African Biocommunitarianism and Australian Dreamtime (ES)

Ch 8: African Biocommunitarianism and Australian Dreamtime (ES) from Earth's Insights : A Multicultural Survey of Ecological Ethics (Callicott) (Book title)
Reflect on what they have learned through these chapters. It should reflect on what was learned and answer at least three through five of the review questions and 2 interpretative questions. Your paper should demonstrate mastery of the readings. Must be 1,000 word paper.

Review questions
What is “the paradox” that Callicott identifies in The African Scene?
Who is the Olurun or “Owner-of-the-sky” for the Yuruba people in Africa? Who are the orisa?
Is the Yoruba worldview “otherworldly”? What happens to Yoruba when they die?
Are the Yoruba individualist or communalist in their conception of human identity? Explain how or why. How does this identity relate to the Yoruba conception of human-nature relationship? Are freedom and individuality somehow balanced?
How do the San people compare in general with other cultures of Africa with regard to responsible environmental attitudes and values, according to Callicott?
How do the San express humility as hunters, and what might this say about their “environmental ethic”?
Is San society egalitarian or hierarchical?
Is there a way that San people anthropomorphize other animals? Are animals on a separate plane from the San people? Do the San personify animal behavior?
What does Van der Post (quoted on 169) mean by the San sense of a shared subjectivity?
On page 170, Callicott presents a thesis to try to explain why an explicit, benevolent environmental ethic may not have evolved in many of Africa’s cultures. How would you explain it in your own words?
What does Callicott mean by “a San biocommunitarianism”? (170)
Callicott writes that the San “regarded themselves as one with the other fauna and practiced a quiet policy of live and let live with their nonhuman neighbors”? (172) Exlpain.
How does Callicott sum up “Africa’s human responsiveness to the land and care for its creatures”? (172)
Describe and characterize an Aboriginal Australian sense of relationship with the landscape (“topography of their territories”) and other species.
Callicott writes that Indigenous Australian “Dreamtime” is a “time of fluidity, shape-shifting interspecies conversation and intersexuality”? (174) Explain.
What is an Aboriginal Australian “increase site”? What must people do there?
What is the “Dreamtime journey song”? (178)
Explain what Holmes Rolston III (quoted by Callicott) means by “An ethic is not just a theory but a track through the world.” (183)
Interpretive questions
Following Callicott, how might the Yoruba conception of human identity inform an environmental ethic? Elaborate on what you read in the chapter.
If the San people are biocommunitarians, does that mean that they do not also mold and shape the nature and landscapes around them? Explain.
Describe and interpret the mutual adaptation of lions and San people as discussed by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (170–171). What evidence does she provide (as related by Callicott)? Does this tell us anything in particular about the possibilities of environmental ethics?
Do you see any problems with Callicott’s struggle to find sources of environmental ethics among African cultures (perhaps besides the San)? Explain.
Callicott writes that, for Aboriginal Australians, “beings in their native mythologies were at first human and later took on animal form.” (173) Explain what this may mean, including what it might mean for an environmental ethic.
What does Callicott mean that “Australian aboriginal thought manifests a deep and abiding investment in place”? (183)
Callicott writes, “Perhaps more clearly and vividly than any other peoples on the planet, the Australian aboriginals have articulated their sense of self in terms of place.” (184) Building upon the subsequent quote from Val Plumwood, explain this and why their human-nature mode of relating might seem consonant with an ecofeminist ethic.