Why People Still Will to Live in Primitive Conditions - Essay Example

Why are people still willing to live in primitive conditions in todays modern society? Primitive people in our culture are very greatly misunderstood and misconceived. Among the various misconceptions that we hold against the primitive people one is that they live a life of suffering and continuous fear. Thinking about primitive people makes us conjure up negative images of them and we think of those who probably lived prior to the rise of the civilization. “The images are often of people who are sickly, squatting half naked with stained teeth, scavenging through the jungle, short, poorly nourished, living desperate lives in a hostile environment” – Thom Hartmann (We Think Primitive People Live In Fear) Our assumption is that since such people do not have any settled agriculture they have to continuously look and struggle for food, that they are constantly afraid of going hungry and starving. Besides, they are also not acquainted with technology and thus they live at the whim of nature. They cannot protect themselves from their enemies and cannot make their life easier by using technology. From our understanding we do not consider such people as being completely human. The general view is that such people are not a part of our current world. Rather, they belong to the pre historic time which was a very murky period indeed. That was what led to the arrival of civilization when at last man achieved success and became a proper human being. The reason why such myths are present is because of the limited mindsets prevailing. The general population does not have any kind of an exposure and their minds are limited to what they have read and heard. From our history we know that colonization too pace and the savages bettered their lives to become what we are today. However, we do not really know how exactly those people had lived. Our thinking is that we do not have to understand the way they use to live because we do not need to. “It was an inferior lifestyle and we are good to be rid of it. There is nothing we can learn from these people” (We Think Primitive People Live In Fear). However, such is not the case in reality. If we actually try and look into the way they live we will find out that their lives are not at all the way we imagine them to be. In actuality those living in primitive conditions have a normal life; they are not struggling for food nor are they always angry, depressed or schizophrenic. They live a healthy life and when we compare our nutrition with theirs, we would find that they have a better and more varied diet. Besides, such people suffer from lesser diseases as we do and it is not necessary that they die early; they can also have a long life. They are not barbarians and do not grunt at each other. Rather, they have their own language which might be pretty complex for us but it is their language after all. Like us, they also have their traditions and customs and legal systems. Like every human being of curse there take place battles but they are not on such a huge scale. Their concept of war is not as cruel as is ours. Of course that doesn’t mean that their lives are perfect; there can definitely be problems. However, they do not have a brutish or savage life. They do not always keep fighting with each other or hit each other. They do not have a very modern life like ours, but they are not the ones ruining Mother Earth; it is us. One such example of primitive people is the Bushmen living in the Kalahari Desert. They live in bands of about 50 people and together they travel and hunt. “For the Bushmen, education is the learning of survival skills” (Rogers and Feiss 12). They have to be able to understand that they have to take in at least as much calories as they burn. Therefore, it is according to this factor that they decide whether they should be hunting a particular animal in regard to whether it would be able to give them the same amount of energy as they would use up in hunting. Women, on the other hand, learn to recognize and pick edible plants. Although the population of Bushmen is on a decrease, as of the 1990s, there were still some leading this kind of a life. Why they are able to still live in such limited means is “because the Kalahari Desert is large enough that they do not have to leave it and bleak enough that no one else wants to use it” (Rogers and Feiss 12). Another example is that of the Bedouins. There were various sources of income in that area which included hotels and St Catherine’s Monastery; however, these “had little impact on Bedouin livelihood” (Pierre). This shows how adamant the Bedouins are at keeping with their values and customs. The Bedouins tried to get the government involved in their lives in order to improve it since they are not given an equal status as the rest of the citizens. Their request, however, was not accepted. Although the Arab Spring did indeed lead to major changes in the Egyptian’s way of living it “has not altered the character and culture of the Bedouin” (Pierre). Yet another tribe is that of the Dayaks, residents of the Apo Kayan plateau. They live in longhouse communities and practice forest-fallow shifting cultivation. “The Dayak people are not reckless destroyers of the forest” (Kartawinata, Soedjito and Jessup 87). Instead of that they actually keep their sites properly and make sure to reuse them. They farm in secondary forest and have been doing this work since a long time. Whenever they migrate it is almost never because they are short on land, but because their geographic isolation causes economic issues. Toto is a primitive tribe of the West Bengal. They are a Mongloid tribe, having a flat nose, broad and square cheeks, thick lips and small eyes. They are not as strong as were their ancestors and at first they were going in their population but have been recovering; their population is increasing but very slowly. They live in wooden or bamboo houses. Regarding their health status the Totos think that the reason for diseases is evil spirits. “Naturally they call their medicinemen who inevitably sacrifice hens or pigeons, etc. to ward off the evil spirits” (Chaudhuri 50). The Lodha is another tribe of West Bengal of a population of around 30,000. They survive by gathering their food which includes wild roots, tubers, and edible leaves. Besides, they also hunt for animals, birds and reptiles. They once migrated to lesser forested areas where they met other tribes from whom they learnt better and more valuable skills of agriculture. “Thus, being accustomed to the techniques of agriculture, they now work as agricultural works” (Chaudhuri 51). Among other reasons for these tribes not wanting to contact outsiders could be that in the past it has happened that such contact has led to epidemic diseases causing lives. For instance one such tribe of Tasaday was discovered few decades back in the Philippines. These tribesmen numbered just a couple of dozen and were somewhat like the Stone Age people and lived in caves, ate wild food and made their own very simple tools. When they were discovered the West was stirred and everyone was suggesting what should be done for them to help them. One of the most important and first thing was to protect them from the 20th century. Their living area was reserved and made off limits to outsiders. This was done in order to help them preserve their kind and their lifestyle. Besides, very brutal and violent conflicts could also result from such a relation considering that the more modern people would not understand them and carry out their job. For instance, there are the Brazilians who carry out illegal timbering or mining operations. They could easily get into fight with the indigenous people of Brazil. There are actually organizations developed that help the tribes in their preservation. For example, “Tribal Development Departments and ministries of every tribal state in India have been concerned for the welfare of primitive tribes” (Tribhuwan 140). Although efforts are in progress from the side of the government it is still not enough and there needs to be done a lot more than that. Socio-cultural, economic and political factors negatively affect the tribal health and thus the type of developmental approach they require needs to be looked into. The only reason why the primitive tribes of today may be behind us and their health might be down is that they are extremely poor, they have no sense of technology, and they move around a lot. They have no leaders who would guide them and lead them on to proper ways and they have no education whatsoever. Works Cited Chaudhuri, Sarit Kumar. Constraints Of Tribal Development. Mittal Publications, 2004. Kartawinata, K., et al. "The impact of development on interactions between people and forests in East Kalimantan: A comparison of two areas of Kenyah dayak settlement." The Environmentalist 4.7 (1984): 87-95. Pierre, Normand St. The ‘Sinai Spring’ hasn’t altered Bedouin culture. 11 April 2012. 11 April 2012 . Rogers, John James William and Paul Geoffrey Feiss. People and the Earth: Basic Issues in the Sustainability of Resources and Environment. Cambridge University Press, 1998. Tribhuwan, Robin D. Health Of Primitive Tribes. Discovery Publishing House, 2004. We Think Primitive People Live In Fear. n.d. 11 April 2012 . Read More