The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity is a landmark new book by British archaeologist David Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber, who was a London-based author, anarchist activist and professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. Graeber was the author of Debt: The First 5,000 YearsandBullshit Jobs: A Theory, and was a contributor to Harper’s Magazine,The Guardian, and The Baffler. An iconic thinker and renowned activist, Graeber was a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement, and is sometimes credited with having coined the slogan, “We are the 99 percent.”
The Dawn of Everything offers a dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution – from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality – and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. In its early chapters, the book proposes that the European Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries was actually, in great measure, a response to the Indigenous philosophies that Colonists and Imperialists had come into contact with in the New World of North America. Ideas of freedom, equality, and democracy did not exist in Medieval Europe. Ever since then, the Western mind has been moving closer, in these areas, to Native American views. As the authors point out, our ideas about human freedom, democracy, and sexual equality are much closer to that of an Indigenous person of the 16th Century than they are to the European Catholic view.
One of the main propositionsthat Graeber and Wengrow put forth in The Dawn of Everything is that the ancestors of our prehistory were not simple, ignorant savages, but rather self-conscious, idiosyncratic social organizers, evolving through a “carnival parade of political forms.” Today we might use words like anarchist, communist, authoritarian, or egalitarian to describe their activity, but that language fails to represent the sheer quirkiness of the actual case studies: large cities without central authorities or farming (Göbekli Tepe), tribal nations spanning entire continents (Cahokia), and social housing projects (Teotihuacan).
Some populations would even alternate their social systems on a seasonal basis. For example, the Plains tribes of North America formed into an organized political community under one government during the seasonal bison hunt. There was a police force and squads of warriors with full coercive powers. If anyone endangered the success of the hunt, they could be punished, imprisoned, or even killed. The people who occupied those enforcement roles rotated from year to year. These coercive institutions did not last beyond the period of the hunting and ritual Sundance season. During the rest of the year, these Plains societies would split off into smaller groups which had entirely different social systems where people would have to resolve disputes through processes of deliberation and debate.
For 40,000 years, people have been moving between various forms of equal and unequal social structures, building up hierarchies and then dismantling them. The authors make the case that, rather than being lesspolitically self-conscious than people nowadays, people in stateless societies were considerably more so. How did we get stuck?
One of the key arguments of the book is its stance against a reductionist view of our current circumstances: its insistence that the first 300,000 years of human history offer a past that is more varied, hopeful and altogether more interesting than what we have interpreted it to be, and that the same might be true of our future. Our species has been creating new ways of living in all the diverse ecosystems on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. We have the freedom to create new and different forms of social reality, so why not exercise it. We have done all this before. We can do it again. The book’s optimism, in the face of impending climate doom, political polarization, and social upheaval, is itself a provocation to act.
In 1492 nothing altered the daily life of Wallmapu. We greeted Antü as every day, continued with the tasks in our lands, the wampo led us through rivers and lakes, drank our pulku and kissed our pichikeche.
October is not October in the WALLMAPU because it took 40 years for the invaders to come to the Pikunmapu. And even there, they didn’t dare to enter. Only in 1541 the wezache Valdivia raised Penco, in the north margin of the Bío Bío and our futrakecheyem immediatly went to confront them. Here, with no gods or expected prophecies…
October is not October because the war was merciless and meant extermination for our people, but here, the Spanish couldn’t against us. They couldn’t defeat us and after three decades of incredible mortality, unspeakable suffering, tears and blood, our elders balanced the account and in 1598, threw the Winka north of the sacred river. They lost. They where expelled.
Here, the king, his governors, knights and soldiers could not defeat us. And in 1641 pita winka, Spain had to admit the Mapuche independence and sovereignty of the Bío Bío to the south. In Ngulumapu and Puelmapu. Of sea to sea.
And we greeted Antü as every day, we returned to our lands to feed us, returned the wampo and on horseback the Mapuche freedom extended throught all the territory. And we drank our pulku and kissed our pichikeche. And we grew and we lived.
One decade, two decades, three… Many that transformed into centuries. More than 300 years of freedom, of culture, of wind in the face, of kütral in our homes, of wangelen shining in the nights, of well-being… Of az mongen, küme mongen.
On October 12, 1492 nothing happened at the WALLMAPU. October is not October for the Mapuche of Puelmapu. That colonial nightmare was not dreamt by us, until May 25, 1879, when the wezache Roca formed his troops in Choele Choel and sounded his bugles, his cannons.
En 1492 nada alteró la vida cotidiana del #Wallmapu. Saludamos a Antü como cada día, continuamos con las tareas en nuestras tierras, los wampo nos condujeron por ríos y lagos, bebimos nuestros pulku y besamos a nuestros pichikeche.
Octubre no es octubre en el WALLMAPU porque 40 años demoraron los invasores en asomarse a la Pikunmapu. Y no se atrevieron a entrar. Recién en 1541 el wezache Valdivia levantó Penco, en la margen norte del Bío Bío y ya le salieron al cruce nuestros futrakecheyem. Aquí, nada de dioses ni de profecías esperadas…
Octubre no es octubre porque la guerra fue despiadada y de exterminio para los nuestros, pero aquí los españoles no pudieron. Después de tres décadas de increíble mortandad, de sufrimientos indecibles, de lágrimas y sangre, los mayores equilibraron la cuenta y en 1598, arrojaron a los winka al norte del río sagrado.
Aquí no pudieron el rey, sus gobernadores, caballeros y soldados. Y en 1641 pita winka, España tuvo que admitir la independencia y la soberanía mapuches del Bío Bío hacia el sur. En Ngulumapu y en Puelmapu. De mar a mar.
Y saludamos a Antü como cada día, volvimos a nuestras tierras para que nos alimente, retornaron los wampo y a caballo, se extendió la libertad mapuche. Y bebimos nuestros pulku y besamos a nuestros pichikeche. Y crecimos y vivimos.
Una década, dos décadas, tres… Muchas. Que se hicieron siglos. Más de 300 años de libertad, de cultura, de viento en el rostro, de kütral en nuestros hogares, de wangelen resplandecientes en las noches, de bienestar… De az mongen, küme mongen.
El 12 de octubre de 1492 nada sucedió en el WALLMAPU. Octubre no es octubre para los mapuche de Puelmapu. Aquella pesadilla colonial no la soñamos nosotros, hasta el 25 de mayo de 1879, cuando el wezache Roca formó a sus tropas en Choele Choel e hizo sonar sus clarines, sus cañones.
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after, and there will be no memories in those who will be later.“
~ Ecclesiastes 1:4-11 (Bible/King James Version, KJV)
Sounds like credo of the guardians of the prison planet and her history, huh?
Comparison of post office building in Savska street near Belgrade railway station during Kingdom of Yugoslavia vs how it looks today thanks to Communists. It was built by architect Momir Korunović in Serbo-Byzantine style and destroyed by US bombing on Easter of 1944 also known as “Bloody Easter”.
“We build our legacy piece by piece, and maybe the whole world will remember you or maybe just a couple of people, but you do what you can to make sure you’re still around after you’re gone.”
“That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.”
When I first learned about “Big History,” which was the title that was designated to all of history since the big bang by a Ph. D professor who had given my 9th grade history class the challenge and privilege of a collegiate level course, I learned about the great paradox of agriculture. Basically, the idea is that 10,000 years ago when humanity invented agriculture, for many philosophical and…
When I first learned about “Big History,” which was the title that was designated to all of history since the big bang by a Ph. D professor who had given my 9th grade history class the challenge and privilege of a collegiate level course, I learned about the great paradox of agriculture. Basically, the idea is that 10,000 years ago when humanity invented agriculture, for many philosophical and…
