Source : Google photo of happy Bushmen of Kalahari
Synopsis : Some people call others primitive and treat them
as subhuman who need to be shown what civilized people can offer them to improve their
lives starting with a Bible. Such self-proclaimed people have brought misery to
others who are not like them so try to justify themselves with words like
manifest destiny. But the notion of primitiveness is as obsolete as it was when
it was first mentioned. All people have a right to live the way they want and
believe in what they want to believe.
Michener wrote in his novel Hawaii how the inhabitants of
the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean sailed thousand kilometers in their
dugout canoes to reach the Hawaii islands centuries ago without a compass or
any other navigation aid. Their ancestors taught them how to navigate through
the ocean using just the stars as their guide.
They knew the stars, the constellations and the true north
guided by the Pole star so they sailed the open sea using their knowledge and a
rock solid faith in the wisdom of their forefathers who had learned it from
theirs.
Thus the celestial navigation knowledge was passed on to
them generation after generation that made them excellent seafarers .Even today
they sail in their home made canoes from one island to another using their
ancient knowledge.
When they arrived in Hawaii, they found the islands rich in
soil and with abundant rainfall that made them grow their food easily .The sea
provided them with all the fish and the forest teeming with wild pigs and other
animals so they had plenty of food all year round. They found a safe haven in
Hawaii where they lived happily until the Christian missionaries arrived to
save their heathen souls from purgatory.
In one chapter Michener wrote about a missionary woman who
was pregnant and was having a hard time giving birth so the Hawaiian women came
to help because they were excellent midwives and knew how to help a pregnant
woman at the time of child birth.
But they were not allowed to enter the tent so they waited
patiently to be called to assist but it did not happen. The pastor did not
believe that these so called primitive women had the skills as midwife so they
were ignored while the pastor read from a handbook how to deliver a baby because
it was his first time to do so. The woman cried in pain and heaved but the baby
would not come because it was stuck while the Hawaiian women pleaded that they
could help and save the baby and the mother but the pastor would not listen.
When the baby was finally delivered, it was still born because
the baby did not get the oxygen right away so died. The women waiting outside
heard that the baby was still born because the pastor did not know how to
deliver a baby so they cried .Their collective wailing could melt a stone but
the missionary heart was tougher so it had no effect.
The Protestant missionaries denigrated the Hawaiians in
every way possible and laughed at them when they told them how their ancestors
came to Hawaii in dugout canoes with the help of celestial navigation centuries
ago. To the missionaries such tales were just fiction because they did not
believe that the primitive people of Hawaii had the knowledge or the
sophistication required to navigate through the open seas so long ago.
They came from the mainland to convert these heathens to
their brand of Christianity to save their corrupt souls that had no religion so
they looked down on them and ridiculed their rich culture as primitive. They
had come to educate them and show them the true religion so they worked hard on
them to convert them. Later they wrote to the US Congress to declare Hawaii as
a state of the United States to legitimize their role in civilizing the
primitive people.
These tough missionaries had a low opinion of anyone who
was not white so they showed that they were openly racists and considered themselves
as superior to those who were not white. They believed that only the whites had
developed the knowledge of navigation and had built modern ships that could
cross any ocean using compass and charts that they had prepared. They did not
believe that the Hawaiians had any knowledge of medicine although the Hawaiians
had a very rich knowledge of plants that they used to cure many illnesses. This
knowledge came down to them through generations but the missionaries did not
believe them.
They said that Hawaiians had no written language so how
could they be called civilized so it became their duty to teach them the
alphabets so that they could read the Bible. They set up schools for them with
heavy emphasis on religion and building churches everywhere. You will notice
that the missionaries do this all over the world wherever they go to civilize
the native people.
There was such a fellow who went to a forbidden island in
the Andaman and Nicobar in the Bay of Bengal where some tribes live. He was
warned that the islanders do not like outsiders and kill them before they even
land on their shores but he ignored their advice and went ahead in his boat to
spread the religion among the natives because that was his mission. Later the
river patrol boat found his body on the beach full of arrows and had difficulty
in retrieving it because the islanders did not let anyone to approach them. This
news was reported in most of the news media that eulogized the missionary and
his valiant effort to bring Christianity to the primitive people but never
mentioned that the islanders had a right to live in their own way.
Gauguin captured the sad mood of the Tahitian women in his
painting showing the pernicious effect of evangelization by the missionaries
there who ignored the rich culture of the Tahitians.
Source : Google painting of Gauguin showing sad Tahitian women
Now you will notice that I used the word primitive a number
of times so now I will discuss this idea of who is called primitive and who is
not in more detail. James Michener has always been my most favorite writer
because he wrote about such issues as racism of the missionaries in Hawaii in
the most unbiased way and backed up his writing with infallible data that he
researched on for many years before writing his masterpiece.
Long before the white people arrived in the United States
of America, there were very civilized people with very rich culture who lived
in complete harmony with the nature. They had lived there for many thousands of
years so had adapted well to the land. They were mostly hunter gatherers who
lived in exquisite animal skin tepees that they could dismantle quickly to move
on following the seasons and the source of food.
They made excellent clothes, shoes and jewelries and were
expert hunters and fighters when they needed to fight to protect themselves
from other tribes or from the white invaders who came to ravage their land and
to kill them because they called them savage people. They were called Indians
or Injuns and their pretty women were called squaws by the uneducated people
called white trash.
The whites considered them less than human and an
impediment to their rapacious desire to occupy as much territory as they could
so they brought in armed soldiers and built numerous military posts surrounded
by thick walls. When the Native Americans protested, they were killed. The
whites introduced alcohol and venereal diseases to which these native people had
no immunity so they died in large numbers. They died of cholera, small pox and
other imported diseases because they had no immunity.
This self-proclaimed superiority of the white people over
others was responsible for the slavery in America and other countries and the
destruction of great people in the North, Central and South America on a scale
never seen before in the history of mankind.
The whites proclaimed their manifest destiny to rule over
less than human people, take their land and property, kill them at will if they
resisted, and sexually molest their women and even children in order to destroy
all that was dear to the natives. So they invaded many countries and took the
possession using military means to begin the process of looting all they could
find as precious like gold and silver.
This wealth was then shipped to the countries they
represented like Spain or England. With the military conquest came the rabid
missionaries to spread Christianity using any means including imprisonment and
torture.
The bestselling book called Aztec written by Gary Jennings
is worth reading here if you really want to know the gory details of how the
Spaniards treated the proud Aztecs and decimated them and their rich culture
after looting their gold. It was all because the white people called the Aztecs
primitive who had never known Jesus so it was their duty to civilize them and
turn them into the Bible thumping Christians. They succeeded beyond their
expectations.
The white people invented the word Manifest destiny and
used it to justify their behavior toward all the people they called primitive
giving rise to the notion of racism that still prevails in many countries even
today.
Their invasion of lands where people lived in peace and
prosperity was justified by their greed for new land and resources in order to
enrich their country so all the colonial powers like Spain, England among
others became rich. It did not matter to the Kings and Queens of Europe how the
riches were obtained as long as the ships loaded with gold and silver returned
to fill their coffers. Many such ships foundered on their way so millions worth
of gold and silver sunk in deep waters.
I have always deplored the notion that any human being is
superior over others but it has been responsible for all the bloodshed in the
history. They used brute military power to conquer land and dominate over
people in order to loot their resources. These invaders called themselves
Christians, wore gold cross in a chain on their necks, prayed in churches and
brought with them the rabble priests to forcibly Christianize the heathen
because as Christians they felt that it was their solemn duty to do so. The
methods used were not important to them.
They brought so much wealth back to their kings and queens
that they were given great titles, rewards and huge properties by their
sovereigns who always lusted for more wealth. It did not matter to them how
such wealth was acquired in the first place.
Children are taught even today wrongly that Columbus
discovered America and other Spaniards brought Christianity to the primitive
people everywhere. Pizarro, Hernán Cortés and Columbus are called great
Conquistadores or great discoverers of new land and wealth but it took a writer
like Gary Jennings to write about their cruelty.
They justified their cruelty by saying that they were sent
by their sovereigns who financed their ships and their adventure who in return
were expected to pay back their kings in riches so they had to first conquer
the land and then collect the riches using whatever means necessary. When the
king like Moctezuma was no longer useful to Cortes, he was garroted.
Source : Google photo of simple, carefree and happy tribe of Papua New Guinea
Today I was watching a video on the people who live in
Papua New Guinea in isolated villages where they build beautiful bamboo houses
and get all the food they need from the rivers teeming with fish. They are
called primitive by the outsiders but they live happily and simply. They sing
and dance. They make their own clothes and make shell jewelries. They live in
complete harmony with the nature. Just because they do not have a written
language or practice your brand of religion does not make them primitive.
Source : Google photo of the bamboo huts of the isolated tribes of Papua New Guinea who are simple but happy.
So primitive is an obsolete word that should never be used
to describe people who have a rich culture of their own, rich history and who
live simple but happy life. They definitely do not need the outsiders to tell
them how to live, how to dress and which God to pray to.
What would our world look like without the rich diversity
of people?
Note : My blogs are also available in French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages at the following links as well as my biography:
La biografía de anil en español.
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