by 1885 the bison were virtually extinct, and the Indians were starving to death on the plains. ...the Indian Wars finally ended; and with the enforced peace came an economic recession in the West, for the United States government had spent there about one million dollars for every Indian killed by 1870.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Whites were in full control ... remnants were shifted about again and again... All of which led Sioux chief Spotted Tail, grown old and wise, to ask the weary question: "Why does not the Great Father put his red children on wheels, so he can move them as he will?”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Within a century or so after the discovery of America, more than fifty new foods had been carried back to the Old World, including maize, turkey, white potato, pumpkin, squash, the so-called Jerusalem artichoke, avocado, chocolate, and several kinds of beans. (Potatoes and maize now rank second and third in total tonnage of the world's crops, behind rice but ahead of what is probably man's oldest cultivated grain, wheat.) The European has turned for relief to drugs and pharmaceuticals the Indians discovered: quinine, ephedrine, novocaine, curare, ipecac, and witch hazel.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No sooner did the first Whites arrive in North America than a disproportionate number of them showed that they preferred Indian society to their own. ...Throughout American history, thousands of Whites exchanged breeches for breechcloths.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why did transculturalization seem to operate only in one direction? Whites who had lived for a time with Indians almost never wanted to leave. But almost none of the "civilized" Indians who had been given the opportunity to savor White society chose to become a part of it. ...Nor does this problem relate solely to the American Indian. Some of the first missionaries sent to the South Seas from London, in the eighteenth century, threw away their collars and married native women.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the things that amazed the earliest explorers, almost without exception, was the hospitality with which Indians received them. When the Indians later learned that the Whites posed a threat, their attitude changed, but the initial contacts were idyllic. ...Hospitality and sharing were characteristic of all Indian societies.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why did not Indians enter White society, particularly in view of the numerous attempts by Whites to "civilize" them? The answer is that White settlers possessed no traditions and institutions comparable to the Indians' hospitality and sharing, adoption, and complete social integration. ...Whites who educated Indians did so with the idea that the Indians would return to their own people as missionaries to spread the gospel, not that they might become functioning parts of White society.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Voluntary assimilation, known as Indianization in the Americas, is one response that has occurred at other places and in other times when two cultures collided. An unusual manifestation of it is when the whole dominant culture takes up the ways of the conquered. That does not happen very often, but it did occur when the Hyksos conquered Egypt about 1700 B.C. and when the Romans conquered the Greeks in the second century B.C.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When today's remnants of Indian societies are examined closely, it is seen how well some have worked out a compromise with their White conquerors—acculturation without assimilation.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By the time the United States took possession of the Southwest in 1848, after the Mexican War, the Navajo had become the dominant military force in the area. ...The American soldiers who marched into Santa Fe had no trouble with the Mexicans, but the Navajo stole several head of cattle from the herd of the commanding general himself, not to mention thousands of sheep and horses from settlers in the vicinity.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 1680 the Pueblo Indians, led by a prophet named Popé who had been living in Taos, expelled the Spaniards. ..The god of the Spaniards was declared dead, and the religious ways came out into the open again. ...But when Popé attempted to become the unchallenged leader of all the Pueblo Indians, the movement collapsed. ...The Pueblo confederation soon broke apart and the people warred among themselves. In 1692 the Spaniards marched back to victory.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Inspired by the teachings of Smohalla, Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé in Idaho rebelled in 1877. Before he was trapped only thirty miles short of refuge in Canada, he had consistently outwitted and outfought a superior United States Army... although he forbade his warriors to scalp or to torture, the Whites massacred his women and children.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The movement known as the Ghost Dance first appeared around 1870... soon after the Union Pacific Railroad completed its first transcontinental run. ...that event inspired the vision of the prophet Wodziwob, who declared that a big train was coming to bring back dead ancestors... a cataclysm would swallow up all the whites and leave behind their goods for his followers.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In 1830... Joseph Smith... prophesied that a New Jerusalem would arise in the wilds... The Mormons sent emissaries to the Indians, whom he renamed the Lamanites, inviting them to join the Mormon colonies and to be baptized. Joseph Smith was also to have prophesied in 1843 that if he... lived until 1890—the messiah would appear in human form. ...It was in 1890 that... Wovoka appeared and began teaching the [revitalized] Ghost Dance religion.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Sioux had been forced to submit to a series of land grabs and to indignities that are almost unbelievable when read about today. ...they were being systematically starved into submission—by the White Bureaucracy—on the little that was left of their reservation in South Dakota. ...From Rosebud, the Ghost Dance spread like prairie fire to the Pine Ridge Sioux and finally to Sitting Bull's people at Standing Rock. The Sioux rebelled; the result was the death of Sitting Bull and the massacre of the Indians (despite their ghost shirts) at Wounded Knee in 1890.”
Peter Farb (1929–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source