Euro-Patriarchal Irony
European civilization differed in any number of substantial ways from that of the indigenous cultures which they “discovered” waiting for them in the New World. One of least-often examined divergences has to do with inherent belief in male supremacy. Frankly, it just never occurred to most native tribes to consider women inferior:
“By setting fire to wood piled around the base of standing trees, Indian women destroyed the bark and so killed the trees; the women could then plant corn amid the leafless skeletons that were left. During the next several years, many of the trees would topple and could be entirely removed by burning. As one Indian remembered, `An industrious woman, when great many dry logs are fallen, could burn off as many logs in one day as a smart man can chop in two or three days time with an axe.”
Starvation Paradox
An ironic paradox lies hidden in the story of how native tribes dealt with the harsh winters and the necessity to make provisions for food supplies. It is not just an irony, but an almost inexplicable paradox:
“When Europeans inquired why nonagricultural Indians did not do the same, the Indians replied, `It is all the same to us, we shall stand it well enough; we spend seven and eight days, even ten sometimes, without eating anything, yet we do not die.’ What they said was true: Indians died from starvation much less frequently than did early colonists, so there was a certain irony in European criticisms of Indians on this score.”
Final Lines
The final line of the book—before the commencement of the Afterword—brings the text to a conclusion on a note of irony existing on a couple of levels. It is both a statement about the ironic circumstances of the first European settlers, of course, but also serves to punctuate the irony in the fact that Americans have never quite managed to learn from their past mistakes:
“Ecological abundance and economic prodigality went hand in hand: the people of plenty were a people of waste.”
Eat the Land
The introduction of domesticated livestock to the New World where they had not existed before meant more opportunities for food than agricultural products. However, this tradeoff proved ironically untenable as the livestock’s feeding upon formally fertile fields had the unintended consequence of eventually make those same lush fields utterly infertile, thus reducing crop abundance.
The Overarching Irony
The overarching irony of the book, of course, is that the colonial imperialist drive to being the tool of western enlightenment to the savage natives resulted in more destruction of property and raw material in just a few centuries than the unenlightened savages had managed to do in thousands of years.
