Culture and Resource Conflict: Why Meanings Matter

Chapter Thirteen. Ecological and Value Ratings

Chapter Thirteen Ecological and Value Ratings “One day when I was a little boy I made a slingshot. My mother told me to be careful with it and not to kill any animals. But it was a good slingshot and I couldn’t keep myself from aiming at birds. My mother looked out the window and saw me just as I had my first success—killing a robin. She called to me and told me to bring the robin inside. Then she plucked its feathers, dressed it and put it into a soup she was making. We ate it and it didn’t taste bad. I learned that we’re not supposed to waste anything.” —A Menominee elder OUR RESEARCH WITH hunters partially parallels the studies done with expert fishermen. Initially we asked a sample of Menominee and majorityculture hunters to name the most important plants and animals of the forest. We used these nominations to select twenty-nine animals and thirty-nine plants to be used in a series of rating tasks (see table 13.1). Next, we asked each hunter to indicate his familiarity with each kind by indicating whether he had heard of the kind, could recognize one if he saw it, and whether he had seen one. Informants were also asked to rate the importance of each kind to the forest and its importance to themselves . We also asked for justifications for the latter two ratings, though we didn’t push if nothing came immediately to mind. For the next task we asked hunters to rate the importance of various goals that might be associated with hunting and to give approval or disapproval ratings for twenty-one practices that hunters might engage in. Several weeks later we followed up this interview with another, similar, interview, during which we asked hunters to answer the same questions but this time from the perspective of equally expert hunters from their own community and equally expert hunters from the other community. 145 146 Culture and Resource Conflict Table 13.1 The List of Plants and Animals Used for the Forest Ecology Studies Common Name Scientific Name Animals Bear (black) Ursus americanus Beaver Castor canadensis Blue jay Cyanocitta cristata Bobcat Lynx rufus Chipmunk Tamias striatus Coyote Canis latrans Deer Ococoileus virginianus Eagle (bald) Haliaeetus leucocephalus Finch (house) Carpodacus purpureus Fox (red) Vulpes fulva Grouse (ruffed) Bonasa umbellus Hawk (red-tailed) Buteo jamaicensis Junco (dark-eyed) Junco hyemalis Moose Alces alces Otter Lutra canadensis Owl (great horned) Bubo virginianus Partridge (gray) Perdix perdix Porcupine Erethizon dorsatum Possum (Virginia) Didelphis marsupialis Rabbit Sylvilagus spp. Raccoon Procyon lotor Robin (American) Turdus migratorius Skunk (striped) Mephitis mephitis Squirrel (red; pine; chikaree) Sciurus carolinensis Turkey Meleagris gallopavo Turtle (painted) Chrysemys picta Wolf (gray, timber) Canis lupus Wood duck Aix sponsa Woodpecker (downy) Picoides spp. Plants Alder (red) Alnus rubra Basswood Tilia americana Bitterroot Lewisia rediviva Black spruce Picea mariana Blackberry Rubus spp. Bloodroot Sanguinaria canadensis Blueberry Vaccinium spp. Butternut Juglans cineraria Cattail Typha spp. Ecological and Value Ratings 147 Table 13.1 Continued Common Name Scientific Name Cedar (yellow) Thuja spp. Cherry tree Prunus serotina Chokecherry Prunus virginiana Cowslip Caltha palustris Cranberry Vaccinium macrocarpum Dogwood Cornus spp. Elderberry Sambucus canadensis Elm (American) Ulmus americana Fern Filicineae family Ginseng Panax quincefolium Gooseberry (American) Ribes spp. Hemlock (western) Tsuga heterophylla Hickory shagbark, true Carya ovata Prickly ash Xanthoxylum americanum Red maple Acer rubrum Red oak Quercus rubra Silver maple Acer saccharinum Silver poplar Populus alba Skunk cabbage Symplocarpus foetidus Solomon’s seal Polygonatum biflorum Sumac (staghorn) Rhus typhina Thornapple Datura stramonium Trillium Trillium spp. White ash Fraxinus americana White birch Betula papyrifera White oak Quercus alba White Pine (whitebark) Pinus strobus Wild columbine Aquilegia canadensis Wild ginger Asarum canadense Witch hazel (American) Hamamelis virginiana Source: Authors’ compilation. The two communities were Menominees and majority-culture hunters from the Shawano-area. Thus, the goals and practices part of the study was exactly analogous to the assessments we did with expert fishermen. Although our expectations were somewhat chastened by the (to us) surprising results with fishermen, we expected that the main outcome would be that majority-culture hunters would be surprised to find out that Menominees have mixed reactions to the practice of shining deer and to hear that the tribe 148 Culture and Resource Conflict had banned shining. Again we were guilty of underestimating the impact of differing cultural models on cross-group perception. In addition to...