James Smith wrote:
> The American Indian tribe(s) that lived with abundance must have been an
> exception in my
> eyes. Maybe they were fat, but I doubt it. I can't imagine how even with
> everything plentiful
> you wouldn't have to work harder than average doing everything by hand
> (building shelter,
> making weapons, making clothing, making utensils, carrying food, water,
> other things,
> preparing food & everything else I can't think of.

When you are comparing how hard two different folk work, you
have to take into account the life style - the goal(s) of
that work.

The Cherokee were blessed with abundance except for times of
drought up until most adopted European ways and became
farmers and hunted only for profit. When contact was first
made between Europeans and Cherokee, the Euros were into
metals and the indigenous were somewhere between neolith and
paleolith: they had no metal and their main protein source
was hunted meat and fish.  There were also gardens of the
Three Sisters: corn, beans and squash.  And extensive
gathering. ALL of the reports that have survived time
indicate that the Euros thought the natives were lazy
because they only worked a few hours each day.  The change
from paleo to farmer meant that each person worked harder
than before.  I personally have to work much harder when I
am at home as opposed to when I am part of our ceremonial
village.  Paleo people and even the neo/paleo Cherokee did
not have many things: the more stuff you have, the harder
you have to work to maintain it :)  And the things they did
have were much easier to make than our stuff today is.
Women wore a wrap around skirt and a cape top with
moccasins; men wore the breechcloth with leggings, mocs and
a shirt.  Creating these took far less time then it would
take one of us to create an entire outfit of today's
clothing even without decoration.  And most of us couldn't
do all of it anyway (from harvesting the raw material to
making cloth to the tailoring etc).  Think about what an
entire outfit would cost you and figure how many hours you
will have to work at whatever you do to acquire this.
Compare with: skinning the deer, maybe 10 minutes (you
already killed it for food, the hide is bonus); preparing
the hide for tanning, an hour or two at most; tanning, an
hour or so on several different days; cutting and sewing, an
afternoon (if you are experienced).  I have done these
things and produced the outfits :) with a total time
investment of 8-10 hours.  Of course, decoration with dye,
beads, quills etc was more a leisure art activity than a
requirement.  10 hours of my net pay will buy me a dress or
jeans and shirt (NOT designer LOL) but not the shoes, socks,
underwear etc. 10 hours of my net pay would NOT buy a pair
of big name running shoes.
--
   Elisi Tsayonah, AniWodi, ghigau,
   St Francis River Band of Cherokee