The Nature of Reason escapes us. Since we became the dominant surviving species Homo Sapiens Sapiens have searched for the elusive Why. The Trials continue...
(Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin 2 November 1699 – 6 December 1779)
“Many ages ago in an exotic and faraway land there was a travelling haberdasher from Begur named Avinita. Like his father Madhava, and his grandfather Vishnugopa before him, he would roam from town to town selling his handmade hats for a living. He was forever careful and never let his guard down as there were always those who would steal what others had with no memory of the past and no care for the future.
One hot day, after travelling for many, many miles, he stopped to rest outside of Lopburi under a tree with branches and shade. He placed his bag of hats next to him, and being weary, shut his eyes and fell asleep.
After sleeping for many hours he awoke and stretched his aching muscles. It was then that he noticed his bag of hats was gone. Desperate he looked around but could not find his hats or the thieves. “What am I to do?” he said to himself. “Without my hats I can make no Tical and with no Tical I cannot afford to marry. And if I do not marry I can have no children to carry on the tradition of my father and grandfather! Oh, my life is over!” He sat back down and begin to weep.
When he grew tired of weeping he slowly climbed to his feet and prepared to leave for home with no future and the past fading away into distant dreams. Looking around one last time he finally noticed the monkeys in the tree behind him. They were all wearing his hats!
He was extremely alarmed (they could damage his hats and cost him Tical!) but also relieved. He could have a future if he could get his hats back from these furry, pilfering robbers! He yelled at the monkeys and they yelled back. He made insulting faces at them and they returned the same insulting faces. He threw stones at them and they showered him with branches and leaves. Nothing he did could make the monkeys give him back his future. Finally, he threw his hands up in the air and said, “Oh Great Lord Hanuman please help me. Only you understand and can tell these little ones they have to give me back my hope of future memories!”
Of course Lord Hanuman, being the God of Monkeys, and having a sense of humor, sided with the little fuzzy thieves.
“How do I get my hats back?” Avinita wondered. After sitting for many hours without a solution to his dilemma he grew frustrated, took off his own hat and threw it on the ground. To his surprise, the monkeys threw their hats down also! Avinita could not believe his good fortune! He quickly gathered up his hats and hurried on his way vowing to never make the same mistake again and always remember this day.
Decades later “Young Mushkara”, grandson of the famous Hat-Seller Avinita, who worked hard to maintain the family business, was passing through the same jungle. He had carried on the family tradition and become famous in his own right.
One particular day after a long walk “Young Mushkara”, grew very tired and found a tree with lots of branches and cool shade to rest under. He was soon fast asleep. A few hours later, when “Young Mushkara” woke, he realized that all his lovely hats were gone! He started searching for them and to his surprise found monkeys sitting in the tree wearing his hats!
He was frustrated and did not know what to do, but then he remembered a story his grandfather used to tell him about losing his bag of hats. He waved at the monkeys and the monkeys waved back. He blew his nose and the monkeys blew their noses. He started dancing and the monkeys also danced. He pulled his ears and the monkeys pulled their ears. He raised his hands and the monkeys raised their hands. “Young Mushkara” then took off his own hat and threw it on the ground fully expecting the monkeys to mimic his action. To his surprise, the monkeys didn’t throw their hats down as his Grandfather had said they would. Could his Grandfather have been wrong about the monkeys?
It was then that a monkey climbed out of the tree and sauntered up to him. The monkey stopped in front of “Young Mushkara” and looked him up and down for several moments.
Growing impatient “Young Mushkara” finally cried out to the monkey. “What are you staring at?” The monkey calmly replied,” You’re not the only one with a Grandfather and a memory!”
In his book “Collapse”, Jared Diamond defines collapse as, “a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time.” (12) His definition shows that while many factors can lead to the collapse of civilizations such as the Teotihuacan, the Maya and the Toltecs, no one of these factors can be individually blamed for the Collapse of Mesoamerica. Applying his Five point Framework validates this argument. Diamond points out that there are five variables, not one, that influence societal collapse. These variables are:
Environmental damage
Climate change
Relations with hostile neighbors
Relations with friendly neighbors
Society’s response to environmental, political, social and economic problems.
The first variable is Environmental damage. The beginning of Mesoamerican Paleo-Indian period that precedes the advent of agriculture is characterized by a nomadic hunter/gatherer subsistence strategy. As the nomadic lifestyle that dominated the late Pleistocene and the early Archaic period turned to a more sedentary lifestyle, hunter/gatherer bands began to cultivate wild plants. The cultivation of these plants provided security to the Mesoamericans, allowing them to increase their surplus of emergency or “starvation foods” near seasonal camps. This could be explained as accidental or on purpose. In the case of the former, certain plant seeds may have been eaten and not fully digested, causing these plants to grow wherever human habitation would take them. Or in the case of the latter, this could mean hunter/gatherer bands replanted certain crops as they moved giving them a steady, seasonal surplus of food. As these camps grew they eventually transitioned from being isolated dwellings to large cities, indicating there was a need for more space for people as well as more space for crops to feed the growing demands of these people. This in and of itself led to eventual damage to their environment through deforestation and erosion of the land.
The theory of environmental damage alone causing the Classic Collapse may be open to debate, but anthropological and ecological evidence clearly shows early Mesoamerican Paleo-Indians were already having an impact on their environment and surroundings (through agriculture and the changing of the land to suit the growing demands of the people) before the Classic Collapse.
The second variable to consider is Climate change which played its own role in the collapse of Mesoamerica. Between 475 BCE and 760 CE there were numerous droughts that had an effect on the climate and its peoples. After a relatively wet period from 5500 BCE to 500 BCE, (pre-Classic Maya) there was a period of dry climate (drought). 475 to 250 BCE, just before the rise of pre-Classic Maya civilization, there was another period of dry conditions. Wetter conditions returned after 250 BCE, but drought again returned by about 125 CE until around 250 CE. This is often associated with the collapse of pre-Classic sites such as El Mirador, Nakbe and El Tintal. The resumption of wetter conditions around 250 CE may have helped facilitate the buildup of Classic Maya cities (200–1000 CE), but even they had their own issues with climate conditions. Their period of buildup and dominance was temporarily interrupted by drought around 600 CE. This can be seen in the decline of Tikal and other sites. Around 760 CE there was a drought that some Climatologists consider the worst in the last 7000 years. It peaked around 800 CE and correlates with the final “Classic” collapse of Mesoamerica. Proponents of the climate change collapse theory make a valid argument when discussing climate change and its adverse effect on Mesoamerica. Taking climate change at face value only helps to strengthen their argument that one big drought brought about the Classic collapse. However, climatology and anthropology tell a different story. Climate change affected different areas at different times in the period ranging from 760 CE to 910 CE. The latest dating on stone monuments at various Maya locations show that the collapse varies among sites and falls into three groups. 810 CE, 860 CE, and 910 CE. These all correlate with the dating for the three most severe droughts.
Well there can be no argument that climate change had its own effect on the fall of Mesoamerica, climate change hitting different areas at different time’s show that this alone wasn’t enough to bring about the collapse of Mesoamerica.
The third variable is the idea of Relations with hostile neighbors. History shows that relations with neighboring societies ebb and flow with the power or lack of power displayed by these societies and the hierarchy in-place within these societies. A society may hold off its encroachers or enemies as long as they remain internally strong and show a willingness to fight for what’s theirs. When they succumb or weaken (food shortages, civil war, drought, political turnover) they become prey for the surrounding groups/communities/states.
The variable of Hostile neighbors affecting collapse carries weight when just seen as military campaigns or conquests. Study shows that it’s the causes of the military campaigns or conquests (food shortages, civil strife, political and religious ideological disagreements, and drought) that contributed to the Classic Collapse NOT military successes or failures. As Diamond points out, “Hence collapses for ecological or other reasons often masquerade as military defeats.”(23)
The fourth variable to consider is the idea of Relations with friendly neighbors. Just as with hostile neighbors, history shows that relations with neighboring societies ebb and flow.
It’s rare to find a historical society who had friendly trading partners as well as enemies. Usually they are one and the same. Their behavior shifts back and forth between hostile and friendly. Most societies depend to a certain degree on trade with friendly neighbors for import of essential goods and products or for cultural ties. When one trade partner becomes weak and can no longer be relied on for trade or culture ties both parties can be weakened. This then leads back to the factor of Relations with hostile neighbors.
Relations with friendly neighbors did play a role in the collapse of Mesoamerica, but power cycles through cities, states and communities. They become powerful then decline and are conquered only to rise up again later and become the new rulers. All of this can happen without great changes in the populations of these areas. This shows that it alone isn’t enough to cause a complete collapse.
This leads to Diamonds last variable, Society’s response to environmental, political, social and economic problems. How a society responds to these problems depends on the society itself. Mayanists have been increasingly accepting the idea of the “court paradigm” of Classic Maya societies that puts the emphasis on the centrality of the royal household and especially the person of the king. It was this ruling elite that was given responsibility for answering these demands placed on their societies. How they answered these demands dictated the path of their society’s success or failure.
The decision making of the elite may have played a role in collapse as societies rose and fell based on those decisions the ruling elite made, but the continued rise and fall of different societies Pre-Classic and Post-Classic demonstrate that life and culture continued to evolve.
Environmental damage, climate change, relations with hostile neighbors, relations with friendly neighbors and society’s response to environmental, political, social and economic problems all played separate roles in the collapse of Mesoamerica. No one of these factors can be individually blamed for the Collapse of Mesoamerica. It’s only when these factors are put together that we see the overall results. A collapse of epic proportions that decimated various cultures and societies that is still reverberating today.
21st century America should pay close attention to the lessons the Collapse of Mesoamerica teaches us. When environmental damage caused by man or nature is ignored or mitigated, political, social and economic problems take center stage. Hurricane Katrina is a micro example of collapse that should be taken as a warning to America. The primary cause of the flooding during Hurricane Katrina was inadequate design and construction of the levees by the Corps of Engineers. Not only was the design inadequate, ecological damage caused in the construction helped exacerbate the effects of the hurricane. This in turn led to political indecision within the structure of local, state and federal officials. This indecisiveness not only caused social problems, people being uprooted and removed from their culture areas, it also caused economic issues that were still prevalent and pervasive in New Orleans ten years later. According to Katy Reckdahl, writing for Politico.com in 2015, “…there are only 700 apartments with public housing-level rents available for the 3,077 households who lived in the four complexes razed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after Katrina. And despite the booming economy, the city’s child-poverty rate has now crept back up to pre-Katrina levels, 39 percent, and the city ranks second in the nation in income inequality.” The lessons from this disaster should not be ignored. Lack of environmental and engineering oversight on a local and federal level, political indecision and the social and economic inequality all played factors in this micro-collapse.
As we move forward into a new American Presidential administration, whoever the electoral declares the winner should take heed. Collapsing infrastructure, social and economic inequality and national and international extremist philosophies are becoming more pervasive every day. Unless something is done to mitigate these issues in a fair, non-partisan way we may find ourselves on the same path as Mesoamerica, a great society that ignored the warning signs and did too little, too late.
Works Cited---
Diamond, Jared M. “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” New York: Viking, 2005. Print.
Reckdahl, By Katy, By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, By Edward B. Foley, and By Matt Latimer. “The Dark Side of Katrina Recovery.” POLITICO Magazine. N.p., 31 Aug. 2015. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.
“5 Point Framework.” 5 Point Framework, n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.
In the documentary First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon, José Carlos Meirelles, a Sertanista (backwoodsman), who worked for the Brazilian government’s National Indian Institute (FUNAI) for 40 years and is part of the leadership of the FUNAI’s Isolated Indians group (Índios Isolados da FUNAI) and coordinator of the Ethnoenvironmental Protection Front of the Envira River (Frente de Proteção Etnoambiental do Rio Envira (FPERE)) , in Acre, makes “contact” with a ”Lost Tribe”. The documentary primarily focuses on 35 “uncontacted” indigenous people, the “Tsapanawas” or “Sapanahuas”, who were filmed in June 2014 at a village in Brazil’s Amazon near the border with Peru and two groups of “Mashco-Piro”, as they are widely-known, in south-east Peru. While Meirelles and documentary director Angus MacQueen may have had the “best intentions” in documenting the plight of these indigenous people, they omitted crucial information, used misleading language, and made numerous factual errors. This can lead to only one conclusion. There is a separate (hidden?) agenda and a target specific audience this “documentary” was aimed at.
The documentary claims that the Mashco-Piros had been “invading” a “town”, actually an indigenous community, called Monte Salvado. If anyone can be said to have “invaded” anyone, it’s the indigenous Yines living in Monte Salvado, who have “invaded” the Mashco-Piros. The Yines arrived from the River Urubamba, a different watershed, and settled at what is today Monte Salvado on the River Las Piedras in the early-to-mid 1990s. That was upriver from any other indigenous community, in territory that had long been regarded as the Mashco-Piros’, and within the area that was subsequently proposed for the supposedly off-limits Madre de Dios Reserve for them and other indigenous peoples in isolation. The Yines repeatedly attempted to contact the Mashco-Piros, travelling deeper into their territory to leave them pots, pans, machetes and knives, among other things. They also repeatedly entered deeper into Mashco-Piro territory to log valuable tree species, and in the 2000s, during a mahogany and cedar boom, charged other loggers to do the same. This boom involved frequent violence between the Mashco-Piros and loggers with deaths on both sides.
But why did the Yines move? There are many reasons including escaping Peru’s civil war and access to otherwise inaccessible timber in the surrounding forest. But why try so hard to contact the Mashco-Piros? Part of the answer might be Christian Evangelism. The Yines are Protestant “Evangelicos”, as they’re called in Peru, and looking for converts. Also “Big Corporate Oil” may have played a role. The Yines moved to Monte Salvado around the same time that Mobil turned up in Madre de Dios, before signing a contract, in 1996, to explore 1.5 million hectares which included the Las Piedras basin. Mobil established a base just upriver from Monte Salvado, even deeper in Mashco-Piro territory, and employed many Yines. Were the Yines moved there to “pacify” the Mashco-Piros and facilitate operations with missionaries playing an intermediary role? It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened in the Amazon.
While the documentary makes some attempt to explain why the Tsapanawas turned up at Simpatía and why the Mashco-Piros are making “contact”, it almost entirely fails to explain just how seriously Peru’s government is failing to protect the territories of indigenous peoples and how consistently such territories have been invaded in recent decades by loggers, narco-traffickers and coca farmers. What Meirelles and MacQueen should have made clear is that the supposedly off-limits Murunahua Reserve in Peru, used by the Tsapanawas and mentioned by Meirelles, has never been properly protected and has been the scene of rampant illegal logging, facilitated by extreme violence and corruption, for years. Meirelles and MacQueen also fail to mention that both the Alto Purus National Park, used by the Tsapanawas and the Mashco-Piro Reserve have been regularly invaded by illegal loggers as well, and that the government has established numerous “legal” logging concessions in Mashco-Piro territory in areas that were proposed as part of the Madre de Dios Reserve but were excluded when the reserve was established. In addition to problems with logging, there is the added issue of narcotic production and trafficking affecting the indigenous people. Peru competes with Colombia as the world’s top coca producer and one of the ways cocaine and/or cocaine paste is exported is through Peru’s southeastern Amazon to Brazil and beyond. This can mean crossing Tsapanawa and Mashco-Piro territory. The River Envira, where Simpatía is located, is acknowledged to be one of those routes. This too has resulted in extreme corruption and violence directed towards the Tsapanawa and Mashco-Piro.
The documentary highlights the support provided to the Tsapanawas by FUNAI, described as Brazil’s “federation for indigenous peoples” (actually a government institute within the Justice Ministry) but fails to acknowledge FUNAI’s serious errors before and immediately after the Simpatía encounter which put the Tsapanawas and other people’s lives gravely at risk. FUNAI was warned months in advance that contact was likely but failed to provide 1) an interpreter who could communicate with the Tsapanawas; 2) a specialist doctor to provide appropriate medical attention because of their lack of immunological defenses and extreme vulnerability to colds and flu; 3) essential equipment to store vaccines; 4) emergency food for the Tsapanawas; and 5) experienced FUNAI staff. The consequences of these failed actions? One was the misunderstandings captured in the Simpatía encounter footage. The documentary correctly recognizes that this situation was “fraught with risk”, but doesn’t acknowledge how easily that risk could have been reduced if FUNAI had reacted differently and ensured someone was there who could understand what the Tsapanawas were saying and communicate constructively back to them.
Though Meirelles never said these tribes were unknown or “uncontacted”, many in the world press were led to initially portray the group as such. In fact, like many indigenous tribes, these group’s existence had long been known about. Their presence had been detected either by frontiersmen or by satellite imagery. Indeed, it is highly likely that many of these tribes had already experienced some form of fleeting “contact” with outsiders over the years. The reason these tribes are classified as “uncontacted” is because they have retreated into the jungle and consciously avoid any interaction with settlers. The documentary calls the Tsapanawas, Mashco-Piros and/or other indigenous peoples in isolation “uncontacted”, “lost”, “hidden”, “untouched by modern civilization”, “untouched, indeed uncorrupted by our modern world”, “the tribes that time forgot”, “people who show us what we once were”, and living, or previously living, in “total isolation” and “complete isolation.” It even calls the Mashco-Piros “warriors”, features a shot of a YouTube clip about the Tsapanawas titled “Amazon Tribe Makes Touching Contact with Outside World FIRST TIME”, and describes the Simpatía encounter as “the moment these isolated men and women first seek to join the outside world.” All that is ridiculous and highly offensive. Calling the Tsapanawas et al “uncontacted” distorts the reality of their lives and the history of the western Amazon. All the peoples described as “isolated” have had some kind of contact with the outside world. What they don’t have is regular contact. But they’ve been using axes, machetes and iron pots for at least 100 years. One final thought. Towards the end of First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon the narrator claims that “the reality of the Tsapanawas” existence ends our romantic dreams of noble savages still living in the Garden of Eden.” Whose “romantic dreams”? Is that really how Meirelles and MacQueen assume their audience is thinking? If anyone can be said to be “romanticizing” the Tsapanawas and other indigenous peoples in isolation, it is Meirelles and MacQueen. Especially when they use phrasing like “uncontacted”, “untouched’ and “uncorrupted.” This kind of language, the lack of medical foresight in contacting indigenous who may be vulnerable to infection and disease and the omitting of factual information all lead to one conclusion. There is a separate (hidden?) agenda and a target specific audience this “documentary” was aimed at. What that agenda and target specific audience is we may never know; but I feel comfortable saying that First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon isn’t about “Anthropology”, it’s about exploitation and nothing more.
