Extra-modern peoples are often viewed not only as materially underdeveloped, politically immature, and culturally uneducated, but also as being fundamentally cruel. We cannot discuss here all these accusations, which tell more about those who pronounce them than about anything else. But there is one we would like to examine here: the supposed cruelty of indigenous…
Category: Anthropology
How Does an Indigenous Concept Look Like?
In what follows, we render all indigenous terms in curly brackets to remind the reader that indigenous languages were, originally, non-written languages. This does not mean they were simpler, though. The fact that many indigenous languages are polysynthetic, for instance, makes them complex to an extreme which is hard for us to even fancy; thus…
What Socialism Owes to the Tupinamba
In 1550 the Tupinamba travelled to France to take part as French allies in the Royal Entry Festival of Henri II in Rouen. A few years later, in 1562, they visited Rouen again, invited by Charles IX. Montaigne wrote extensively on them in Chapter 31 of his First Book of Essays, published in 1580. This…
Plato, Author of a Tukano Myth
Is writing so very useful? A Tukano myth tells that Yepa [Huake, the demiurge] said to Yupuri Bauro, the chief of the Tukano: “In this world, you will have several riches: ritual ceremonies, feathers, arrows, blowguns, benches… Your riches will remain in your homes, the homes of the Tukano – it is there that your…