Page 20 - Fall2011

Thus, it would from Central and South America between 1895 studied? In Price’s view, this protection resulted
7
appear that and 1994. Ten to twenty percent of the agouti, not simply by accident, but from accumulated
paca and acouchi animals showed evidence of wisdom. Indeed, he wrote the following:
humans have tooth decay. These animals prefer to feed ex-
the unique clusively on various fruits. Only one percent of In my studies of these several racial stocks
capacity to capybaras and nine percent of coypus showed I find that it is not accident but accumulated
wisdom regarding food that lies behind their
evidence of tooth decay. These animals prefer
maintain to feed on grasses and aquatic plants. Evidence physical excellence and freedom from our
themselves for gum disease, by contrast, was rare among the modern degenerative processes, and, fur-
in a healthier fruit-eaters but afflicted five to nine percent of ther, that on various sides of our world the
primitive people know many of the things
the capybaras and coypus.
state than While not a comprehensive analysis of tooth that are essential for life—things that our
wild animals, decay in the wild, these studies clearly show that modern civilizations apparently do not

but also in a cavities do occur in the wild, and that the wild is know. These are the fundamental truths
of life that have put them in harmony with
not in and of itself sufficient for maximal protec-
state of tion against the disease. Thus, it would appear Nature through obeying her nutritional
degeneration that humans have the unique capacity to maintain laws. Whence this wisdom? Was there in
much greater themselves in a healthier state than wild animals, the distant past a world civilization that was
better attuned to Nature’s laws and have
but also in a state of degeneration much greater
than that seen than that seen in wildlife. these remnants retained that knowledge? If
in wildlife. this is not the explanation, it must be that
PRIMITIVE WISDOM these various primitive racial stocks have
If rampant tooth decay can occur without the been able through a superior skill in inter-
introduction of modern industrial foods, as it did preting cause and effect, to determine for
during the Archaic period among the lower Pecos themselves what foods in their environment
hunter-gatherers in Texas, what was it that pro- are best for producing human bodies with a
tected many of the “primitive” groups that Price maximum of physical fitness and resistance
to degeneration (page 161).

Likewise, he also wrote the following:

A very important phase of my investiga-
tions has been the obtaining of information
from these various primitive racial groups
indicating that they were conscious that
such injuries would occur if the parents
were not in excellent physical condition and
nourishment (page 3).

Indeed, Price stated that “some of the
primitive races have avoided certain of the life
problems faced by modernized groups,” not
that all of them had (page 5). To Price, it was
not primitiveness itself that proved protective,
but the wisdom that the successful groups had
accumulated over time. Presumably they had
learned through trial and error processes that
FIGURE 1. A dolphin tooth displaying a caries-like lesion involved mistakes, or else they could never have
(From reference 6). had any consciousness about the types of injuries
that would occur without proper nourishment.
20 Wise Traditions FALL 2011 FALL 2011 Wise Traditions

82725_WAPF_Txt.indd 20 9/15/11 2:01 PM