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Wilderness Drum, Inc.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Steve Beyer

What is the wilderness? What’s so special about the wilderness? What is wilderness survival? How does all this relate to survivalism? What are primitive skills? Are wilderness survival and primitive skills the same? Why bother? What is wilderness spirituality? What is animism? What is pantheism? Is wilderness spirituality pagan? What does this have to do with shamanism? What is a vision fast?

Why bother?

No matter who you are or where you are from, your ancestors practiced something like these primitive skills. Learning primitive skills certainly helps you feel at home in the wilderness, with the knowledge that you can survive and even flourish without Gore-Tex or polypropylene, without matches or toilet paper or tents. But more than that, the practice of primitive skills puts you in touch with something deeply human, with a way of life that persisted largely unchanged for 70,000 years. ”There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot,” naturalist Aldo Leopold noted. ”I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old.”

You probably remember the recovery from the Tyrolean Alps of the frozen body and equipment of a 15,000-year-old prehistoric man, everything remarkably well preserved. Among other things, he carried a flint-bladed dagger, a quiver with arrows, and a longbow; two medicinal mushrooms threaded on leather straps; a small leather pack holding shredded tinder fungus, three flint tools, and an antler point, presumably for knapping; and a birchbark container apparently holding embers wrapped in leaves. It struck me that the man, nicknamed Ötzi after the Ötzal Alps where he was found, could have been dropped just about anywhere in the world 15,000 years ago, and whatever humans he met, whatever their culture or language, would have understood his gear, and he would have understood theirs. Even more, I truly believe that they would have understood each other's spiritual practices. Sure, there would be differences in names and forms; but each would have known what the other was doing, just as surely as they all would have understood the structure and function of a birchbark container.

For More Information

Primitive skills gatherings Primitive skills schools Primitive skills organizations Books on primitive skills Magazines on primitive skills Videos on primitive skills Primitive skills on the Web

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