The Nature of Borders After reading the book “The Nature of Borders,” by Lissa K. Wadewitz, it is incredibly evident that the Native Americans had a spiritual, respectful, and sustainable relationship with salmon, whereas, the Euro-Americans and Canadian people had a much different relationship with salmon. Instead of focusing on the future and what was to come, the white man was fixated on fishing for survival and for profit. For example, the Native Americans readily held ceremonies to show respect for the fish, and to ensure that they would come back, high in numbers for the next fishing season. In the first chapter of the book, the spiritual connection between these people and salmon is demonstrated by a story (similar to many Native American stories) in which the salmon regularly flowed between human and animal entities. This alone shows an exceedingly high held respect for the species in which the natives relied so heavily upon. The “salmon people” in these old stories were …show more content…
Territorial boundaries, individual tribes and groups, and even confederacies were very common throughout Native American communities. (Pages 13, 19-23) This meant that warfare between groups was also more common, i.e., killing other tribes to obtain their location on the river for fishing, kidnapping and keeping slaves from other groups, etc. (26,27) But most still adhered to the fishing regulations. The Americans and British, however, formed borders, which created a gargantuan competitiveness in fishing for salmon. They were stealing salmon or equipment, initiating illegal salmon sales, and salmon smuggling. All of these contributing to overfishing, waste, and a consumerist lifestyle that benefitted solely the humans and not the salmon. In science, this would be called a parasitic symbiotic relationship.