Lost Civilisation

The Amerindians have been living a life style for centuries that has enhanced the growth. They had their own identity, an identity that is more compatible with nature. They lived a life of seclusion in the remote areas, which is now called hinterland. Their life style was entirely different that of the urban people. Generally urban people called them ‘uncivilized’ race of the earth. Thus the word un-civilization is used to address the Amerindians. Thus extra-ordinary efforts take place in order to ‘civilize’ them. It is a perspective in crisis, a perspective of the elite, a perspective of the aristocrats and a perspective of the missionaries. This perspective considered the Amerindians as non-civilized because they worshipped nature, they dressed scantily, they ate food without cooking, they hunted their food etc. Therefore, according to the ‘civilized’ urban populaces these Amerindians lived a life not worth of living. They needed a change from their old habits to a new, urbanized way of life.

Lost civilization is my topic for this article, because the Amerindians had rich civilization but now it is in jeopardy as the foreign civilization take them to the middle of the ocean and lead nowhere. Who am I to change or impose my way of life, or my ‘civilization’ to a people who have lived their lives for centuries? It is disheartening to hear from the Amerindians now that their children do not speak their tribal language because it has become old fashioned. And once the language dies, a culture naturally sees its demise.

My limited experience with the Wapishana Amerindian community of Guyana has taught me to respect and encourage them to rejuvenate their own way of life. Some expressed to me that most of the good cultural values are forgotten and more individualistic attitude is creeping into their way of life. For instance, the culture of wadaup (a meal cooked by each family and brought to a common place and eaten together without distinction) is seeing its demise. Now this is lost because of individualistic way of life. When I attended a waduap, I felt so happy that the sharing of food brings a community together as a family, and after all we belong to human family. Another example, the Amerindian land is free for an Amerindian which means he can go anywhere in the reserved land and habituate it; of course inform the village leader. But now the barbed wire culture is creeping into the common property. This means barbed wired land is permanently his/her. Which is invariably against the Amerindian way of life.

These are the two examples of ‘lost civilization’. The Amerindians are slowly but surely losing their own identity in the process of civilization. To a large extent Christian missionaries have been responsible in this process. Missionaries created an avenue to the Amerindians to forgo their primitive life style of hunting, nomadic agriculture and community life. But this is all done in the best intention of making them good people other than the reason of saving souls from going to hell. I am not denying the fact that their life style has improved and education has made them more compatible with the wider society. We got listen to our conscience and ask whether they are losing their own identity and culture or they are embracing a life that we think may be compatible for them. If we do a proper analysis, and this article has not done it because it is just a hypothesis, we would not make a beautiful culture wipe away from the face of the earth. Civilization is a question of perspective, what is civilization may not be civilization for another culture. I eat pork; I cannot insist that Muslims eat pork too. That is not right thing to do. I cannot change what is precious for the other, or for that matter I must not even think of doing that. If we try to impose our way of life on the other in the pretext of civilization, I think there won’t be any civilization left on earth. Everyone would enforce and instill their own culture and way of life on the other; reciprocally there will be strong resistance, which will lead to war. Therefore, it is crucial to not to ‘un-civilize’ the ‘civilized’. Every civilization is precious and important, so one has to respect this fact.