Peaceful Societies

Despite reports that Chhotan, a Birhor laborer, was receiving excellent care at a medical center in Ranchi, the capital of India’s Jharkhand state, the man died of his illness. The continuing deaths in the Birhor villages are prompting officials of non-governmental organizations into making renewed commitments to assist the tribal people.

Ashutosh Mairh, a member of the NGO Samvendna, told the Telegraph of Calcutta that the Birhor are prone to diseases due to their ignorance about sanitation and hygiene. They also need to learn about the importance of clean water. He promised that his group would supply the Birhor with chemicals that would sanitize their water sources. He said they would also help construct toilets in one of their villages.

The Asian Human Rights Commission released a report last week about the deplorable living conditions of the so-called Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) in India, which include the Birhor. The document reviews the history of past discriminatory laws—acts that classified some societies as “criminal tribes”—and it describes more recent acts that have tried to improve their conditions.

Despite the existence of classification schemes that seek to make sure the tribal people receive government benefits, discrimination persists. The report blames the Hindu caste system as one of the primary culprits. “Often, the benefit of the welfare programmes, particularly concerning the right to food, is denied to [a] tribal community exclusively based on the principle of social exclusion based on caste,” the report asserts.

It cites an unnamed Birhor school where the teaching staff do not allow the children to eat there because they fear that the youngsters would pollute the eating utensils. The report also blames the poverty of the PTGs on government agencies that appropriate tribal lands, forcing the residents into deplorable conditions in the cities. Food cards that are supposed to be available for poor people are, in fact, denied to them in some rural areas.

The report indicates that India has ratified an International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which guarantees access to food as a fundamental principal of society. Some of the Indian state governments are notoriously lax in supporting this right.

“Unless the Government of India rebuilds its consciousness and adopt[s] and implement[s] more affirmative public policies for the tribes, the government cannot prevent deaths from malnutrition or ensure food security in the country,” the document concludes.

Last week’s Science Times carried an article explaining why the Ju/’hoansi are so enthusiastic about giving gifts. It’s a question of survival.

A New York Times reporter interviewed Pauline (Polly) Wiessner, an anthropology professor at the University of Utah, whose published scholarship has included works on gift giving in the Kalahari. Wiessner maintains that Ju/’hoansi social relationships work much like insurance does in America: to provide support during emergency situations.

The Ju/’hoansi gift giving is an important way for them to build relationships with other people. When they face a decrease in natural foods, they can call on their long-existing friendships and move to areas where their contacts live—and thus have access to more abundant food. Wiessner calls the Ju/’hoansi approach a “system maintained through gift-giving, storytelling and visiting.”

She gives an example that occurred during the first year she was in the Kalahari, in the early 1970s. She witnessed a period when the band she was studying experienced some food shortages—desert plants died and game dispersed. People began to talk fondly about friends living up to 200 km away. They started making beautiful objects for their friends, and when conditions got bad enough, about 150 people trekked to the camps of the folks they were thinking about. They continued the visiting until conditions in their home territories began to improve.

Telling stories is their way of keeping memories of distant people fresh, and their gifts signal their fondness for others. They visit other people often, not just when conditions are difficult, just to keep up their relationships, which of course work both ways, depending on where scarcity strikes. They exchange gifts frequently to help maintain the relationships.

Wiessner takes her analysis a step farther, however. She argues that these elaborate social relationships, which developed in Africa many millennia ago, allowed humans to move out of the continent and push into new territories around the world. “The storing of relationships for a time when you will need them is what facilitated this expansion,” she said. Beyond that, cultural advances may have also occurred due to this gift-giving. People who became skilled in fabricating nice gifts may have been more successful in building effective social relationships. The genetic propensity to craft better gifts, an essential ingredient for survival, might have been passed along to future generations.

The interviewer asked her if there are contemporary examples of this kind of social networking behavior. She responded that Facebook is a good one. It keeps alive memories of friends from long ago, and allows people to share information and mementos—pictures and reminiscences. Facebook posts represent “a kind of token that says, ‘I’ve kept you in my heart,’” she says.

The article closes with an amusing incident that occurred a few years ago. Some of her Ju/’hoansi friends gained access to a satellite phone from a safari tour operator, and found someone who could operate the device. They called Dr. Wiessner in the middle of the night, Utah time, to ask a favor of her. Another American had promised to buy them some athletic shoes for their soccer team. They asked her if she would buy the shoes, bill him, and bring along the shoes with her the next time she traveled to Namibia.

She told the interviewer that she was not at all annoyed by the call. She had been wondering how they were going to be able to continue to survive in their resettlement camps, where they get less nutrition than they did while they were still hunting and gathering. But the phone call gave her hope. She has more confidence now that they will be able to combine ancient strategies for maintaining their social structures with advanced technologies that will allow them to survive in the modern world.

Chhotan Birhor, a 28 year old laborer in India’s Jharkhand State, is receiving excellent medical care because he has a potentially life-threatening illness. As part of its continuing series of news stories on the Birhor tribal society, the Telegraph of Calcutta last week carried an article that described the measures being taken to help the man.

Chhotan, a native of Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, had gone to the state of Uttar Pradesh for work but he had fallen ill there in March. On May 14, his family brought him back to Dhanbad and took him to a hospital, but his condition did not improve. Doctors referred him to the largest medical school in the state, the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, the capital. He had a persistent fever and tests revealed that he had a blood hemoglobin percentage of 5, which is extremely low.

Chotan’s illness is of course a concern for his family. He has a young wife named Bahamani and a two-year old son, Ramesh, both of whom are dependent on his income. Professionals who are trying to assist the Birhor are also worried. Ashutosh Kumar, a teacher in Dhanbad who has done research on the Birhor, expressed his concern because the population of this society is dropping. While the Birhor had an estimated 8,000 people in the 1991 census, the figure has dropped to half that number today.

Despite the funds that the state and national governments are providing, “Birhors have been neglected for too long and now they are struggling for survival,” Kumar said. He mentioned the earlier tragic news about the Birhor people, notably the pregnant woman who died late in May while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

According to the Telegraph, the RIMS realizes the importance of the situation and is providing care for Chhotan free of charge. He seems to be responding to treatment. A nurse told the newspaper that he is improving a lot, and his hemoglobin count has reached 7.5 percent.

The older brother of the afflicted man told the paper he was quite pleased by the special care that Chhotan was receiving. “I had never expected that such a good hospital [would] take in my brother. I am thankful to the hospital authorities,” he said. The continuing media coverage of this peaceful society may be a factor in prompting officials to provide better services for them.

For nearly a year, Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College, has been adding posts to a blog that is hosted by the popular magazine Psychology Today. On October 1, he began a series of fascinating entries on the value of play to the development of children, and last week he expanded that interest to hunter-gatherer societies—and to the Batek of Peninsular Malaysia in particular. The full title of his blog is “Freedom to Learn: The Roles of Play and Curiosity as Foundations for Learning.”

His post last week was inspired by Kirk and Karen Endicott’s book The Headman Was a Woman, which was published last year. Gray was impressed by the gender equality practiced by the Batek, which the Endicotts discussed in detail in their book. One village chief, Tanyogn, was in fact a woman who was a very effective leader. She was knowledgeable about many subjects, frequently helped people, took responsibility for the welfare of others, participated in community discussions, and voiced opinions that everyone respected—a natural leader.

It is no wonder that Prof. Gray was impressed with the book. “When a job needed to be done [Tanyogn] was the first to dig in, and she encouraged others, by her example, to join her,” he writes approvingly.

Gray explains that the Batek solve problems and make decisions through consensus, a strategy that avoids the divisiveness of the voting process. Often these discussions take days or even weeks, depending on the complexities of the issues to be resolved. While they do not have officially designated leaders, people like Tanyogn assume natural leadership roles, and they are given the title Penghulu, “chief,” by the neighboring Malays.

But Gray takes his analysis beyond that. He wonders how a leader can arise in a society such as the Batek, which does not practice competition, does not recognize status, and values people for virtues such as helpfulness. The Batek cherish their individualism and social equality; they resist attempts by anyone to dominate others. Gray writes that they enjoy play, but never competitively—they can’t handle competition, which repels them. They respect their children from the time they are born, and raise them to be respectful of others in turn.

A fan of scholarly hunter-gatherer literature, Gray indicates he is convinced that playfulness is an important common element of foraging societies. “All such societies, as far as I can tell, optimize the human capacity for play and humor in ways that seem deliberately designed to combat the tendency to dominate,” he writes. Last week’s post is the first in a series of six he is titling, “Play as a Foundation for Freedom and Equality.” They will be based on his reading of hunter-gatherer literature and his knowledge of the psychology of playing.

He indicates that his primary argument in this series will be that the evolutionary basis of play is to promote cooperation and diminish dominance. Foraging societies have developed their playfulness for hundreds of thousands of years in order to foster their cooperation, which has been an essential survival strategy for them. It will be a fascinating series to keep up with.

Herero herders continue to move their cattle illegally onto the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, the Ju/’hoansi reserve in northeast Namibia, but the government appears to be responding fairly to the situation. Unlike Botswana, which continues to persecute the G/wi that want to live on their traditional lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Namibia is moving carefully to protect the Ju/’hoansi. At the same time, it seems to be seeking a solution that will help the poor Herero farmers.

Location of Nyae Nyae Conservancy A Namibian news story last week reported that 29 Herero families have now invaded the Conservancy property with over 1,000 head of cattle. Ten additional people were caught trying to drive their animals into the reserve and were expelled, and 64 additional families have applied for permission to resettle on the Ju/’hoansi land. They apparently perceive that the open land is unused and free of the Dicaptalen weed (Dichapetalum cymosum), which is poisoning the cattle in the Gam area outside the fence where the invaders came from. First reports two weeks ago indicated that five families had invaded initially with 132 head of cattle.

The problem for the settlers is that the Nyae Nyae reserve is not certified disease free, and if foot and mouth disease should infect any cows that would subsequently be moved back out of the reserve, the cattle industry in the nation could be sanctioned internationally. Namibian officials are taking a tough line against the invaders—or at least, against their cattle.

Mbeuta Ua Ndjarakana, Permanent Secretary from the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology, told a meeting last week that the settlers may receive some support from the government, but he indicated that the cattle will not be allowed to leave the reserve. “I am not saying that the Government won’t take care of these destitute people, but those who have made the decision (to move the cattle) must live with the consequences,” he said.

Dr. Alaster Samkange, Chief of Veterinary Services in the northeast section of the country, told the meeting that cattle in the reserve will be ear tagged and branded shortly. He said that “if a settlement cannot be arranged, with the Ju-Hoansi Traditional Authority we will have to make some tough decision, but whatever decision we reach, it must be able to stand up to international scrutiny.” He made it clear that the farmers who moved their cattle on to the conservancy property will not be allowed to remove them. They can either sell their cattle there, or slaughter them.

Asked by some farmers at the meeting if the quarantine could be lifted, another veterinarian indicated that removing it would impose too high a cost to the nation’s beef industry. It would not be possible. He urged the farmers to stop moving their cattle into the reserve.

Former President, Sam Nujoma, the founding father of Namibia, advised the residents of Gam to consult with the traditional Ju/’hoansi leaders of Nyae Nyae and talk with the government before taking any actions like invading the reserve. The Ovaherero Traditional Authority submitted a letter to the government spelling out their proposals on behalf of the Herero people. Their letter requested the government to “kindly sympathise and accept families who crossed into Tsumkwe area to be settled permanently with their livestock.” Tsumkwe is the principal town in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy.

“Kindly look into the current situation of these families who crossed into Tsumkwe,” the letter continued, “and render some caring measures, (a) for the welfare and livelihood, (b) school children since they cannot sell their livestock, (c) the livestock for they cannot return to Gam area to avoid socio-economic implications.”

The Ovaherero Traditional Authority of the Okambazembi Royal House, joined by the Gam Farmers Association and the Local Development Committee of Gam, also submitted a letter. Their concern was for the danger to the cattle industry in the Gam area if it were to be reclassified as a red zone, which in effect would quarantine their livestock and deny them any markets.

Participants in the meeting said that requests by the Herero invaders, submitted to the Ju/’hoansi authorities for permission to resettle in Nyae Nyae, had been ignored. The Ju/’hoansi leader, Chief Tsamkxao Bobo #Oma, attended the meeting but did not comment publicly. He later told the press that the Ju/’hoansi depend on money from tourists and from trophy hunting. His implication was that their sources of income were threatened by the invasion. The chief also denied that he had received any written requests from the Herero invaders for permission to resettle on Conservancy land.

The local police commissioner, Nyambu Ndaitwah, said that his force will be monitoring the fence intensively to prevent further invasions, and he intends to have a permanent police presence along it until further notice. The police refuted reports in the media that some of the Herero cattle had been stolen.

Survival International reported last week that the government of Botswana has taken new steps to hassle the G/wi people and try to drive them out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).

In 2002, the government had confiscated the goats kept by the San people when it expelled them from their homes. When the G/wi won their court suit in October 2006 and started trying to move back into the CKGR, the attorney general promised them that they could have their goats back. Government veterinarians had recently certified their goat herds to be free of diseases and permitted them to be returned to their owners. During the dry season, the goats provide nourishment to the people, who are prevented from hunting or from having access to drilled water. Botswana’s persecution of the G/wi has been covered extensively in the news.

Last week the Botswana Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism sent trucks with police and wildlife officials into the CKGR to remove the goats again. Ministry officials apparently are concerned that they do not fit in properly with their image of the Kalahari as a tourist destination. They want to have a tourist lodge in the reserve next to a San community.

The organization First People of the Kalahari, an advocacy group for the San people, including the G/wi, is appealing to the national government to negotiate. It realizes that its battle with the government is far from over. Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, commented, “it’s hard to believe just how petty and bullying the government’s actions are. They ought to have realised by now that the Bushmen aren’t so easily bullied.”

The Business Standard of New Delhi reported last week that an American NGO, International Rivers, has released a significant report condemning the construction of new dams in the Himalayas.

Titled “Mountains of Concrete,” the 44 page report (available as a PDF on the International Rivers website) declares that the proposed string of massive new hydropower dams are doomed to fail and cause further harm to the delicate ecology of the mountain system. The authors define the Himalayas as including the Karakorams and the other mountain ranges that divide the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia.

It indicates that the realities of global climate change will reduce the usefulness of the planned dams when glaciers recede and water runoff begins to decrease. India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan intend to build several hundred dams to generate 150,000 megawatts of additional electricity, most of which will be used in India.

The purpose of International Rivers is to protect waterways and help the communities that depend on them defend their rights. It opposes the construction of destructive, wasteful dam projects. “This dam building activity will fundamentally transform the landscape, ecology and economy of the region and will have far reaching impacts all the way down to the river deltas,” according to the author, Shripad Dharmadhikary. New dams will submerge homes, threaten agriculture, disrupt human and natural communities, and destroy the cultures and identities of people affected by them. Seismic activity is also a constant concern.

The most serious issue, according to the report, is the impact of climate change on the Himalayas. Glaciers are melting faster now, and the storage of water as ice and snow in the high mountains is threatened. Dam safety from potential flash flooding caused by the rapid release of glacial water is a serious concern.

The report describes the ecological disasters that will befall Sikkim, where the Lepchas and their activist group Affected Citizens of Teesta have been fighting for several years to thwart the dam building advocated by the state.

According to the report, “Many aspects of dam building, like the submergence of forests, large scale river diversions, disruption of aquatic ecosystems—both upstream and downstream—blasting, digging, excavation, debris dumping and other construction-related activities, are likely to wreak havoc on the ecology of the Himalayan region (p.27).”

The article in Business Standard connects all of this to the Lepcha people. It is not clear if the continuing hunger strikes by Lepcha activists will do any good, since the Sikkim state government is committed to building all but four of the dams that have been planned for decades. Despite the hopes last month by anti-dam activists that voters in Sikkim would oppose the dam construction, election results announced on Saturday showed that all 32 seats in the state assembly went to the incumbent Sikkim Democratic Front, which will keep Chief Minister Pawan Chamling in office.

The election results will help ensure the construction of the dams. The Dzongu Reserve, sacred to the Lepcha people, will probably be violated by them. However, “Mountains of Concrete” predicts that the dams will be extremely costly failures.

Superstition and witchcraft among the Fipa people of Southwest Tanzania have attracted the attention, and condemnation, of the Prime Minister of the nation, Mizengo Pinda.

Speaking in the Sumbawanga District, he expressed surprise that, in this day and age, people still accepted superstitious beliefs. Apparently a common superstition is that some individuals can use witchcraft to steal crops and transport them to their own farms. Mr. Pinda condemned this way of thinking. He also debunked the idea that people who have died have necessarily been bewitched. “There is nothing like it in this century,” the Prime Minister said.

He emphasized the importance of studying modern farming techniques—proper planting, effective weeding, timely harvesting—rather than continuing to accept superstitious approaches to agriculture. He also talked up the need for a good education so people can learn the best ways of doing things. “It is very important to abandon these wrong beliefs because there is nothing like superstition. Let us emphasize on education as the only way to broaden our thinking,” the Prime Minister urged.

During his visit, Mr. Pinda officially opened a new school in the Miangalua ward of the district and agreed to personally sponsor a boy from the school who is doing very well academically. His wife, Mrs. Tunu Pinda, urged the young female students at the school to focus on their studies rather than just on marriage. She contributed five million Tanzanian shillings (US $3,700) to the school.

The Telegraph of Calcutta focused once again last week on governmental neglect of the Birhor in India’s Jharkhand state.

On Monday, May 11, a 22 year old pregnant woman, Jiramuni Devi, was examined by an auxiliary nurse-midwife in the village of Tulbul, Bokaro District in Jharkhand. She was nearing the end of her pregnancy. The nurse found her condition to be stable and gave her some medicines. A couple hours later, however, at 4:30 in the afternoon, her condition began to deteriorate. She started rapidly losing fluids and blood, so villagers called the nearest hospital in Gomia, 70 km away. They said that she urgently needed an ambulance.

When the ambulance failed to come, several other villagers called and said the situation was an emergency. The ambulance never came and at 8:30 the woman died.

Pramod Kumar, the civil surgeon of Bokaro District, ordered an inquiry into the matter and visited the village himself to investigate. Apparently the village chief himself had contacted the hospital when the woman’s pain became unbearable, but, the doctor said, “the ambulance could not reach Tulbul.”

The Telegraph concludes that the incident undercuts the claims of the Bokaro District government that it is protecting the Birhor people. The same paper has been publishing stories about the Birhor almost monthly ever since the tragic deaths of eight villagers back in October. Those deaths, and the one last week, appear to have been caused, in part, by government blunders, corruption, and indifference to the Birhor. The presence of Naxalite terrorists in the area may also be to blame.

A news report last week from the Anamalai Mountains of Tamil Nadu state in southern India indicates that the people in a Kadar village there are unconcerned about the Indian elections.

One person interviewed asked what the elections were for, and when told they were to elect members to parliament, she wondered what they would do. “There is no change in our living conditions and people like you should tell us the utility of sending representatives to places like Parliament,” she told the reporter.

Another Kadar complained that the village did not have water or electricity, and that a solar collector provided by the government did not work. Further, there is no work for them, so there is no source of income. An elderly man does appreciate an old age pension he receives, however.

Another man is clueless about the purposes of the election, but he complains about the challenges of living in the forest without medical care. “An insect bit my eyes and there is no facility here to get it treated,” he said.

Political candidates in Tamil Nadu do not bother to visit the Kadar village, much like Jharkhand politicians mentioned in the news three weeks ago, who do not campaign in Birhor villages.

Peaceful Societies

Peaceful Societies

Human Rights Report Analyzes Birhor Deaths

Giving Gifts in the Kalahari

Birhor Man Receives Care in Major Medical Center

Play among the Batek

More Herero Invade Ju/’hoansi Lands

Hassle the G/wi: Take Away their Goats

Major Report Condemns New Dams in the Himalayas

Prime Minister of Tanzania Condemns Witchcraft

Pregnant Woman Dies in a Birhor Village

Kadar Villagers Unaware of Elections

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