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Content Editor Kaushik Das GuptaDesign Chaitanya ChandanPublisher Sunita NarainCover photo : An artist’s impression of an 18th century saltpetre factory,courtesy Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Civilizations, Macmillan, 2000
Unless indicated otherwise, Kaushik Das Gupta wrote the pieces
Down To EarthSociety for Environmental Communications41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi 110062
5 Evolution in times of climate change
7 Inundated by colonial misconceptions
11 Founded on piracy
15 The perfect brew
18 Pox Americana
21 A Swiss canton that banished cars
24 How Shell drums created music history
27 Parents' keepsake
30 Stub cut short
33 Ancient roots of a modern holiday
CONTENTS
Human interaction with the natural world is rarely inextricable
from their dealings in other arena. So, a piece of environmental
history of an age is also a window to understanding other aspects
of that era. For example, the US government's cavalier attitude to
copyrights matters during the early years of the country's
industrialisation shows a country intent on ripping off umbilical
relations with England. Or the Swiss canton Graubnden's banning
automobiles in the early 20th century betrays an early fear of the
car.
Such histories can also be subversive in revealing that much of
what we take as granted today had troubled pasts. To say that
urban people feared the car when it was launched, that the nation
that today creates paranoia over bio-terrorism wantonly
eliminated people through dreadul contagion centuries before the
word bio-terrorism was coined, or the nation advocating
copyrights most zealously today built its industries on piracy is to
question certitudes. Similarly, to show that many of India's laws
on forests—or other environmental matters—have a colonial past
is to drive home the urgency of laws in tune with local ecologies.
This is not to say that history is at the beck and call of
contemporary agendas, but to say that the past is present in much
of what we do today. Understanding it is critical to the way we
shape our agendas, including that for the environment.
So, on World Environment Day, we present some glimpses
from the past. They might help you contest some of the things
taken for granted today. Or, help you build connections with the
past. Or they might just make the past somewhat less distant—
and more enjoyable—territory.
THOSE WE TAKE FOR GRANTED
Natural Pasts | 5
Climate in South Africa abruptly turned warm and wet around 100,000
years ago. The humid weather lasted several hundred years. Such
humid spells would return to South Africa several times in the next
60,000, fostering cultural changes and technological innovation that bear
rudiments of modern behaviour, according to a new study.
The origins of some of the ways we communicate, relate to other human
beings as well as to nature lie in changes in climate, according to the study
published in the journal Nature Communications. Lead researcher, Martin
Ziegler, an earth science researcher at Cardiff University in Wales, told NBC
News, “the study is the first to link climate change in ancient times with
cultural and technological innovations.”
Ziegler and his colleagues analysed marine sediments off the coast of
South Africa to show that “South Africa experienced spells of warm climates,
when the Northern Hemisphere reeled under extremely wet conditions.” In
such times it acted as a “refugia for people from Sub-Saharan Africa,” says
Ziegler.
Ian Hall, professor at Cardiff University's School of Earth and Ocean
Sciences and one of the co-authors of the paper, says, “When the timing of
these warm and wet pulses was compared with the archaeological datasets, we
found remarkable coincidences. The occurrence of several major Middle
Stone Age industries co-incided with the onset of periods with increased
rainfall.” The humid conditions coincide with significant periods of human
AN
IRBA
N B
ORA
/ C
SE
Evolution in times of climate change
6 | Natural Pasts
advancement made about 71,500 years ago, and again between 64,000 and
59,000 years ago. During these times human beings made significant advances
in the production and use of stone tools and in the use of symbols, thought to
be essential for the development of complex language. These periods have
been linked with the first appearance of jewellery.
The Nature Communications paper could solve one of the mysteries of
human evolution. Archaeological data suggests that early human advances in
technology moved in fits and starts. Scientists and historians are sometimes
clueless when confronted with advances in stone technology in Sub-Saharan
Africa around 90,000 years ago and their near disappearance a few thousand
years later. “Scientists have offered many suggestions as to why these cultural
explosions occurred where and when they did, including new mutations
leading to better brains, advances in language, and expansions into new
environments that required new technologies to survive. The problem is that
none of these explanations can fully account for the appearance of modern
human behavior at different times in different places, or its temporary
disappearance in sub-Saharan Africa," according Stephen Shennan who heads
UCL's department of archaeology.
"There is a very good fit between rapid climate change and the occurrence
and disappearance of these first evidences of modern behavior in early
humans," believes Ziegler. It's well possible that people from Sub-Saharan
Africa migrated to South Africa, bringing their advanced tool-making
technology.
Chris Stringer, an authority on human origins at London's Natural History
Museum and one of the co-authors of the study, suggests that as population
density increased in South Africa, people networked, shared ideas and
innovations.The new findings, he told NBC, fit well with the idea that
population density breeds cultural innovation.
"Those dense populations form networks over the landscape which are no
longer huge patches of arid land that they cannot cross," he said. Tool-making
technology is not the only indicator of cultural efflorscence. Messages written
in ochre, a type of pigment, indicate an advancement in communications,
according to Stringer. Remains of seashell jewellery that are dated to the times
of wet weather are perhaps an indicator of social rank, according to historians.
Floods have ravaged India from times immemorial and people have
controlled and turned them into beneficial processes. But today they
are seen as catastrophic events that are to be forcefully contained by
dams and embankments.
This perception has its roots in India's colonial past, according to recent
evidence from Orissa. Floods, famines and crop failures were thought to be
merely phenomena that occurred because of the unpredictable vagaries of
nature. This whimsy then had to be overcome, if the most pressing objective-
collecting the maximising revenue possible-was to be. But this short-term
objective and misconception about the role of floods created havoc among the
peasantry. Unfortunately, imperceptions about floods have not changed much
since the colonial period.
Coastal Orissa, consisting of the districts of Cuttack, Puri and Balasore,
came under colonial rule in 1803, but it took till 1834 to set the first definite
guidelines for revenue collection. From 1836 and 1843 the entire province was
surveyed and mapped at the cost of Rs 20,36,348, but the revenue increased by
only Rs 34,680.
In the process of surveying, the colonial administration come to grips with
a unique ecological setting. Andrew Stirling, an administrator-geographer,
Natural Pasts | 7
Inundated by colonial misconceptions■ ROHAN D’SOUZA
8 | Natural Pasts
wrote in his book An Account, Geographical, Statistical and Historical, of
Orissa Proper, or Cuttack published in 1822, that a striking characteristic of
the coastal tract was its river system, which was "peculiarly subject to
inundation".
This river system consists of the Mahanadi, the Brahmani and the
Baitarani, which drain into the Bay of Bengal. They often shifted course,
overflowed and inundated villages and fields. Besides, the water torrents with
their silt load destroyed or altered the topography of the land.
The frequent changes in the river system evoked a tremendous sense of
chaos in the colonial mind. The ever-changing character of this unique deltaic
region subverted the continuity of British rule and disrupted its solidity.
Remissions of revenue on account of floods between 1852 and 1867 amounted
to L26, 472 per year, a substantial 16 per cent of the land tax collected in
Orissa. Panicked British policy makers, obsessed with revenue collection and
profit, began looking for solutions.
By the 1850s, new strategy, based on engineering solutions to prevent
rivers from overflowing their banks, emerged. The new approach differed from
the earlier thinking that consisted of approximating the costs incurred from
flood damage and correspondingly remitting tax amounts as relief. Flood
waters were now to be "controlled", "regulated" or "brought under absolute
subjection".
Detailed studyIn 1856, J C Harris, the executive engineer of Cuttack conducted a detailed
study of the Mahanadi and its tributaries. Harris argued that the floods in the
Mahanadi delta were caused by the incapacity of the river to carry its silt load.
As a remedy he suggested that a spur be constructed at Naraje to divert water
away from the river Kathjuri, a tributary of the Mahanadi, to increase the
latter's flow, enabling it to clear the silt load and retain the water within its
banks.This study led the administration to develop systematic and scientific
monitoring of the river system of coastal Orissa. Seveal stations were
established to measure the depthsof the rivers and their water speed.
Irrigation engineer Arthur Cotton, after touring Orissa in 1858, suggested
investments in a more comprehensive programme to regular rivers through a
system of weirs, embankments and canals. Cotton linked flood and drought to
the loss of revenue and his solution lay in transforming these losses into profits
through "Western knowledge and technology". Active intervention through
technological fixes, as opposed to a remission-centric policy, became the new
focus in flood policies.
However, despite this apparent shift in the policy of dealing with floods,
there was a remarkable continuity. From 1803 to the Report of the Orissa
Flood Committee 1928, the discussion on floods was centred on the event as
opposed to the process.
There were, nevertheless, some perceptive officials who saw the floods as
essentially beneficial to the delta. "Indeed, a heavy flood, however severe and
long continued it may be, seems always to contain in itself an element of future
compensation for present loss by the increased fertility," said British historian
G Toynbee.
Floods were seen as s blessing in disguise as the destruction of one season
was compensated by the unusual abundance of the next. But the British
revenue system was rigid in its demands. Instalments were collected in
November and April regardless of the circumstance. A flexible revenue system,
like of the Maratha regime (1751-1803)-synchronised with the ruthless policy
of forcing cultivators to pay on fixed dates.
Canals constructedTo prevent floods from occurring, the colonial government adopted Cotton's
scheme. In 1863, a system of weirs and canals began to be constructed by the
East India Irrigation Company (EIIC). Popularly known as the Orissa scheme,
these canals were supposed to irrigate area of nearly 1 million ha and yield a
21 per cent return on investments of L200, 000 made by private British
speculators who bought EIIC shares.
The Orissa scheme proved to be a colossal failure and EIIC did not recover
its costs. In 1866, the first irrigation lease was signed for an area of only 1.4 ha.
At the end of February 1887, the area irrigated was just 2,702 ha at a time when
there was sufficient water to irrigate 24,291 ha. At the end of October 1867,
EIIC was prepared to supply water for 61,943 ha but the area under irrigation
was only 3,982 ha. There was a complete mismatch of demand and
supply.Since the peasantry could not pay the land revenue, the British revenue
department failed to make profits. The entire gross revenue from the
Natural Pasts | 9
10 | Natural Pasts
commencement of the project amounted to a measly Rs 4,339.
There were other adverse consequences. By sealing rivers within their
banks, cultivators were denied access to the rich deposits of fertilising silt.
Floods continued to ravage the land. The unplanned construction of
embankments interfered with natural drainage lines, diverted water currents
to previously unaffected areas and thus complicated flood levels.
In 1904, the colonial government finally realised the inefficiency of
maintaining these embankments, it not only washed its hands off the problem
but secretly set about dismantling some of these embankments. Seventy years
after Cotton published his "scientific" study, the flood committee of 1928
wrote, "Orissa is a deltaic country and in such a country floods are inevitable.
They are nature's method of creating new land and it is useless to attempt to
thwart her in her working." Little heed was paid to this wisdom.
The policy of containing floods still continues. Orissa remains one of the
most flood-prone areas in India, her sad experience with flood control
somehow forgotten as history continues to repeat itself.
Natural Pasts | 11
In the last decades of the 18th century, a garrulous North American was a
conspicuous presence in the working class colonies of Manchester,
England. He also frequented working class localities in other parts of
England, and in Ireland. This was Thomas Atwood Digges, the scion of a
wealthy family in Maryland, USA, and a thwarted novelist. But Digges was not
in England in search of any literary pursuit. He was a spy on the look out for
designs of new machines that inventors in early industrial England were
producing. Much of early American industrialisation owed itself to the efforts
of industrial spies such as Digges. According to historian Doron Ben Atar,
"Copyright violations and outright economic espionage were key elements in
the political and economic life of newly-independent US."
The founding fathers of the country realised that economic self-sufficiency
Founded on piracy
12 | Natural Pasts
was essential to ensure the political independence of the young republic.
Besides, while in the 17th and even the early-18th centuries, Britain shared
technological innovations selectively with its American colonies, it became less
willing to do so once the colonies asserted their independence. Exporting
industrial equipment from Britain's textile, leather, metal, glass and clock-
making industries was prohibited in the 1780s. The New World responded
with technology piracy. James Watt's steam engine was among the first to be
copied. According to Ben Atar, the steamboats of John Fitch and James
Rumsey used the technique employed by Watt's more famous steam engine. In
1787, Rumsey obtained a patent from the state of Virginia for steam
navigation. Many followed in Fitch's and Rumsey's footsteps. Among them
was Samuel Compton, whose spinning frame -- The Mule -- combined the
techniques used by Richard Arkwright's famous weaving machine and James
Hargreaves' Spinning Jenny.
But while spies like Digges could get copies of industrial designs or
sometimes machines -- dismantled in Europe, only to be put back in the US -
- there was a paucity of skilled hands to work the gadgets. So, European
artisans had to be lured into emmigrating to the US. Once such incentive was
giving "winners lottery tickets" to artisans -- the draws were rigged in favour
of the immigrants. The artisans were also given gifts of land -- though the
authorities took care to ensure that it was not used for agriculture.
England retaliated hard. In the late 1770s, the country's parliament ruled
that all people leaving for the North American colonies from the British Isles,
with intent to settle there, were required to pay 50. Besides, a 200 fine,
forfeiture of equipment and a year in prison were laid down for those caught
attempting to export industrial machinery. This did not deter spies such as
Digges. An anti-emigration pamphlet, published in London in the mid-1790s,
declared that "there are plenty of agents hovering like birds of prey on the
banks of the Thames, eager in their search for such artisans, mechanics,
husbandmen and labourers, as are inclinable to direct their course to
America."
Digges recruit The American novelist's most famous recruit was William
Pearce, a mechanic from Yorkshire who had settled in Belfast, Ireland. The wily
Marylander claimed, "Pearce that was a second Archimedes and was the
inventor of Richard Arkwright's famous spinning and weaving machinery, but
Natural Pasts | 13
had been robbed of his invention by Arkwright." After Pearce failed to get
premiums from the Irish parliament in recognition of his mechanical
innovations, he warmed up to Digges' overtures and agreed to emmigrate to
the US. In 1795, Digges proudly reported to Secretary of State, Thomas
Jefferson, that "a box containing the materials and specifications for a new
invented double loom" was about to depart for American shores. "Pearce and
two of his able assistants would follow, they reconstruct the machinery and
put it to work," he added with much elation.
Digges had his fair share of critics. Many argued that he had blotted his
record by working as a double agent during the American War of
Independence. But supporters of this novelist-turned industrial spy included
George Washington. The first American president declared that Digges' critics
"should look no further than his activity and zeal (with considerable risk) in
sending artisans and machines of public utility to this country."
Hamilton's report Another Digges supporter was Alexander Hamilton. In 1791, this secretary of
treasury submitted the seminal Report on Manufactures to the American
Congress. The report had a section on aggressive technology piracy. Hamilton
proposed a federally-orchestrated programme, aimed at acquiring the
industrial secrets of rival nations. "Most manufacturing nations," Hamilton
explained, "Prohibit, under severe penalties, the exportation of implements
and machines which they have either invented or improved." "The US
government," he argued, "Must circumvent the efforts of these industrially
advanced nations by offering inducements and developing opportunities for
employment."
Digges was delighted at the endorsement of his methods. He had 1,000
copies of Hamilton's report printed in Dublin in 1792 and spread among the
manufacturing societies of Britain and Ireland. He believed the report would
"induce artists to move toward a country so likely to very soon give them
ample employ and domestic ease".
Hamilton's report also spawned the Society for Establishing Useful
Manufactures, a New Jersey-based outfit created "to procure from Europe
skilful workmen, and such machines and implements as cannot be had here in
sufficient perfection." Ben Atar calls this society the most ambitious economic
14 | Natural Pasts
enterprise of the early republic. By 1794 it had built Paterson, a British-model
industrial centre, on the banks of the Passaic river in New Jersey. "The entire
project was founded on pirated knowledge," says Ben Atar.
A patent regime But how long could the young republic flout international copyright
conventions? US federal acts of 1790 and 1793 forbade patents on
importation. "After all," says Ben Atar, "A self-respecting government eager to
join the international community could not flaunt its violation of the laws of
other countries." But though federal officials disavowed any connection to the
theft of knowledge, piracy continued well into the 19th century. William
Thornton, the first superintendent of patents, who ran the office almost
single-handedly from 1802 to 1828, did not even insist that patentees take the
required oath that their application was original. Ben Atar contends, "It is
entirely possible that most of the applications received by the patent office
during the first few decades of national independence were for devices already
in use, elsewhere."
Francis Cabot Lowell Let us see another example. In 1810, an American businessman, Francis Cabot
Lowell, travelled to Great Britain for what he claimed was a tour of the English
countryside. Along the way, he quietly visited the mill towns -- Manchester
and Edinburgh -- that had become the heart of England's booming textile
industry, thanks to Edmund Cartwright's loom -- one of the first great
inventions of the industrial revolution. Although the textile factories were off
limits to foreigners, Lowell talked his way in and memorised the loom's design.
Back home, he had a version built, and made it the centerpiece of what was to
become the booming industrial township of Massachusetts.
At the close of the 18th century, the US comprised underdeveloped and
badly-connected agricultural settlements. It was transformed into an
industrial superpower in the next 75 years. Technology piracy played a very
important role in the success. It's another matter that the US flaunts a holier
than thou attitude on patents today.
Natural Pasts | 15
The last week of April is usually party time in many parts of Germany.
Beer halls in Munich are packed with people drinking tall glasses of
dark brew served by women dressed in dirndls, while men in leather
shorts pump out oompah music from battered brass instruments. The
government of Bavaria sometimes declares a Beer Week to let tourists and
residents sample from some of the state’s 40 breweries and 4,000 brands. The
Germans toast the anniversary of an edict issued nearly 500 years ago at the
small town of Ingolstadt, some 30 km north of Munich.
On April 23, 1516 Bavarian co-rulers Wilhelm IV and Ludwig summoned
a meeting of the Bavarian estate assembly. It was a noisy affair. The beer loving
dukes had their eyes set on the perfect brew. By the end of the day they had
stamped their seal on what is regarded as the world’s oldest food purity law:
Reinheitstgebot or the Beer Purity Law.
The perfect brew
16 | Natural Pasts
The decree stipulated that only barley, hops, and water could be used to
make the brew. Yeast had not yet been discovered. The intent of the feudal
decree was to keep cheap—and often unhealthy ingredients—such as rushes,
roots and a variety of fungi out of the German people’s favourite drink. Some
of these herbs were downright poisonous, others induced hallucinations.
Monasteries and households were as culpable as feudal manors. But this
was not always so. Beer became a staple monastic drink in the 9th century
when trade with Western Europe came to a halt. Deprived of wine supplies
from France, the monks took to beer. They experimented with new techniques
and ingredients and in the process, discovered the virtues of hops: the flower,
a distant relative of cannabis, gave the liquor its bitter taste and also helped
preserve it.
The Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen’s 12th century treatise
Physica sacra, contains the first written description of the healthful effects of
hops in beer. Hildegard drank beer regularly and lived to be 81 years old, an
incredible age for that time. Monastic rules framed by immigrant Irish priest,
St Columban, regulated the consumption of the drink: drunkenness was
forbidden and the monk who spilled beer had to stand still for an entire night.
But the food, drink and shelter the monks shared with dusty travellers
soon became a commodity. Observance of ascetic rules began to take a back
seat to the chores of providing for the itinerant customers. After a day of hard
work in the monasteries’ fields, kitchens and breweries, many a monk found
more solace in the merry company of his guests than in the austere regimen
prescribed by an Irishman.
The monks began looking for newer elements of intoxication. And
travelers took the knowledge home. The brew very often went wrong. The
failure was usually blamed on women who brewed beer in households.
Thousands of beer witches were burnt at the stake between the 14th and 16th
centuries.
How could the feudal estates stay away from such frenzy? Control of
breweries was one of the ways for a feudal lord to assert his authority. Many
were keen to innovate as well. But none was as obsessed with the perfect brew
as Wilhelm IV: his Tobbaco Council spent hours discussing beer everyday.
The Bavarian duke’s 1516 purity decree was not accepted instantly. The
Protestant reformer Martin Luther who lived around the same time preferred
Natural Pasts | 17
the earthy brew of Northern Germany to the regulated Bavarian variety.
But the Reinheitsgebot did spread northwards to other German states
and by 1919 it had become the official law in all of the realm of the German
Kaiser, with the addition of yeast as a basic ingredient and malted wheat as
an allowable component in top-fermented beers.
But non-German brewers regarded the Reinheitsgebot as an impediment
to free trade. In 1987, the European Court struck down the 1516 edict. Even
now, however, a German beer brand is sure to carry either of the messages:
Gebraut nach dem deutschen Reinheitsgebot or Gebraut nach dem
Bayerischen Reinheitsgebot von 1516 (brewed according to the German Purity
Law or the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516).
Commemorating the 16th century edict began the year it was struck
down.
18 | Natural Pasts
In late 2003 and early 2004 US authorities went on a massive search for
blankets in the plains around the Great Lakes in North America. These
were not ordinary blankets. They were bison skins that were smeared with
body fluid tainted with smallpox and used, two hundred years ago, to
obliterate American Indians. Post 9/11, US authorities feared that some such
blankets might still exist, and a viable source of smallpox might fall into wrong
hands. Many areas in the US and Canada have been cordoned off. The search
did not yield much, but it brought to the fore some sordid pages from
American history.
Pontiac's rebellion Many historians trace the notorious blankets to a
gruesome episode in American history during the spring of 1763. That year, a
party of Delaware Indians, led by their Ottawa chief Pontiac, laid siege on the
British-owned Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Captain Simeon
Ecuyer, a Swiss mercenary and the fort's senior officer, saved the day for the
British. The Indians agreed to temporarily abandon their siege in return of a
gift of two blankets and a handkerchief. They had no inkling that the wily
Ecuyer had deliberately infected the presents with smallpox contagion.
This episode is confirmed by William Trent -- the leader of the militia of
European settlers at Fort Pitt -- in his journal. Most historians regard this
source as the "most detailed contemporary account of the anxious days and
nights in the beleagured fort." Trent notes in an entry dated May 24, 1763, "I
hope the means have the desired effects." They indeed had. By July 17,
Pox Americana■ PRANAY LAL
Natural Pasts | 19
smallpox had become endemic among the Delaware Indians.
Another villain in this piece is Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the commander of
British forces in North America during the final battles of the French and
Indian wars (1756-1763). The general's correspondence shows that he entered
into tacit collaboration with his bitter colonial rival, the French, to further the
dubious methods initiated by Ecuyer. In his book, The Conspiracy of Pontiac
and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada (Boston: Little Brown,
1886), historian Francis Parkman notes that Amherst and a French general
Henry Bouquet exchanged regular letters about spreading "smallpox mong the
disaffected tribes of Indians."
Bouquet was aware of Ecuyer's method. In a letter dated June 23, 1763, he
notes that smallpox had broken out among Indians at Fort Pitt. And on July
13, 1763, he suggests "the distribution of smallpox smeared blankets to
innoculate the Indians." Amherst approves of the method in a letter dated July
16, 1763 and also queries his French interlocutor about other methods, "To
extirpate this execrable race."
Bouquet and Amherst also discuss the use of dogs to hunt down Indians,
called the "Spanish method". But this method could not be put into practice,
because there were not enough dogs.
Amherst had been at war with the French as much as with the Indians, but
he was not driven by any obsessive desire to extirpate them from the face of
the earth. The French were apparently a "worthy" enemy. But the general had
no scruples about methods when it came to Indians. His letters abound with
phrases such as, "That vermine (sic) have forfeited all claims to the rights of
humanity." The historian J C Long, records the general as saying, "I would be
happy for the provinces [Pittsburg] if there was not an Indian settlement
within a thousand miles of them." Other historians have noted that Amherst
derived almost sadist pleasure in listening to accounts of spies and others who
reported smallpox in Indian settlements.
Who knows and who does not European colonialists like Amherst and Bouquet could go on with
exterminating Indians using the notorious blankets because they themselves
were armed with the knowledge of inoculation. The process was discovered by
a Dutch physiologist Jan Ingenhaus and was brought to England in 1721 by
20 | Natural Pasts
one Lady Mary Wortly Montague. It involved inoculating healthy people with
pus from the pustules of those who had a mild case of the disease, but this
often had fatal results.
But colonialists like Amherst did not have to wait for long. By the closing
decades of the eighteenth century, they could carry on with their methods with
even greater impunity. By that time, British physician Edward Jenner's
reserarch on the relation between cowpox and smallpox had begun to yield
decisive results. And in 1796, Jenner reported that humans could be vaccinated
against smallpox if a small dose of cowpox could be administered to them.
Such knowledge was of course kept away from indigenous people in the
colonies. And colonialists like Amherst continued to exploit the divide of who
knew and who didn't.
This divide persists. Today, the West remains in mortal fear of strange new
diseases that originate in Asia (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or sars;
avian influenza) and Africa (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or aids,
Ebola and monkeypox). But almost all vaccination measures are designed to
protect citizens of the developed world. There is very little effort to protect
those who face the greatest risk from violent diseases. For example,
discontinuation of smallpox vaccination in Africa has exposed many in the
continent to other related infections, like the monkeypox.
The threats of bioterrorism are real and relevant. But the real challenge is
to protect those who who actually live with mysterious diseases. However,
developed societies continue to live with the Amherst syndrome.
Natural Pasts | 21
Car dependency may now have become a serious problem, but in 1882,
when the German car maker Karl Benz took out his rudimentary
internal combustion engine for a test drive in the streets of Stuttgart,
he was arrested. The French count Albert de Dion fared no better. When he
tried to produce his steam automobile commercially, his father got a court to
restrain him.
But by the beginning of the 20th century, de Dion and his partner George
Bouton had become car barons. So had Benz. Newspaper reports in Europe
and America glowed with enthusiasm about the car. The first issue of the
American automobile magazine, Horseless Age, waxed eloquent: "The
growing needs of civilization demand it. The public believe in it."
Actually, not everybody started believing in the car even then. People of
the Swiss canton Graubnden were among the sceptics. On August 24, 1900, the
government of Graubnden banned all automobiles from all its roads "to turn
the canton into a peaceful oasis where everybody will be safe from the
A Swiss canton that banished cars
22 | Natural Pasts
automobile's nuisances". A year later the canton of Uri imposed a similar ban.
The ban sparked off a propaganda war, featuring pamphlets and polemics.
Apologists for motorisation harped on the difficulties posed by horses,
exaggerating the stink of horse manure and swarms of flies. Those opposed
included saddlers, coachmen, nature lovers as well as people along the main
roads. They were scared of accidents, dust, noise and smell, and most
importantly, apprehended ouster from the roads.
Antipathy against the car prevailed in many other parts of Europe and
America. According to historian Katie Alvord, "Not only were the poor
publicly reminded of their poverty when motorists drove by but cars began
eating what little they had: public spaces." In many places, resentment against
car owners inspired stone-throwing episodes. In 1904, this became so rampant
in New York neighbourhoods that the police had to be pressed into action.
Two years later, the then US president Woodrow Wilson expressed the concern
that cars allowed their owners to display their wealth so ostentatiously that
people would be driven to socialism.
In other places the car became associated with national pride. Just before
World War I, the German Riechstag saw the car as a symbol of national
resurgence. "The progress of our industry and nation depends on
automobilism," wrote a German paper.
The term automobolism was, in fact, made popular by the Austrian anti-
automobile campaigner Michael Freiher von Pidol. In a 1912 pamphlet, he
wrote, "Where does the motorist get the right to master, as he boasts, the
street? It no way belongs to him, but to the population as a whole.
Automobile traffic involves the constant endangerment of passers-by or
other vehicles, as well as a severe infringement of community relations that
correspond to an advanced culture." The pamphlet noted 438 car accidents
with 16 deaths in Vienna in the first half of 1912. Seven children were
killed in the latter half of the year von Pidol wrote.
In Graubnden, the car ban withstood nine referendums. But by 1919, the
ban was relaxed to allow public transport to ply. Actually the Swiss PostBus.
Started by the Swiss Postal Service in 1906, the bus initially linked capital
Berne to the family-vacation town of Detligen. Beneath heavy sacks of mail
lashed onto the roof of their omnibus, a dozen or so passengers sitting on hard
wooden benches paid modest fares to take the hour-and-a-quarter commute
Natural Pasts | 23
over 10 km.
But it took very little time for the bus service to establish itself, and the
bright yellow PostBus was a much loved feature of life in other parts of
Switzerland by the time it was introduced in Graubnden.
After the war, hundreds of military trucks were converted for the
conveyance of goods and people by the bus company. The ban on private
motor cars too came to an end in the Swiss canton in 1921.
PostBus retains its popularity in Switzerland. In the early 1940s, engineers
endowed the buses with the face of a good-natured St. Bernard--with the
slanted black radiator grill recalling a dog's muzzle and the separated, gently
downward-bent windshield its big faithful eyes. Even later, as the so-called
"muzzled Postbuses" gradually disappeared, the buses manufactured by the
Swiss company, Sauer, continued to adhere to this friendly-face principle.
The new flat radiator grill of the bus resembled a mouth, the Sauer
emblem with its chrome mouldings a moustache and the fresh-air inlets at the
front a set of expectantly raised eyebrows.
24 | Natural Pasts
In the summer of 2007, Shell officials at the Caribbean island of Trinidad
and Tobago were in a spot of bother. Business was fine for the oil company
and environmentalists and other usual gadflies weren't making much
noise. But the Shell factory in Barracones Bay was confronted with an
awkward demand musicians planning to play at the cricket world cup wanted
oil barrels. The oil company wasn't caught unawares though it had faced a
similar demand a year earlier, during the football world cup. Barracones Bay
honchos had learnt an important lesson in Trinidadian culture then about
steelpans. Crafted from oil drums, their lilting melodies were as essential to
spectator sport--indeed all celebration--in the West Indies as rum and
dancing.
Many Shell officials denied the association."Our drums are disposed of
properly, and Shell's health and safety rules prevent the use of empty drums
for anything but Shell oil products," William Rosales, the manufacturing
engineer at Trinidad's factory told www.caribbeannewsnow.com. Shell wasn't
always this uncomfortable with musicians beating its oil barrels. In the 1950s,
the company put one of the early innovators of the steelpan, Elie Mannette, on
its payroll. This was to stop him and his friends, Birdie Puddin and Cobo Jack,
from stealing Shell's empty and toxic oil drums.
Out of Africa, into a Shell Steelpan music has its roots in the tradition of
drumming that enslaved people brought with them from West Africa. Trinidad
became a British colony in 1797; the British feared the drums would foment
revolt by transmitting coded messages from one sugarcane plantation to
another. Besides, the Anglican Church wanted to dissolve African religions and
cultures. So drums were banned, and descendants of slaves were forbidden to
practice their religion or to speak their own language.
Winston Spree SimonNot to be denied expression of their traditional rhythms, they crafted
makeshift drums from hollow bamboo. In the 1930s, Trinidadian bands began
How Shell drums created music history
Natural Pasts | 25
to incorporate metal objects like garbage can lids, pots and pans and biscuit
tins because these objects were louder and more durable than bamboo.
Legend has it that in 1942, a 12-year-old boy Winston Spree Simon lent his
metal drum to a friend. When it was returned it had been beaten into a
concave shape and had lost its special tone. Hammering the drum back to
shape, Simon noticed the pounding created different pitches or notes. He went
on to create four distinct notes on his drum and could now play melody
instead of percussion. The steelpan was born.
Many historians doubt this story. But there is no disputing that Simon was
an early pioneer of the melodic steel drum. In 1946 he developed the 14-note
pan using old drums left behind by the British navy that had made Trinidad
its base during World War II.
This was also the time when Shell set up shop in Trinidad. For Simon's
friend Mannette, this was a heaven send. He hammered discarded oil drums to
produce an instrument capable of playing sophisticated melodies. Modern
pan makers rigorously follow Mannette's system in crafting any of the nine
drums that make up the steelpan family. The barrels are first sliced according
to register, from soprano to bass. Then, using a selection of rubber and metal
mallets, blenders stretch the thickness of the metal top to create a concave
drumhead capable of producing anywhere from three to 30 notes. In Trinidad,
a steelpan costs about US $600. And should they carry the Shell sticker--which
the company tries its best to remove--add another hundred.
Beating a drum into a drum Winston Spree Simon
26 | Natural Pasts
Mannette remained with Shell until 1967, as a sales manager, steel-drum
maker and leader of pan band the Shell Invaders. He went on to become the
artist-in-residence and then a professor of music at West Virginia University in
the US . Another Shell Invader, Malcolm Weekes, received an annual US $2,000
scholarship to attend university in Washington, where he played the double
alto for the school's Trinidad Steel Band and graduated with a degree in
chemical engineering. "We had bonfires to burn out all the crap stuck inside
the drums. It was dangerous work. We inhaled the fumes. But what the barrel
contained also helped define the sound of the drums," the former Shell
Invaders' star was to reminisce later.
Shell company archives, however, make no note of this band the company
help found. Or any steelpan music at all. For the company they are almost
relics of a past embarrassment.
Natural Pasts | 27
Seven thousand years ago, about 100 km from the contemporary port
city of Arica in Chile, a child died. The grieving parents did not want to
part with the last remains. They removed the head and internal organs
of the child, stuffed it with animal hide, painted a clay model of his head and
decorated it with tufts of his hair.
The delicately preserved body was excavated in 1983. Archaeologists
believe it is the earliest mummy. More than 100 child mummies were
discovered in Camarones near Arica that year. Later, preserved bodies of adults
were found as well. Archaeologists say the embalmed bodies were of people
from Chile's Chinchorro community.
Unlike mummies in later civilizations--most notably Egypt that flourished
Parents' keepsake■ SAVVY SOUMYA MISRA
A mummified Chinchorro baby in SanMiguel Museum in Arica city
28 | Natural Pasts
for 2,500 years beginning 3,000 BC--that spun around prestige, wealth and
power, Chinchorro mummification was based on a democratic and
humanistic view of the dead, and everyone was mummified.
Archaeologist Bernardo Arriaza, who studies the Chinchorro at the
University of Tarapaca in Arica, wrote that unlike the Egyptians who hid the
dead, the Chilean community embraced them. The child mummies even took
their place besides their parents at the dinner table.
A few years ago Arriaza launched a daring new theory the Chinchorro were
victims of arsenic poisoning. "I was reading a Chilean newspaper that talked
about pollution and it had a map of arsenic and lead pollution, and it said
arsenic caused abortions. I jumped in my seat and said, That's it," Arriaza said.
Following the lead, Arriaza collected 46 hair samples from Chinchorro
excavated from 10 sites in northern Chile. Ten samples from the Camarones
river valley had an average of 37.8 microgrammes per gramme--much higher
than one to 10 microgramme of arsenic per gramme
that indicates chronic toxicity according to World Health Organization
(WHO) standards. The sample from an infant's
mummy had a residue of 219 microgramme per gramme. One theory is that
they could have washed their hair with arsenic contaminated water but
pathologists explain that washing is unlikely to leave such high levels of arsenic
traces.
Arriaza has another explanation. Chinchorros were a fishing society. They
collected plants along river mouths and hunted both sea mammals
and wild birds. They made fishhooks out of shellfish, bone or cactus needles,
spear throwers were used to hunt sea lions and wild camelids, while both lithic
points and knives were manufactured using flint stones.
The Chinchorro lacked ceramic vessels, metal objects and woven textiles,
but this was not a social handicap their simple yet efficient fishing technology
allowed them to thrive along the Pacific coasts.
But life was not without dangers. In the 1960s tests on water drawn by the
city of Antofagasta in the Camarones river valley showed that it was laced with
860 microgrammes of arsenicper litre--86 times higher than the limits
acceptable by WHO. Arriaza believes this was so even 7,000 years ago. Tests on
the Chinchorro mummies strengthen the arsenic poisoning theory.
He also believes Chinchorros suffered from chronic ear irritation and
Natural Pasts | 29
impairment probably due to continuous fishing in the Pacific Ocean's cold
waters. They also suffered from parasitic infections from eating poorly cooked
fish and sea lion meat.
"In highly stratified societies like ours, lower-class children receive simple
or meager mortuary disposal.
But in a small group, the death of children certainly threatened the
survival of the entire group. Affection and grief may thus have triggered the
preservation of children," the archaeologist said.
Chinchorro morticians made incisions to deflesh the body and removed
internal organs. Clay, grasses and feathers were used to fill the cavities.
The bodies were painted bright red from head to toe, the face was painted
black or brown. A long wig up to 60 cm was used to ornament the head. Facial
features were modelled to convey life.
30 | Natural Pasts
On October 2, 2008, India
joined a growing number of
countries that have
implemented far-reaching smoke-free
legislation. But a look back reveals that
tobacco bans are hardly new--and
rarely permanent. Some of the earlier
smoke-free legislations:
1575A Mexican ecclesiastical council
forbids the use of tobacco in any
church in Mexico and Spanish
colonies in the Caribbean. The
prohibition is ineffective. The order
does not deter even priests from
smoking on church premises.
1590Pope Urban VII threatens to
excommunicate anyone who takes
tobacco in the porchway of or inside a
Roman Catholic church, whether by
chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or
sniffing it in powdered form. But
Urban VII who believed smoking
detracted from the clergyman's duties
has a 13 day reign and his successor
Gregory XIV makes no mention of a
ban on tobacco.
1624On grounds that tobacco use prompts
Stub cut short
Natural Pasts | 31
sneezing, which resembles sexual ecstasy, Pope Urban VIII issues a worldwide
smoking ban and threatens excommunication for those who smoke or take
snuff in holy places. A century later, snuff-loving Pope Benedict XIII repeals all
papal smoking bans--the embarrassing sight of priests sneaking out of Church
premises to steal a smoke plays a role in the revocation. In 1779, the Vatican
opens a tobacco factory.
1633The Ottoman ruler Murad IV prohibits smoking in his empire; 18 people are
executed for breaking the law in one day in his reign. Murad's successor,
Ibrahim lifts the ban in 1647, and tobacco soon becomes an elite indulgence-
-joining coffee, wine, and opium, according to a historian living under
Ibrahim's reign, as one of the four "cushions on the sofa of pleasure".
1634Czar Michael Feodorovich of Russia bans smoking, threatening offenders with
whippings, floggings, a slit nose, and a one-way trip to Siberia. His successor
Alexei Mikhailovitch rules that anyone caught with tobacco should be
tortured until he gives the name of the supplier. But by 1676 the ban on
tobacco is off.
1638China's Ming emperor decrees any person trafficking in tobacco will be
decapitated, the decree is ineffectual: smoking spreads within the court.
1640The founder of modern Bhutan, the warrior monk Shabdrung Ngawang
Namgyal, outlaws the use of tobacco in government buildings.
1646The General Court of Massachusetts Bay in then British American colonies
prohibits residents from smoking tobacco except when on a journey and at least
five miles away from any town. The next year, the colony of Connecticut restricts
citizens to one smoke a day, "not in company with any other." By the early 1700s,
the British American colonies are major tobacco consumers and producers.
32 | Natural Pasts
1818Smoking is banned on the streets of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. The mayor
is fined when he becomes the first man to break the law.
1891Angered by the Shah's tobacco concession to England, Iranians protest, and
the Grand Ayatollah--Iran's religious leader--Haji Mirza Hasan Shirazi issues
a fatwa banning Shias from using or trading tobacco. The tensions spark the
Tobacco Rebellion--according to historians the beginning of a long
confrontation between Iran's rulers and its clergy over foreign influence. In
1892, once Iran cancels all its business dealings with England, people in the
country resume smoking.
1895North Dakota in the US bans the sale of cigarettes. In 1907, Washington passes
legislation banning the manufacture, sale, exchange or giving away cigarettes,
cigarette paper or wrappers.
1914Smoking is banned in the US senate.
By 1920, 15 US states have laws banning the sale, manufacture, possession and
use of cigarettes, propelled by the national temperance movement. Anti-
smoking crusader Lucy Gaston announces her candidacy for president in
1920--the same year Warren G Harding's nomination is decided by
Republican Party bosses in a "smoke-filled room." By 1927, all smoke-free
legislation in the US --except that banning the sale of cigarettes to minors--is
repealed.
1942Adolf Hitler directs one of the most aggressive anti-smoking campaigns in
history, including heavy taxes and bans on smoking in many public places.
The country's antismoking movement loses most of its momentum after
World War II.
Natural Pasts | 33
Ancient roots of a modern holiday
A London Illustrated sketch of May Day 1891
34 | Natural Pasts
In ancient and medieval Europe, May signalled the onset of spring. It
meant the onset of the warmer part of the year. For most people it was
time to end winter hibernation, and reconnect with friends and loved
ones. It was the time of festivities.
Before Christianity took root, the Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1 as
Beltane or the day of Bel, the Celtic god of sun and fire. To honour the fire
god, torch bearing peasants and villagers would climb top of hills or mountain
crags and light wooden wheels, which they would roll into the fields below.
The celebrations signified the soil's return to fertility, after a long—and usually
exacting—winter. Cattle were driven through the smoke of the Beltane fires,
and blessed with health and fertility for the coming year.
The festivities began with Celtic communities selecting a virgin as “May
Queen” to lead the march to the top of the hill. She represented the virgin
goddess on the eve of her transition from Maiden to Mother. Her consort was
variously called, “Jack-in-the-Green”, “Green Man,” “May Groom” or “May
King”. He would be the king or priest for a day. But May Day was also a day
of social inversion. So the symbolic lord would be butt of the much humour
and ridicule—the sort peasants could only murmur about their their real
lords.
In less agrarian societies this one-day chief was called the King Stag. He
had to run through the woods with a pack of deer in tow. Only after he had
successfully locked antlers with and killed a stag, could the King Stag return to
the festival and claim his right as consort to the May Queen.The union of the
Queen and her consort symbolised the fertility and revitalisation of the world.
Usually, the festivities involved the raising of a Maypole around which
young single men and women would dance. Historians believe the Maypole to
be a phallic symbol, but many Celtic communities regarded the pole as
pathway by which demons trapped in the earth could climb to the surface—
and from there escape to heaven. They set up maypoles as a way of releasing
evil spirits from their prison in the earth. Historians see this as another
symbolisation of the rebirth of the soil.
Christianity scoffed at this tradition. The observances were outlawed in
many parts of Europe. But like many pagan observances, the church could not
root out Beltane festivities. Every year, Christian priests would lament the
number of virgins despoiled on Belane, but the peasants ignored the jibes.
Natural Pasts | 35
They believed babies born from a Beltane union were blessed.
While it failed to root out the festivities, the church tried to assimilate the
May I festivities. I some places, May Day became Mary's Day—the May Queen
became virgin Mary. Some Catholic priests preached that Christ was crucified
on a Maypole.
Around the 15th century, the Church gave its blessings to less riotous
celebration: the Mayfayre, later known as the May Fair. For traders and
artisan's guilds, the fair became a chance to display their wares.
When industrialisation took roots in Europe, most workers had roots in
rural areas. They came from peasant and artisan families. In the late 19th
century, the festival of pagan origins became associated with the struggle for
an eight-hour working day. On May 1, 1890, the leaders of the Socialist
An artist's impression of Raising of the Maypole
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY: CHAMBER'S BOOK OF DAYS
36 | Natural Pasts
Second International called for an international day of protest. They did so
just as the American Federation of Labour was planning its own
demonstration on the same date. Both protests were hugely sucessful.
Initially, May Day was intended to be a one-off protest, and perhaps a
solemn affair. But with trade unionism flourishing, May Day developed a
carnivalesque character—somewhat akin to its pagan roots. May Day
celebrated working class solidarity with the paraphernalia of badges, flags, art,
sporting events, fairs and heavy drinking. Historian Eric Hobsbawm calls May
Day, the only unquestionable dent made by a secular movement on the
Christian calendar.
But like the Christian church, the modern state was quick to assimilate the
symbolism of May Day. May 1 is a holiday in many parts of the capitalist
world. And, according to Hobsbawm, Nazi Germany one of the first few
countries to declare May I as a paid holiday.