In the Inupiat culture, traditionally, "learn by doing" is emphasized, while learning from advise is not. This is very good in a 1 to 3 family-group subsistence situation, where disapproval/banishment/ basic survival carries heavy weight. Does not translate all that well into a village/Western culture setting with no enforcement presence to speak of and survival margins are wider. The true subsistence lifestyle they lead for 10,000 years is pretty darned grim, and it's lessons aren't easily shed.
On the flip side (western culture) are "teachers" who have never done anything but go to school....
The older village hunters- 40 an up- advised the younger ones (sub 30) that "If you don't respect the animals, they will go away". That was about as far as they could culturally push it, and damned if they weren't right! There is very little western enforcement of game laws presence out there in the villages, and lacking the banishment/disapproval club, the young bucks just don't give a chit. They, as with similar age groups in western culture, are rather contemptuous of those ignorant old farts.
Mark Twain stated once that when he was 17 he thought his Old Man was the dumbest man in the world. When he came back from college 4 years later, he was amazed at what the old guy had learned!
Guess how I learned much of my present outlooks/values (I can't say wisdom). Damned if those old farts weren't mostly right!
And now I are one.
Which brings to mind this "elder" business. Under a subsistence lifestyle, it took smarts, skill, quickness, and just plain luck to live long enough to become an "elder", who was rightly revered for their knowledge of the past- climate, weather, ice, hunting conditions, relationships, etc.
Nowadays, any fool can live to old age..... which is considerably older than even 100 years ago. And be revered.
This is a practice that should be adopted by western culture!
