The Indian Within

Reproduced from http://www.MySpace.com/GaddyBergmann

Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Indian Within

Current mood: contemplative

Category: News and Politics

A remote tribe of Amazonian Indians has been discovered near the border between Brazil and Peru. These people are among the few left in the world who've had no contact whatsoever with modernity. Only a few aerial photographs of them exist, shown here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080529/sc_nm/brazil_tribe_dc

The photos depict a small village, consisting of several thatched huts in a forest clearing. One particular picture, however, took my breath away from the moment I saw it. It shows three people: two men wearing red body paint, and a woman wearing black body paint. All three of them are looking up at the photographer's helicopter in the sky, and the two men are already aiming their arrows at the perceived threat. Take a look at this amazing picture here:

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Uncontacted-Amazonian-tribe-photographed-Acre-Peru-Handout/ss/events/wl/052908amazontribe/s:/nm/20080529/sc_nm/brazil_tribe_dc

I find this picture touching on many levels. For one thing, I am touched by the bravery of these two warriors. They don't know what the helicopter really is, but they consider it dangerous, and instead of running away from it, they decide to face it and prepare to engage it in battle. And the woman isn't running away, either. Wow. But there's a deeper meaning, I think, to this image, and that is the threat of civilization invading these people's society. It doesn't really matter whether the surrounding urban and agrarian people plan to actually uproot these natives, or whether they just happen to eventually encroach on the land. Either way, the natives are almost sure to lose out, just as natives have lost out in the clash between domestic and wild humans all over the world. Think about it: except, perhaps, for people of Middle Eastern descent (see below), every single one of us comes from some indigenous population that was eventually assimilated into a larger, more powerful culture.

According to authors like Daniel Quinn and his Ishmael series, what we consider civilization began in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East (Mesopotamia), and spread from there as human populations grew larger, hungrier, and more powerful. There is plenty of debate as to what caused people to settle down and form cities in the first place. They could have been forced into it by dwindling food and water sources, or they could have intentionally concentrated themselves due to personal greed, or in order to overpower their enemies. In any case, civilization may have been radiating outward from that point of origin for the past 10,000 years, and it's still going on today. When we read textbooks, we learn about different periods in history, like the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Renaissance, and so on. Those lessons may be instructive, but what they often fail to tell us is that all of these periods exist at the same time in different places all over the world. So, while the West and the Far East are in the midst of the Information Age, many rural areas are still in the Middle Ages, and many remote areas are still in the Stone Age.

It's so easy for us in the developed world to look down on simpler people and say, "Ha! They are primitive, and we are advanced. They are fools, and the sooner they realize what they're missing, they'll jump onto our bandwagon." Indeed, some rural or remote people do want to join the developing or developed world, and they should be free to do so if they wish. However, shouldn't they be free to decline if they wish to do that, too? You might be surprised to find that many small communities all over the world wish to stay small, and vehemently resist modern forces that would affect their way of life. It's not just the Amazonian Indians or the !Kung Bushman of Africa's Kalahari Desert, although these people's animist cultures are among the oldest on the planet. No, there are plenty of other groups, too. There's the Amish of Pennsylvania, and the Orthodox Jews of Mea Shearim. There are Israeli kibbutzes and Hippie communes. There are mountain villages in Europe and Asia that have changed very little over the centuries. One might consider the affluent gated communities in America along this continuum, or even the polygynous religious sects of the Western United States (although I'll leave the discussion of these sects' morality and legality for another day).

But why? Why do people continually segregate themselves, isolate themselves, remove themselves from the hustle and bustle of big city life. The reason is that big city life is alien to us. Young people may find cities exciting, party-goers may like to frequent bars, and tourists may like to visit exotic locales when they can. But in general, few people can live in the city for long, and we shouldn't be surprised at that. For the past 100,000 years, anatomically modern people have been living in small communities of only a couple hundred people. Aggregations any bigger than that are stressful to us (and other creatures), and force us to confront issues for which we are not naturally equipped. In short, we don't belong in cities, and despite their economic, scientific, and recreational value, people will continue to flee from them because they are too stressful and too dangerous.

Are these the words of an anarchist? To some extent, yes. I'm no hippie, but I'm no industrialist, either, and I recognize a problem when I see one. As the Earth's population nudges closer to 7 billion human beings, the appeal of the small community becomes ever greater. No, small communities are not perfect; nothing is. But at least they are reassuring, and at least people can understand where they fit in them. In a small setting, people can spend time with family and friends, know their neighbors, and contribute to and benefit from their community. I realize my message my seem a bit hypocritical, or at least ironic, given that it's written on a computer and published on the internet. True, but just as it would be foolish to ignore real-world problems, it would be just as foolish to become quixotic and try to ignore real-world changes, too. Energy use is an important and related issue, but right now, let's focus on the structure of society first. God forbid we should have another Unabomber-type who shuns society, hermit-like, only to attack it and victimize his fellows. No, this is a criticism of the hecticness of modern life, and not an attack on modern people themselves.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "But Gaddy, cities are good because they create wealth, and villages are bad because they are poor." If you believe that, then you're only half-right. What cities really do is create plenty for an "elite" few, some prosperity for a few more, and a whole lot of work and strife for countless more people who just can't seem to get a big enough piece of the pie. Villages, on the other hand - and I mean real, self-sufficient villages - are neither poor nor rich. They just are. They are places where humans live their lives, often appreciating their place in the world, and living in the present. True, civilized life does have its perks: medicine, communication, transportation, and knowledge. But we lack something that our untamed cousins still have: context. Tribal peoples don't collect data the way modern scientists do, but they have just as much information on the elements and creatures of their world, and produce only a fraction of the pollution we do to get it.

No, I am not claiming that villages are ideal or worry-free, because they have their problems, too. But at least they give people room to breathe, time to think, and space to live. Let's face it: the human evolved to live in the village, not the city. Come to think of it, no other creatures are really adapted to city life, either. So, when I look at this photo of three forest Indians staring up at a helicopter, and the men brandishing their bows and arrows, I am impressed. These people may not comprehend what they're really facing, but at least they know that what they have is worth protecting. Heck, it's one of the most important things anyone has ever had: a sense of belonging. I am impressed that somewhere, somehow, somebody still cares enough about their community and their land to actual try to defend it against such a mighty threat as Modernity. So Godspeed, cousins - may you never lose this fight.

Gaddy Bergmann

http://www.GaddyBergmann.com