View Full Version : Another thought
Another thought for the day (hopefully this one wont turn into an argument!)
We have discussed the difference between Survival skills and bushcraft in the past but I am curious as to what people think the differnce is between Bushcraft and Prinitive living skills.
Personally I would say primitive living is a step beyond Bushcraft and far more in tune with nature and the essence of 'the craft' in its purest form.
BorderReiver
08-01-2005, 11:15
Another thought for the day (hopefully this one wont turn into an argument!)
Personally I would say primitive living is a step beyond Bushcraft and far more in tune with nature and the essence of 'the craft' in its purest form.
No argument from me Gary.
Cultures that still live "in the wild" HAVE to use the skills that we emulate just to survive.You bet they are a step beyond us.
It's more of a chore for them, and a challenge for us. (Us being busgcrafters who do it for fun). I suppose chore brings up connotations of the "mundane" but i don't think so. Just a way of life.
Im not talking about cultures I am taking about the skills, i,e
I am a bushcrafter instructor
I am a primitive living instructor
The difference is?
Ok...here's my definition then... you may not agree, but...
Bushcraft: Skills learnt for interest to make camping more fun/successful/easier.
Primitive living: Life skills required to live from the land, not just for fun.
I think the intro to Paul Rezendes "Tracking and hte art of seeing" defines the difference best.
The native Americans were in touch with nature and reaslised that they were a part of the cycle of life. The animals affected the plants which affected man who affected the animals who...
They had more respect for nature and what the spirits gave them, unlike the Europenas when they landed whom God had given complete dominion over everything.
For me primitive living as well as being more tied to the cycle of life and existing, rather than just survivng, is more spiritual, and encompasses bushcraft. Whereas bushcraft is less spiritual, for most, and more about secondary skills of comfort than living. A bushcraft can survive without primitive living skills, but not the other way round.
It is a very good question and very much relies upon how you inteperet it.
Bushcraft; practicing old skills using new equipment tools and a methodology, the equipment is bought and not manufactured in the field.
Primitive living skills; more about living and adapting. Use of old technologies (hand drill and fire bow rather than firesteel), manufacture of equipment (knives from flint knaping and the manufacture of clothing from hides), shelter from nature and not a hootchie or basha load carriage in a swag rather than a sabre45.
It is the original back to basics and also where you will see the evolution of man in a short space of time because once he gets on his feet he will constantly strive to improve and adapt that which he has to be more efficient and more labour saving.
Or at least that is how I look at it :wink:
I agree with Leon - the difference is kit and whether that kit has been manufactured using technology that is of a higher level than that attainable by others living in the same or similar way. I've seen terms used to technology levers from level A to D, where level A is primitive level utilizing only fire and basic tools while level D technologies include things such as electricity, engines and computers. Level A and perhaps small scale level B (basic agriculture) would be the mark of true primitive living whereas going out in clothing and gear made from plastics or using modern technologies would be bushcraft.
I agree with the comments on kit but also i think you have to look at a basic mined set when your starving and freezing and on the verge of hypothermia you back up go home have a nice hot bath and a whisky and some food and Wait for the next day off work when you can go out to play again,the other guy finds shelter food and fire or he dies........
"Primitive" here I guess means mainly "of First nations" or "of our ancestors" which is one and the same thing given the (to me) obvious unity of human kind.
Now those "primitive " skills are and will remain the model I aim at at every stage of my bushcraft training.
To me, their only difference with "bushcraft" skills are that they only rely on materials found or made before the industrial age.
And on the related skills.
As regards now the mindset: "Primitive" and "Bushcraft" mindsets overlap or even coincide in very advanced and gifted bushcrafters.
The main difference seems to me that in first nations or our ancestral communities these skills are(were) seen and learned from an early age in life and experienced as the norm. They were always second nature.
They were also an integral part of spiritual/religious belief as part of the universe itself and its sacred order.
This can be the case with a bushcrafter of a lifetime of experience of the wild and long stays sharing the life of a given "primitive" community.
But for most of us, this level incorporation of our skills into the depth of our personality would be difficult to reach.
Just some thoughts as they come...
BorderReiver
08-01-2005, 16:19
Im not talking about cultures I am taking about the skills, i,e
I am a bushcrafter instructor
I am a primitive living instructor
The difference is?
IMO a bushcraft instructor teaches basic outdoors living to be used as a hobby.
A Primtive Skills instructor would teach those who want to get back to living in a primitive fashion full time.I understand that some in the USA are into that sort of thing.
As most of the others have said,it boils down to kit really as most of the skills will overlap a good deal.
RovingArcher
08-01-2005, 17:42
Culture has little to do with it I think. It seems that each culture used primarily the same primitive skills in their development.
I don't really see a difference between Bushcraft and Primitive living skills. Equipment aside, primitive living is where we are all heading anyways and speaking in a more general sense, whether we actually use those skills we are learning or not, they will be practiced and there if we need them.
Kind of a de-evolution of technology is taking place all around the world. These types of happenings don't take place for no reason. So, perhaps sometime in the future, whether it be in our lifetime or the lifetime of a distance relative, we will again have need for them.
Abbe Osram
08-01-2005, 17:45
Another thought for the day (hopefully this one wont turn into an argument!)
We have discussed the difference between Survival skills and bushcraft in the past but I am curious as to what people think the differnce is between Bushcraft and Prinitive living skills.
Personally I would say primitive living is a step beyond Bushcraft and far more in tune with nature and the essence of 'the craft' in its purest form.
Hi
I don't know if I am right here in the discussion but my two 2cents are:
For me a Bushcrafter is a guest in the forest. He can leave it after a while or if he miscalculated something he will turn back home into his other life. Even if he love to stay and enjoy being in the bush for a extended time he still will have a place to turn back to. In that way a Bushcrafter is a tourist, he doesn't have to face the consequences of living and staying in the wild. In the case of hunting, if it goes bad for the bushcrafter he can go home and eat there. But a native living from hunting will die if he doesn't catch something. He choose to LIVE and doesn't VISIT, he is not a tourist going back home. If you are talking about primitive living, I would put the emphasize on LIVING and taking the consequences for it. Therefore primitive "LIVING". I believe that you have to live that kind of live before you can teach it, it should be more than some native skills, it involves LIVE and experience, not at a guest but with the consequence of dying.
cheers
Abbe
Abbe there is no right or wrong answer here - I am just interested in peoples views.
Modern man is, in many ways, to hung up on terminology. Just reading the replies above, and harking back to the survival/bushcraft thread, I am inclined to believe they are really all the same thing the only difference is how we percieve them to be.
Bushcraft, Primitive living and survival skills are all the same, the gear changes in some respects so does the ethics but they are all feathers on the same bird.
Its all relative, for instance I now prefer to use flint and steel over a firesteel because I find the firesteel too easy but more importantly I like the ritual of lighting a fire with flint and steel. Some would say I am using a primitive technique because it doesnt involve modern technology, others that it is a modern techinque because it involves the use of Metal - IMO its just a matter of prespective.
Bushcraft definately has better toys to play with. :wink: I agree that primitive skills go steps beyond. Not many people want to go there full time. Even primitive cultures wanted things that advanced cultures had. I love going out in the desert and seeing Pueblo ruins. Would I really want to live like that? No, I appreciate modern conveniances. So my meanderings of thought say that primitive is to take you from naked with nothing to point where you keep living using only the things nature provides. Bushcraft allows you to hit the ground running in such a situation, with the best tools you can carry.
TheViking
08-01-2005, 19:03
Bushcraft, Primitive living and survival skills are all the same, the gear changes in some respects so does the ethics but they are all feathers on the same bird.
I can agree on that. Maybe we call it bushcraft, because we wan't to disguise it from what it really is, survival techniques. Bushcraft is the son, survival is the father.
So my opinion is what you said above /\ they're all the same, but there are some differences in kit, ethics, etc. :biggthump
Les Marshall
08-01-2005, 19:31
Garry, you've done it again mate! I have to aggree with Jakunen's point of view. I hate to use the word primative, but I cannot think of another word for it at the moment, but our primative brothers and sisters, do have a more spiritual outlook on the way they live and they tend to be the happier for it (or am I wrong?). I was interested in your remark about the flint and steel, to my way of thinking, you were touching on something spiritual.
Squidders
08-01-2005, 19:53
My 2p's worth:
Bushcraft doesn't change, it's adaptable and fluid, you can enjoy and practice pushcraft with any tools you please and in any environment you please and in any millenium you're in, bushcraft in 2000 years time will still be bushcraft.
Primitive living in 2000 years may involve dialing ye olde pizza hut and then spending a night dialing up to a historic Interweb Service Provider... this would be a nice diversion from the daily grind of holographic clothing, avoiding your 13 cloned mother in-laws, near light speed commuting to Mars and twice daily Kabala meetings.
2000 years ago primitive living consisted of running around with clubs in next to no clothing in the woods.
I agree that they are pretty closely related but I think of primitive as more of a relation to where we were yesterday compaired to where we are today today and I see bushcraft as being a little more timeless because it's not restricted by time, I'm sure 10,000 years ago blokes used to just get away for a few days and be out in the woods free from stress, that to me is bushcraft.
I try not to think of myself as modern but as current. Years from now I'm going to dance like my dad, listen to out of date music, dress badly and complain about the noise... That can't possibly classify me as modern can it?
jem seeley
08-01-2005, 20:27
My 2p's worth too!
For me survival is just that- subsisting. It is about staying alive, getting food ,water, shelter, etc. It is all about getting out of that situation.
On the other hand Bushcraft is about living. I think all 'primitive' peoples practice Bushcraft.It is about living comfortably in your surroundings not merely getting by.The difference between us and tribal or 'primitive' groups is that we have the luxury of dipping in and out rather than living it full time.
We also have the option of choosing the environment we want to be in.
Bushcraft encompasses a huge area of knowledge of which Survival is just a small but fundamental part.
Carcajou Garou
09-01-2005, 15:08
Bushcrafting is by choice,
Primitive living is by birth/circumstance/situation
Most primitive living people (aboriginals) modernize to include as many newer technologies as they can make use in their daily needs, sometimes they go to far... and lose themselves. They also died a lot from starvation, exposure accidents, their isolation also made them sensitive to outside disease etc.. there is/was no safety net for them.
just a thought
A Bushman does not 'Survive' he lives naturally in all of his surroundings.
Bushcrafting is by choice,
Primitive living is by birth/circumstance/situation
Most primitive living people (aboriginals) modernize to include as many newer technologies as they can make use in their daily needs, sometimes they go to far... and lose themselves. They also died a lot from starvation, exposure accidents, their isolation also made them sensitive to outside disease etc.. there is/was no safety net for them.
just a thought
I think Carcjou Garou hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned native peoples living what the west describes as a primitive lifestyle (a very subjective title) are living bushcraft with out a safety net, unlike us they do not have much of a choice about whether they practice bushcraft or not and they cannot return to the modern world if they or there family gets ill or injured.
people who teach primitive living/bushcraft are attempting to pass on the skills used by these people on a daily basis to people who may choose to dip into this lifestyle when the whim takes them.
to fully appreciate "primitive living" you would have to immerse yourself in it and use only the materials and technology available to the people you wished to futher understand even if only for a weekend
bushcraft (for me at least) is different, bushcraft is where I go into the woods by choice as in the above, but I don't restrict myself to only the technology of a specific peoples, instead I combine that knowledge with modern tools (Tarps, firesteels, billycan, sleepingbag) directly controlling my comfort level to my choosing to enjoy my surroundings.
Survival is when the unexpected happens and I am forced against my will to leave the safety net of modern life, and use the skills i have learnt to stave off death with what ever is at hand (modern or primitive) until i can return to the modern world.
So general consensious is primitive living and bushcraft skills are the same while survival skill are different?
OK lets expand further, if I practice skills using only materials which would have been available in 1700/1800 frontier North America am I bushcrafting or primitive living?
It I practice skills using only materials available in 310 BC Britian am I bushcrafting or prmitive living?
If I practice skills using materials available in the stone age am I bushcrafting or primitive living?
What is I practice stone age skills but use modern materials we apllicable?
thats what I meant by primitive being a subjective label
Oh I agree mate, as I said before 'flint and steel' to some is modern to others primitive.
But what I am after is just seeing how others view it.
For instance in a survival situation if the survivor is forced to use stone tools is he primitive living or surviving - is the difference here choice?
How about this --- is the difference between bushcraft and primitive living (from the view point of wanting to practise it) gear? To do bushcraft do you have to have the latest what not, a flash knife, a saw and a hammock? To do Primitive living do you need home spun gear, home made rucksack and a blanket or two to sleep under?
jamesdevine
10-01-2005, 14:35
I was think about this over lunch and I was originally falling on the idea that primitive living meant you had to lie it but what about Bushcraft?
So some more thought and reading the above I feel that for someone to live primitivly they have practise and master Bushcraft. They are intertwined it one another.
The kit part of the aquistion; they are simply tools. Weather your knife is made of Flint or stainless steel or you use a blanket made of hides instead of the latest synthetic sleeping bag it makes little difference.
So in the end I think that to you must have Brushcraft to Live Primtivly but you can learn Bushcraft without living Primitivly.
If that makes any sense. :wink:
Survival is something you have to do everyday our very beings demand that.
James
Interesting question...I know when I was first looking at ways to learn about the outdoors I looked specifically for a bushcraft course, even though there was also a primitive skills course going...I guess I saw the bushcraft course as more applicable to me, in that it would help me to understand what gear I had, why I had it and how I could understand that usage in the natural world around me, whilst utilising the natural world in a more understanding and beneficial way.
I saw primitive skills as being about learning how to live as people had 'in the past', flint knapping etc and didn't think it would be as useful to me when I was out and about.
Now, having done a little bushcrafting, it has furthered my interest in learning more about primitive skills.
And do you know what...I still can't properly explain the difference between the two... :shock:
Clear as mud Kim - thanks!! :wink:
bambodoggy
10-01-2005, 16:14
Think I'm a similar story to Kath....I got into Survival first through scouts and then cadets....furthered this in the TA and then moved into Bushcraft as a way to live more comfortably if in a survival situation....then as I did more bushcraft I found out about primative skills and drifted into learning that...and so on...
oh....and I too can't quite put my finger on where the devide between them all is :?:
Bob Hurley
10-01-2005, 16:30
You try to exist as did some people from the past.
Reenactment - You pretend to kill each other so visitors can watch. When you're done you eat a chicken, and tell the visitors it's a squirrel.
Living history - You prepare squirrel for dinner, using methods documented in at least three primary sources. You describe to visitors the whole process of killing, dressing and cooking the squirrel, and you offer them a taste of it.
Bushcrafting - You walk through the woods, lightly encumbered, enjoying nature's beauty and majesty. While eating trail mix and drinking a cup of tea, you see some squirrels.
Primitive living - You catch, clean, cook and eat a squirrel. You wish to hell you had six of them.
All in good fun,
Bob
Interesting discussion. To be honest, from my perspective, terms like this are just that: terms. I try not to let definitions of terms get in my way of enjoying the outdoors. :lol: When I was a kid, we called bushcraft "scouting" or often, "camping and woodcraft." Later in my life, I called it backpacking and vagabonding. I reckon people can call it whatever they want. I see the whole process as part of a continuum that I participate in, from the very primitive to the very modern. The primitive and modern are not separate but flow into each other, just as primitive tribes in the rainforest use steel machetes. My goals are pretty simple. Get outdoors in the wild. I do it many ways. Those ways have many different names. It's not the names that interest me but the doing. :-)
Interesting discussion. To be honest, from my perspective, terms like this are just that: terms. I try not to let definitions of terms get in my way of enjoying the outdoors. :lol: When I was a kid, we called bushcraft "scouting" or often, "camping and woodcraft." Later in my life, I called it backpacking and vagabonding. I reckon people can call it whatever they want. I see the whole process as part of a continuum that I participate in, from the very primitive to the very modern. The primitive and modern are not separate but flow into each other, just as primitive tribes in the rainforest use steel machetes. My goals are pretty simple. Get outdoors in the wild. I do it many ways. Those ways have many different names. It's not the names that interest me but the doing. :-)
:super: :You_Rock_ :clap: :notworthy
Abbe there is no right or wrong answer here - I am just interested in peoples views.
Modern man is, in many ways, to hung up on terminology. Just reading the replies above, and harking back to the survival/bushcraft thread, I am inclined to believe they are really all the same thing the only difference is how we percieve them to be.
Bushcraft, Primitive living and survival skills are all the same, the gear changes in some respects so does the ethics but they are all feathers on the same bird.
I agree HOODOO but it is good food for thought.
One good thing about terminology is that to classify a hobby or interest as one thing people need to research it and understand it a little and in this there is learning too!!
Gary, I don't think we could communicate very well without terms. Western civilization has immersed itself in terminology and naming things is an effective tool for understanding many aspects of life on this planet. This is especially true in the sciences and defining terms is critical to understanding science. But I always tell my students that naming things is what humans do in an attempt to understand the natural world around them. We classify and categorize. Nature, however, exists whether we name things or not and it has a way sometimes of not being easily categorized. So I think it's important to realize that terms are artificial (cultural) creations that may or may not fully represent the phenomena they were meant to describe. Terms are one thing. Reality can often be another. I keep both feet firmly planted in both worlds. :rolmao:
Are you a quadruped? :rolmao: . Seriously though I agree, it is important to keep things in prespective and this is one of the reason I posed the question in the first place I was curious to see how others viewed things.
Here, as with the gold mining thought, my intention wasnt to offer my opinion merely to open peoples hearts, eyes and minds!
Fallow Way
10-01-2005, 19:06
I see them in this way....
Survival - using what resources are available to you to stay alive in an emergency situation
Bushcraft - The study of those skills which enable us to travel to wild places in safety (be they modern/ancient)
Primitive Living - Abcense of dependence on modern materials and technologies of your own choosing or circumstance through your community (generally i would say in terms of time frame, whatever period they drawing those skills from, if it requires manual skill, it is traditonal/primative living)
So to me, the difference is the choice, or absence there of, you make regarding your dependence on primitive skills. With Bushcraft we choose to use these skills, but we are quite happy to use compasses, snow mobiles and GPS to accomplish what we are trying to do, which is gather understanding of traditional skills. I am quite happy to acknowldge the use of modern technologies, they are a marvel and why should we push away this element of human accomplishment all together? We should re-gather our skills, but not loose out on others at the same time. Its that whole argument of the balance of technology verses human ability. I think in Bushcraft there is a good balance, and that we use modern technology for the study of past technologies.
I`m waffling now, i`ll stop :-)
TheViking
10-01-2005, 19:17
Interesting discussion. To be honest, from my perspective, terms like this are just that: terms. I try not to let definitions of terms get in my way of enjoying the outdoors. :lol: When I was a kid, we called bushcraft "scouting" or often, "camping and woodcraft." Later in my life, I called it backpacking and vagabonding. I reckon people can call it whatever they want. I see the whole process as part of a continuum that I participate in, from the very primitive to the very modern. The primitive and modern are not separate but flow into each other, just as primitive tribes in the rainforest use steel machetes. My goals are pretty simple. Get outdoors in the wild. I do it many ways. Those ways have many different names. It's not the names that interest me but the doing. :-)
That's a good perspective... :biggthump
Abbe Osram
10-01-2005, 19:39
I would like to know what do you call a guy who got fed up with our way of living, moved into the woods and staid there. Through hunting and fishing he get enough food for himself and the little money he needs for flour, baking powder etc he makes as a wilderness guide.
cheers
Abbe
Here, as with the gold mining thought, my intention wasnt to offer my opinion merely to open peoples hearts, eyes and minds!
Topics like this are excellent because they often do lead to introspective thought. "Things" like bushcraft are often done simply because they are "things" that people do. For some it's a fad--a movement. For some it's an obsession bordering on religion, with a proscribed dogma. "Doing bushcraft" becomes the goal rather than a participation in a process. Competing bushcraft groups form as if there's something to compete over (like money? :wink: ). People argue about right and wrong as if everything is written in stone. X is a bushcraft knife, Y isn't. Yes, but suppose you had neither? :wink: I usually just go with the flow and often prefer confusion to order. :-)
ChrisKavanaugh
10-01-2005, 19:49
The emotional motivations for pursuing these different labels bears examination. I practice, and in measure respect all. But, if "the emperor has no clothes (cammie, buckskin or Ventile) we all can stand naked before an illuminating fire ( friction, firesteel and flint or disposable lighter.) 'Primative' has a very not so subtle message to and from some people. The modern world is awfull, I feel out of touch with the real world and older cultures had this connection. So, I flee asphalt for some Rousseau vision of THE NOBLE SAVAGE. Trouble is, if I go to visit living 'primative' cultures they likely as not have steel knives and wear a NIKE swoosh T shirt. Oetzi had a copper axe, not a flint aechulian handaxe. Our born again Iishi gets into further trouble with clumsy labels. First Nations popped up not long after Afro American and Latino over here. I remember this starry eyed german girl on a field excavation address a Dine' friend this way. He looked rather puzzled. "Uh, I'm an american miss.Oh no, your first nation, before the white americans. No miss, the people here are Chumash. I moved to L.A. in 1975 and those white americans came from Germany and a bunch of other places (instant pan european guilt transfer for the new world holocost.) My NAME is Charles Begay." Survivalist can be the anti government social phenomenon of militias. I feel disenranchised from the system. So I am going to create my own system where I am a WINNER as designated grand poobah Lt Col of the 5th Michigan mechanised division ( 3 rusting Chevy Suburbans.) This social expression may eschew our society and it's ills, but it has an umbellical cord still attached as big as a oil pipleine. Basic survival skills like we promote at ETS imply a big OOPS! in our social calender. I wasn't planning on camping this weekend, but the plane crash or Tsumani changed my plans.I can become almost anal retentive about my PSK and going through withdrawal symptoms on a commercial flight though. Bushcraft is a logical extension of camping out, dayhiking, birdwatching, collecting mushrooms or pretending we're Snoopy crossing No Man's land after the Red Baron flamed our Sopwith again. I think it can avoid some of the pretensions of the other two if we avoid gurus, obligatory dress or exclusionary slang that alienates landowners, constables or T.V. scriptwriters looking for a new group to exploit. So, I'm off for a recon, vision quest, walkabout. I need to test my new infrared rifle scope on my Hawken rifle and this neat set of Donegal tweeds. if I shoot down a black helicopter I have my tobasco sauce to make it taste better :o):
Rhapsody
10-01-2005, 20:10
I like to think of the 'heirarchy' of these outdoors activities as simply as possible; Survival is man out against nature, Bushcraft is man out with nature and primitive living is man out with nature without kit!
I generally don't look at it any more deeply than that, and as long as I'm enjoying myself I never really feel the need to.
I would like to know what do you call a guy who got fed up with our way of living, moved into the woods and staid there. Through hunting and fishing he get enough food for himself and the little money he needs for flour, baking powder etc he makes as a wilderness guide.
cheers
Abbe
SENSIBLE :biggthump
arctic hobo
10-01-2005, 20:25
I would like to know what do you call a guy who got fed up with our way of living, moved into the woods and staid there. Through hunting and fishing he get enough food for himself and the little money he needs for flour, baking powder etc he makes as a wilderness guide.
cheers
Abbe
You call him Abbe, and you also call him Chris's (mine) idol! One day, one day!
bambodoggy
10-01-2005, 22:47
I would like to know what do you call a guy who got fed up with our way of living, moved into the woods and staid there. Through hunting and fishing he get enough food for himself and the little money he needs for flour, baking powder etc he makes as a wilderness guide.cheers
Abbe
I call him one thing and one thing only.....LUCKY! :super:
I learned Bushcraft, I learned Primitive Living, (misuse of words)
I study Bushcraft, I study Primitive Living, I remember well a camping trip i made twenty years ago, yet I remember not wot I did at home last week...
Primitive living is much more than just "skills". Primitive living it a term loaded with anthropology and paleo-archeology. Bow drills and shelters might form a a very small part of it but underneath this thin veneer (a veneer thickened dramatically by recent commercialism of such skills) is a huge and complex subject covering social structure, interaction, climate, geology and many other areas.
I find it odd that there are so many discussions on terms here and I think I have an idea as to why this is so - it's because we now live in a world where "skills" have been bought together (rather haphazardly in many cases) under single word or banner phrases such as "bushcraft", "primitive living", "survival skills" and so on. It's an artificial way to bundle together ideas for commercial consumption (much like modern day "lifestyle gurus" who repackage living int he modern world under a cool buzzword and a few bullet points
Im not talking about cultures I am taking about the skills, i,e
I am a bushcrafter instructor
I am a primitive living instructor
The difference is?
"Primitive living instructor" feels to me a bit like the phrase "martial arts instructor" or "I'm a computers expert" - the question that would follow would be "define that". What period of human history? What climate? What ecology? I sincerely doubt that anyone can learn let alone teach every aspect of primitive living ever since the dawn of time in all conditions, climates and ecosystems. A "primitive living anthropologist" or "primitive living archaeologist" I can understand because that implies study in a field but "instructor" or "teacher" (or any other such noun) would, in my mind, be vague commercial fluff.
For example, I'll assume that most if not all people here live with modern telecommunications, water and power supply and a complex social structure that binds this together - how equipped are you to go and "teach" or "instruct" primative people (or aliens for that matter) in "modern living skills"?
"Primitive living instructor" feels to me a bit like the phrase "martial arts instructor" or "I'm a computers expert" - the question that would follow would be "define that". What period of human history? What climate? What ecology? I sincerely doubt that anyone can learn let alone teach every aspect of primitive living ever since the dawn of time in all conditions, climates and ecosystems. A "primitive living anthropologist" or "primitive living archaeologist" I can understand because that implies study in a field but "instructor" or "teacher" (or any other such noun) would, in my mind, be vague commercial fluff.
For example, I'll assume that most if not all people here live with modern telecommunications, water and power supply and a complex social structure that binds this together - how equipped are you to go and "teach" or "instruct" primative people (or aliens for that matter) in "modern living skills"?
Excellent point Mate! :You_Rock_ its like the classic ex-sas survival instructor as opposeed to plan old survival instructor. However I was using the term instructor to diffientiate between the two, I could equally have said,
I'm a student of Bushcraft
Or
I'm a student of primitive living
The point is being a something of one or the other doesnt matter its the subject and the question of the difference in the core skills.
Adi here you have hit many nails on the head - "I find it odd that there are so many discussions on terms here and I think I have an idea as to why this is so - it's because we now live in a world where "skills" have been bought together (rather haphazardly in many cases) under single word or banner phrases such as "bushcraft", "primitive living", "survival skills" and so on. It's an artificial way to bundle together ideas for commercial consumption (much like modern day "lifestyle gurus" who repackage living int he modern world under a cool buzzword and a few bullet points"
Well donr mate - excellent answer IMO :You_Rock_
Burnt Ash
12-01-2005, 10:50
Gary, I don't think we could communicate very well without terms. Western civilization has immersed itself in terminology and naming things is an effective tool for understanding many aspects of life on this planet.
"men begin at settling the significations of their words"
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651