Page 21 - Fall2011

Price cited numerous examples suggesting 109). This trade continued even during war
that the successful groups he had studied had time, although war was often started during
accumulated specific dietary wisdom: famines when certain members of the inland-
dwelling populations would turn to canni-
• The natives often went to great lengths to balism and attempt to hunt coast-dwelling
nourish their soil. After heavy rains, the fishermen.
Swiss villagers would collect runaway soil • Price observed that the “knowledge of veteri-
by hand and return it to their pastures and nary science is quite remarkable” among the
fields (page 388). Their milk products were Masai and that they knew of the protective
several times higher in fat-soluble vitamins effect of malaria against syphilis (pages 134-
than the equivalent milk products from most 5).
European and American sources, including • The Peruvian natives invented the anti-
lower Switzerland (page 25). The Gaelics of malaria drug quinine (page 418).
the Outer Hebrides collected the residue of • Natives of the Andes knew of goiter, and used
the smoke of peat fires to fertilize their soil, kelp to prevent it (page 265). Some African
which Price confirmed to be highly effective groups also knew of goiter and treated it with
using a laboratory experiment (page 57). various iodine-rich plant foods (page 402).
• The natives of British Columbia and the Yu- • Price noted that “probably few primitive races
kon Territory knew of scurvy, and prevented have developed calisthenics and systematic
it by using the vitamin C-rich adrenal glands physical exercise to so high a point as the
of moose (page 75). These natives also had a primitive Maori. . . . This has a remarkably
plant product that they used for the preven- beneficial effect in not only developing deep
tion and cure of type-one diabetes (page breathing, but in developing the muscles of
266). Price cited evidence that Canadian the body, particularly those of the abdomen,
natives of the sixteenth century also knew with the result that these people maintain
that a drink made from the roots of spruce excellent figures to old age” (page 214). Price
trees could also prevent scurvy (page 279). considered not only their diet but their “sys-
He cited another case in which a native cured tem of social organization” to be responsible
xerophthalmia with vitamin A-rich flesh for their development of “what was reported
behind fish eyes (page 278). by early scientists to be the most physically
• The natives of the Andes, central Africa, and perfect race living on the face of the earth.”
Australia all carried knapsacks with balls of
clay that they would use to dip in their food NOT EVERYTHING PRIMITIVE IS WISE
to prevent “sick stomach.” AND CIVILIZATION IS NOT EVIL
• The natives he studied practiced systematic Price did not romanticize the natives he
child spacing of two and one-half to four studied or assume that modern civilization was
years, and used special diets for pregnancy, always the source of evil. As an example, Price
lactation, and pre-conception, always for the credited the British with diverting the attention Price did not
mother and sometimes for the father (pages of the inhabitants of the Tongan and Fijian Islands romanticize
397-8, 401). from racial warfare to football and other ath-
• Many of the groups would wrap newborns in letic competitions (page 120). Since the Tongans the natives
an absorbent moss that was changed daily but largely managed their own affairs under British he studied or
would not wash the baby until several weeks protection, British civilization actually provided assume that
after birth, which prevented irritation and them with a net benefit in Price’s view.
infection of the skin (page 399). Price referred to “our so-called modern civi- modern
• In some of the Pacific Islands, inland-dwell- lization” (page 324) precisely because he was not civilization
ing groups relying mostly on plant products an opponent of civilization. That degeneration was always
understood their need for shellfish and thus followed this so-called civilization almost every-
engaged in trade with the coast-dwelling where it went led him to declare that “surely, our the source of
populations to obtain these foods (page civilization is on trial both at home and abroad,” evil.

Wise Traditions FALL 2011 FALL 2011 Wise Traditions 21

82725_WAPF_Txt.indd 21 9/20/11 10:30 AM