Environment, Culture, and the Mormon in Early Utah: A Study in Cultural Adaptation

William W. Speth Central Washington State College Environment, Culture, and the Mormon in Early Utah A Study in Cultural Adaptation Two great themes dominate the history of geographic thought: one, the influence of the natural environment on culture and man; the other, the role of culture, operating through man, in modifying the natural environment. The mode of thought in American geography today is overwhelmingly representative of the second orientation . That culture itself is adaptable and modifiable in relation to natural conditions is a position infrequendy taken in American geography, diough this theme has come to occupy increasingly the attention of ecologically minded anthropologists.1 Cultural adaptation , a theoretical position lying midway between those of environmental and cultural determinism, deserves more attention among geographers, for it promises to yield new insights into the cultureenvironment system. An attempt is made, therefore, to delineate the major features of the natural environment to which early Mormon culture, particularly its technological aspect, adapted and to describe the nature of this adjustment.2 1 Philip Wagner and Marvin Mikesell in Readings in Cultural Geography ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 19-23, deal with cultural adaptation with special reference to environmental (eartìi) changes induced by man. The andiropological approach, however, moves in die opposite direction, noting cultural changes brought about by techno-environmental relationships. See, for example, Julian Steward's Theory of Cultural Change (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1955), in which cultural ecological adaptations are seen as bringing far-reaching adjustments in social and ideological structures within various cultures. 2 Ample evidence exists, however, to develop the theme of the Mormon modification of their habitat, particularly for subsequent decades. G. K. Gilbert in J. W. Powell, Report of the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States (2d ed.; Washington: Government Printing Office, 1879), p. 73, documents the white man's alteration of drainage conditions "first by the cultivation of soil; second, by die raising of herds; and, third, by the cutting of trees." 54ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS The inquiry is concerned with die period of initial colonization, 1847-1857, along the eastern margin of the Great Basin. This is die decade when die Mormon "struggle with nature" supplanted temporarily the older struggle with unfriendly fellow men.3 The Mormon colonizers had succeeded during this time in isolating themselves along the eastern periphery of die Great Basin. This isolation, though not absolute, increased the dependence of the Mormon on his subsistence technology in a stringent environment. Moreover, the series of natural disasters that took place during this period, when die Latter-day Saints confronted a raw and unknown nature, put into bold relief their cultural adaptations. To this extent, then, negative effects are examined—effects that tended to weaken rather than strengthen the Mormon way of life. The virtual self-sufficiency of Mormon life from 1847 to 1857 therefore affords a relatively controlled social situation in which numerous adaptations occurred that kept their culture viable.4 Theoretical Framework The theoretical context of cultural adaptation to environment has been commented upon by anthropologists since early in this century. These writers stress the deciding role of culture in assessing environmental influences. Forde observed: Physical conditions enter intimately into every cultural development and pattern, not excluding the most abstract and nonmaterial ; they enter not as determinants, however, but as one category of the raw material of cultural elaboration. The study of the relations between cultural patterns and physical conditions is of the greatest importance for an understanding of human society, but it cannot be undertaken in terms of simple 1T. F. O'Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), pp. 83 and 86. 4 L. J. Arlington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latterday Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 68 and 196, suggested tìiat trade witìi the Gold Rush migrants saved the Great Basin colony from probable starvation and collapse in 1849-1950. Some ten to fifteen thousand persons journeyed to the California gold fields via die Salt Lake Valley in 1849 and again in 1850. The would-be miners wished to lighten themselves for a final rush to California and sold and bartered...