Peaceful Societies

Global climate changes are having an impact on the Lepchas, who are quite aware of the local disruptions of weather patterns and are trying to cope with them. A journal article by Shukla et al. that was published last year reported the results of a careful study of the Lepcha in the Dzongu Reserve of North Sikkim. It described how they perceive climate changes and the ways they are adjusting to them.

View on the route into Yuksom, Sikkim, a town considered to be the gateway to the Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve (Photo by ks bluechip on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The purpose of the study was to identify perceptions of climate change by people living in or near the Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve of Sikkim and their strategies for adapting, with the hope that the resulting data will help the local communities cope better. The researchers focused on five villages in the Dzongu by surveying 60 randomly-selected households in each village—a total of 300 households out of 1380 in the five communities. Their questionnaires included four sections that sought the respondents’ perceptions of climate change, their reactions to climate-related events, their understandings of the ways biological systems are reacting to the changes, and the adaptive techniques the Lepchas are taking.

The researchers found that the vast majority of the respondents, 85 percent, were quite aware of temperature increases, though 12 percent were ignorant about the issue and 3 percent denied that temperatures had increased. The records of the local climate over the past 30 years supported the Lepcha majority. The responding households, confirming their answers, indicated that until just a few years ago they had not needed electric fans but they are using them now.

Rainfall in Yuksom, Sikkim, near Kanchenjunga (Photo by Marina on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The respondents were aware of specific issues related to climate change. About 35 percent noted that snow, which in the past had been a regular winter event, has now become rare. About 75 percent of the Lepchas observed that winds are becoming stronger as the temperature increases, though a minority were unaware of the changing wind patterns. About half believed that periods of drought were increasing because of erratic and unpredictable rainfall.

Changes in the length and duration of dry spells, combined with the erratic patterns of rainfall, have produced an increase in pest and disease outbreaks. And just as seriously, the numbers of pollinator insect species, including honeybees and bumblebees, have declined dramatically. This is having a very serious impact on farmers—virtually all the Lepchas in the sample are affected.

A fully grown Cardamom plant in India (Photo by Melanurya in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The major crop grown by 90 percent of the Lepchas in the sample is called “large cardamom.” The changing climate forces them to harvest the cardamom 10 to 15 days earlier than in the past. Furthermore, erratic rainfall during the peak flowering season for the crop causes the flowers to fall prematurely and to decay, which produces uneven fruiting in September and October. This has a negative effect on the quality and yield of the produce. The cardamom harvest, a major contributor to household income in the Dzongu, has also been impacted by increasing pests and diseases. As a result of the decline in the cardamom farming, mountain farmers are shifting to growing ginger instead.

Shukla et al. found that the Lepchas are adapting in other ways. Virtually all of them have started using mulch to help conserve moisture and to manage the temperature in the soil. The respondents said that they use local materials such as straw and other herbaceous plants as mulch. A majority indicated that they continue to use traditional agroforestry methods to help control the microclimates in their fields, and that they diversify their crops to help as well.

Contour farming in Sikkim (Photo by BharatDiscovery on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Oddly, more than half of the respondents indicated that they did not collect rainwater, though they were aware of the value of doing so. Furthermore, 95 percent of the households used cow urine and wood ashes to help manage insect pests, but 88 percent were not aware of the value of no-tillage farming. None of the surveyed households received any benefits from crop insurance policies or other government-sponsored schemes, and three-quarters of them were unaware that such programs even existed.

The authors concluded their report by saying that while climate change is having a definite impact on the lives of the Lepcha people, their responses are uneven. The indigenous knowledge of the Lepcha, such as their use of local mulching materials, clearly is helping them, but they are as yet unaware of such potentially beneficial practices as crop rotation. Shukla et al. hope their investigation will help the Lepchas to cope even better than they have been doing so far.

Shukla, Gopal, Ashok Kumar, Nizir A. Pala, and Sumit Chakravarty. 2016. “Farmers Perception and Awareness of Climate Change: a Case Study from Kanchandzonga Biosphere Reserve, India.” Environment Development and Sustainability 18(4): 1167-1176

Some of the G/wi and G//ana San people who were expelled from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana have since returned to their ancestral desert in order to be themselves. Hunting and gathering as they have always done defines who they are, they feel, so it is hard for them to stop, despite the fact that the government has outlawed hunting in the huge reserve. They can’t stop, they told a correspondent from the U.S. television network PBS in a broadcast on its NewsHour show last Tuesday.

A San family prepares to go hunting in Ghanzi, Botswana, immediately to the west of the CKGR (Photo by Petr Kosina in Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Special correspondent for PBS Martin Seemungal was told by a San man named Tolme Etata, “hunting and gathering is part of us.” They still hunt in the old way, with spears, bows and arrows. Most of the San people were forced to leave their desert homes by the government—to protect the wildlife, officials claimed—and resettled in new communities such as New Xade, located just outside the reserve. But the forced evictions conveniently removed them from any proximity to the diamonds that were discovered in the CKGR in the 1980s.

Mohulude Moete told Mr. Seemungal exactly how they were evicted. The soldiers and military police came into their village and said that either they get into the truck right now or they will be killed. The military people dumped their containers of water on the ground. “We had no options, so we had to go along with them or be shot,” he said. The women also revisited their memories of the soldiers destroying their homes and sealing up their wells. Botswana officials denied that there was any connection between the forced removals of the San people and the discovery of diamonds.

Festus Mogae at a conference in 2012 (Photo by Bluerasberry in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The video showed a clip of a brief interview with the former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae, who was responsible for many of the government’s repressive measures against the San. He was unrepentant: the San would not be allowed to return to their homes in the CKGR. The reporter then spoke with Onjustice Xothelo, who described the efficacy of the traditional desert huts, which could be built in two days and would last for ten years. The grass thatched roofs were completely waterproof, he said.

The report shifted focus to New Xade. It may have a school, a health clinic, and good roads, but the residents have erected traditional huts among the small houses built for them by the government, as reminders of what they used to have. New Xade lacks jobs for the residents. A man said that he is looking for work, he is dying of hunger, and he has nothing to do. But the program focused on the local bar, outside of which is a pile of beer cans. The bar in New Xade is clearly busy; alcoholism is rampant.

A San woman collecting puppas in Ghanzi, just outside the CKGR (Photo by Petr Kosina on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The reporter talked with Mosetayani Matsipane, a leader in the small settlement of Mothomelo in the CKGR. He said he was present for the ruling by the judges in the High Court decision of 2006, which acknowledged the rights of the San and ordered the government to allow them to return to their homes. He is glad to be out of New Xade now and back in Mothomelo, but he does not believe that the attitude of the government has changed.

He told the reporter than he is constantly under pressure to get out. “The government has been doing the same thing as before. But I would rather they take my dead body. I won’t go back.” His wife, Hakanyaziwe, agreed—she is happy in their ancestral village. “What’s important to me is the fruit of the land in Kalahari,” she said. It is such a contrast to New Xade, where everyone just focuses on money and where people have to steal to survive.

Mr. Seemungal interviewed Maitseo Bolaane, a professor at the University of Botswana and the director of its San Research Center. She argued that the San should be considered as an important resource for the health of the Kalahari. With their ideas, she said, the San “can contribute their knowledge system in the utilization of the resources.”

A couple months ago, some Kadar were working to restore one of their worship sites in Kerala’s Vazhachal Forest when forestry department officials going past asked them to stop. They politely refused, citing their rights under India’s Forest Rights Act (FRA). According to a report last week by Sibi Arasu in The News Minute, a South Indian digital news service, they were aware that maintaining their temple was permitted as one of their Community Forest Rights under the FRA.

The Athirappilly waterfall (Photo by Isabel Schulz on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The unusual aspect of the exchange was that the tribal group was not only aware of their rights but they were also willing to be assertive about them. They have long existed on the fringes of mainstream Kerala society, subject to the dictates of minor officials. Such assertiveness, the journalist writes, would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago, and it is still not an accepted way of interacting with outsiders for many of India’s tribal people.

The point the reporter made is that the Kadar of the Vazhachal area have changed over the past 10 years, mostly due to the controversial Athirappilly dam proposal and the involvement of the Kadar in trying to stop it. According to this report, the Kadar appear now to have successfully blocked the proposed hydropower dam on the Chalakkudy River. It doesn’t hurt their cause that the dam would also have virtually destroyed the Athirappilly Waterfall, one of India’s largest, and a major tourist draw for the state of Kerala.

Ms Anantha Latha from the River Research Center speaks at a Women, Rivers and Dams conference — Ms Anantha Latha from the River Research Centre speaks at a Women, Rivers and Dams conference (Photo by International Rivers on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Ms. Anantha Latha from the River Research Centre told Mr. Sibi that the Kadar have been forced out of their homes and hamlets repeatedly over the past century as the Chalakkudy River has already been dammed six different times. She told him, “When these dams came, [the Kadar] were forcefully displaced, because they mostly live along the forest valleys, they don’t live up on the ridge. There was no rehabilitation, no displacement norms, nothing.” As a result, the Kadar are now spread out, most of them in nine hamlets in the Vazhachal Forest Division.

The seventh dam, first proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board in 1982, was designed to be located near two Kadar communities and the famed waterfall. The Kadar decided to contest it. After numerous protests, bogus environmental impact statements, and more than four court cases, the Kadar seem to have won, though that conclusion by the reporter contradicts a report in March 2017 that the Kerala government is not about to give up on the Athirappilly Project and it is still maneuvering to secure the necessary land in order to build the dam.

Ms. Geetha at the river that she is trying to protect (Photo by Parineeta Dandekar on SANDRP website, Creative Commons license)

Mr. Sibi also interviewed Ms. K. Geetha, the Oorumooppathy, or leader of the Kadar in the Vazhachal Forest. Referring to Ms. Geetha as “a charismatic person,” Mr. Sibi credited her complete mastery of the facts about the dam proposal and her understanding of the provisions of the FRA as the keys that have successfully empowered the Kadar community.

She complained to the journalist that each time they have been forced to move, others have benefited rather than the Kadar. “From this dam, we won’t even get any electricity for our village, so why should we move again?” she asked rhetorically. She made it clear to the reporter that the Kadar will not permit any future developments in the forest. “These forests are ours and we’re going to protect them to the best of our abilities,” she asserted.

Ms. Geetha was not finished. She said that as a result of the active stance by her group, government officials have changed their attitudes toward them. They used to denigrate the Kadar as not being worth their attention when they entered their offices: “they looked down at us, we were not treated as equals.” But now, she said, when they visit a government office, “the officers ask us to come and sit.” They know that the Kadar have rights that they must respect. She added that their relationship with the broader non-Kadar community has also improved. Other leaders come to Ms. Geetha for support with their issues and she contacts them at times. She is clearly proud of the mutual support system that has developed.

Tribal women and children, probably Kadar, photographed in a Kadar area near Kochi, Kerala (Photo by Elleen Delhi on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Forest Department employs many of the Kadar and it purchases non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such as gooseberries and honey that they collect. With the authorization provided by the FRA, the Kadar are also trying to establish community enterprises of their own. They plan to weave baskets and mats with reeds and they hope to establish a jackfruit enterprise. They are considering growing NTFPs in abandoned plantations that fall within their control. Several NGOs such as WWF-India are giving support to their endeavors.

Other Kadar than Ms. Geetha told the reporter that they too were happy with developments. Ms. A. Manju from Wachumaram, one of the hamlets, discussed the past when they were required to move. But like the others, she defines herself as a forest denizen. “We’ve always belonged to these forests and hardly any of our people have ever left [them].” The Forest Resources Act reinforces her beliefs.

The reporter for The News Minute made the point that many issues and concerns remain. He interviewed N. Rajesh, the District Forest Officer for Vazhachal, who said that officials need to work with the tribal people in order to manage and effectively protect the forest and its resources. He expressed concern about the infrastructure in the forest that should be developed with the input of the Kadar but he sounded as cautiously optimistic as they are.

The Yanadi in Andhra Pradesh are asking why their customs do not seem to have any standing with local officials. They are upset that a marriage between a 17-year old Yanadi boy and a 13-year old girl was broken up by officers who decided that the girl was too young to be married. The Yanadi claim that child marriages are part of their customs. The Hindu broke the news about the intervention by officials in their family affairs in late May, but an account on June 18 in The Indian Express provided better details about the clash.

Men picking in a mango orchard on Reunion Island (Photo by B. navez in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The parents of the young people had worked as guards at a mango orchard so they had grown up as playmates eating mangoes under the trees. At some point the two became inseparable, fell in love, and decided to marry. The parents of the girl proposed marriage to the boy and he agreed. In their community, marriages as young as 14 or 15 are still common, according to The Indian Express.

The couple lived with their families in the Yanadi hamlet of Eguva Bandarlapalle, in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. A government official with Integrated Child Development Services heard about the love match while doing work in the tribal hamlets that surround the Koundinya Wildlife Sanctuary. With police support, she went to the hamlet and told the Yanadi that the impending marriage violated national law, the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. Citing the law, the officials seized the girl and sent her to a hostel run by a group called the Rural Organization for Poverty Eradication.

The Yanadi strongly opposed the intervention by the officials. It was their tradition for girls to marry when they reached puberty, they said, and if a couple had decided to marry, age was not an issue with them. They added that marriages depended on work being available, and a boy who had a job was free to marry a girl, even if she was under 18.

The official who had intervened spoke defensively to The Indian Express. Ms. M. Nirmala, the Child Development Project Officer, said that the wedding ceremony had not taken place yet when she heard about it and intervened. She continued, “Irrespective of their customs and traditions, it amounts to child marriage.” She did not accept that the young people are in love. The girl had dropped out of school while she was a member of class 5, and it was the families that had decided to marry them, she asserted. Ms. Nirmala is attempting to convince the parents to prevent the girl from getting married until she turns 18.

An instructor explaining a test for water quality at a Kasturba Gandhi Balikala Vidyalaya school in Andhra Pradesh (Photo by Indiawaterportal.org on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

If the parents do not agree to prevent the marriage, the girl will be required to remain at the hostel where she will receive training for tailoring. If they do, the agent has made arrangements for her to be admitted to a Kasturba Gandhi Balikala Vidyalaya school in Andhra Pradesh. The KGBV schools are residential facilities set up by the government of India to provide schooling for girls from disadvantaged groups such as scheduled tribes like the Yanadi who would not otherwise get an education.

The families of both the girl and the boy objected to the intervention by the officials and the police. Chibasa Seetaiah, the father of the boy, spoke forcefully to the reporter: “When the girl’s parents do not have any objection, why are these women [the officials] objecting? Government rules do not apply to us because we follow tribal customs. My son has not said anything to me but the girl’s father said they already got married in the forest, so why are they now being separated?’’

A dhaba, a roadside restaurant in India (photo by Neil Satyam in Wikimedia Creative Commons license)

The father of the girl, Rajababu, told the police that he was not opposed to the marriage, which he said had already occurred, because the boy was also a Yanadi. Furthermore, he was employed as a worker at a dhaba, a roadside restaurant.

S. Kamarunissa, an official for the Palamner Police Division, told The Indian Express that the families had shown the officials the mangalasutra, the necklace that had been used during the wedding ceremony of the young couple. A mangalasutra, literally a sacred thread that a groom ties around the neck of his bride to signify that they are married, is widely used in India.

A mangalasutra, a bridal necklace in India (Photo by Parekh Cards on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Despite the evidence of the sacred thread that the families produced, the officials were unrelenting. “However, since it is a child marriage, we seized it and told them the marriage was illegal,” the official said. Although they resisted initially, it appears from the conclusion of The Indian Express news story that the Yanadi are not going to contest the issue any farther. The boy, fearing the police, changed his story and lied to officials, saying that he and the girl had not gotten secretly married in the forest. (The earlier news report in The Hindu gave more details about their forest wedding.) But the Yanadi have a long tradition of accepting the dictates of authority figures: the parents of the girl relented and said they would agree to allow her to remain in the hostel.

The literature on the Yanadi provides a lot of information about their marriage customs, including their tradition of allowing child brides. The scholarship supports their position in this controversy. Rao (2002) wrote that a Yanadi girl could be married traditionally around age 13, as soon as she reached puberty, while a boy was considered ready for marriage when he started growing a mustache, or about age 15. At Rao’s study site—Sriharikota Island in the late 1970s—out of the 234 married couples he surveyed, the men were two to five years older than their wives in 229 of them.

“Marriage is seen as a natural phenomenon and it is considered unnatural to be a bachelor or a spinster,” Rao wrote (p.142). He added a most interesting observation: Yanadi believed that if men didn’t get married, they would fight for females and, similarly, if women didn’t marry, they would fight for males. Hence, without marriages, disorder, chaos and violence would reign.

According to the book Yanadi Response to Change, an Attempt in Action Anthropology by Agrawal, Rao and Reddy (1985), in traditional Yanadi society the consent of the girl was essential when marriage negotiations were taking place between families. Perhaps the earliest account of the Yanadi, made by one John Shortt in 1864, confirmed Agrawal, Rao and Reddy. According to Raghaviah (1962), Shortt wrote that a Yanadi marriage was based only on the consent of the couple. The young man and woman would arrange their wedding themselves. He would tie the marriage string on the neck of his bride and they would then go to the husband’s home. Yanadi women were never married before they had reached puberty.

But things are changing. A recent study of the Yanadi by Stanley Jaya Kumar (1995) noted that while marriage is a universal practice among them, in his study community Yanadi women married when they were between ages 15 and 20 and men when they were between 18 and 25.

Perhaps if the child welfare and police officials in the Chittoor District had been aware of their traditions and history, they might have been more sympathetic to the Yanadi perspective. They should have realized how strongly the Yanadi feel about marriage, yet how they are recently adapting to the demands of the nation by marrying when they are older. And the questions the Yanadi are asking remain challenging: how much should the spirit of their ancient traditions be followed when they conflict with the laws of the nation?

Increasing prosperity in Northeast Thailand over the past 30 years has prompted researchers to wonder how changing economic conditions have affected the Rural Thai in that region. In 1982/83 and again in 2008/09, Jonathan Rigg and Albert Salamanca did a longitudinal (or “panel”) study of two villages in Mahasarakham Province in Isan, the term often used for the northeastern region of the country, to study this issue.

Rural Thai celebrate Khao Phansa Day, the Candle Festival, in Isan, probably in the town of Kalasin (Photo by Larry Oien on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

They surveyed 81 households in the villages in 1982/83 and 77 the second time around—interviewing as much as possible the same people or their descendants. They reported their findings in a recent journal article. The essence of their report is that enormous changes have swept through the two villages, similar to the ones in the rest of rural Thailand. Isan has changed from a subsistence farming society to a non-farm cash economy, and from mostly rural poverty to more or less rural prosperity.

The authors had expected that most of the surveyed households in the two villages would be better off but they were surprised about what they termed the “turbulence” in their results. Far more households than expected had moved radically upward in their ranking of income and wealth over the 26 year period but, conversely, numerous others were much poorer than expected. The reasons are complex.

Young Rural Thai during the Khao Phansa Day, the Candle Festival, in Isan (Photo by Larry Oien on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

One of the factors identified by Rigg and Salamanca was that in the early 1980s children of school age were not necessarily an economic drag on a household. Kids were able to perform economically important functions for their families, such as weeding fields, caring for buffaloes, and collecting wild foods.

By 2008, however, children were mostly in schools and farming families faced labor shortages. Hired labor had become expensive and the tradition of reciprocity—of sharing labor among farming families—had almost ceased. Furthermore, older farm children had been required to continue going to school—the number of years of compulsory schooling had been raised from 6 to 9 and then to 12 years by 1997.

An old school bus passing through a village in Isan — A school bus passing through a village in Isan (Screenshot from the video “Life in My Thailand, Morning in the Isaan Jungle Village” by Jens Chanthasook Sommer on YouTube, Creative Commons license)

With their older children now required to go to school and do homework, families were restrained from deploying them to help with the work. As a result, richer families in the authors’ study villages in 2008 had significantly higher numbers of working members—3.3 members between the ages 15 and 64—compared to the poorer households, which had only 1.4 people of working age. The poorer households had more non-productive mouths to feed, such as kids and elders.

Another factor adding to the confusion was that farm work was gradually being replaced by non-farm work as the economic basis of households. Because of that, the average age of farmers in the two villages had risen from 36 to 55 over the 26-year period. The reasons for the decline of farming in Isan have not been just economic and demographic, however. Farming is no longer viewed as a high-status field to go into, particularly for young people. It has become an occupation to avoid.

A rice paddy in Isan, near Mahasarakham (Photo by autan in Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The basic issue is that wealth in Isan in 1982/83, including the Mahasarakham Province, was based primarily on wet-rice production, though other cash crops were grown in some upland areas too. At that time, the extent of land holdings were viewed as an indicator of household wealth. In other words, the 1982/83 study showed that the richest families at the time were the ones that owned the most acreage.

Oddly, by 2008, that factor had been reversed: land ownership had become mostly a symbol of poverty. The reason is that since income is now generated by non-farm labor, wealth is perceived in terms of other factors, such as the extent of personal education and the ability to migrate to different areas to secure good jobs. Owning a farm is now seen as a drag on household prosperity.

The authors found that numerous families had not only risen to prosperity but, surprisingly, others had declined into poverty. For instance, the family of a Mrs. Achara was among the prosperous group of people in their village in 1983; they owned plenty of rice-growing land. Her husband ran a profitable business trading livestock. But he was killed by lightning, leaving her with three young children to raise. The business soon collapsed and she had a serious illness so she had to sell a lot of land to pay the medical bills. By the time the authors interviewed her again in 2008 and 2009, she was one of the village poor in terms of both income and assets.

Cattle in the Mahasarakham Province, Isan region (Photo by Da, also known as Kym, in Wikipedia, Creative Commons license)

The authors reflected that the markers of wealth in the villages had mostly disappeared between the two survey periods. Household ownership of cattle was a marker of relative wealth in 1982/83 but it was not much of a discriminating factor in 2008. Although the villages were much more prosperous in 2008/09 than they had been 26 years before, people were still vulnerable and they still felt many economic pressures. They now needed to find the resources to pay for such essentials as electricity, gasoline for their vehicles, nights out, treats for their children, tuition for a university, and so on. Many households, Rigg and Salamanca conclude, may seem to have relative prosperity but they often feel that they are not too far away from poverty.

Rigg, Jonathan and Salamanca, Albert. 2015. “The Devil in the Detail: Interpreting Livelihood Turbulence from a 25-Year Panel Study from Thailand. Area 47(3): 296-304

Jeffrey Suydam, a key player in the establishment of the Peaceful Societies website 13 years ago, died suddenly on June 17th. A highly peaceful man as well as a very creative technical advisor, Jeff’s support for the website, and for anything having to do with computers, was amazing. A nephew by marriage of this website writer, he was always willing to share his technical knowledge about anything having to do with computers or websites. Peace, family, computers, websites—he made them all work so well.

Jeff Suydam and his daughter Morgan in 2015

Jeff was born on January 15, 1970, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, a town overlooking the Delaware River and South Jersey where he lived most of his life. He worked for many years as a Senior Systems Engineer at Admiral Insurance Group but he took a new position as a Senior Systems Engineer at Sungard Availability Services less than two years ago. He married my niece Heidi Myers Suydam in 1996 and the two of them have a wonderful daughter, Morgan, who is now 17. In large part due to Jeff’s influence, they have a peaceful family which will doubtless remain so even though the father of the family is gone.

Jeff clearly had a strong interest in peacefulness and in the value of studying societies that are, or have been, highly peaceful. He had a helpful, caring spirit that guided his life. His interest in peacefulness was critical in getting the website designed in 2003-04, launched in test mode late in 2004, and finally opened to the public in January 2005.

He, with the support and cooperation of his cousin, Matt Albright, were the glue that held the Peaceful Societies website project together in the days when we were designing pages with the Dreamweaver program. While Matt lives in California, Jeff lived much closer to this writer so he could easily assume the role of helping make sure that everything went well.

A review of emails with Jeff and careful notes on our meetings during that formative period shows that this writer asked many questions that must have seemed quite dumb to him, but he answered all of them with patience and skill. Jeff was a good teacher with the rare ability to skillfully answer questions from those of us with little technical chops. He made me feel as if each question I asked was a good one, even though I suspect he wondered about my intelligence more than once.

Although the website moved in January 2016 to its present location within the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Jeff still provided moral support, even if he had to answer fewer questions. I will always remember his unique skills and supportive attitudes. This website wouldn’t have been possible without him.

A number of Malaysian volunteers, guided by a team of researchers, built a group of four prototype houses for some Semai families that combined traditional forest products with modern construction materials and techniques. A journalist, accompanied by several of the university researchers guiding the project, took a trip by motorcycle along rough forest paths to visit the community and report on it for a Malay news website.

A traditional Semai hut in Kumpung Asli Rening, which has a metal roof and palm leaf walls — A Semai hut in Kampung Asli Rening, which has a metal roof and palm leaf walls (Photo by tian yake on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

A Facebook post dated January 2 this year provided the backstory in English. The Faculty of Design and Architecture of the Universiti Putra Malaysia was awarded the Volunteer Malaysia prize for their creative house-building project. The construction took place in Perak state between January 2015 and April 2016. The new homes were built using standard construction supplies such as cement, PVC pipes, and metal roofing, but they were combined with natural materials such as wood, bamboo, and palm leaves for the walls. The Prime Minister of Malaysia was present at the awards ceremony. The project included 22 volunteers, both university students and alumni, and 10 members of the faculty and staff. Publicity about the award inspired the reporter to follow up with a visit to the hamlet.

Hartini Mohd Nawi, the reporter, accompanied by Dr. Mohammed Fared and Dr. Wan Mohamed Wan Rihani from the faculty, rode a motorcycle over a steep, narrow forest road in order to reach the Semai village in Kampung Batu 17, Tapah, Perak. A group of Semai were waiting for the visitors at the end of the four-wheel drive access road to accompany them the rest of the way along the motorcycle path to their hamlet. The visitors were told that the path provided the only vehicle access to their community.

A Semai man in Kampung Asli Rening, in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia (Photo by tian yake on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

One Semai man, Ramli Bang, 50, explained to the author that it takes two hours on foot to reach the community. The primitive road crosses a narrow bridge over a creek and detours around a large boulder before reaching the hamlet. Mr. Nawi compared the experience to riding a roller coaster. A helicopter landing spot has been cleared near the end of the path in case of emergencies.

A resident of one of the newly constructed houses, Baduk Bang, 52, told the author that he was happy, comfortable, and inspired by living in a home that had been built with modern construction methods and materials but which also included local forest products.

Another resident, Bahdik Bahlih, 47, said that he was more comfortable in his new home than in the earlier one. He emphasized how pleased he was with the new property. He added that he likes to catch butterflies and sell them to buyers in the Cameron Highlands to supplement his income. Along the rough road back out of the hamlet, Ramli Bang discussed with the visitors the unique qualities of the forest they were driving through.

James Glass recently traveled from his home on Tristan da Cunha to visit relatives in New London, Connecticut. A descendant of Corporal William Glass, the founder and first leader of the British colony on Tristan, James Glass was the subject of an article in The Day, the New London newspaper. The paper described his famous ancestor, his island home, and other members of the Glass family whom he met for the first time, but it did not mention how whaling tied the communities together.

Whales as street art in New London, Connecticut (Photo by Smudge 9000 on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Members of the Glass family would all be familiar with the history. Corporal Glass and his family decided to stay behind on the island and found a colony along with two civilians when a military garrison that he’d been part of was withdrawn in 1817. Over the years, the Glass family had eight sons and eight daughters. By the time Corporal Glass passed away in 1853, many of his children had become whalers, or had married whalers, and had settled in New London, one of the major whaling ports on the coast of New England. Not long after the patriarch died, his widow, Maria, and most of the remaining family left Tristan on some whaling ships to settle with their family in New London, though some of them later returned to Tristan.

James Glass visited the Cedar Grove Cemetery in New London to see the graves of ancestors who had migrated to Connecticut in the mid-1800s. On Tristan, he is the Head of the Fisheries Department, which oversees the lobster fishing industry. He planned to fly on to Santa Barbara, California, to study a lobster fishing operation in a Marine Protected Area. Tristan is planning to create a marine protected area of its own in a few years. He was accompanied on his trip by his wife and their 10-year old grandson.

Mabel Clark’s Guest House symbolizes the hustle of the Tristan Islanders (Photo by Brian Gratwicke on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

He described his island for The Day reporter, Kimberly Drelich, as a highly peaceful place. He told her there is no crime and only one police officer on the island, an assertion that was reported in an earlier news story. The islanders enjoy swimming in the ocean but they don’t play serious sports, he said. The island has a hospital with two doctors and five nurses, plus one school for 34 children. The community will pay the costs of schooling beyond that level for children who want more education.

Mr. Glass said that everyone on the island is employed. “We don’t have any social services,” he told the reporter. “We try to find work for everyone.” He explained that people on Tristan typically do many different things. In addition to directing the fisheries operations, he serves as a conservation officer, as a member of the Island Council, and as the Eucharistic Minister for the Catholic Church in the Settlement.

A sperm whale weather vane on St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Tristan da Cunha (Photo by Brian Gratwicke on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

One of the more interesting aspects of the historical connection between New London and Tristan is the fact that the original “constitution” of the settlement on the island was rediscovered in New London. Peter A. Munch pieced the story together for his landmark book Crisis in Utopia (1971).

He wrote that Corporal Glass and his two civilian partners prepared a constitution of sorts, a written agreement between them, which they signed in the presence of the commanding officer of the departing garrison, Lt. R.S. Aitchison, on November 7, 1817. The three agreed to the formation of a communal society, with purchases to be paid for equally and ownership of everything to be divided evenly.

While those communistic articles in the document soon proved to be unworkable and were abandoned, some of the other ideals that they put into writing persisted. For instance, article 4 in their compact stated: “That in order to ensure the harmony of the Firm, No member shall assume any superiority whatever, but all to be considered as equal in every respect, each performing his proportion of labour, if not prevented by sickness (Munch 1971, p.29).”

Munch pointed out that this document was put in a drawer and soon forgotten, but the spirit of equality, anarchy, and independence that it captured from the founders lasted, despite some changes in practices forced on the settlement by circumstances. After William’s death, when the remaining members of his family decided to move to New London, the document apparently went along too. There, in 1932, it was rediscovered in the possession of an aging granddaughter of William’s and deposited in the British Museum.

Summarizing the historical connection between New London and Tristan, Munch wrote that the document encapsulated the “spirit of freedom, equality, and idealistic anarchy” (p.31) of Tristan da Cunha, which has remained a driving force among the islanders to this day.

A band from Amsterdam is heading for Namibia to collaborate with four Ju/’hoansi grandmothers as they perform music that will blend the traditions of the San with contemporary European styles. A news report in the New Era newspaper last week explained the origins and history of the project.

Shishani performing with her band Namibian Tales — Shishani performing with her band The Namibian Tales (Screen capture from the video “Get Close to Talent: Shishani & the Namibian Tales” on Vimeo, Creative Commons license)

The band, called The Namibian Tales, with lead guitarist and soloist Shishani Vranckx, focuses on the music of Namibia because Shishani has always had an affinity for that country and a desire to connect with it musically and culturally. She performs with Bence Huszar on the cello, Afron Nuambali on the bass guitar, Sjahin During as the percussionist, and Debby Korfmacher on the kora, the mbira, and as a vocalist. Shishani and her partner, Sjahin, started the group in 2005 according to the article, though another source indicated that the two founded the group in 2015.

“The idea was to study music from Namibia, regardless of which group of people,” Shishani told the New Era reporter, but the band began with a concentration on the Ju/’hoansi since she had listened to their music as a teenager on her first CD. Her idea was to engage the San people musically because she wanted to focus on the most traditional music from that country. She and the other band members hope that their collaboration with Ju/’hoansi performers will create some income for the communities they come from. They also intend to host workshops for the Ju/’hoansi musicians on management of their music. And they want to create new kinds of music with them.

A four-minute YouTube video published in March 2017 presents snippets of performances in Ju/’hoansi villages during a visit to the Kalahari in November 2016. The video shows Shishani, other members of The Namibian Tales, and their San hosts as they sing, dance together, and share an enjoyment of learning the musical styles of each other.

The Namibian Tales has collaborated with the four grandmothers—//Ao /Ui, Seg//ae /Kun, N!ae N!ani and //Ao N!ani—to produce eight songs. The band focuses on the Ju/’hoansi because they are, Shishani said, “the most [marginalized] group in the country.” She added that she felt they have a very rich culture that is being ignored. She dismissed the practice of the San people performing for tourists dressed in their traditional skin clothing since those performances do not really treat them as partners, or as equals, or as experts in their music, which they really are.

Some Ju/’hoansi kids, the future of their music and culture in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy (Photo by Gil Eilam on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Shishani added that she and her colleagues are driven to finding out as much as they can about the meaning of Ju/’hoansi music before the elderly people pass away and their musical traditions are lost. She said that it is urgent that they focus on the elders by capturing their songs and making recordings that the young Ju/’hoansi can relate to.

She said that their language is difficult and not widely understood. Their rhythms are complex and it is sometimes hard to figure out what their songs are about. Shishani indicated that it has taken The Namibian Tales a while to grasp the complexities of the San music as they have recorded it. The band plans to return to the San villages in December to record musical performances. They expect to collect them for a Namibian musical museum that they hope will open soon. In essence, they want the Ju/’hoansi performers to be recognized for their talents.

A brief journal article published last month provides a thorough description of the poverty of a Birhor community in India. While not pleasant reading, the report is important because it does summarize the conditions under which the Birhor struggle.

Rural Mandu Block, Jharkhand State (Screen capture from the video “No Road Yet in this Village” by VideoVolunteers on YouTube, Creative Commons license)

Jai Kumar and Rajni Kant Kumar did a careful survey of the 55 Birhor families living in the village of Duru Kasmar, which is in the Mandu Block, Ramgarh District of Jharkhand State. They write that the Birhor in the hamlet they studied, part of Duru Kasmar village, still attempt to maintain their traditional economic activities, though they still suffer from extreme poverty.

Out of the 55 families in the hamlet, over three-quarters make their living from traditional work: 10 from rope making and another 33 from the sale of forest products in a nearby market town. The remaining 12 families receive funds through what the authors refer to as “social scheme,” presumably government welfare benefits. Many also engage in wage labor. The money they receive is mostly spent on food and clothing.

A well with polluted water in a Birhor hamlet in Jharkhand (Screen capture from the video “Birhor Community Becoming Extinct at Lohadanda, Koderma, Jainagar, Jharkhand” by VideoVolunteers on YouTube, Creative Commons license)

The Birhor children of Duru Kasmar as well as many adults suffer from diseases, in part because their water is very limited and what they do have is highly polluted. The wells they use are either on private land or dry up in the summer months. One well is not functioning at all. They also have access to three small ponds in the village but two of them dry up in the summer and none of them have water that is safe to drink.

The authors write that the people live in “kuccha” houses, facilities that an earlier article by Deborah Nadal had referred to as “pukka” houses. Toilets are not available for those individual houses and there is no drainage system for the hamlet. The lack of safe drinking water combined with the absence of toilets contribute to the prevalence of diseases.

A Birhor woman tying up a goat (Screen capture from the video “Birhor—a Tribe Displaced for Nothing” by VideoVolunteers on YouTube, Creative Commons license)

Although most of the families have been settled for decades, the lands they live on have not been properly registered. There is space around their houses for them to raise some livestock, but only 8 of the 55 families keep even a few animals—15 chickens, 15 goats and sheep, and 13 pigs among them. Most of the households have government-issued BPL (Below the Poverty Line) ration cards and they take advantage of the public distribution system (PDS) in India to obtain 35 kg of rice every month.

Although the hamlet is close to a highway, there is no public or private transportation available. The Birhor walk to nearby market towns, either 5 km to one or 10 km to another. When crisis situations arise, such as a case of a snakebite or a woman goes into labor, there is no transportation to medical facilities. The children have no access to a school. More than 90 percent of the Birhor males in Duru Kasmar are addicted to alcohol.

Women in a Birhor hamlet in Jharkhand (Screen capture from the video “Birhor Community Becoming Extinct at Lohadanda, Koderma, Jainagar, Jharkhand” by VideoVolunteers on YouTube, Creative Commons license)

The authors provide many suggestions for changes that administrators and the Birhor themselves should make to improve the lot of the people—technical training, financial assistance, and the like. Many of their suggestions seem quite reasonable, such as their emphasis on the notion that the residents should be included in the planning of new approaches to development. The Birhor of this community are unaware of their rights and they need to become involved and heard. They should not continue to be dependent on free grants and aid but should be offered opportunities that work for and empower them, the authors conclude.

Kumar, Jai and Rajni Kant Kumar. 2017. “Assessment of Development Plan and Protection for Birhor Community of Duru Kasmar Village, Mandu, Jharkhand.” IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science 22 (5), May: 77-82

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New Semai Houses

Whaling History Connects Distant Communities

Blending European and Ju/’hoansi Music

Birhor Poverty in India [journal article review]

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