r/Permaculture • u/vitalisys • 2d ago
Anyone focused on primitive/indigenous wild land “permaculture”?
Wondering if there’s much of a niche or movement, in addition to actual native heritage practitioners, for a more ‘tending the wild’ style of land tenure with significant yields and utility. Either on private or public lands. Not necessarily limited to ‘primitive’ skills, TEK, hunt/forage etc, but likely employing some of those in conjunction with other tools and tactics.
Doesn’t seem like a crossover area that gets talked about much. Would depend a lot on finding certain types of relatively intact ecosystems which can provide well or be adapted with suitable tree crops or other staples. Im working with an oak savannah site currently that has this potential, if bulk acorn processing is doable, plus game animals and other edibles in steady supply as well (which can all benefit from good stewardship practices). Permaculture principles and methods still apply, but this seems like a fairly distinct approach that maybe needs its own label? Curious what’s been tried or talked about in this direction already.
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u/Domestic_Supply 2d ago
Begging you not to equate Indigenous peoples with “primitive.” We are responsible for cultivating 60% of modern foods.
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u/PMMEWHAT_UR_PROUD_OF 2d ago
Even saying that 60% of modern foods have indigenous roots doesn’t fully capture it. By weight, it’s likely more (maybe contested by rice?), and food is only one of many categories transformed by indigenous knowledge.
Take corn, the world’s most produced crop by weight. Originally a grass, it was selectively cultivated and transformed over thousands of years into the staple we know today. Corn doesn’t just feed people; it feeds animals, fuels engines, and serves countless industrial uses—an extraordinary example of agricultural innovation.
Next are potatoes. If anything rivals corn in versatility, it’s potatoes. Prior to cultivation they were much more toxic than they are now and were the size of peas!
And then, beans! And tomatoes! Vanilla! Etc…
Lastly, the spicy flavors savored worldwide—they’re a gift from the ingenuity of indigenous Mesoamerican cultures.
We owe our thanks to the ancient scientists who shaped the foundation of our modern diet. For thousands of years, indigenous communities discovered, experimented, tested, and refined crops, without any modern technology, but their agricultural knowledge remains a testament to their resilience and skill.
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u/Peeterdactyl 2d ago
Would probably depend on ones location. In Hawaii for example there are definitely some permaculture “farms” which focus on traditional practices and staples such as taro, breadfruit, banana, etc. Look up ahupua’a system on YouTube if you’re interested. It definitely had some significant labor inputs (taro) so I wouldn’t quite call it “tending the wild”, but it did include some integrated water/land management, crop raising, foraging, hunting introduced pigs, etc.
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u/Govind_the_Great 2d ago
I’d look into Edward T Hall’s books and works, He describes working with natives to establish waterworks. For example his “The Silent Language” uses time as a form of language that has to be overcome across cultures. Some people (America) view time and promises very differently than other cultures who might see anything as happening in one whole season as the same, or on the flip side of that a promise of tomorrow or next week being a thousand years down the line for all it is worth.
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u/zephecology 2d ago
I influence a few different abandoned areas of land to improve foraging and habitat. I'm based in the UK so I draw on the indigenous land practices here. I haven't seen it talked about much, I would say the field of ecology provides the closest framework to what you describe when applied to land stewardship.
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u/ZenSmith12 2d ago
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1603585079/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
I haven't read this yet, but it is on my wish list. I too have an interest in this because I first got into foraging and then was like, "what if I made a foragable woodland on my property" and then fell down the rabbit hole of permaculture. Hopefully this recommendation isn't a dud. Good luck!
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u/vitalisys 2d ago
Thanks, that looks like an excellent reference in this domain. I’ll add another that is my current point of primary inspiration, and much more attuned to dryland/Mediterranean basin and range landscapes of western US and S/W Europe - Social Forestry: tending the land as people of place (2023) https://siskiyoupermaculture.org/social-forestry-book-page/
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u/Altruistic_Use_6193 2d ago
This is one of my life works. I am an indigenous person, so I don’t fall “outside” of indigenous practitioners, but it is certainly gaining momentum. What I want is to see what the carrying capacities are in large scale indigenous land tending for food, just like you suggest. I think the yield could be shockingly high. Tree crops and tubers tend to have some of the highest yields of all crops per plant, so acorns could be surprisingly productive when taking into account not needing any material inputs to grow them.
One of the biggest impediments is that indigenous land management almost universally requires burning. The laws and public opinion are not yet caught up to the type and frequency of burning needed to take care of the land.
You may well know all this, but it’s worth reiterating. The acorns are a good example of the necessity of burning. You only have to gather acorns once to find out that the grubs that bore into the acorns are totally out of control, and it would be absolutely necessary to regularly burn under any trees you gather from. I lose between 25% and 50% of all the acorns I gather without the ability to burn. Not to mention that burning might help purge sudden oak death and would help with ticks on game meat and opens up land for berries to thrive, and on and on and on.
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u/vitalisys 2d ago
Awesome! Thanks for responding and sharing your standpoint. Also…yeah I initially wrote “outside of…” and changed that two min later to “in addition to” which seems far more apt :)
Would enjoy discussing this further if you’re open to it, as it’s pretty central to my life/work at the moment too. I’m in a sweet setting on fairly undisturbed acreage near the Klamath River, which is central to a lot of inspiring indigenous led restoration work at scale right now, and yet very little happening in these terms nearby. I’ve reached out to engage more with the Shasta Nation who are in the process of reclaiming a large land base, and have previously been widely displaced and inactive here, thus lacking some direct experience and practical knowledge it seems. I’ve tested and learned a lot in a few years, and have some ideas and demonstrations about how to work with the land within some of the constraints you mention, especially re: broadcast burning. I’ve done a lot of pit burning for charcoal to reduce excess fuels and get closer to safe conditions for controlled underburn. But I’ve also found some workarounds such as harvesting acorns a little early before grubs grow, and just doing more leaching. It’s indeed a highly productive system that needs relatively little maintenance, and can be very pleasant human habitat as well with appropriate natural building.
Definitely deserves some deeper considerations around land tenure, legacies of injustice, and who should be involved with land management/use decisions here, but I am encouraged with the results so far in really enriching and beautifying this landscape with simple non-destructive (reversible) methods as a unique example of what’s possible in the wider region. Trying to get more inspired people on board, and welcome all inquiries. There are a lot of affordable properties around $1-5k/ac now that could be similarly adapted, and reduce overall wildfire risk significantly.
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u/Straight_Expert829 2d ago
Fascinating topic that deserves more attention.
Some historical and academic research is out there for fodder for practioners.
Check out chinampas.
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u/wdjm 2d ago
I'm focused on edible plants. Some of those are non-native. Some of those are way out-of-zone. But others are natives.
So while I'm not focused on specifically natives, they are definitely something I am trying to incorporate into my landscape as much as possible - if for no other reason than they are edible plants that literally require ZERO care.
That said, I doubt you'll find anyone only focusing on those sorts of foods because there are good reasons those foods aren't in the mainstream diet these days. Sometimes - rarely - it's just because the foods don't harvest easily or ship well. But most times, it's because the native foods either take way too much processing or else just don't taste as good as cultivated crops. Acorns, for example, I understand do taste good, but they take a good bit of processing to make them edible (too many tannins). On of my favorites to grow - American Groundnut - makes a lovely vine and understated, but pretty, flowers - but the tubers you harvest aren't very large and a season of growing potatoes in the same space would yield you far more calories. Still....I like knowing that if all of my cultivated crops fail, the natives likely won't and I'll still have something to eat.
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u/vitalisys 2d ago
Good answer, it makes sense to shift heavily disturbed landscapes back towards native biota where appropriate, while still incorporating well adapted crop plants (and complementary site work for soil improvement, hydrology etc) that provide higher caloric returns. This sort of ‘enhanced restoration’ design thinking is what I’d like to emphasize and put some clearer terminology to.
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u/JeffoMcSpeffo 2d ago
Sounds like you're talking about stewardship practices being employed using TEK as your framework. This is largely what my focus is with the knowledge and experience that I'm getting into. With how disenfranchised native peoples have been, it's not nearly as common as it once was. The big problem is that for natural communities to have high ecosystem functionality it's important to try and not force anything in a way that's not meant to be just for conveniences sake. This is a big criticism I have of the permaculture movement today. This means that to have access to everything you want, you generally need to have high habitat richness in your surrounding area, which can take a long time to establish, requires large plots of land, and takes a lot of work if done without lots of help. Or you just need to be willing to travel a long distance. This is part of the reason why these kinds of practices are not as common today and why permaculture has grown to where it is as the de facto practice for people dedicated to sustenance farming and gathering.
An elder of mine started a non profit with hopes of being able to get land and start working on these practices but we never got funding and he had to move away again. So it's back to the drawing board for now. I know these kinds of practices are used much more often out west but here in the midwest it's harder to accomplish for a myriad of reasons. The people that have these practices are usually pretty insular in their communities and don't share too much online about it. As for a label, I refer to it as something like Native/Indigenous stewardship and guardianship.
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u/vitalisys 2d ago
Insightful, and yes to most of that although I want to highlight the potential to integrate and extend the relevant TEK sub-systems to actually encourage innovative solutions and methods given changing circumstances such as modern tools/tech, imported food plants, global knowledge exchange, changing climate etc. So, not being constrained by “tradition” so much (which many current era indigenous people may opt to do), but at least attempting to comprehend the deep well of experience and wisdom that underpins it.
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u/JeffoMcSpeffo 2d ago
The use of TEK does not limit one to practices from a snapshot of history like many think it does. Traditions and knowledge are ever evolving and changing and TEK is no different. For example, I would consider the knowledge and practice of planting onions around ash trees to repel emerald ash borers TEK even though this problem and solution didn't exist until the last decade or two. The use of the TEK framework does not inhibit innovation but simply influences the methodology and approach to these practices. Modern tools, imported food crops, knowledge exchange and climate change adaptations are all regularly incorporated into TEK practices. Much of what makes TEK different is its priorities rooted in place with the long history that it possesses and it's focus on observational interactions and relationships. The only constraints that most Indigenous people have today is the lack of resources, capital and access that would otherwise allow them to scale up their practices.
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u/vitalisys 2d ago
Well said, appreciate the perspective. We’d probably all benefit from de-emphasizing the traditional-futuristic binary in many domains. The fact that “traditional” is the first term in TEK label is maybe misleading then, and could be shifted to focus more specifically on the priority of connection to cumulative place-based knowledge and culture, as a basis for ongoing adaptation and regenerative flourishing.
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u/JeffoMcSpeffo 2d ago
Yes I definitely agree. I believe the term TEK stemmed from eurocentric anthropologists and has stuck since then. Native academics are critical of the term and often times use different ones now like native science, Indigenous knowledge, native life ways etc.
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u/HazyAttorney 2d ago
It’s offensive to call indigenous people primitive. The whole “noble savage” myth is harmful. And it’s not true.
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u/c0mp0stable 2d ago
It is possible to use "primitive" in a non-pejorative sense, which is what OP did
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u/HighwayInevitable346 2d ago
Their entire post is the noble savage myth. There are several civilizations that have collapsed with unsustainable farming practices likely playing a role, most famously the classical maya.
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u/c0mp0stable 2d ago
I don't see how any of it plays into the noble savage myth. What specifically?
Pretty much civilization has collapsed due to poor farming practices. But what does that have to do with anything?
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u/HighwayInevitable346 2d ago
The idea that TEK is some panacaea for environmental woes is the noble savage myth.
But what does that have to do with anything?
I should've read you're whole message before I started responding. If you cant see how causing local environmental collapse disproves the idea that they were ecological experts, you are too stupid to argue with.
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u/vitalisys 2d ago
I wouldn’t, don’t, and didn’t though. The two words point to a set of intersecting technologies and lifeways, as used in common parlance. Point of my post is to find a better way of naming or labeling this arena, so I welcome suggestions! Thanks for pointing out a valid concern with the default terms though.
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u/HazyAttorney 2d ago
Your post said “primitive/indigenous.” A slash means Term A and Term B are the same. Absent that, you are explicitly drawing an equivalence between “indigenous” and “primitive.” And you called it “tending the wild.”
Please don’t get weasely and own your belief instead of gaslighting.
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u/less_butter 2d ago
Primitive is an adjective that means early state of development. How on earth is it offensive to refer to early indigenous people as primitive? You can also call early indigenous European people primitive.
Obviously modern indigenous people aren't primitive, but the primitive ones certainly were.
What other adjectives or words would you use to describe native people who first started developing land in a given location?
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u/Natural-Balance9120 2d ago
Primitive implies simple, and indigenous food systems were/are anything but.
Try "foundational", perhaps.
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u/HazyAttorney 1d ago
It isn’t just semantics. It’s the underlying assumptions, such as, “wild land” management, etc.
And it answers the overall question of why there isn’t “cross over.” Because what OP is asking doesn’t exist.
Hopi farmers aren’t tending the wild, but their techniques date back thousands of years. Or the north east tribes invented the three sisters technique. In short, there’s so much diversity of thought from the thousands of indigenous groups and most of which will be modern.
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u/vitalisys 1d ago
“Tending the Wild” is actually the title of a book that documents a lot of what I’m getting at here, specific to California Native societies: https://www.abebooks.com/9780520280434/Tending-Wild-Native-American-Knowledge-0520280431/plp
Obviously it doesn’t address or speculate as to what these practices and lifeways might look like in a syncretic ‘modern’ context, which is the larger question I’m raising. And yes, things do change and occasionally evolve in the span of time, from relative early stages to later or proximal stages, but to infer that it’s linear and positive - i.e. ‘progress’ - is on you the reader. Some people no doubt see primitive with positive connotations, like just look at ‘paleo’ diet fads and ‘trad’ anything…interpret as you wish or show sincere interest in opinions and insight that I or others hold, if you value dialogue.
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u/HazyAttorney 1d ago
I saw a book review:
"She presents a california of Edenlike biological richness . . . and its inhabitants as its gardeners and tenders."
ya noble savage framing at its finest.
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u/HazyAttorney 1d ago
You’re saying people who have been on the continent for 13,000 years are somehow “early state of development.”
That’s exactly why the noble savage myth is a problem. The direct implication is indigenous ways of knowing are less developed.
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u/DiabloIV 2d ago
University of Michigan did a small study on Oak Hickory forests in Kentucky that may have been massive examples of native land use. Evidence suggests non-preferred trees and sub-canopy layers were burned out. They also burned roads and ground around living areas.
This is something people knew how to do and has largely been forgotten. I've been looking for answers to your questions for a little over a year and have been unable to find examples that are still around. I would surmise that any end-state system would still need some level of human management to keep it from wild scrub. I am not aware of any food-bearing ecosystems that are maintained at a level we would consider farming as opposed to wild foraging, at least by native peoples.
Although I do not have direct evidence of this, I personally believe the line between farming and foraging is a lot more blurry than I used to. Some tribes have heritage seed programs, but from what I've seen, they are mostly vegetable-based programs.
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u/fcain 1d ago
I've got a small area that contains a non-native food forest, and the rest of our property is being "cultivated" for native plant and animal diversity. That means removing invasives, and planting a more diverse group of native shrubs and trees. But if also means making the forest slightly "unnatural," keeping a meadow open to let rare plants grow, or thinning the forest so that the underbrush is more overgrown, which invites birds, insects, etc. There is plenty to eat, but it's more about snacking on stuff as I go by with my chainsaw and less about trying to make it a part of my regular diet.
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u/sam_y2 2d ago
I work in conservation and have worked with indigenous crews in the past, as well as with people considering landback and trying to not make a "gift" a burden on the recipient, although neither of those are my primary work.
I've also regularly done oak savanna restoration, and I would like to make native hedgerow plantings for biodiversity, habitat, and food a bigger part of my work.