Peaceful Societies

Leh, the town that serves as capital of Ladakh, was in an uproar last week because some policemen sexually harassed a couple female students. The heavy-handed response by police officials attempting to cover up the crime and their repressive approach to the complainers prompted outrage among many Ladakhi women.

The market in Leh (Photo by Y. Shishido in Wikipedia, Creative Commons license)

The incident was described in the Indian media as “eve teasing,” a catchall term for any unwanted sexual harassment or abuse. This particular outrage occurred around 5:45 in the afternoon on September 30 right in the Leh Market near the State Bank of India. The news reports said a couple female students (some of the news stories reported only one woman was involved) were walking home when two men harassed and insulted them, making obscene comments in the process. Nearby bystanders got involved in defending the assaulted women and a scuffle ensued.

But the story gets worse. When the young women went to the Leh police station with their protectors to lodge a complaint, called an FIR or First Information Report about the incident, the police turned on the complainers. They not only refused to file the FIR, they beat up the male students who had tried to protect the women. The police then booked the would-be protectors in jail without allowing any bail for them. It turned out that the culprits of the eve teasing were off-duty, non-Ladakhi police dressed in civilian clothing.

The various women’s organizations banded together to call a press conference for Wednesday October 3. A local women’s leader, the Nominated Councilor of the PDP Rinchen Lhamo, spoke to the gathering, presenting a letter that the women had prepared to send to Satya Pal Malik, the Governor of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, of which Ladakh is a part. The letter described exactly what had happened and requested the governor to launch an impartial inquiry.

Young Ladakhi Muslim women in the town of Kargil (Photo by Steve Evans in Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian organizations that united to draft and sign the letter included women leaders from the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA), Women’s Wing, Anjuman Moin-Ul-Islam, Women’s Wing, Ajuman Immmia Leh, Women’s Wing, Christian Association’s, Women’s Wing, Ladakh Women’s Alliance, Leh , Mahela Mandel Leh, Ladakh Women’s Welfare Network, BJP Leh Women’s Wing, Congress Party Leh Women’s Wing, PDP Leh Women’s Wing, and NC Leh Women’s Wing.

Out of the numerous news reports on the incident, one quoted an interesting paragraph from the letter: “With a deep sense of anguish, we, the undersigned representatives from different religious and political organisations of Leh, seek liberty to invite your kind intervention to an eve-teasing case wherein police, under the direction of [police] Headquarters Leh, has involved in shielding the culprits by further victimising the victims. Instead of maintaining law and order in this peace loving border region, police [are] resorting to misuse [of] authority which could potentially lead to [destabilizing] the harmony in the region.”

The women announced at the press conference that they were going to shut down Leh completely the next day, October 4. On Thursday, almost the entire town closed down. One news story reported that a majority of shopkeepers were closed for the day; another included a photo showing the shopping square with only a few people out and about.

A student at the SECMOL campus outside Leh who says she wants to be a trekking guide (Screenshot from the video “SECMOL – A Short Documentary Film – Ladakh, India” by Accessible Horizon Films on Vimeo, Creative Commons license)

This most recent development relating to the treatment of Ladakhi women is another demonstration of the analysis presented less than a year ago by a different news story, which indicated that some Ladakhi women are treated very poorly by Ladakhi men. The prominent Ladakhi woman trekking guide Thinlas Chorol made it very clear last year she dismissed the notion that women had a place of equality in Ladakhi society.

“Is it justified to say that women in Ladakh are enjoying liberty and equality only because we are not burnt for dowry or killed in the [womb],” she complained. Articles about Kung Fu self-defense training for Ladakhi girls and young women in 2017 and 2018 added to the strong impression that females in Ladakh need to be very careful, especially in urban settings such as Leh. It is encouraging that the women from many different religious traditions are uniting to confront the discrimination they are encountering.

An Alberta school district stretching from the outskirts of Calgary south to Lethbridge includes 17 Hutterite colony schools and over 365 students in them. Called the Palliser Regional Schools, the district has to confront a unique problem—supplying substitute teachers—for the schools on the rural colonies.

A grain elevator on land owned by a Hutterite colony near Cardston, Alberta, just south of Lethbridge (Photo by Bob on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Headquartered in Lethbridge, the district has come up with a plan to attract potential substitute teachers who would be willing to work at the colony schools. According to an article last week in a Lethbridge news service, the administrator of the Hutterite colony schools for the district, Dan Ryder, and his associates decided to provide familiarization tours for potential substitute teachers.

Mr. Ryder, the Principal of Colony Schools for the district, recently offered what he called a “ride-along” for three new people on the district’s list of potential substitutes, one from Lethbridge, one from Calgary, and one from High River. The point of the tour was to familiarize the potential substitutes as to the locations of the schools and what to expect if called to teach in one of them.

The teacher at the Fairholme Colony School (Photo by Stefan Kuhn in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

Jean Brochu, a recent university graduate from Lethbridge, admitted he is hoping to get his foot in the door by making contacts from a substitute position. After the tour, he said he would be pleased to answer a call as a substitute at one of the colonies. He found the colony schools the tour visited to be different but, he added, “I don’t think as teachers we should be afraid of [being] different.” Whatever hesitations about teaching in colony schools he may have had before the tour, visiting them clearly had an impact on him.

The three substitute candidates and Mr. Ryder first stopped at the Wild Rose Colony School where they met Rebecca Holgate, who has 13 years of teaching experience, most recently for a year and a half at the colony. She told her visitors that at first she was most concerned about having enough time to prepare properly for instructing the children from all grades in a one-room-schoolhouse situation.

The students at a Hutterite school pay rapt attention to their teacher (Photo by Stefan Kuhn on Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

She soon learned that the most important thing about teaching in a colony school is to be flexible and to be willing to stray from prepared plans. She emphasized to the group that the teaching is a learning process—the new teacher must be willing to see what works with the students. There may be several different ways of meeting the needs of the Hutterite kids.

Mr. Ryder said that during the drives between the different colonies, he is commonly asked about dress codes, cultural differences, and how to interact with the German teachers at the colonies. Mr. Brochu was impressed with nuances among the cultural values of the Hutterites they visited. Some of the progressive teaching he saw at the colonies really impressed him.

The principal indicated that the assignments as substitutes may lead to permanent positions. The work can be challenging but he feels it is rewarding. “The kids love the teacher and the colony shows appreciation in so many ways of their English teacher,” he said.

Ms. Holgate told her visitors that one of the benefits of teaching in a colony school such as hers is the small number of students—she only has six. This allows the teacher to really get to know each of the students well. She compared her students to a family, since she teaches the same group of kids each year.

The news report concluded by providing Dan Ryder’s email address. People who want more information about his fam tours should feel free to contact him.

Republican leaders in Pennsylvania are becoming nervous that citizens who supported Donald Trump in 2016 are considering voting for Democrats in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections. Donald Trump, Jr., attended a state Republican gathering in Hershey on September 21 and tried to reassure the faithful in the crowd about the accomplishments of his dad. Party supporters have even revived the Amish PAC in the state to appeal to that small, but highly conservative, minority group.

An Amish PAC billboard (Photo on the Amish PAC website)

A political action committee called the Amish PAC worked in 2016 to broaden support for Trump among the plain people and it has resumed its activities for the 2018 midterm elections. According to a news report in LancasterOnline, the Amish PAC is renewing its advertising campaign in Amish Country, especially Lancaster County, in hopes of convincing the Amish to turn out and vote for Republicans on their ballots. The ones who have registered to vote have overwhelmingly registered as Republicans. But do they support Trump and what he stands for?

The Amish PAC is running ads in newspapers and on billboards that the Amish are likely to see, intending to “unlock the Amish vote” for Republicans. One ad urges the Amish to vote, and pray for, Republicans in the midterm election in less than five weeks. “Our nation and our way of life are still in mortal danger,” it says. The ad continues that if they don’t vote Republican, then the Democrats might impeach the president that the Amish helped elect in November 2016 “to preserve our religious freedoms.”

The Young Center at Elizabethtown College (Photo by Bruce Bonta)

The news story continues, however, by describing a recent report from scholars at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College that questions the overall effectiveness of the Amish PAC. It evidently was not as effective in getting out the Amish vote for Trump in 2016 as the Republicans have been claiming.

The Elizabethtown researchers found that there were fewer registered Amish voters in 2016 than there were in 2004, the last time Republicans made a concerted effort to get out the Amish vote. Despite the fact that the number of Amish adults eligible to vote in Lancaster County has increased by 50 percent over that 12 year period, the number who are registered has declined a bit. The number who actually voted in November 2016 was significantly less than the number who voted in 2004.

The study, led by Prof. Kyle Kopko, reported that nine out of ten Amish who do register to vote sign up as Republicans. Kopko, a professor of political science at the college, was the co-author with Donald Kraybill of a published study of the earlier effort to get out the Amish vote for the reelection campaign of George W. Bush in 2004.

Lancaster County Amish (Photo by Ted Knudsen on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Amish PAC two years ago raised nearly $169,000 from 41 states, most of which they spent on newspaper advertisements and billboards in Pennsylvania and Ohio Amish communities. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, they have raised another $25,000 over the past year and have spent twice that amount on advertising.

Over the coming weeks, the group will not endorse particular candidates but it will advocate that people register and get out to vote for Republicans. Billboards and published ads will be appearing in Lancaster County in the weeks leading up to the election. When asked about the recent findings by the Elizabethtown study, the local coordinator of the Amish PAC, Ben King, replied that he was not discouraged by the study’s findings. He sees the effort of the PAC as “an ongoing process of changing the culture and the mindsets.”

Some Amish in Lancaster County (Photo by Andrew Dallos on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

LancasterOnline approached Steve Nolt, a senior scholar at the Young Center at Elizabethtown, who said that the Amish in the county, conservative as they are, have little interest in influencing the wider “English” society. However, though most of them are not interested in getting involved in voting, there have always been a minority of Amish families in which the men, rather than the women, do vote. Between 2004 and 2012, the percent of voting Amish who are men has increased from 72.1 percent to 77.6 percent.

A blog post on September 20 provided an account of the tracking skills of several master Ju/’hoansi trackers in South Africa’s famous Kruger National Park. The tracking skills of the Ju/’hoansi for human footprints in Peche Merle Cave were described in a news story in October 2013, then analyzed in a journal article in 2017.

Two Ju/’hoansi hunters show tourists how they track during a hunt (photo by Gil Eilam that used to be on Flickr with a Creative Commons license)

The most recent report, published in the website Africa Geographic, focused not on human footprints but on the tracks of animals. The interesting angle to the story was that the trackers were entertaining tourists in an unfamiliar environment 750 miles east of the habitat where they normally track game animals. Their skills, according to the recent account, are remarkable.

The author of the blog post, Clive Thompson, opens his story by mentioning that he first visited three of the trackers in Xa/oba, a community in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy of northeastern Namibia. He refers to /ui-Kxunta, /ui-G/aqo and ≠oma Daqm as “three old-way geniuses” who are formally designated as cultural treasures by Namibia. They demonstrate how they can track a gemsbok for a couple hours in the searing desert heat. They point out the tracks in the sand of a black-backed jackal and a bat-eared fox.

The heart of Thompson’s story is on the skills of the trackers in Kruger. He personally finds the mopane thickets of Kruger to be intimidating—every bush looks alike to the unskilled visitor. He doesn’t explain why the trackers are in South Africa so the reader guesses that they are there as paid guides for tourists who want to witness ancient African skills.

The Pafuri Gate, north entrance to Kruger Park (Photo by Entropy 1963 in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The three master trackers from Namibia plus a fourth tracker named Dam Debe meet on June 28, 2018, at the Pafuri Gate of the Kruger National Park. During their first day they get an orientation and sight civets, a nyala, a bush buck, and a white-tailed mongoose, all of which were new to the Ju/’hoansi. They follow the tracks of an eland and narrate what it was doing for the others: the bull eland stopped here, half turned and looked back here. And here it nibbled a bit on the mopane twigs. See the crumbs on the ground and the moist twigs. But then, see here, it trotted off.

At another point the group follows roan tracks for a bit until they notice the track of a mamba, a deadly snake. A few hours later, on their way back through the bushes toward where the trackers know the vehicles are parked, the guides casually point out the mamba bush, which is indistinguishable from all the others to everyone else.

An African buffalo in the mopane shrub lands of the Kruger National Park (Photo by Altaileopard in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The next day they visit a San rock art site and, along the way, the trackers warn the group that there are buffalo ahead in the thicket—before anyone had heard or seen anything. Then, to test the skills of one of the trackers, the author asks him to take him back to their vehicle, located some distance away over several brush-covered hills. It had taken them 45 minutes to beat their way into the rock art paintings; it takes the tracker 20 minutes to get him back, cutting directly across the country.

One of the three Ju/’hoansi trackers, /ui-G/aqo, tells a story of how he was out hunting alone in the Nyae Nyae bush years ago when he went to sleep in an acacia thicket. While he slept in the middle of the night, he was surrounded by a pride of lions. He told his listeners that his human spirit spoke to the spirits of the lions, telling them to leave him alone. They did so.

A lioness and a lion in Kruger National Park (Photo by Gwendolen on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The author is reflecting on this tale as they wander through another part of the park examining the marks of a lion and a lioness. The trackers suddenly announce that the lions they are following have switched from an ambling along mode to serious hunting. How do they know that? Because the tracks are a little farther apart and their paw prints in the sand are slightly smaller, which shows that their muscles are getting tense, they reply. The trackers stop to point out where the lions stopped a while and looked off to the right.

The trackers walk 25 yards off in the direction the lions had been looking and spot where a bull buffalo had been wandering along when he suddenly smelled the lions, stopped, and stared. Then he took off, as his tracks testify, and the lions took off after him. But they soon gave up the chase.

Thompson concludes his story by saying that everyone in the group is overwhelmed by the skills of the trackers. Each of the tracking episodes ends with everyone shaking their heads “in stunned appreciation” at the quality of the performance. An ancient art is kept alive by a select few.

Between 1903 and 1909, Douglas Moodie was stationed in Fullerton Harbour, Nunavut, and in Churchill, Manitoba, with the Northwest Mounted Police. Along with his wife Geraldine, the couple also traveled to Quebec and Labrador taking over 1,000 photographs of the Arctic scenery and the Inuit people along the way. Many of them are sharp and stunning images of Inuit on whaling boats, at summer camps, and hunting.

Odile Panimira Uqajuitu, grandmother of George Qulaut, in her late teens, taken in Fullerton Harbour in February 1905 (All photos by Douglas and Geraldine Moodie are from the Glenbow Archives as reproduced by the CBC and are presumed to be in the public domain)

In 2015, the great-grandchildren of the Moodie’s donated the photos to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. Last year, George Qulaut saw a photo of his late grandmother at the museum and he was overwhelmed. For a mostly oral culture, having access to photos taken over 100 years ago of deceased family members provides rich associations and meanings, according to an article in the CBC last week.

Qulaut’s grandmother died over 60 years ago when he was only 4 but he still has childhood memories of her. He tells the reporter that she loved children a lot and “she was a very interesting person.” He remembers communicating with her even though she was mute. He recognized her in the picture because he remembers her eyes.

He suggested to the Glenbow that the museum ought to take the photos to the people in Canada’s north so they might also have the chance to recognize family members and record their stories. The Glenbow is responding by sending Joanne Schmidt, the museum’s acting curator of indigenous studies, to visit a number of Inuit communities in September and October.

Schmidt will be traveling with 400 digital images stored on USB drives plus 70 prints of the originals and books that feature 100 of the photos. She plans to leave the USB drives and the books in the communities she visits and will give the prints to the people of Chesterfield Inlet, where many of the photos were taken.

Inuit woman fishing in Fullerton Harbour in 1905

Her goal for the Qatiktalik (Fullerton Harbour) Photo Narrative Project is to not only show the historic photos to the people but also to collect their stories, which the museum staff will add to their database. She said that Geraldine Moodie kept detailed notes and diaries so the Glenbow already has a lot of information about the individuals and communities represented. But the museum would love to know more. “Maybe some stories about those people or more information about their families or where they came from, that would be really special,” Schmidt said.

Qulaut summarizes the whole point of the traveling exhibition eloquently: “We don’t have a written history, all we have is oral history and it would have a huge impact on the younger generation, who they are, where they’re from.” He is pleased that the museum is doing it.

Starting on September 26 and continuing into mid-October, Ms.Schmidt will be taking the Inuit photos to Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, and Churchill.

Three different Malaysian news sources over the past month featured a story about gifts of solar-powered lighting for Batek villages that are off the electric grid.

Forest along the Tembeling River on the way to Taman Negara National Park (Photo by Bernard Dupont on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

In its report dated August 30, the Malaysian Insight, a news website, said that the Batek in Kampung Aur had received the electric lights on August 8 as a donation from several charities. The village is on the Tembeling river right at the edge of the Taman Negara National Park. The only motorized access to the outside world is via the river. The people in Aur spend a lot of their time in the forest hunting and gathering for their subsistence.

But continuing logging of the forests and the development of more plantations has forced at least some of the Batek to rely for income on craft works that they sell to tourists traveling along the river. They are also prioritizing schooling for their children. The new lights will help adults work on their crafts at night and they will give the children more time to do their homework.

Manderu, the headman of the village, told the reporter that the lighting may also help them develop a tourist business since many visitors would not feel comfortable without lights at night. He said that they have previously relied on oil lamps for nighttime lighting, but they can be dangerous since huts may burn down if they get knocked over.

A mother and her baby in Kampung Dedari in 2008, nine years before electric lights arrived (Photo by Irwandy Mazwir in Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Similar LED lights recharged by solar panels were installed last year in another village along the Tembeling, Kampung Dedari. That village has had an ongoing tourist business for several years. With the installation of their electric lighting, Kampung Dedari has built several huts for tourists to stay in, an initiative that has also been noted in the Malaysian press.

A news story in the New Straits Times on August 23 said that Batek Jungle Hut in Dedari consists of eight huts facing the river, all constructed out of tree branches and bamboo with roofs made of woven nipah leaves. The separate bathrooms and toilets have solar-powered facilities. The guests—four people can sleep in each hut for less than RM50 (US$12) per night—can sample the foods of the Batek people such as boiled tapioca and watch people demonstrate their traditional skills such as starting a fire without matches or using blowguns. An official in the Pahang office of the Tourism and Culture Ministry told the reporter that many of the tourists appear to enjoy their visits as they learn about the Batek language, culture and traditions.

A Batek man shows tourists how he uses his blowpipe in a village along the Tembeling River (Photo by chee.hong on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Another story in the NST on September 16 related the experiences of a visitor to Kampung Aur to see the installation of the lighting fixtures. The journalist, Elena Koshy, writes romantically about the forest environment of the park—the “130-million-year-old virgin rainforest rises up intimidatingly, as wild and untamed as the animals that inhabit her domain”—but she does share some interesting information.

It becomes clear that she was part of the expedition that supplied the LED lamps and solar panels to Kampung Aur on August 8, though her personal experiences of the mission of the day dominate the report, starting with her first impressions of the muddy pathway up the river bank from the boats. The village at first seems to be deserted, though the villagers appear to be peering out at the visitors from their branch and thatch huts. The Batek gradually emerge and establish contacts with the visitors.

A Batek child in Taman Negara National Park (Photo by Mohd Fazlin Mohd Effendy Ooi on Flickr, Creeative Commons license)

Ms. Koshy writes that the village tends to blend into the forest and can hardly be spotted from even a few feet away. The Batek thrive on food from the forest: yams and small animals they hunt with their blowpipes. They think of the forest as their true home. They do not symbolically defend themselves from the surrounding forest—they are part of it. They enjoy it for relief from the tropical heat.

Menderu, as the New Straits Times spells the name of the 56-year-old village headman, greets the visitors shyly and tells them that the villagers are pleased to be getting the new solar powered lamps, but they are shy of strangers. “They need some time to warm up,” he says, and he smiles. The volunteers who have arrived on the boats take several hours to erect in a clearing a large, makeshift table to hold the solar panels. The villagers slowly converge around the group of workers to watch the progress, and some of the men gradually start helping.

The sharing of work relaxes everyone. City folks struggling to fashion a table out of forest supplies and the Batek showing their skills with simple hand tools—parangs and small knives. The table is quickly erected with the help of the village people and the visitors install the solar panels to begin charging the lamps. Then the visitors leave, promising to return at dusk for the lighting of the lamps. That evening as expected, the new lamps light up the village and the Batek are pleased with the new technology that promises to help them change their lives.

Videos and photos were shared on WhatsApp and other social media last week showing the principal of a tribal school in the city of Nellore brutally beating Yanadi students. A number of news outlets in India quickly reported the story, the most complete of which were in The News Minute and The New Indian Express.

A tribal school in Gujarat, India (Photo by Nsdesai in Wikipedia, Creative Commons license)

Venkata Ramana has been principal of the Tribal Welfare Boys Residential School in Dargamitta, a section of Nellore city, for four years. When he began making a habit of beating the boys—mercilessly—other staff members in the school recorded his beatings. They reported the brutality to a tribal rights organization, Yanadi Samakya, which then shared the videos and photos of the abuse with the police.

Gandala Sreeramulu, the district president of Yanadi Samakya, said that the principal has been beating the students for minor infractions, even removing their clothes and beating their legs. He added that when parents came into the school to ask about the abuse, the principal scolded them right in front of their children. “The students are in the grip of fear and some of them are even planning to leave the school, unable to bear the principal’s harsh treatment,’’ Sreeramalu told the police.

“The horrific visuals show how inhumanly he was punishing them instead of disciplining them,” Sreeramalu added. He said that the police should take stern action to discipline the abuser. As of Thursday last week, the news reports had not indicated if an arrest had yet been made. A police inspector told one of the reporters that an investigation was underway. Students were being asked to give statements to police and Child Welfare Department officials.

Some Yanadi kids (Photo by Only the Best on NationMaster.com and copyrighted, but released for all uses without reservation)

According to the news stories, all the students in the school come from tribal communities, though whether they are all Yanadis was not made clear. They are typically the first members of their families to attend school. They never anticipated what they would have to go through. One photo shows Venkata Ramana holding a boy by the head and bashing him, head first, into a stone pillar, with other students standing in the background watching.

Other photos and videos are just as grim. One photo shows him beating a student who is laying on the floor. In another, a boy is shown pulling down his pants in preparation for a beating. Another captures him grabbing a boy by the hair. The videos evidently show him beating two students with a stick. Another clip shows him kicking a boy.

The students claim that the abuse by the principal began over a year ago. They had reported the violence to officials eight months ago but nothing appears to have been done about it.

The only bright perspective on this story is to reflect on the reaction that the Yanadi used to have with people who physically abused them. According to one of the classic ethnographies of the society, The Yanadis by V. Raghaviah, they simply didn’t know how to confront real, physical abuse from outside authority figures. Raghaviah writes in his 1962 book, p. 218, “It is only when his assailant is brutal and inflicts physical pain, that the unfailing smile [of the Yanadi individual] is replaced by a frown which precludes and indicates more a realization of his utter helplessness than a desire or readiness to retaliate.”

At least the Yanadi no longer take the abuse helplessly as they did more than 50 years ago. Now the students complain and the adults are willing to confront authority figures.

Athanase Terii, the self-styled King of the Pakumotu Republic, is refusing to quietly fade away and is back in the news once again. News reports of the dissident Tahitians who have been agitating for years for independence from French Polynesia were summarized in a news report in 2013. That story reviewed the unhappiness of some of the Tahitians with French rule and their movement to establish a new nation in the Society Islands. They had gone public with their plans in 2010.

Children on Raiatea, one of the Society Islands (Photo by John Abel on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Republic of Pakumotu, which has designed a flag, made the news again in 2017 for releasing its own currency, called the patu. The King declared that the patu would replace the French Pacific franc. The French authorities were not amused. M. Teiri, as his name is more recently spelled, received a nine-month sentence to prison by the French Polynesian authorities.

The news story last week, summarizing the recent activities of the Pakumotu adherents, indicates that the French are continuing to monitor the activities of the quixotic leader since he continues to defy the established territorial government. Not too many months ago, he was sentenced to a year in prison for circulating the new money, but he did not serve the entire sentence. He appeared on local television displaying sheets of the patu currency.

A sign for the police on Bora Bora, though the photographer notes, “You don’t see many of these in Polynesia” (Photo by sofakingevil on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

He has also announced on social media that he is hiring 3,000 police officers for the new republic. He added that since France does not use the Euro in Tahiti, the patu has a better claim to serve as the official currency.

One of the more interesting aspects of this continuing saga is the fact that the independence movement being promoted by the King and his hundreds of followers appears to be entirely based on nonviolent actions and publicity stunts. As a result, the French responses have, at least so far, also been carefully controlled: the police have been restrained and the courts have imposed short prison sentences that have not been served in full.

A fascinating research report about a project intended to strengthen the indigenous knowledge systems of the Himalayan peoples, including the Lepchas, was published in June 2018. A news report dated August 31 prompts interest in the report. The research study was designed to reinforce traditional systems of providing foods in the mountains by focusing on the biocultural heritage of the communities being studied, their biodiversity, their spiritual and cultural values, and their landscapes. The full report, prepared by a research team sponsored by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London, is well worth careful study.

Lepcha villagers in Darjeeling, India (Photo by Patricia Perkins on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The research focused on two places in northern India: the Central Himalayas and the Eastern Himalayas. The Eastern Himalayas study area was in the Kalimpong District of West Bengal state, and it included five Lepcha and Limbu villages near the border with Sikkim. The aim of the project, in part, was to study and to strengthen the traditional food systems of the indigenous people and to reinforce the cultural attributes of the societies so that they can better adapt to widespread changes such as the changing global climate. The researchers feel it is essential for the people to preserve their indigenous cultures as well as to improve their farming systems.

In the Kalimpong District, the researchers selected two Limbu communities to work with and three Lepcha villages, which they name: Lingsey, Lingseykha, and Tandrabong. The names of the first two signify the original beliefs of the people—Lingsey and Lingseykha originally meant “place of worship”—while Tandrabong means “drumming,” as in drumming during rituals.

Called the Smallholder Innovation for Resilience (SIFOR) project, the report terms their work as “biocultural heritage,” meaning the traditional knowledge in the study communities interconnected with spiritual values, landscapes, biodiversity, food resources, plus cultural and religious values. All are described in careful detail in this useful report. “Knowledge of trees, crops, animals and home-based health remedies still play a very important part in peoples’ lives and survival,” the authors write (p.12).

Mt. Kanchenjunga with yaks (Photo by Oliphant on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

An overview of Lepcha culture suggests that they still preserve their strong connections with the natural features that surround them—the mountains, the rocks, the lakes. They also remain connected with their ancestors. The Lepcha still consider themselves to be descendants of their sacred mountain, Mt. Kanchenjunga. They relate the landscape with their ancestors and the natural systems with their spiritual beliefs. In sum, their traditional beliefs and ways, their rituals and practices, form essential connections with their beliefs in solidarity, reciprocity, collective actions and with the natural world that surrounds them.

In the Lepcha villages, the Bungthings, the priests, keep endangered species of plants in their homestead gardens for ritual purposes. The Lepcha believe that they have so much knowledge of natural plants and the habits of wildlife that they will never face starvation. No matter what may happen to their organized agriculture, they will always be able to find something in nature that they can eat.

A Lepcha man and woman shown in an 1872 engraving (Image from Dalton’s Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal in Wikimedia, in the Public Domain)

The researchers investigated the issue of cultural changes in the study communities. They found that the Lepcha villages are experiencing some losses in the use of their language because Nepali, which dominates the district, has become the common language among all the ethnic communities. They note, however, that 100 percent of the people in the Lepcha households in the Lingsey-Lingseykha villages can still speak their language, even though Nepali is the dominant tongue. However, only 50 percent of the Lepchas in those two villages can write in their native language. Some efforts are being made to revive Lepcha language instruction in the primary schools.

The authors note that traditional styles of home construction have mostly been abandoned. Thatch roofing has been almost completely replaced by tin roofs. Only one traditional house remains in Lingsey, though it is well maintained. People have discussed building another, perhaps as a draw for tourists, but nothing has happened yet.

The consumption of traditional foods has also declined to the point where they are now eaten only on ceremonial occasions and weddings. Many traditional recipes have been lost in recent decades. One change that has occurred in the last three decades is that slash and burn agriculture is no longer being practiced. Farmers still use bullocks for plowing, though the number of the large animals is declining.

Lepcha women in traditional clothing in Singhik, Sikkim (Photo by Alice S. Kandell in the Library of Congress, no known restrictions on publication)

However, traditional collective activities, festivals, and beliefs are still practiced avidly. The investigators found that 100 percent of the Lepcha men and women participated in collective community activities, a trend that has remained stable in recent decades in Lingsey-Lingseykha. However, the numbers of participants have declined in Tandrabong village to 80 percent of the households.

Lepcha women continue to wear their traditional clothing on a daily basis but the men only wear their traditional garb on special occasions such as holidays and ceremonial occasions. But the controversial creation of the Mayel Lyang Lepcha Development Board (MLLDB) by West Bengal State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in 2013 has evidently done a lot to revive interest in the traditional language and dress. Many more men, the report points out, have recently resumed wearing the original Lepcha men’s hats.

Lepcha man in traditional bamboo hat and woven clothing holding knife in Singhik, Sikkim (Photo by Alice S. Kandell in the Library of Congress, no known restrictions on publication)

While the tradition of sharing resources has continued at the village level, an interesting development has been the growth of what are called “Self Help Groups.” The SHGs, which are formally supported by the communities, are helping the villagers gain access to various government resources. The state government of West Bengal has, in turn, become a major stakeholder in promoting the SHGs. The MLLDB is encouraging community activities such as language preservation, preserving traditional rituals, publishing magazines, and organizing cultural festivals.

The authors have provided a service for the Lepchas—plus the Limbus and the Central Himalayan societies as well—in describing where they are and suggesting things they might do to preserve and enhance not only their food security but also their cultural integrity.

Mukerjee, Prakriti, Reetu Sogani, Nawraj Gurung, Ajay Rastogi and Krystyna Swiderska. 2018. Smallholder Farming Systems in the Indian Himalayas: Key Trends and Innovations for Resilience. London: International Institute for Environment and Development, IIED Country Report, 68 p. PDF available at http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17618IIED.pdf

Units of the Philippine Army, aided by army engineers, have just completed a road that should benefit some of the Buid people of southern Mindoro Island. A report by a Philippine news agency on August 30 indicated that one of the primary purposes of the road is to provide access to market services for the local Mangyan communities.

A Buid boy (Screenshot from the video “Brutus, Ang Paglalakbay (Brutus: The Journey) Teaser” on Vimeo, Creative Commons license)

The news article identifies the beneficiaries of the new road only as “Mangyans,” the generic name for all the indigenous societies of the island. But judging by the maps in Thomas Gibson’s book Sacrifice and Sharing in the Philippine Highlands: Religion and Society among the Buid of Mindoro, the Mangyans in question would appear to be Buid. The new road has been constructed from Barangay Formon-Tawas in Bansud town south 9 km. to Barangay Malo in Bongabong town. Gibson did his fieldwork in Ayfay, in Bongabong.

Governor Alfonso Umali, plus army officers and local officials, participated in the soft opening of the road on August 25. The governor said in his comments that while the road project used to be a dream, it was now a reality. The project started on January 24th when a Memorandum of Partnership Agreement was signed by the army and the local governments involved.

General Rhoderick M. Parayno of the Philippines (Philippines government documents are not copyrighted)

Major General Rhoderick M. Parayno, commander of the 2nd Infantry Division, said that the construction of the road would help alleviate the conditions of the disadvantaged people living in the area, especially the local Mangyans. General Parayno went on to say that the Buid “can now bring to the markets their agricultural products easily and at the same time the [local government units] can now easily deliver the basic services and programs to the Indigenous People in the area.”

Another army officer, Brigadier General Antonio G. Parlade, Jr., from the 203rd Brigade, spoke about the support the army needed from local residents and other stakeholders in the project. He said that the NPA terrorists were eager to stop the project because, in his view, it might hamper their recruitment in the area. “We must be united in protecting this community development project,” Gen. Parlade said.

Their attitudes toward the Mangyans are quite different from the approach taken by the army in 2011. On April 15th that year, according to a contemporary news report, army personnel stormed into a Mangyan Day unity gathering in a military truck, brandishing their rifles. They were clearly trying to intimidate the Buid and the other Mangyans, who were gathered to discuss common issues such as land rights, mining in their territories, and relationships with Filipinos. The soldiers stayed most of the day. Some of the Mangyans melted away to avoid confrontations, their historic pattern, but others stayed, a change in their relationships to authority figures. But if the news report of two weeks ago is to be believed, the army, led by far–sighted officers such as the two generals mentioned, may also be changing its approaches to the peaceful, indigenous people.

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