Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
place) and
solitude inculte,
while in Spanish wilderness is
la naturaleza, immensidad
or
falls da cultura
(lack of cultivation). 'Italian uses the vivid
scene di disordine o
confusione
' (Nash 1967:2). The Latin root of desert,
de
and
serere
(to break apart,
becoming solitary) connotes not only the loneliness and fear associated with separation
but also an arid, barren tract lacking cultivation (Mark 1984:3). Both the northern
European and the Mediterranean traditions define and portray wilderness as a landscape
of fear, which is outside the safer bounds of human settlement (Tuan 1971, 1979). This
image was taken up by Nash (1967:2) who noted that the image of wilderness 'is that of a
man
[sic]
in an alien environment where the civilization that normally orders and
controls life is absent'.
The landscape of fear that dominated early European attitudes towards wilderness was
noted in the eighth-century classic
Beowulf
(Wright 1957), 'where
wildeor
appeared in
reference to savage and fantastic beasts inhabiting a dismal region of forests, crags, and
cliffs' (Nash 1967:1). The translation of the Scriptures into English from Greek and
Hebrew led to the use of wilderness as a description of 'the uninhabited, arid land of the
Near East' (Nash 1967:2-3). It was at this point that wilderness came to be associated
with spiritual values. Wilderness was seen as both a testing ground for humans and an
area in which humans could draw closer to God.
The biblical attitude towards nature was an essential ingredient of the Judaeo-Christian
or western attitude towards wilderness (Glacken 1967; Passmore 1974; Graber 1978;
Attfield 1983; Pepper 1984; Short 1991). According to the dominant tradition within
Judaeo-Christianity concerning humankind's relationship with nature, it was 'God's
intention that mankind multiply itself, spread out over the earth, make its domain over the
creation secure' (Glacken 1967:151). This relationship is best indicated in Genesis 1:28
where God said to man, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living
thing that moves upon the earth.'
To the authors of the Bible, wilderness had a central position in their accounts as both
a descriptive and as a symbolic concept. To the ancient Hebrews, wilderness was 'the
environment of evil, a kind of hell' in which the wasteland was identified with God's
curse (Nash 1967:14-15). Paradise, or Eden, was the antithesis of wilderness. The story
of Adam and Eve's dismissal from the Garden of Eden, from a watered, lush paradise to a
'cursed' land of 'thorns and thistles' (Genesis 2:4), reinforced in western thought the
notion that wilderness and paradise were both physical and spiritual opposites
(G.H.Williams 1962). Isaiah (51:3), for instance, contains the promise that God will
comfort Zion and 'make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord',
while Joel (2:3) stated that 'the land is like the garden of Eden before them, but after
them a desolate wilderness'.
The experience of the Israelites during the Exodus added another dimension to the
Judaeo-Christian attitude towards wilderness. For forty years the Jews, led by Moses,
wandered in the 'howling waste of the wilderness' (Deuteronomy 32:10) that was the
Sinai peninsula (Funk 1959). The wilderness, in this instance, was not only a place where
they were punished by God for their sins but also a place where they could prove
themselves worthy of the Lord and make ready for the promised land. Indeed, it was
precisely because it was unoccupied that it 'could be a refuge as well as a disciplinary
force' (Nash 1967:16).
