Hey, Rebekah,

You have to take The Mountain People with a grain of salt. Turnbull was going through a messy breakup of a long-term relationship when he was compiling the research for the book, and later research suggests the book probaby more than slightly exagerates some of his experiences. Regardless, it is a powerful book.

Turnbull joins a small nomadic tribe in Africa who call themselves the Ik (pronounced "eek"). I can't remember off hand which country they lived in, I think Sumatra. The Ik traditionally lived in the upper north east corner of this country, which is filled with mountains a fertile forest, and otherwise pretty barren land. The government of this country declared the forest lands to be a nature preserve. This prevented the Ik from using the most viable foraging and hunting grounds of their traditional territory and pushed them into the barren lands to try to survive. This appears to have been intentional on the part of the government, which wanted to relocate the Ik out of the mountains onto a reservation in the flat lands.

Shortly before Turnbull joins the Ik, one of a series of severe droughts strikes which pushes the Ik's precarious survival into a state of wide spread starvation. Turnbull's narrative becomes heart-breaking at this point. He outlines a fallen culture which valued, among other things, hospitality and family highly. By the time he reaches the Ik, he says that the last vestige of hospitality is eating in absolute secrecy, because if someone sees you, you are obliged to share your food. He says that at the age of three, children are turned out of their parents' homes and left to fend for themselves. The elderly often do not fair much better. The very young, the old, and the weak are beaten by the other villagers to relieve them of any food they might have found. The Ik for "good person" translates as "one who has a full belly."

Etc., etc., for about 200 pages. It is very much a microcosmic study of civilization in general. Turnbull makes some very interesting observations about tribal culture in general at the beginning of the book - that permanent residence in a given area (e.g., a town) is not necessarily a proof of a stable culture, or a culture that can develop arts and sciences, which most consider markers of civilization. He says that the physical mobilty of such nomadic tribes actually adds stability to their cultures. People set up new residences each time they move, and if they had an argument with a neighbor at the last stop, they just set up a new residence next to a new person. It also fosters greater social and heirarchal mobility than we enjoy, because the power structure is very fluid to adjust to changing needs and desires the group experiences.

He makes similar observations about family structure, saying that pretty much any adult in such cultures will welcome any child into their home, and children don't bond so much with their siblings as with all children in the tribe. The "parents" will care for, discipline, and play with all their "children." Basically, instead of having two parents, siblings. aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, one has multiple parents and siblings. All these aspects, to my mind, create a strong bond that goes beyond what westerners consider the natural order of things, because the individuals in a group become interdepently bonded to one another and so are invested in the survival of the group as a whole, rather than just the survival of individual families and leaders. Turnbull also talks about these cultures having an almost religious feeling that taking more food than is currently needed is actually evil. They only take (gather and hunt) more food than they can eat immediately if they are moving from one site to another. The book's well worth reading, even with its flaws. Hope this helps.