The Dawn of Everything

the whole story we summarized in the last chapter – our standard historical meta-narrative about the ambivalent progress of human civilization, where freedoms are lost as societies grow bigger and more complex – was invented largely for the purpose of neutralizing the threat of indigenous critique

We are projects of collective self-creation. What if we approached human history that way? What if we treat people, from the beginning, as imaginative, intelligent, playful creatures who deserve to be understood as such?

One thing that will quickly become clear is that the prevalent ‘big picture’ of history – shared by modern-day followers of Hobbes and Rousseau alike – has almost nothing to do with the facts.

To give just a sense of how different the emerging picture is: it is clear now that human societies before the advent of farming were not confined to small, egalitarian bands. On the contrary, the world of hunter-gatherers as it existed before the coming of agriculture was one of bold social experiments, resembling a carnival parade of political forms, far more than it does the drab abstractions of evolutionary theory. Agriculture, in turn, did not mean the inception of private property, nor did it mark an irreversible step towards inequality. In fact, many of the first farming communities were relatively free of ranks and hierarchies. And far from setting class differences in stone, a surprising number of the world’s earliest cities were organized on robustly egalitarian lines, with no need for authoritarian rulers, ambitious warrior-politicians, or even bossy administrators.

Sky People, Earth People and Water People

The smoke, they say, gives them intelligence, and enables them to see clearly through the most intricate matters.

migration is often framed as implying the restructuring of an entire social order, merging our three elementary freedoms into a single project of emancipation: to move away, to disobey and to build new social worlds

Most later indigenous societies had a separation between peace chiefs and war chiefs: an entirely different administration came into force in times of military conflict, then melted away as soon as matters were resolved.

Dream-guessing’ was often carried out by groups, and realizing the desires of the dreamer, either literally or symbolically, could involve mobilizing an entire community:

a concept the Wendat (Huron) called Ondinnonk, a secret desire of the soul manifested by a dream:
Hurons believe that our souls have other desires, which are, as it were, inborn and concealed … They believe that our soul makes these natural desires known by means of dreams, which are its language. Accordingly, when these desires are accomplished, it is satisfied; but, on the contrary, if it be not granted what it desires, it becomes angry, and not only does not give its body the good and the happiness that it wished to procure for it, but often it also revolts against the body, causing various diseases, and even death.12