World Population
There are currently about 7.1 billion people living on planet earth. How many of the world’s population are indigenous? According to the latest reports, a total of 370 million individuals. They currently live in 70 countries around the world and represent only a 5% of the total world’s population. Eighty percent of the world’s indigenous people live in Asia and South East Asia.
Most Indigenous Tribes Chose Modernity By Force
Due to the aggressive western acculturation, more than 50 percent of the world’s indigenous population live in urban cities of Asia and the Pacific. Indigenous people moved to cities searching for opportunities for their own development, such as employment and education. But the majority moved to urban areas to escape human right abuses and violations perpetrated by their states.
The Impressive Skills Of Indigenous Tribes
Indigenous people are genetically vulnerable to common diseases. But their lifestyle also made them develop astonishing abilities.
The Moken Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Sea, on the west coasts of Thailand, have been fishing underwater for centuries. They have a superhuman eyesight: the eyesight of Mokenchildren, who swim even before they walk, are 50% stronger than any European children. Furthermore, their bodies are endowed to maximize the use of oxygen, and they stay underwater for a long while.
All Indigenous Tribes Share Something In Common
Although Indigenous people represent 5% of the world’s population, they are distributedamong at least 5000 different groups.
Even though such groups profess different beliefs, they share one thing in common: the essential connection with the land and the need to preserve it. In theory, the opposite of what the West has done.
When Knowledge Surpasses Science
Over centuries, Indigenous tribes acquired a deep understanding of agriculture. Agricultural tribes developed special farming techniques and a knowledge that surpassed the boundaries of scientific scope.
This is the case of The Pradhan tribes of India. The Pradhan’s techniques were very sophisticated. Centuries before pesticides were even conceived, their crops were resistant to pest and contaminants. The Pradhan also found a way of multiplying their crop yields. Their secret?: Knowledge. This feat was achieved by a ritual of seed selection. The selected seeds produced higher yields, easy to harvest crops, and invulnerable to any pest. Sadly, this ritual ended with colonialism. Tribes were forced to buy seeds from the market.
Now most Indian crops use chemical pesticides, otherwise, they get infested. Also, crops must use fertilizers to obtain a decent yield. While chemical corporations accumulate profits, the Pradhan knowledge is gone.
Businesses become profitable by spreading the ignorance of the consumer. Because, by taking away their knowledge, a natural producer becomes a dependent consumer. The Pradhan tribes offer a fine example.
Their Knowledge is Almost Magical
By the means of knowledge, magic can potentially become reality, and serve as a way to foretell the future. Both rules may be applied to the Moken Tribe.
It is hard to forget the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 23 countries. No scientist could predict that devastating earthquake. The entire population in that region was killed by the tsunami, with only one exception: the Moken tribe.
Hours before the Tsunami, the Moken noticed the “strange behavior of the sea”, and their children began crying. The Moken knew a tsunami was coming and rushed to a higher ground to warn everyone about the danger. Nobody, not even the older fishermen, believed them.
The Moken, who live and die by the sea, know the sea better than any marine biologist. Their knowledge may even surpass the boundaries of science. If magic exists, for whatever reason, it’s not on speaking terms with Science.
Indigenous People Know A Lot Of Marvelous Things
In general, the beliefs you hold shape your life and the world around you. And language has a lot to do with it. Language is a sort of software we carry in order to live in our societies. Every language is a system of thought and shapes our perception of things, our conceptions of happiness and sorrow, and our personal realities.
Our language makes us blind to certain things that exist but that, due to language barriers, we are unable to perceive. If the limits of our language are the limits of our world, natives have an endless resource. A sort of rabbit hole that goes deeper into marvelous realms. Indigenous people across the world speak more than 4000 different languages. In those languages, common words like I, you, want, take, do not really exist. Also, the conceptions of quantity, numbers, and possessions are despised. Can you imagine how much they can teach us about life?
Indigenous People Are Truly “Civilized”
The question then is “Civilization”. What does it mean? Who is truly “civilized”? Us or them?
Living in wild nature, Indigenous tribes are able to feed themselves, fabricate their clothes, build their residencies, hunt, protect and respect their land, cultivate their soil, preserve the environment, and live in peace without any need for “authority”. They also succor wild animals under threat and feel compassion for us even when we evict them from their lands.
What is civilization then? What is to be modern? To validate only a few codes and reject other essential values? To give up all sense of communion and persist on spoiling the environment?
If to be civilized entails to passively accept the abuses against indigenous tribes, then we must be on the wrong side of history. Meanwhile, civilization will wipe down the legacy natives have collected for millennia while most of us remain passive.
Indigenous Tribes Support the Fauna
The Amazonian Awa tribe have a sacred dictum: by preserving the flora and fauna, they are also preserving themselves.
However, their preservation practices differ according to their beliefs. While certain animals are venerated, others are used merely as food. Yet, all natives respect the ecosystem of every species.
The Awa tribe, for example, adopt monkeys as companions. And whenever an animal suffers, natives come to the rescue. Tribal women breastfeed newborn monkeys if they feel hungry. One Awa women said: “If we didn’t breastfeed them, they would die.” In other occasions, Awa women also breastfeed little pigs and raccoons.
Corporations Are Aware Of The Vast Indigenous Knowledge (And Want to Take It Away)
When analyzing the 20th century, Historian E. S. Thomson often talked about the “enormous condescension of posterity”. How is it that western science (with a few centuries of existence) looks down on the vast knowledge natives have accumulated for millennia?
But the west has changed such approach. They are finally realizing that, by destroying these tribes, they are also destroying knowledge. Multinationals have now been appropriating the indigenous medical heritage. More than 100 pharmaceutical companies are currently funding projects to study indigenous plants used by native/indigenous healers.
“Biopiracy” is the process in which corporations issue patents on medical compounds owned by the indigenous. Multinationals converting natural resources into private monopolies can be argued for the sake of public health. However, the problem comes when these corporations, having “patent rights”, attempt to stop indigenous tribes from using their own medicine. This devious practice has occurred repeatedly.
“Thank You”, That Very Strange Word
Natives and westerners, although sharing the same territory, live in totally different worlds. One example is the expression “Thank you”. Although aboriginals have the word “Thank you”, they hardly ever use it. In fact, they consider it odd that westerners say “thank you”, “thank you”,”thank you” almost obsessively.
Their tribes live under an organization where “obligations” is just natural behavior. They have a duty of feeding their family and help members of their tribe. Such solidarity is alwaysexpected from them. Therefore, telling them “thank you” would be offensive because they assume you doubted their assistance.
Some Australians, who misunderstand this cultural trait, find the aboriginal behavior very rude.
Most Indigenous Tribes Are Poor
In our era of human rights, indigenous tribes face strong discrimination. Such general rejection had kept them in poverty. Even though five percent of the world’s population is indigenous, they represent 15% of the world’s poor. It is estimated that the poorest live in China and India.
For some Indigenous tribes, “poverty” and “wealth” are nonexistent terms. Poverty and wealth are only absurd labels that western culture (whose view revolves around self-gratification and property) imposed on them.
Some natives regard “possessions and property” as trivialities, odd concepts, and superficialities of the western world. Nevertheless, they all desire to keep the ability to support themselves (by hunting, gathering and agriculture). This fundamental right was taken away by the state. Their struggle is aimed to retain the right to shape their own destinies and manage their own resources.
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