Horticulture of the United States of Pocahontas (husp)

Well Paul it appears this will be resurrected so I'm popping it back up to the top...can't wait to see what kind of updated info will pile on now that you have had this out for a year..

Myself I find that I have fallen so short of HUSP, or even Permaculture..I need to be far more restrictive than I have been on my property..(way too many conveniences esp for my dear disabled husband)

As I am re-reading this thread, I am deleting stuff where, after the fourth time I emphasized that this is about horticulture, people still want to talk about non-horticulture things. Maybe they are suggesting that periodically killing people is required for good soil?

I detect a little undertone of "whitey bashing"

There could be some. I know that I am trying to not do that. Mostly because I am white. I am some tiny percentage native american - small enough that I don't wanna do the math. And I hate to even mention that because Bud (native american in one of my videos) seems to be frustrated by "apple indians" (red on the outside and white on the inside) telling him about being native.

I wish to express an idea. And to help convey they idea, I made up something. Yes, I could have expressed it differently. And, yes, people seem to find fuel in the story to go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the idea that I am trying to present. I suppose I could have told the story of people from planet awesome, who were all tall and wore overalls - they came here in their spaceship and took this chunk of land 400 years ago and practiced permaculture and ....

But I like my husp story better. I just need to keep deleting the off topic stuff.

your husp story did get me thinking about some more remote areas on my property...and how I should or should not go forward in using them.

This is the first year we have had any real access to these areas as they were so either wet or brushy we couldn't reach them, but we did build a road this spring to where we can reach farther back onto our property than ever before to haul out dead ash trees for firewood .

In walking this newly accessed area I found areas of ancient trees (well ancient to us)..very old undamaged woodlands of cedar, maple, aspen, etc..that was cleared for poplar 40 plus years ago, before we owned the land. We have allowed it just to heal since.

The road we built doesn't really go into this area of land but close to..giving us basically only walking access. I was reading your husp ideas and thinking, I should limit the use of the property here in this area to only such things as hikinig, berry picking, mushroom hunting and meditation...it is so beautiful. I am glad that I can access it now as I do find it very calming and peaceful to be in that area of our property..but I also need to keep it private from neighbors that might try to misues it ..allownig the nicer neighbors to walk, hike, berry pick and meditate on it if they choose..as we have joined our trails to theirs.

I am wondering if I could pick up fallen branches and snip out brambles to make trails..or leave it wild so you have to pick your way around the fallen trees and bramble patchs to reach the more remote areas..I do want access to it, but don't want to ruin it. I have thought about maybe rearranging some of the fallen trees or branches as places to sit down..and my son suggested a picnic table as it is a beautiful place to sit..and meditate..in a nearby area he would love to put a pond or two, which wouldn't be in this more remote area, but might be visible from it..or as you would walk by the pond area to get to the more remote area..but you have gotten me thinking

So I am very interested to see how your husp thread continues.

Brenda Groth wrote:I should limit the use of the property here in this area to only such things as hikinig, berry picking, mushroom hunting and meditation...it is so beautiful.

This would be congruent with the idea of Zone 5 in permaculture, the wild nature zone where humans only go infrequently to lightly harvest some products but mostly to learn from wild nature. Personally I think leaving it as untouched as possible, maybe with only the most narrow of hand-built trails (just pruned back with loppers maybe), would be the best thing.

This husp concept is something I have flirted with raising my son and and telling him bed time stories
that I made up using my idea of what life might have been like on my property. We lived in a town situated
between two rivers bearing the names Tombigbee and the Luxapalila. It sat on a bluff and there is no doubt
in my mind ancient people watched the sunsets and sunrises from the very site we lived on. Now I need to
think in more detail about what they ate, how they hunted and lived. In the bedtime stories across the river
was "the land beyond" it was a very mystical place, kind of like husp.

Okay i'm not trying to be negative, but I see these two problems and would like to know if there are solutions in anyone's toolkit to them.

In Podcast 189 - Getting Land, Paul Wheaton mentioned that he doesn't believe anything but a WOFATI might be applicable to his level 10,000 half of the property, but if you can't even bring in plastic or oil products of any kind, what modifications to the WOFATI concept have been evolved to replace the two polyethylene sheets and myriad of plastic components that go in houses now a days?

Polyethylene is generally a petroleum product and even the bioplastic alternatives are still plastics. PET bottles which have been acknowledged as leaching endocrine disrupting chemicals in people's bottled water are made of Polyethylene Terephthalate and while i don't believe the sheeting you would use to waterproof the "roof" of a WOFATI is made of PET, my lack of knowledge of the chemical composition and possible health effects would make me wary when you're trying to attain such a high "purity" in the system you're designing.

Low tech architecture is a major interest of mine, but now a days you would have to custom manufacture so many "standard" items of houses if you wanted to avoid plastics altoghether. The most vital places we use plastics now a days in buildings, beyond plumbing, is in the sealing of the house. And while the WOFATI concept neatly sidesteps most of the moisture and vapor barrier issues, doors and windows now a days use plastic components to guarantee that there isn't an air gap that opens up as the humidity and temperature changes wrack wood that is exposed to exterior conditions. (you can't use aluminum windows because of plastic components, and having lived in a house with steel windows, my faith in them is fairly low)

Now if you believe the possible half inch air gaps wouldn't be too much of a problem for someone living in a WOFATI in the case of a record low temperature (the missoula record low I believe is -33 degrees Farenheit or -36 degrees C) when they can't use any electric or combustion based heating systems to help deal with air infiltration, this second point is moot.

I also acknowledge that if you say we just won't let anyone live there in the worst part of the winter, then the WOFATI would most likely be able to meet or exceed any health practitioner's expectations of both reasonable air quality and temperature for living conditions.

Now since I know i'm being overly pessimistic with my example i'll acknowledge that the microclimate you would seek to foster for a WOFATI would not be a cold trap and therefore you probably wouldn't actually reach the -33 deg. F in the worst case scenario (that anyone who legally designs a building has to size heating equipment to) but you would probably have at the very least -23 degree weather outside your doors and windows, which while they probably wouldn't be warping all of half an inch, they would most likely not be flush enough to prevent a noticeable drop in temperature. Even Mike Oehler had a stove in his earth integrated house.

the things with >>> in front are what i added (: so its all together and easier to read hopefully

paul wheaton wrote:

Ken Peavey wrote:
Things that are non-husp

I want to emphasize that while I seek feedback on my ideas, the tiniest "I think ..." does a great deal to make it feel like we are collaborating, and, thus, inviting a lot of ideas, rather than setting in stone what is or is not in my head.

municipal waste and water treatment systems

A very good point.  Anybody have any info on how poop and pee was managed here 403 ago?  Well, pee probably was just put anywhere, but what about poop?

>>> native americans from what i understand would find the nearest off the trail spot and just squat/lean/etc and just go. in the summer you have plant material and in winter you get a cold wash with snow. also take into consideration how many people to the space there was. how many tribes were there in one of our current states counties? and how many people would be in each tribe on average? when you think about that then it makes sense that they didnt bring about a black plague of their own like the europeans did because they were more spread out, for one. you have people all piled on top of each other and dumping chamber pots out windows possibly on a passerby's head... i just get the image of the chicken trucks today. all the chickens packed into small area and levels of them pooping on each other.
with humanure then you are safely utilizing and dealing with the human waste matter. its mixed with other matter and composted and breaks down and feeds the soil. whereas current USA what do we do? "eww poop and pee *flush*" everything gets flushed to a giant holding tank. as i believe paul said once in a podcast "even fertilizer if you dump it all in one big pile is gonna be harmful".

strip malls and paved parking lots on farmland

I wonder if the overall population would be different.  I suspect that cites would have fewer people than they do now, and rural areas would have more people per square mile than they do now.

>>> i think cities would be more like towns and people would have still more room then current USA towns. as most everyone i'm thinking would have at least some area for plants or a few chickens, etc.

smoke belching cars, in every driveway and massive road networks

I remember that the reason the amish didn't use electricity had to do with the pollution at the other end of the wire. 

I would like to think that public transportation would be favored heavily.  But ... there is a lot in this space that I am curious about. 

>>> amish religion doesnt permit them to do many things because it takes away from their lives and their relationship with god. i think everyone could use a bit of a lesson in that.
though i am around tons of amish people and there are good and bad amish like anyone else. some of them do even less gardening or animal tending then townfolk. heck, alot are townfolk!
i'm not seeing how public transportation would work at all. other then wagon trains, groups of people on horseback. even for solar you need to have electric and plastics to make them and the process of making them wastes alot itself.

clearcutting

I would like to think that a mix of meadows and woodland would be encouraged.    And sometimes the woodland gets too dominant and is cleared. 

>>> dont forget that the native americans would set fire to the prairie occasionally at certian times because prairie grass isnt like most grass we plant now. the grass we have now pretty much grows like a tree does. but the prairie grass, the roots are *much* deeper and the main growing point is under the soil. and burning the prairie you put all the burnt grass matter to the soil. and the burning also kept the forests from taking over the prairie, which they didnt want because the buffalo lived off the prairie grasses.
also the firewood native americans used was mostly "sqaw wood". fallen branches and things that the women could easily gather.

26 ounce Porterhouse steaks

I would think there would be no objection to somebody eating this on the day of harvest - especially in lieu of preserving it.

lip gloss and nail polish

I confess that would be more of a utopia to me (mostly from my more political philosophies surrounding madison avenue and fashion magazines) but with roots in face paint 403 years ago ....

>>> i think there would certianly be a totally different standard of "beauty" and fashions. throughout time people all over the planet have always had fashions and i dont think that would stop even in husp.

McMansions'

I rather think that the lodge houses of the pacific northwest could turn out to be the most optimal living model.

Hi all. I love the utopic principals, but there are some logical flaws, as well as lack of historical veracity. Logic will vary based on whose it is. The logic of an animal might be comprehensible to a human, but perhaps not the other way around. And who's to say we would even recognise the intelligence, never mind the logic, of a being as vast and spread out as, say, a forest?
Also, there were Aboriginal political organisations before Europeans arrived the second time. They were likely around when the vikings first came visiting. They seem to have been ineffectual as a force to repel the Europeans because of their extensive, rather than intensive, approach to land use. It resulted in a lower population density, which was easier on the land. Going by that logic, it would have been very difficult, without some catalyst earlier on, for the indigenous peoples to develop unity to muster the force to repel the invaders.

Paul will rile at this, but I think the most logical way to fictionally introduce the seed crystal that becomes HUSP is to imagine a peaceful encounter between the natives and the Viking settlers that settled L'Anse Aux Meadows (Méduses, jellyfish) and sailed south along the coast, trekking inland up the St. Lawrence to their fabled Vineland. This starts the 90% population die-off among the natives that European disease created in the virgin field of the new world, but a good five-hundred years earlier. The survivors would have to have been helped by the Norse settlers, who would have, in turn been helped through winters. There would be a dissemination of cultural information, and the resultant new population would spawn HUSP. They would be thicker on the ground when the other Europeans arrived, and so it would be more likely that the invaders would be repulsed.
Also, the Christian Pagan mix would prepare the spiritual mentality of polytheists to accept the possibility of one correct way, arguably a necessity to the development of science, as a precursor to dismissing explanations of life that don't fit in with observation.

It might be annoying in the short term, but Geoff Lawton did say, I believe in his third-last podcast with you, Paul, that a good system complicates itself. These political and historical musings are just your idea complicating itself. I would suggest that instead of just deleting posts in this thread, some others might be split off from it, to discuss the historical and political ramifications of HUSP.

Also, the tools we are using to create (or recreate) this idea span the whole world. While I see the development, for instance, of hugelkultur in parallel as a distinct probability, seeing as how one can observe nurse logs anywhere there is an untended forest, I don't think it is feasible to expect the development of the type of system we want but in isolation in the New World.

Finally, I might be alone here, but I get the feeling that naming this idea after a quasi-historical character might be insulting under certain circumstances to certain people. I know this idea is obviously yours to name, you've named it, but I was wondering if you've had any negative input regarding the name. I've had conversations with friends of mine who would have suggested the Seven Council Fires (not sure, I think they existed in the Great Lakes region at the start of the colonial era), or other Native political groups out of history, who would have had more chance of pulling off a military coup and indigenous uprising than a supposed chief's daughter who showed the bad judgement to save an Englishman's life.

Please assume that, even where semantics suggest a claim of authority or fact, that this is my opinion. I just think that a more realistic starting point, grounded in fact and what we know of history, makes a much broader and more stable base for the tower you seek to construct, Paul.

Regards,

-CK

As to the whole controlled burn thing, I think that that is the tool to which the natives resorted when there weren't enough browsing animals around. I would draw attention to the observations made at Oostvardersplaasen over the last 40 years which speak to this. It was a planned industrial area in the seventies that didn't pan out after construction (it is sub-sea level and is protected by a levee), and so went wild. It was later found to be hosting populations of endangered waterfowl, the reason for which it was later protected, and that they were the reason the land had remained fairly open, because as there were pioneer tree and shrub species present, their browsing on seedlings and other pioneer plants that would have otherwise transformed the area into forest prevented that. It has since been one of many sites of planned restoration to a Paleolithic wild state, introducing both species that were present on the land at that time, including Red Deer and Elk, and stand-ins for extinct species like Heck's cattle (the result of a breeding program to create an approximation of the extinct auroch) and either the North American Bison or the European Bison (Wisent) as a stand-in for their ancestor.

My point is that a proper stratification of animals can be used to keep the land from overgrowth. No one keeping goats in any quantity will have issues with forests encroaching on their pastures if they can get their goats to what they're evolved to eat. Also, fire may be quicker, but all those calories and nutrients could go to feed people by proxy.

Maybe if part of the formation of HUSP included a cultural cross-pollenation caused by, say, a trip of some sort, in really big canoes, maybe ocean canoe trimarans. If they happened upon people herding deer or Elk, they would probably have had some guy in a group of young people say, "Hey, that's pretty cool. We could find these things back home, and learn to run long and hard and follow the herds, and get all we need from them. It'd be pretty good." And when the mud and feces and rotten vegetables stopped flying, one of his more thoughtful buddies would say, "Okay, but if we found these things at home, we could somehow keep them moving where we want them to move, and we could build these yurts, there, and put wheels on them, and we'll, I don't know, use big dogs or something to haul them around, and we'll have leather and hides and meat." And if the herding, yurt culture they encountered had been Mongol, they would have discovered arak, a drink a little like small beer made of fermented mares' milk, which they would have found useful because of the fact that fermentation breaks down the proteins( I think it's proteins) that make dairy hard to digest for most Natives. They also would have discovered horses, which they could use to move the yurts, and chase the bison back home, which actually happened when Europeans reintroduced them.

So in the history of the USP, is there a Pocahontian Saga?

I'm assuming that the natural ranges of the bison would be kept from any type of permanent development or barrier, but would there be populations of people following semi-nomadic traditions, migrating with the herds? Could this be a more huspian way of keeping the forests in check than controlled burns?

-CK

Well I see this thread is really popular with me. I just wanted to observe that in the east of the USP, there would probably be more extensive ranges of oak savannah (I think the specific type is called Carolinian). I think you would see a logical development from the Three Sisters model towards what we call guild planting, and expanding over the course of this altered history into all the varieties of edible available on the continent. It is reasonable to assume that somebody at some point would have developped the idea of hedgerows to discourage grazers and browsers as much as possible, and probably would have used food and forage producing barrier plants as much as possible.

I think that instead of meat cattle, we would see bison ranges expand, so that, unless uspians were unlike any people ever created, there would have been some kind of adaptive overreaction to how great bison were (completely understandable, more protein combined with the regularity and predictablility of their life cycle, and hides, there's a lot to recommend them) resulting in a temporary shift towards too much plains and oak savannah, followed by a careful planned shift back towards large forested areas. In the redo, though, the forests would all have been tweaked by knowledge of natural food systems based on careful observation, and so would be able to favour nutritionally significant species at all levels, and a diversity to safeguard against runaway tree pathogens (I think it would be logical to assume some medium-scale tree disease would have resulted from the flirtation with quercus macrocarpa or some other really good savannah food tree in an almost plantation setting, spurring the push for reforestation and diversity).

Any opinions on whether or not dairy animals would be developed or have found any demand? I have only read anecdotal accounts of deer-milking by aboriginal cultures in the southeast, so I guess it could have happened all on its own.

I would feel more comfortable hypothesizing on someone else's idea if we knew how much contact there would have been with other cultures. We know that, as I mentioned above, there was a failed colonisation effort by northern europeans, confirmed archaeological evidence of habitation at L'Anse Aux Meadows something like 500 years or better before Columbus, and evidence in Norse Sagas that indicate that at least one expedition travelled inland to a place where grapes grew wild (this is a point of contention, because apparently there is linguistic similarity between the words for vine/wine and grassland suitable for grazing). This might describe the near-tropical summer conditions of a great lakes (Golden Horseshoe) wet continental climate. This suggests that travel off the continent could also have happened, especially if there were cultural and technological exchanges between the northern european visitors and the natives. But was there travel, by sea or by land, to South America? Does the USP have potatoes and tomatoes? Is there widespread use of chinampas in appropriate areas all over the USP, like hugelbeets on water? Does the USP have a sibling culture developed to the south, also firmly in the hands of natives that revere nature? Did european colonialism take hold south of the USP, creating contention and the drive to push further invaders off their soil? Is there a USP navy to defend and manage the offshore fishing reserves (if not, what are the chances there are any cod left)?

Another reason I think it would be useful to (carefully) explore topics slightly tangential to the Horticulture part of husp is that we don't even know how far and how quickly information can be spread to all uspians. Apart from questions of how they muster to defend against invaders, or if and how they accept immigrants (a slow enough rate of immigration results in immigrants going native, if you'll pardon the expression, rather than the natives being driven off), this relates directly to how much regional diversity and variation there is.

I am trying, and a few other people are, but I think we would see much more in the ways of horticultural brainstorming if we were provided with the parameters of context.

-CK

It would seem that if I have an imaginary thought, some people require me to share an even richer imagination.

I think the key here is that husp represents that which we (I) do not know. Attempting to consider would could be now, is the mental exercise.

Granted, but as this is a product of your mind, is it not possible for us to pose questions and suppositions to shape our conception of it?

Another that occurred to me was regarding fire. If in the modern husp system, there is no fire, when did they stop using it? Did they migrate seasonally instead? Or was the north depopulated?

My apologies, Paul. I was under the impression that you had started a crowd-sourced thought experiment. I am just trying to figure out the practical implications of husp on a society over time, and trying to figure out that society based on what husp means.

I was not, incidentally, being facetious when I asked if there was a Pocahontian Saga. Your setting parameters on what could have happened allows for more speculation and diversity of thought. As this is a system that would have developped over a whole continent, and not dictated by one individual (in the alternate history of the USP), there could obviously be as many different ideas as groups of people (or even individuals) or living situations, distilled over time to a handful of "best practices." This still allows for as many different morphologies as terrains. The native american culture we learned of in school taught us that there were many distinct cultural groups. How does that effect what husp means?

I'm not trying to shape anything any particular way, myself. I'm just attempting to spur more thoughts, or more refined ones, in an effort to properly understand.

-CK

There are at least three definitions of husp now:

1) the story, plus the idea of "what would it be like now?"

2) the idea of how do we go about attempting to rediscover #1

3) the thing where I divided my land into four pieces, giving them the names "organic", "permaculture", "symbiculture" and "husp".

This thread is about the first definition. The thing about no fire is from the third definition.

Granted, but as this is a product of your mind, is it not possible for us to pose questions and suppositions to shape our conception of it?

I think that this thread is a fair place to try to better understand, or to openly ponder.

As for me: this is something that had been knocking around in my head a long time. I'm glad to have shared it and see that a lot of folks unerstand me.

Thanks Paul. Silly me, how could I have gotten husp, husp, and husp all confused like that?

If you can at some point take the time to comment on anything, at least the horticultural parts, in this thread, or even just exercise your executive veto on the silly bits, that might make things clearer. I will be looking into getting "Just Enough." Perhaps there will be more answers there?

-CK

I agree that we need an easy way to differentiate between husp, husp and husp.

As for getting a better definition for them, that sorta seems to be a big part of what i work on daily. Much like how some people seek nirvana, or enlightenment, I'm seeking to learn more about husp (or husp or husp).

Might I suggest, then, that perhaps you pose some questions that you'd feel comfortable with people trying to answer? Something to steer our inquiry in the direction that would be most helpful to your ends. Crowdsource your problemsolving as you have managed to get a bunch of us to crowdsource experimentation. For instance, if there were horticulture-specific questions to answer, we'd be less likely to go off on tangents that just cost you time in the deletion .

Just a thought. Thanks for your continuing efforts in all of this.

-CK

They used low-hanging stuff to limb up against fire in parts of northern California anyway. Even dense second-growth can get dark enough for Indian Pipes and other darkness-phliac plants, even now. You can get lots of good wild-crafting stuff even in second growth. There's an intriguing hand-done book about some of this called An Everyday History of Somewhere. I used to have one. I gave it away to someone I fear doesn't care about it as much as I did.

paul wheaton wrote:

Ken Peavey wrote:
Things that are non-husp

strip malls and paved parking lots on farmland

I think I may have messed up the quotes here, sorry.

Anyway, this got me thinking. Define "farmland". I have been seeing and reading a lot about looking for land that is Not good "Farm land" as being good Permaculture/food forest land. In other words, just because something is table flat and can be ploughed easy, does not make it the very best food production land.

I am not disagreeing with the thought. Using our best food production land parking, or even housing does not make sense, but then, with proper permaculture land use maybe ALL the land would be so productive that it would be very hard to find any land unproductive enough for merely parking on it.

Just a quick thought. Probably not well thought out either. I do think what we have grown up with tends to mold our ideas more than we think sometimes.

Well, haven't read the whole thing, but I will eventually, it's a really beautiful thing and it's really useful to do a thouught experiment. This is what de Bono describes as a "provocation" or "provocative operation," a particular kind of thought experiment that really can get you outside the box. But it's also meaningful if it calls to you in a heart way.

I believe we have infinite multiverses in which every probable reality gets played out, so there is one in which this happened, and we can gain information from it.

I also think that it's true that this is the best of all possible worlds, the story just isn't over yet and it's all expanding.

As someone said, it's easier for them to look at the future. I have tended to do that. But I'm also interested in this idea of looking at the parallel reality.

We could have developed greater ability to understand nature's intelligence. We would do without roads, if we didn't undervalue where we were, who we have with us to spend time with. We could have no schools, and children could learn in life, knowing how to support themselves by the age of 12 from the Earth.

There are tools I'm aware of that are beyond permaculture as it's commonly practiced and beyond biodynamic as it's commonly practiced. And fully compatible, extending these.

I think to understand native ways of agriculture you need to understand the whole context, teh whole way of living in the world, of viewing it, of interacting with it. And also, I think that different people are different. I am of European ancestry. My ancestors had a different set of agricultural practices and gods, and something similar to their wisdom (hidden from the Church) lives on in some corners of Austria today, maybe. But I can learn from people who have stayed in touch with their old ways and with the Earth. For me it's the Dagara of West Africa who I've felt called to learn from. But I'm not learning how to be Dagara, I'm being reminded of what it is to be myself, how to "know the place for the first time."

If we all had worked together the past 400 years and made the best world theoretically possible, wow, that would be beautiful. Quite magical. We'd still have so much more topsoil, wouldn't we.

To me the idea of husp makes me think of the idea of cultivating nature.

This article by Toby Hemenway made me think it might add to the discussion in this thread: http://www.patternliteracy.com/155-ecological-patterns-land-use-and-right-livelihood
He discusses the Native American use of the land in order to decide for himself how he wants to use modern technology or even just cut down a tree.

I know Paul's imaginary story is not the main point of this tread, but I though I would say . . .

That by 1608 the Natives were already dying off at a huge rate from diseases spread north from Spanish Mexico, and thus there land use and general culture had greatly changed. The mound builders of the Mississippi were probably already extinct, though early Spanish explorers recored seeing them. The plains Indians might have already started using horses to hunt the great herds of buffalo, which boomed in response to the destruction of the earlier more advanced civilizations.

Thus, there is much we do not know, having only seen the North-eastern tribes in their decline.

(If I am wrong in all this, correct me.)

Gilbert Fritz wrote:I know Paul's imaginary story is not the main point of this tread, but I though I would say . . .

That by 1608 the Natives were already dying off at a huge rate from diseases spread north from Spanish Mexico, and thus there land use and general culture had greatly changed. The mound builders of the Mississippi were probably already extinct, though early Spanish explorers recored seeing them. The plains Indians might have already started using horses to hunt the great herds of buffalo, which boomed in response to the destruction of the earlier more advanced civilizations.

Thus, there is much we do not know, having only seen the North-eastern tribes in their decline.

(If I am wrong in all this, correct me.)

I think you are correct. Here is a good article about this: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/native-intelligence-109314481/?no-ist

There is so much to digest here...but I really like the direction...

So-I poked around the forums to find out just what a gapper is supposed to be and I end up watching a video there about permaculture bricks given in California. The idea of husp became instantly imprinted into my own imagination. (From Ontario, I get to thank Polkaroo instead of Mr. Rogers)

My urge to reply comes from Paul's imaginings resonating with a recent bit of imagining that I've had rattling around in my noggin the past month.

I've been thinking that our First Nations people could be the leaders who save us all from ourselves. If we could get in touch with the fact that we are very much connected to Mother Nature we'd be in a much better place. I'm just learning bits and pieces about permaculture through exploring other topics of interest to me. But for sure - observe and interact is something that was common 400+ years ago right here in North America. I've had a deep respect for what my grade school teachers called "Indian Spirituality" ever since grade 2.

I have imagined slipping intentional community and growing food and sustainable self supplied energy and earth integrated building into the governing bodies of the First Nations communities here. I can see pockets of healthy, sustainable and (likely) prosperous communities would be a model to follow. It would be awesome if some high profile examples would lead to broader adoption of a society working within it's place in nature.

And it isn't far fetched. Young aboriginals here are searching for a connection to their heritage. There is growing demand for healthy food alternatives. Permaculture grows good food, offers better use of resources and highlights the inter connectedness of all. We have a sort of nation to nation relationship between Canada and First Nations so there's lower friction with Departments of Making You Sad. And our current government is making all the right noises about needing to try new solutions.

Again I feel a resonance.

We've imported stupid culture to the world. It would be great to find an ancient wisdom and add to it all that's been learned! Then even more can be learned and we could infect the world again.

I think:

People would not be living on top of each other.  Isn't it ironic that a fish or a horse, for example, require a minimum of space to thrive in, while humans apparently are supposed to live like sardines in a can?

People would have learned that respecting nature requires respecting each other equally well.

Dis-ease would be greatly eased.  The number of dis-eases might so limited as to be mostly known.  Compared to now, when so many toxins have been indiscriminately created so that no one knows how many or the extent of damage unknown combinations have caused, or might cause in the future.

Children would be educated about what real health is and how to maintain it.  And they would grow up to teach their children how to take care of themselves.

Homeschooling or small schools would teach fundamentals so that children would have basic understandings and critical thinking skills to better manifest their Self.  Not going out into the world at 18 now with multiple anchors of ignorance around their necks and blinded by bling.

Children could grow up to travel or stay local.  Land could stay 'in the family' indefinitely and there could be enough for multiple families to coexist without crowding.

Iatrogenic would not have become a term describing 'conventional medicine'.

There would be no global effort to rehabilitate land to correct gargantuan crimes committed against it.

Only natural dead zones would exist because there would be no fertilizer and sewage runoff into waterways, tailings ponds,

Though humans seem to tend toward violence, I think there would be far less because people would not be in such close quarters and most would be busy doing more constructive things than stealing or killing for stuff.  Individuals would be more intradependent, therefore less likely to need or want what someone else has.

There would probably not be turtles with straws in their noses.  No skunks with their tiny heads stuck in yogurt containers.  Baby bears with heads stuck in mayonnaise jars.

There would be fewer pointless time consuming debates about climate.

Fewer people would probably build in stupid places.  I was shocked to find out most of Chicago is built over a marsh, hence many of its ongoing problems.  Why build a city on a marsh?  Why not move up or down away from marsh?  I have personally watched Lake Michigan wash past breakers onto and over Lakeshore Drive.  I recall thinking:  stupid stupid stupid.  But what do I know.  I'm not an engineer.

There might be no need for government subsidies because communities will have learned, as many cultures have, how to help each other during shortages or disasters.  Or, those who have not learned to help each other may find themselves short when assistance is needed.  Still, coexistence would have opportunity to evolve organically.

There could be a generally more realistic understanding that life is not fair, and that deliberate maliciousness exists little in nature.  Humans being imperfect would likely do bad things from time-to-time, but most of those bad things arise from need or want.

Communities could decide how to deal with what crimes are committed in their own way without building a prison system that benefits no one.

When individuals grow up physically healthier, they are likely to be mentally healthier.

I don't know if or how militaries might evolve with great numbers, but in a husp reality the defense of a nation would be less likely to be purely about war-based economies.

The world of politics would look vastly different.  Politicians might even become more widely known as respectable if they chose to serve the people as real leaders with focus on natural and self-sustaining practices.

Technologies could develop with very different goals.

Homelessness need not be a thing.

There could be far fewer individuals who experience becoming disabled due to carriers and other boo boos in vaccines, toxic chemical exposures.

Law of the land, as Marcus Tullius Cicero described in letters and essays to his son known as "De Officiis", could be real.  As described therein, people could assume shelter, food, and water wherever they traveled as long as they did not impose their beliefs on would be providers of said amenities.

Most political talk or gatherings might be oriented toward monitoring over fishing, over killing species, simplifying other potential complexities.

Community meetings could be better focused, therefore more productive and better attended.

Air and water and food could be kept safe in natural ways and entirely protected.

Self-sustaining ways of daily living could be the norm, not the exception.

Doing more with less could be the norm.

More time could be spent on creating.  Flourishing inwardly, therefore outwardly.

There could be less stress on humans and environments.

Freedom of choice could be real.

Freedom could be real.

I am imagining husp as human stewardship for land, water, and wildlife that supports and perpetuates human existence.  Good air would naturally exist in such an environment.  Humans could coexist with what supports their existence.  

I just saw this (thank you, daily emailer: I love sitting around a fire and staying warm inside the house though sometimes people have to go outside to take care of animals and other chores.  Is it possible to have natural winter clothing?

https://permies.com/t/20504)


I love this thread. Will spend more time with it later. This is so me.

HUSP is a journey. The journey is the reward. 100% possible? Of course not. Just look at the stuff in the mailbox that you didn’t ask for. But a constant, continual, rewarding effort? Of course! And every serious effort has some impact. Big or small, a positive effect that wasn’t there before you made it.  

With respect to clothing:
With a spinning wheel (or a spindle, or a charka, or a stick ....), you can spin your own thread.  Strong natural thread: silk, tightly spun cotton, hemp, linen. The ticket is lots of twist for strength.  At least 3 plies for roundness. Cable-ply is best for strength. Gotta spin really thin if sewing fine cloth. As weave structure becomes more open, the thread can be fatter. Twist and ply advice still holds, but singles don’t have to be so thin. Or ply more thin singles. Whatever you want to do.

If sewing wool, you can use wool thread if there won’t be a lot of stress on the seams (sweaters).  If you’re going to full the fabric, the more it shrinks the stronger the thread will get until eventually you won’t be able to distinguish the “thread” from the “yarn.”  (We sew with thread but knit/weave/crochet/nallbind... with yarn.  Buts it’s pretty much all yarn if it started as straightish thinnish pieces to which twist has been introduced to hold it together).  If using wool for thread, don’t use something like merino. You need a good wooly wool. Like Wensleydale. BFL even if you must have softness. Mohair is great — pull out most of the fluffy stuff for your hats as sweaters, keep the tougher stuff for thread. Mohair was used for years in blends for rugs and men’s suits because it is strong. I could go on, but you get the picture.  You can just call me the crazy spinning lady.

I’m working at the moment in an animation around HUSP for Paul’s YouTube channel and while drawing the badass Pocahontas character I recalled a movie that I saw a long time ago when I was a little kid, which in retrospect completely changed and shaped my perspective and I believe was a first stepping stone in my path towards permaculture and homesteading.

It contains a very powerful message that heavily resonates with the ideas expressed here and an example of a society completely in tuned with nature. I highly recommend it!



And some years ago the Kogi invited the English camera crew back to reinstate on their message to little brother:

Hey Paul, loved the YouTube video and while I'd heard you talk about the idea of HUSP I had not ventured to this thread before. One of the things I find most interesting would what modern technology would they adopt, I would assume it would primarily be very low wattage electricity and generally they would eschew any fossil fuels and probably nuclear, wind or solar leaving primarily hydro electricity.

Would they have modern hospitals? While I don't think they would have chemical pharmacology like we do, i suspect they would want modern surgical theatres. Even in a permaculture society someone occasionally drops a tree on themselves or requires a broken bone be set occasionally.

Internet is probably out of the question because they require enormous server farms that act as international routers but maybe they would utilize satellite internet. In my mind internet is an exceptionally sharp two edged sword, video and text sharing instantaneously cannot be under valued in the way our civilization has advanced and the permaculture movement as well.

Maybe one of the most interesting questions in my mind is what plants, trees or animals might they import? Beef is very tasty but in my mind elk is a Superior meat, though if I had beef that free ranged like elk all it's life that may be different. Deer and goats are exceptionally similar not necessarily a reason to import those. Grapes are tasty but so are muscadines. My suspicion is given many of the tribes utilization of acorn flours or nuts we would have some truly improved varieties that tasted delicious and were a pleasure to eat. At this point I doubt there will ever exist an improved flour acorn.

It's certainly an interesting though experiment to say what if a society rejected the majority of modern practices which would they still want and which could they actually implement while staying in their more naturalist culture.

I am more interested in anything I could learn about how the First Nations actually did agriculture. Is there any literature on this subject?

"Tending the Wild" by M. Kat Anderson is an excellant book that answers your question.

Wow! I love this idea Paul. There are so many avenues of thought here, which I believe was partly your intent. I am convinced that locally grown food/biomass will become the norm in the near future, given the global supply chain implosion. I am encouraged by the work being done to re-establish kelp beds in Australia that are helping to restore wild fish and invertibrate stocks. I recently read of farmers in northern Mexico that are growing Prickly Pear,  Agave and Mesquite in a row cropping systems in conjunction with rotational grazing animals. The Agave leaves are harvested and fermented, the ferment is used to make Tequila and the resulting biomass is then used as fodder for their livestock, reducing their need for expensive hay equipment and storage. After 10 to 15 years the main Agave cores are harvested and crushed to obtain Agave Syrup. Prickly Pear is harvested for food (nopales), Tuna fruits and red dye, and for input to biodegesters for methane production. These systems do not require irrigation as dryfarm principles are used in production.
https://viaorganica.org/
There are many more examples globally, of efforts like these that could easily become a database of best practices by region, climate or zone.
Now if we could just come up with a solution to the 3 million feral pigs running around Texas.

Thanks for sharing this educative  experience.
I would be interested in attending your in person conferences or receive your funding for my permaculture trials that is am currently working on here in Gambia, west Africa.

I like the way you think, Paul.

I just came across this post, and I have to say I think a lot about how technology might have evolved if our values had been different. Please allow me to make my possibly-ignorant contribution:

    For one thing, I suspect that one of the problems with modern technological change is that it is responding to something other than the land (capital profits, "the social good", power structures, etc.), forcing the land to adapt to it. So I wonder how sustainable technological change would be that outpaces changes in the land (thus creating human-induced changes in the land*).

    For another thing, I suspect that the sustainability of nature arises largely from its diversity, which both arises from and is governed by the diversity of conditions in each place and time. Centralization of government would seem to run counter to this principle. To the degree a centralized government permits its subjects to be under the governance of some local power (like the particular spirit of the particular land where they may happen to live), it is decentralized. And, if centralization is itself a technology that tends toward uniformity rather than diversity, I suspect centralization would be one of those technologies a society like this might reject**.

*I want to acknowledge here that human-induced change doesn't have to be bad; maybe we want to deepen the soil or green the desert or have some other noble goal. But the reason pre-agricultural man lived as sustainably as any other creature, from what I can tell, is that his survival depended on cooperation with the natural system rather than changing it; natural selection rooted out unsustainable technologies and social structures just like it rooted out pathological mutations in genes. The danger I see here is in making man the arbiter of technological development; if we are the ones deciding which technologies are good and bad, talking "for" nature but also possibly talking over her, our technologies would evolve along the lines of our perceptions rather than reality. There exists here the possibility of paving our road with good intentions and then hoping for the best.

**This assumes that indigenous, pre-Columbian American tribes would have preferred the welfare of the earth over the temporary, material flourishing of their people. This seems largely to be true, given that agriculture did not displace nature in pre-Columbian North America as it clearly did in ancient Mesopotamia and much of mediaeval Europe. It does seem possible that a continent-wide confederation of tribes might form as a force to defend against the infiltration of bad powers and technologies, while still allowing the peoples in each distinct place to be correspondingly distinct; but any centralization seems to tend toward greater centralization, and it is possible that even this might be a step too far in that direction. I imagine the USP to be only as much of a "confederation" as the principle of sustainable decentralization will allow.