Gifts of Our Ancestors

Gifts of Our Ancestors

The Yanomami people of Venezuela traditionally did not make stone tools. But sometimes when they were digging around making a garden they would find a stone axe and say, "Ah, this was left here for me by my ancestors. Thanks, ancestors."

They're half right about the ancestors. The axes were made by more sophisticated farming and civilised cultures that lived in the area and had cleared most of it for farming. About five hundred years ago European diseases arrived at the coast. Outpacing European exploration, transported by bucket brigade tribe to tribe, they atomised the society before Europeans could even encounter it, doing so with such thoroughness that today most people look at the area and imagine it was always Amazonian rainforest.

I think Iceland has a similar relationship with can openers. Everyone claims to own one, and shops will happily sell you things in cans, but no shop will sell you a can opener. I assume they were all captured in Viking times and have been handed down ever since. "With this your ancestor Haakon Brown-Britches defeated the great warrior Andy Warhol, of the Campbell clan..."

I finally found a can opener in a shop that didn't sell anything in cans.