I was very interested by the reading this week, and I’m looking forward to the great discussion that I know will result from the reading. I really like the context the book is written in. Specifically, I like that reindeer are explained in a way that shows how vital they are to the people they are connected with. The book uses powerful expressions like, “reindeer has been giving life to humans” (page 17), to show their role in the culture. Obviously, Vitebsky’s journey to the Eveny people shows in depth exactly how important the reindeer are to the population. One of the highlights for me was the discussion of animals souls. I love the beliefs of the Eveny people, in which all living things have their own spirits, and therefore all have some sort of consciousness. This type of belief system allows for a respect of nature that isn’t typically found, in my opinion, in Christianity and many other religions today. Instead of respecting nature because it was created by God, it seems to me that the Eveny people respect nature as they would fellow humans, for its inherent value, and they have a full awareness of the importance of each and every living thing on the planet. This segment made me retrospectively consider the discussion of how domestication began that was brought up earlier on in the book. On page 25, Vitebsky discusses the mystery of domestication, and why taming wild animals, here referencing reindeer, “was once possible, but it seems almost impossible to domesticate wild reindeer today.” After reading about the Eveny beliefs, this made me consider the type of society that may have existed back then. Was domestication possible because the people who lived all that time ago had a different view of nature? I think most scientists agree that animals don’t have the same level of intelligence that humans do, but I do understand that animals have been known to sense what is around them. The image that comes to mind is a dog cowering in fear sensing the anger in an owner’s voice. Were reindeer able to be domesticated because they sensed the respect those early humans had for them? The sense of equality and mutual benefit? Perhaps all traces of that sort of respect is lost in most people today, which is why domestication no longer occurs as easily. I’ll admit that it’s a crazy thought, but even the mere idea of such a prospect does at least make one consider how animals are treated in modern society, and at the very least think for a moment on whether or not the human/animal relationship was different in the dawn of animal domestication. Was something done with the best intentions developed into something cruel as humanity slowly lost its respect for the beauty of nature?

In our past reading, Goat Song, we explored the cultural and societal impacts of the pastoral raising of herd animals like goats, cows, and sheep.  The current reading, The Reindeer People, dives into the same topics with a different subject, the nomadic herders of reindeer.  There is a huge cultural difference between these two societies, possibly stemming from the differences between their domesticates.

Pastoral societies developed monotheistic religions, with one all-powerful god ruling over his people, possibly mirroring the relationship between a shepherd and his flock.  In contrast, the native religions of Siberia focus more on spirits inhabiting people, animals, and places.  While reindeer are domesticated, they have changed very little in appearance, and don’t immediately convey a sense of human dependence like pigs and cow do.  What this means is that animals are seen more as independent entities to be bargained with, rather than exploited.  When an animal is killed there are necessary rituals to complete, just as when a person dies.  Rather than harnessing animals’ power like in pastoral cultures, shamans merged with animals to gain their abilities.  While most animals were deserving of some amount of respect within the reindeer herders’ cultures, there was one animal deserving of scorn, the wolf.  Wolves are competitors and thieves, stealing ones work and killing without any respect.

An interesting mental quirk is described in The Reindeer People, demonstrating how humans can compartmentalize their beliefs.  While hunting game or predators, the animals are only seen as instances of their species, “a wolf” or “an elk.”  By contrast, domesticated animals are more often given names and seen as individuals.  This same phenomenon can be seen in the modern world applied to out post-domestic society.  We are taught that cows go moo and pigs go oink, but otherwise don’t generally develop any personal attachment to them.  These animals domesticated for food are rarely given individual names and are instead seen as individual instances of the species as a whole.  We do, however, form deep attachments to our pets and animals domesticated for companionship.  It’s interesting to see a similar disparity in attitudes in a society involved with its domesticates.

When I think of reindeers prance, dancer, and Rudolf are the first things to come to mind. The only “contact” I have had with the animals was in Norway this past semester. I went to a Christmas market and reindeer burgers were being sold along with moose and fish burgers. The thought of domesticating these animals seems strange and it was interesting how the novel couldn’t really determine how the process occurred either. I also thought it was interesting how the wild reindeer found today were thought to be impossible to domesticate, even when bred with a domesticated female. Have we changed the genes so much that the division between wild and domesticated is irreversible? This novel reminded me of goat song when it talked about the nomad lifestyle and how reindeer became commodity like animals within this time period. Is this just a natural part of the domestication process? The change from animal to commodity? The story told an interesting perspective of a domesticated species in a Communist political structure as opposed to the goats in a capitalist one. “This was my first inkling of the self-reliant and anarchic spirit that coexisted with the delicate discretion of traditional Eveny culture as well as with the nervous fear under Communism of doing anything that was not officially authorized.”

The relationship in the native cultures and the animals is far different than that of our domesticated species today. The hunters would say, “I obtained” some animal instead of glorifying the kill. Additionally, each part of the animal was used and distributed based on the family relationship. “If I deny a guest a share, that is the worst offense of all” The community aspect and the respect they had for the animals differs greatly from how we treat domesticated food animals.

Admittedly, I had some difficulty at first with the number of historical and geographical the Vitebsky uses. His consistent mentioning of location after location and culture after culture in the Arctic region were a bit difficult at times to follow because I have almost no familiarity with these areas. I’m sure Dr. Nelson has each of these ingrained in her DNA, but for me it was a slight challenge at least at first.

Reindeers are surprising animals. For one, I had no idea reindeer and caribou were the same species. For some reason I had assumed caribou were more similar to antelope, but I probably was working off memories from The Wild Thornberries or something.

I think many of us will be interested in picking Dr. Nelson’s brain this week on the history of Soviet Russia as it relates to reindeer. I’m a little weary of making  statements about the implications of what was going on during the time where native Russian cultures were being forced conform to the ways of the developed world. I will admit that, though the overt content of this week’s reading is very interesting, for the most part I didn’t feel a magnetic pull Vitebsky’s writing as I did with Goat Song and Part Wild. In this sense I’m having a bit of difficultly coming up with some original thought this week, but I’ll be excited to contribute to discussion and in class.  I do have a few thoughts regarding the chapter relating to dreams, but I’d rather keep on topic with reindeer than get into an abstract conversation about the nature of dreams.

On page 48, author Piers Vitebsky wrote that “the interior of the country was turned into a homogenized space in which Soviet citizens could be moved from one end of the country to the another and find almost identical conditions wherever they went.”

I have two questions about that statement: A) Was it true? B) What about here in America?

The Soviet Union was incredibly vast, did they manage to at least partly accomplish their goal of having a roughly homogenized state?

In America, we certainly have extremely different cultures based on our regions. Someone from Boston has a very different cultural norm than someone from New Orleans, who is incredibly different than someone from Anchorage, Alaska or someone from San Fransisco. Do we as American aspire for homogeneity as well? Or do we try to be different from each other? I’d say that we embrace common themes like language and common laws but then do as much as we can to differentiate ourselves within those themes. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Should we be pushing for more homogeneity or less?

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On page 262 the book goes into the religious aspects associated with reindeer hunting, and it brought up something I’ve always had a question about. “A hunter can kill a wild animal only when it offers itself at the behest of Bayanay, who decides whether to give an animal or withhold it, place it in the hunter’s path or send it off in another direction.” On page 263 it talks about how a hunter must treat the body of an animal correctly, or he won’t be presented with future animals while hunting.

My question is, if hunting doesn’t work without the intervention of Bayanay, why bother hunting at all? I don’t understand the motivation of a hunter who thinks it wouldn’t matter how hard he hunts or how good he is, his success is determined entirely by Bayanay. Why not sit at home or in camp and wait for Bayanay to deliver something to you?

I grew up in a religious household, and these kind of questions pervaded my thoughts for years. Most people I brought it up to would say “God helps those who help themselves.” Without getting too deep into a religious debate here, that answer satisfied me (kind of), but from what I can tell Reindeer People doesn’t mention that kind of thinking.

One of my favorite passages in Goat Song comes at the end of the chapter where Lizzie the doe nearly dies from an infection of meningeal worms. Lizzie’s illness evokes a passionate and compassionate response from Kessler, who is torn between his desire to save her at any cost and the anguish of seeing her suffer. He offers us a lovely meditation on the contradictions of empathy as he faces the agonizing decision to put the goat down (p. 144).  A friend reminds him that just because Lizzie was miserable did not mean that she wanted to die: “You can’t give up on an animal until it’s given up on itself. You owe them that much” (p.145).  Returning to the main component of empathy (recognizing the emotions of another being from their perspective), the friend states the obvious and the ineffable: “All she wants to do is be a goat.”

How do we, as humans, understand and empathize with other animals? Lizzie’s struggle brings issues of common experience and the nature of animal minds to the forefront.  What was she thinking?  How does a goat experience the world?  What does it mean to be a goat?  And how do people and goats — whose experience of the world is both very similar and profoundly different –  make their way through the relationships of domestication?

The conference I attended last week on The Science of Animal Thinking and Emotion offered many insights into these questions.  Some of the perspectives I found most compelling include: 1) Con Slabodchikov’s conception of a “discourse system” that sees instinct, communication, consciousness and language as interactive parts of a continuum shared by humans and animals.  Check out his very cool work, including his prairie dog studies here.  2) Ian Duncan‘s research on farm animals using preference tests. Duncan concedes that affective states are subjective — they are only known to the individual experiencing them, and therefore not open to direct scientific investigation. But we can learn about animals’ subjective states by asking them (just like people) what they want. 3) Brian Hare’s fascinating citizen science project, Dognition, which offers ordinary people (that’s us!) a chance to evaluate the cognitive profile of their dog. Do you think your dog is a good problem solver? Pretty sure he has a great long-term memory? think he’s moody? or sneaky? For $30 you can put your dog through a series of tests and find out whether he is a “renaissance dog,” a “socialite,” an “ace” or a charmer.  You’ll see what parts of his personality are uniquely his and where his universal doggy nature asserts itself.  And you’ll be helping scientists flesh out the cognitive map of the oldest domesticate. I can’t wait to try this on my own dogs!  Dr. Hare said that the results of his dog’s test really surprised him, and that many people find they’ve been “misreading” their dog all along. For the record, I’m going with “Ace in disguise” for Betty and “neurotic Einstein” for Andi.

Betty (left) and Andi (right)

It seemed to me after reading everyone’s posts about Goat song that the novel was more or less enjoyable for everyone to read and we all have a new found respect and interest in goats. While no one seemed to appreciate the graphic descriptions of some of the scenes in goat song pretty much everyone liked the deep connection he formed with the goats over the course of the story. Some common trends emerged in what seemed to interest people the most from the novel.

1. What was the impact on society when man moved from hunting to farming? Why did this occur? When the animal was considered a commodity how did labor become considered a commodity as well? Do you think a shift like this can/will happen again and in what way?

2. The relationship between humans/nature/animals, is it truly inseparable? Can it always be mutualistic for domesticated animals? Is it cruel and considered going against nature to alter animals for our own benefit?

3. Does the process of growing our own food have a correlation to human happiness or worth? What are the sustainability impacts of making our own food?

4. How did the pastoral influence change religion/language/mythology and genetics? What are the similarities in our language and animal/pastoral history?  Why do most people not know about this origination?

It seemed to me after reading everyone’s posts about Goat song that the novel was more or less enjoyable for everyone to read and we all have a new found respect and interest in goats. While no one seemed to appreciate the graphic descriptions of some of the scenes in goat song pretty much everyone liked the deep connection he formed with the goats over the course of the story. Some common trends emerged in what seemed to interest people the most from the novel.

1. What was the impact on society when man moved from hunting to farming? Why did this occur? When the animal was considered a commodity how did labor become considered a commodity as well? Do you think a shift like this can/will happen again and in what way?

2. The relationship between humans/nature/animals, is it truly inseparable? Can it always be mutualistic for domesticated animals? Is it cruel and considered going against nature to alter animals for our own benefit?

3. Does the process of growing our own food have a correlation to human happiness or worth? What are the sustainability impacts of making our own food?

4. How did the pastoral influence change religion/language/mythology and genetics? What are the similarities in our language and animal/pastoral history?  Why do most people not know about this origination?

I fully enjoyed reading the Goat Song and am happy I am leading the discussion on it since it was such a remarkable and interesting story. I also chose Goat as my project animal and this book has made me truly appreciate that choice. The story was a great way to see a bond develop between an owner and domesticated animal. The sustainability of the relationship was what stirred most of my emotions during the story. The goats truly became part of his family by the end and the relationship was much more than just a human taking products from the goat. The labor involved and the difficulty the goats caused at times shows how devoted he became to the animals and how much he appreciated them. The book has made me think about trying to be more sustainable and organic with the food I am eating and hopefully I am able to find realistic ways to do this.

It seemed to me after reading everyone’s posts about Goat song that the novel was more or less enjoyable for everyone to read and we all have a new found respect and interest in goats. While no one seemed to appreciate the graphic descriptions of some of the scenes in goat song pretty much everyone liked the deep connection he formed with the goats over the course of the story. Some common trends emerged in what seemed to interest people the most from the novel.

1. What was the impact on society when man moved from hunting to farming? Why did this occur? When the animal was considered a commodity how did labor become considered a commodity as well? Do you think a shift like this can/will happen again and in what way?

2. The relationship between humans/nature/animals, is it truly inseparable? Can it always be mutualistic for domesticated animals? Is it cruel and considered going against nature to alter animals for our own benefit?

3. Does the process of growing our own food have a correlation to human happiness or worth? What are the sustainability impacts of making our own food?

4. How did the pastoral influence change religion/language/mythology and genetics? What are the similarities in our language and animal/pastoral history?  Why do most people not know about this origination?