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Are there any peaceful tribes or civilizations that ever lived in harmony with nature and never fought wars?

When I was in school my teacher told me that Native Americans and Native Australians were peaceful and lived in harmony with the Earth until the Europeans arrived there, is this true or false? I've heard that Christian Europeans view nature as disposable and should be subdued yet indigenous tribes view the whole Universe as sacred, the earth is considered their mother and the sky their father.


Is this true or not?
Magnolia21 · 22-25, F
Since a lot of history was oral and not written, people like to paint "dead" or "dying" cultures as peaceful. In all likelihood, there was probably no fantasy-novel type of culture that frolicked through the fields and never fought anyone else.
Peaceandnamaste · 26-30, F
@Magnolia21 Romanticism
Whodunnit · M
Living in harmony with nature, quite possible, or it could be that they merely exploited the lands to the extent of their limited abilities.

As for not fighting wars, that's blatantly false.
Docdon23 · M
There are two separate issues you bring up--living close to nature with respect, and fighting others...my understanding of native American culture is they did very much live in union with the nature they relied on and were a part of, a different view than the Europeans, who saw nature more as a source of fuel for industrialization, as ours to use for our own purposes...but there is also evidence that native Americans did in fact fight each other at times...sometimes the solution was for some to simply move somewhere else, but they probably did fight at times...the concept of property was also different for Europeans and Native Americans.
revenant · F
That started with Jean Jacques Rousseau with the idea of the Noble Savage. I have always been suspicious of regarding any "other" like some angel fallen from the sky free of frailties.
fakable · T
as long ago as the last century, there were tribes whose languages did not contain the concepts of violence, death, time, and other key linguistic concepts without which the modern mentality of the inhabitants of the earth cannot exist. now these tribes no longer exist.
fakable · T
@revenant
i understand that you fell in love with me, but sometimes circumstances are stronger than feelings.
revenant · F
@fakable awwwwww but you told me you loved me too
fakable · T
@revenant
i was too drunk at the time... let's not talk about those old times. try to come to terms with the loss and don't eat the whole pack at once like you did then. take one at a time. like the doctor told you to.
GrinNude · 61-69, C
I remember when the Woodstock Nation gathered 1/2 million strong - without a single black eye. Ernie
AlchemyFox · 36-40, F
Fighting is part of nature too.
ViciDraco · 36-40, M
Native Americans were not one size fits all. There were many different cultures. Some were more peaceful, some were more warlike. Living with or against nature comes down to capabilities and resources to enact change. I'm sure native Australians were similar.
justanothername · 51-55, M
@ViciDraco Aboriginals can trace their origins back 30,000 years. Yes they are or we’re definitely a peaceful people living in harmony and nurturing their Mother Earth so that she may continue to provide for them. There are many different Aboriginal tribes around Australia.
They were more respectful of nature, but they definitely weren't peaceful. Natives tribes warred with each other all the time.
eMortal · M
I don’t think so. Even early humans had to fight sometimes to protect their territories.
Tribes? Yes, people aren't all always Americans or Romans.
revenant · F
I feel that this is a romanticised story2
Max41 · 26-30, M
Always feel upset about native americans .
Native Americans occasionally had intertribal conflicts for the same reasons various groups of people on all the continents have had disagreements. They consisted of different groups, and didn’t all share the same cultural beliefs.
But when Europeans make a point of indigenous people having their own conflicts, it’s no different than conflicts between different ethnicities (the word substituted for "tribes") on the European continent throughout history.

 
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