Mind 9950,000 hectares of original -Khomani San territory. In Amazonia, Colombian
hunter-gatherers have been mapping their territory as part of new negotiations
with the government, which has at last moved towards recognition of tribal rights
to tribal lands.
In Canada, the land-claims era that began in 1971 has led to a number of set-
tlements that recognize hunter-gatherer heritage and lands. The Cree of the James
Bay area in northern Quebec have managed to secure the basis for a hunter-
gatherer economy in a large and complex settlement of their dispute over the
flooding of much of their lands to create hydroelectric dams. The Inuvialuit of the
western Arctic have negotiated a settlement of their claim to aboriginal title in a
large area in the Mackenzie Delta and adjacent islands. The Gitxsan and Witsuwit’en
have won much greater basis for their rights in the Supreme Court of Canada. The
Nisga’a have reached an agreement with Canada that gives them a core of territory
and extensive rights of self-government. And the Inuit of the North-west Territories
have secured from the Canadian government a territory and jurisdiction that is based
on the spread of their hunting territories in the eastern Arctic. This is the new terri-
tory of Nunavut – the most ambitious attempt in the history of the encounter
between colonists and hunter-gatherers to secure coexistence at the frontier.
These victories are all the result of modern political processes. They represent
a small proportion of the struggles and claims that continue, in South America and
Australasia, in Siberia and the US, in Australia, Africa and Canada. In all these
places, there are indigenous groups who fight for their survival. The exiles from
Eden, the nomads who roam the world looking for new places to settle, transform
and control, must make common cause with these struggles.
15
Human activities have shaped the surface of much of the world. Farmers have
effected the greatest changes, turning forests, deserts and swamps into fields and
pastures. Hunter-gatherers have also shaped the world, but more subtly, intent on
keeping it a place where wild plants, animals and fish can thrive. The displacement
of hunters by farmers has meant less ‘land’ and more ‘countryside’. These different
ways of moving on the earth reflect the economies and societies of different kinds
of human being.
The world is also shaped by stories. What people feel, know and need to pass
on from generation to generation has existed in words: words that speak of how
the world began, of how humans emerged in it and found both places to live and
ways to deal with one another. Words are entitlement to these places. The stories
of farmers, including the Creation as described in Genesis, give meaning to their
ways of life. The stories of hunter-gatherers give meaning to theirs. These are dif-
ferent meanings, different kinds of stories. The history of the one has dominated
and, to a large extent, silenced the other.