What amazing stuff! Ursula K. Le Guinn wrote fictional books about the world of Earthsea where dragons and people have a common ancestor. It turns out that the people of the Island of Komodo actually believe the same thing. You have to listen to the whole report, but I am amazed at how ingeniously the culture developed a mechanism for protecting themselves from the Komodo Dragons. These are Giant 10 foot lizards that can easily kill a human, but for decades and perhaps hundreds of years this cultural belief that the dragons and humans have a common ancestor caused the villagers to share prey and goats with the dragons thus preventing the dragons from getting hungry enough to attack the humans. 10 years ago the Nature Conservancy says the islanders shouldn't be "domesticating" the dragons and now there are regular attacks. Pretty funny how our solutions mess things up again.
Check out the link here:
http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/20448
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