Decolonizing Fasting to Improve Indigenous Wellness
Fasting is one of the most ancient and widespread healing traditions in the world. Photo by iStockphoto/Sharaf Maksumov.
Michael Yellow Bird
F
asting is part of human evolution. For millions of years, the eating patterns of our ancestors evolved during times of famine and plenty, with climate playing a major role in what foods were available. Later on, political circumstances brought about by colonization created major disruptions in food security and patterns of eating. Before the advent of agriculture nearly 12,000 years ago, wild plants, fruits, grasses, seeds, nuts, fish, and animals were the nutritional pillars of the human diet. What was available depended largely upon the time of year, location, and the energy needed to hunt and gather the foods. When food was scarce, humans would often go without eating or eat sparingly for days, weeks, and sometimes months. Food availability was hit and miss. To prevent starvation, many cultures intentionally abstained from eating too much, rationing their intake of food and practicing what Western science now calls “calorie restriction” —only eating when they were truly hungry. Going without played an important part in the lifestyle, health, and culture of our ancestors. In 2013, I interviewed my then-86-year-old mother about her diet as a child and young woman. Two things that stood out were that she and her siblings had only one serving of food at each meal, which she said was plenty, and that the menu was generally plant-based, with meat as a side dish. Food insecurity was a normal part of life for many of our ancestors. In 1636, a Jesuit missionary named Paul Lejune, who was living among the Montaignais Indian hunter gatherers of Canada, witnessed this for himself: “I saw them in their hardships and labor suffer with cheerfulness. I found myself with them threatened with great suffering. They said to me, ‘We shall be sometimes two days, sometimes three without eating for lack of food. Take courage, Chihine, let thy soul be strong to endure suffering and hardship. Keep thyself from being sad otherwise thou wilt be sick. See how we do not cease to laugh, even though we have little to eat.’” 18 • www. cs. org
It was not uncommon for some Tribal Peoples to engage in ceremonial fasting and dancing to increase their chances of securing food. In the winter of 1861, the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians were going through a severe shortage of meat and had very little else to eat. Determined to prevent community starvation, a man named Red Cherry went up on the highest butte outside of the village and fasted for three days to call the buffalo, but he was not successful. The Mandan White Buffalo Cow Society, a women’s organization, stepped in and began dancing day and night, and eventually buffalo appeared. The invention of agriculture and Western way of living had both beneficial and negative health consequences. It increased the amount of food availability, produced a greater number of available calories relative to those expended, decreased starvation, made possible the earlier weaning of children, and increased the population. Disadvantages included a lower dietary quality compared to wild foods, overreliance on certain foods such as maize, increased population density, which made the spread of disease much easier, and greater sedentism with onsite farming. The nutrition, growth, and development of people declined due to agriculture, and the bone size, height, and weight of ancient agricultural people decreased compared to groups that maintained a diverse meat and wild plant diet. Dental health also declined, resulting in greater tooth loss, abscesses, and periodontal disease. For many people, modern agriculture and living the life of a westerner has increased life expectancy, the ability to acquire more, and prevented hunger and nutritional deficits. For others, though, the round-the-clock availability of cheap, processed, inferior foods, lack of movement, and the stresses of westernized living has led to the “diseases of civilization:” coronary heart disease, obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, epithelial cell cancers, autoimmune disorders, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression, and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s. These diseases are rare among huntergatherers and other non-westernized populations, but most of us no longer live like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and our bodies struggle to stay healthy in modern times.
