Library books I've looked at recently have prompted me to have an opinion on a subject that most people don't give any thought to these days; namely, the treatment of primitive people.
Even today primitive tribes are occasionally discovered in some remote corner of the world and, prompted by the books, I'm in favor of leaving them completely alone. My reasons for believing that are mainly humane and scientific but also because they're almost as much of a threat to us as we are to them. I hate to say it, but...primitive people are often not nice guys.
Maybe that's because the idea of universal human rights is alien to so many of them. Their loyalty is to their family, clan or tribe. Outsiders may have no rights at all. Killing outsiders, even when a state of war doesn't exist, isn't even considered murder. Deceiving them and stealing from them is admired. Enslaving them is okay, so was cannibalism in some places.
Early accounts of encounters with primitives are downright scary. You could get along well with a primitive you're trying to trade with then in a flash he turns on you and tries to kill you. Why? Because you stepped on a jaguar footprint which is taboo. Yikes!
This idea of taboo is especially scary because a stranger can't possibly know what all the local taboos are. You could innocently ask someone their name and deeply offend them because knowing a name gives you magical power to do harm to them and earmarks you as an enemy. And, for Pete's Sake, don't draw their image.
Primitives also have gods who are easily offended. Heaven forbid that you should escape from drowning because that cheats the Water Spirit of his prey. After you hobble on to land you'll find that locals won't talk to you or let you into their house. If the Koosa Kafirs see a person drowning, they either run away or pelt the victim with stones as he dies.
One African tribe expels from their community anyone bitten by a zebra or an crocodile, or even splashed by the creature's tail.
In recent centuries Europeans brought a lot of this grief on themselves by wandering into primitive areas, sometimes with evil intent, but you have to wander, how many normal traders were caught up in all this weirdness? We'll never know.
Eddie - what is that first image from? Painting? Wax? Sheesh, those little kids look like they could choke me just for asking!
ReplyDelete-Doug
Anon: I don't know. I found myself wondering about those figures myself. Why is one of the men missing a hand? Why aren't the figures covered with body paint or tatoos like primitive people are today?
ReplyDeleteOn another topic: the closest thing to modern cavemen I know is a group belonging to the Shishonne branch of American Indians. In the 1800s they were said to have been found living in caves and holes in the ground. Is that true? I don't know. Maybe someone made that up.
Eddie:Were the Shishone of the 1800s really cavemen? I just looked up photos of the Shishone holes in the ground. That branch of the Shishone and some other Indians apparently lived in what are called pit houses. Those are wide holes maybe waist deep, with wooden struts supporting roofs made of wood and canvas or skins. That isn't a bad idea if you live in a dry area. 'Not exactly what I'd call living in holes.
ReplyDeleteSome of the Anasazi lived in pit houses and caves of a sort but the caves were like the dwellings the Pueblo Indians lived in, which were not exactly what most people conjure up when they think of caves.
At least that's the way these dwellings looked in the photos I saw.