5 Interesting tribal survival methods

Anyone who has lived their entire lives in what can be considered a tribal environment will usually be unmatched when it comes to survival skills, at least in their home environments. Some of the tricks people use to make their lives easier are things we wouldn’t even think of in the West, so here are 5 interesting tribal survival methods.

Poison fishing

Tribes across the Amazon commonly use this method but it was also popular with various Indian tribes of North America. In the Amazon, a plant called Barbasco is dug up and its roots are crushed before being placed in a stream. Sticks or leaves are temporarily put in place to slow down the flow and the poison from the roots leaches into the water, but it isn’t strong enough to kill the fish. It causes them to become stunned and float to the surface, where the fishermen can collect the ones they need before removing the roots from the water.

The fish recover quickly and a few seconds after the poison has passed by, they return to normal. Apart from adding poison to a water system, this method has a perfect balance between fish and people, and they are in no danger of being wiped out or killed unnecessarily. The Cherokee did the same thing but with two plants called Yellow buckeye and goat’s rue, which gave the European settlers a bad idea. Cyanide fishing is now illegal, but for an easy meal the settlers would pour cyanide into a lake and wait for all the fish to die from suffocation, they would then collect all the floating fish, which only contained trace amounts of the chemical and were safe to eat.

Burying meat

buried meat is supposed to be a delicacy as well as a way of making meat last for months. It is only done in certain areas by the Inuit people of northern Canada because it takes very special conditions to make. Red meat from either Caribou or musk ox is cut into thick steaks and then wrapped in cloth before being put into a hole in the ground. This is done at the start of winter before it gets too cold to go out on long hunts, and the ground is already frozen solid from permafrost.

(A musk ox, common across Canada and the preferred meat choice for burying)

The steak parcel is placed in the hole and covered with frozen dirt before being left for up to 3 months. It freezes almost straight away but ferments slightly in the underground conditions and the taste and texture change drastically, It’s supposed to taste slightly bitter but very tender.

Persistence hunting

For anyone living in the West, it would be impossible to follow a deer on foot for long enough for it to pass out from exhaustion, but this is the concept of Persistence hunting. Various tribes across the southern half of the continent practice this method with great success. It involves running after something until it collapses from exhaustion or the heat and then killing it with a spear.

This method of hunting not only takes an extreme level of fitness and heat resistance but also takes a long time. The average Persistence hunt will take at least 2 hours, with the longer ones usually lasting no more than 8 hours. The next problem is having to move a Kudu that can weigh close to 300kg however many miles you ran in the desert heat.

Animal helpers

The Hazda people of Tanzania are fond of honey and it makes up a large part of their sugar intake, but the problem comes with finding new hives to harvest. How the relationship started is unclear, but a local bird simply called the “honeyguide bird” has formed a bond with the hunters and shows them where to find hives. If it spots a hunting party it will fly close by and whistle, to which the hunters whistle back, it will then fly towards a hive, stopping along the way so the hunters can catch up.

(The Honeyguide Bird)

The hunters climb the tree with burning grass to smoke out the bees before harvesting the hive. The bird is rewarded with parts of the honeycomb that are left behind. Another good example is the fishermen of the small coastal city of Laguna in Brazil who work with dolphins to get a better catch. The dolphins herd fish towards the shallow areas of the beach and keep them there long enough for the fishermen to catch a load. The dolphins are then rewarded with some of the fish.

Resolving community conflicts

Many tribal people around the world go to war with each other on a regular basis, but when it comes to their own communities, the more peaceful amongst them have developed ways to resolve conflicts without using violence. Various tribes across Papua New Guinea do not have a single leader, but instead have a large council made up of the older members of the community. When a conflict arises between two members, they are brought in front of the rest of the village and given the chance to give their side of the story. If the issue cannot be resolved by the elders, then the two in question will be sent off somewhere to talk privately about their problem without using violence. If the issue still isn’t resolved, then the elders will come up with a solution and both parties have to accept and go along with it.