In this era where most people are sequestered in large cities and much removed from their ties with nature it is good to read of such stories. The ancient wisdom that came from centuries of living close to nature has saved many cultures. Our detachment from nature has allowed modern, technological societies to do great damage to their environment out of a lack of understanding of our connected-ness.
Although I love the "produce" and diversity of the cities, I prefer to spend my life closer to nature here on Catalina. I can't say I have the accumulated wisdom of the Moken peoples. However I have learned a few things (and chose to buy a home here well out of the flood plain and away from the danger of tsunamis!).
We in the modern technological societies would do well to learn from the ancient cultures... in medicine, in social organization, in contentment.
I am reminded of something I learned several decades ago about the wisdom of science and the wisdom of ancient cultures. I believe it was the evolutionary scientist Ernst Mayr who dispensed it. A scientist studying birds in a remote area of the world (Papua New Guinea?) many years ago felt he had identified all the birds by species. Through communicating with aboriginal peoples there he discovered that the species he had identified actually included a number of distinct types which the native peoples had separated based on observed behavioral and other differences. Their knowledge of the bird's biology and ecology was far greater due to their close contact with them and keen observational skills. Good scientists shouldn't discount such sources of information.
I can offer a less spectacular example. Because I am underwater much of the time, I observe a wider range of behavior than a scientist who may spend a week or a month in our waters. I have observed a number of behaviors that lab-based scientists have not known existed. This is not due to better training or a better mind, just to more direct experience of the ecosystems and species.
Dr. Bill
