Friday, January 8, 2010

With only a shit-knife in hand

I was watching a video of Wade Davis speaking about the tragedy of disintegrating tribal cultures around the world, and he recounted a handful of stories he picked up while living with various tribes over the years. I have to retell this one story he told, even if badly, just because I've never heard anything like it, and it's something you could never make up if you tried.

In a remote area of Canada a while back there was a family of Inuits that were told by the Canadian government that their land was being repossessed for some bullshit reason or another. Everyone was packing, but the old grandfather said he was holding his ground, and not moving off his land. The rest of his family was really worried about him because he might be killed or jailed by the Canadian government. But since they couldn't force him to go with them against his will either, they just decided to take all of his weapons and belongings away, so that he could have them back as long as he followed the rest of his family. Undeterred, the old man walked outside into the arctic cold, pulled down his pants and began shitting into his hand. While the shit immediately started to freeze, he molded it into a makeshift knife. He then sprayed his saliva all along one edge of the knife to make a sharp edge of ice. Then he took his shit knife and slaughtered a nearby dog. He took the dog's rib cage and various other parts and fashioned a makeshift sled. Then he strapped the sled up to another nearby dog that was still alive and disappeared into the distance where no one saw him again.

This is a link his full lecture, if you're interested.

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