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.
