Peaceful Societies

A Paliyan woman was assaulted in broad daylight at a public bus stop in Tamil Nadu recently, prompting a series of three articles last week in the Times of India. The reporter focused the articles on changes in Paliyan society and the abusive attitudes toward the Paliyans held by some Tamils that have developed as a result.

The first article, published early last week, described the assault on R. Malliga, a middle-aged Paliyan woman, which occurred in the town of Periyakulam. The reporter learned that the attack was an attempt to force Ms. Malliga to pay a debt her family allegedly owes to upper caste Hindus in the district for a lease on some land. Malliga responded that she and her family did not receive any cash loans, and that they had been trapped into the debt by Hindus who were exploiting them for their labor.

The reporter contacted S. Thanaraj, an activist with the tribal rights group Ekta Parishad, a well-known Indian NGO that organized a major march on New Delhi 18 months ago. That effort prominently included Paliyan participants and was reported by news stories on October 11 and October 18, 2012.

Thanaraj told the TOI reporter that the Paliyans used to forage nomadically for forest products such as honey and medicinal plants, avoiding contacts as much as possible with the majority Tamil people of the plains. The Paliyans normally did not carry identity cards. But then they began such agricultural pursuits as cultivating lemon, coffee, and silk cotton on lands that they leased from the Tamils. They would have to sell their produce to their landlords to settle their debts.

The Paliyans did not understand the relationships of money to the value of land and the produce that they harvested, so they were subject to exploitation by their landlords, who would fix the prices for the leases and the harvests. The Paliyans would often end their leases having earned nothing and still owing the Hindus money on their accounts. Then, they might be tortured if they couldn’t pay their debts, or forced into bonded labor until they could.

The article contends that there are hundreds of Paliyan families scattered in rural communities to the west of the major south Indian city of Madurai who are being exploited by the Hindus for their labor in this fashion. Ms. Malliga worked for a week with the police to prepare a case against the upper caste Hindus under the provisions of the scheduled castes/scheduled tribes laws of India.

When she succeeded, some upper caste Hindus brought a counter suit against the Paliyans. However, according, to R. Sethu, the deputy superintendent of police in Theni District of Tamil Nadu, where Periyakulam is located, that complaint by the Tamils appears to be invalid.

On April 5, another Times of India report by the same journalist, V. Devanathan, indicated that politicians never visit the Paliyan villages in Theni District as elections approach. The people are unaware of possible candidates or political parties that are contending for their votes, though party workers will arrive on election day and attempt to transport some of the tribal people to local polling places.

K. Ramar, a patriarch in one village, said that most Paliyans have yet to register in the electoral list, in part because they are illiterate. Ramar said that they were ignorant about the candidates and the elections, and most of them did not really know even their correct ages.

K. Lakshmi Ammal, a resident of another village the reporter visited, said the same things—that they don’t get very involved in elections. “Many of us do not have electoral cards. Politicians would not turn up at our settlement on voting day. Politicians had promised us several things, but they have not fulfilled them,” she said.

The third Times of India article by the same journalist provided further information about the villages visited, particularly their obvious poverty. The people do without basic amenities such as electricity, safe housing, sanitation, and clean drinking water. S. Thanaraj told the journalist that while the state of Karnataka provides tribal people with adequate nutritional foods, Tamil Nadu only gives out basic rations.

K. Ramar, the Paliyan patriarch, told the writer that the Paliyans (or Paliyar as they are also called) “do not know about government schemes or benefits. Old age pensions to nine old people were stopped abruptly. Petitions filed to various government officials on their behalf by our sympathisers were neglected. The old don’t even get two … meals [per day]. The lands allotted to the tribals are encroached by upper castes.”

According to Gorer’s book Himalayan Village, effective speech is highly prized by the Lepcha people, and storytelling is among their most valued skills. Gorer explains that “story-telling is the major Lepcha art and distraction (p.265).” Stories told around the fire in the evenings are sometimes of such length that they may take numerous days to complete. Stories are also told during tedious work activities: someone will tell one while everyone is weeding a crop.

Stories may be told on formal occasions, such as at weddings or feasts, or one may begin spontaneously when an uncommon insect or bird is seen. The sight of the animal will prompt someone to tell the story associated with that particular critter. Gorer describes the Lepcha stories as quite vivid, since they employ precise, concrete visual images. He provides, in the appendices to the book, some examples of the stories.

An NGO based in Darjeeling and Bangalore, India, Acoustic Traditional, is going into this subject in much greater depth than Gorer did. It is recording the stories and folklore of the Lepchas and their neighboring societies in order to preserve their oral traditions before they go extinct. Acoustic Traditional was founded by Kwoico Salil Mukhia, a young man from the Koinch indigenous community. He started his professional career as a music teacher but he developed an interest in storytelling, and from there he took up the preservation of oral traditions.

According to a recent article in the Himalayan Times, a news service from Nepal, Mukhia has documented 800 stories from 12 different communities in South Asia, including the Nilgiri in southern India and the Manipur in the eastern part of the country. His group has been including popular and rare stories, as well as folklore since it began work 15 years ago.

Since 2006, the group has concentrated its efforts on the Eastern Himalayan region of India, especially Sikkim and the bordering region of West Bengal state. In addition to the Lepcha oral tradition, it has documented the stories of Mr. Mukhia’s Koinch people, plus the Bhutia, Tamang, Limbu, and Raj societies.

Mukhia pointed out to the news service that 70 percent of the oral traditions of these societies has already gone extinct. “These are the stories that we don’t get to hear,” he said. “Most of them are rare stories. If not documented, there is a high chance that they won’t be published and heard anywhere in the world because there is no one to narrate those stories.”

He indicated that the stories may range from a few minutes long to ones that can take all night to tell. They are usually narrated by shamans or medicine men and women, but some are also told by elders. He said that the stories are “good to hear.”

He recorded Tsangdup Taso, a Lepcha Bungthing, the last surviving shaman of the Lepcha people, who died not long after sharing a story. His story telling session with Acoustic Traditional was 48 minutes long. The news report does not mention the fact that Mr. Taso died of a heart attack during the massive Sikkim earthquake of September 2011.

Speaking about the deceased shaman, Mukhia told the Himalayan Times, “There is no way to go back to know about his family. Nothing is left. Hence, these stories are important pieces of world history. They should not be forgotten just because they are a tribe. They are a culture and intangible heritage.” The story his group recorded involved a family conserving the worship of Mt. Kanchenjunga, an 800-year old tradition.

The stories recorded by Acoustic Traditional are translated into English and printed by hand on Nepali paper exactly as they are told in an attempt to lose as little as possible in the translation. Mukhia says that understanding the stories is an excellent way to preserve the cultural tradition of the community.

But Mukia goes beyond just recording and translating stories told by the elders and shamans. While he used to focus solely on the stories themselves, he told the reporter, “now I’m being able to see their spiritual and scientific philosophy and their cultural legacy.”

The stories have become, for him, “science, ethno-medicine and ethno-botany.” He says the stories foster an awareness of the similarities among the different societies he records. While they have their disparities, they all worship nature, for example.

Acoustic Traditional is presenting a storytelling experience in Katmandu for the rest of this month called “Stories on the Verge.” The project began on March 29 and will be held every Saturday in April at the facilities of a Nepalese government agency, the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities, Jawalakhel.

The storytelling experience of the rural Himalayan peoples will then travel for three years to other cities in South Asia in order to bring to life this aspect of Himalayan cultures. The Facebook page of Acoustic Traditional provides more information about the group and its activities.

A library assistant at the Mississauga Library, Craig Rowland, will be presenting a program in late April about his 23 day stay last autumn on Tristan da Cunha. Mr. Rowland has selected a couple hundred photos out of the thousands he took to accompany his presentation.

Rowland has traveled to many places that are far off the beaten tourist routes, but Tristan may be one of the most difficult to get to. He had to go to Cape Town and book passage on a polar research ship, the S.A. Agulhas II, which carries a crew of 100, plus 50 scientists and up to 10 tourists. There is no airport on Tristan, so every visitor arrives after a week long voyage halfway across the South Atlantic Ocean.

He stayed with a Tristan host family since there are no hotels or tourist facilities. He is quoted in an article about his trip in the Mississauga, Ontario, newspaper as writing in his journal that “last night there was a full moon on Tristan. I had not appreciated the beauty of a full moon until I saw the glowing white orb over Tristan.” He was clearly taken by the peaceful loneliness of the island.

He explained to the reporter that the Tristanians have access to two TV channels, ITV and the BBC. About 80 percent of the economy of the island is based on fishing. There are about 260 people living there who share 7 family names. The only ships that visit are various research vessels and fishing boats. His presentation will involve more than just pretty pictures—he will focus on what life is really like on the remote island.

He said that he picked up his interest in travel while he was still quite young from studying the National Geographic Atlas of the World in the adult department of the Mississauga Central Library on Saturday mornings. As he pored over the atlas, he said he “felt like a child genius being allowed onto the second floor.” He continued that he was particularly “fascinated by the micro-nations in particular. I’d look at the pages of islands and of the Pacific Ocean, which looked as if it was scattered with atolls of fingernail clippings.”

For those unable to attend his presentation, he posts detailed journals of his trip, including many interesting observations and quite effective photos, on his blog. For instance, his detailed description of his friendship with some descendants of Allan Crawford, posted to the blog on Nov. 27, 2013, is especially worthwhile.

Crawford was an Englishman who happened to accompany a Norwegian scientific expedition to the island in late 1937 and early 1938. Rowland was able to purchase in Cape Town an autographed copy of Crawford’s book Tristan da Cunha and the Roaring Forties, so he quotes to good effect Crawford’s experiences and compares them with his own adventure 75 years later.

Mr. Rowland will present his talk, “A Journey to Tristan da Cunha,” from 7:00 to 8:30 on April 29 in the Mississauga Central Library, Classroom 3. Registration is required, though admission is free. People in the Toronto metropolitan area interested in this fascinating peaceful society will need to call 905-615-3500 to register.

Last month, a government agency in the Philippines invited indigenous people from around the nation to promote peace by fostering the uses of their own languages, as well as the national language, Filipino.

A well written story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, one of the nation’s leading newspapers last week, reviewed the focus on peace taken by the conference, called the “Wika ng Kapayapaan: Pambansang Summit at Palihan,” which was held in Malaybalay City, Bukidon Province, Mindanao, on February 13 – 15.

The conference was organized by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF—the Commission on the Filipino Language), which is the government agency that regulates the official language of the Philippines, Filipino. It also works to preserve and promote the other indigenous languages of the nation. One of those languages is Buid, spoken by the peaceful Buid people of southern Mindoro island.

A major achievement of the conference was drafting a resolution about building peace through the sensitive use of languages. The resolution, written in Filipino but translated into English, reads: “That peace accords and other laws should be written in Filipino with corresponding versions written in the languages of cultural communities.” The resolution also urged government agencies to consult with the indigenous people prior to embarking on development projects.

Virgilio Almario, the chair of KWF, asked other government agencies to prepare specific programs that would seek to prevent discrimination against the nation’s indigenous peoples. He said that the purpose of the summit meeting was to develop the ideas of the indigenous communities on ways to foster peacefulness in the Philippines, specifically through the uses of their own languages and of Filipino.

“Our long-range goal,” he said, “is to make an encyclopedia-style vocabulary. This will provide meaning for all the words related to peace in different languages that can be explained in terms of traditional thoughts and practices. We [would] also like to elicit ideas on peace and how it is understood in terms of their own languages,” he added.

Roberto Anoñuevo, the director general of KWF, said that the conference was the first major attempt to bring together the indigenous people of the nation to discuss ways that their own languages could strengthen the cause of peace.

Another government agency, the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), agreed with the KWF initiative. Leonor Orlade-Quintayo, chair of the NCIP, said that she supported the campaign of the KWF to promote the use of Filipino, so long as it didn’t compromise the uses of the indigenous languages themselves.

The newspaper story last week quoted the reactions of some of the participants at the conference. Jaime Castillo, from the Ivatan community, located in a group of islands to the north of Luzon, in far northern Philippines, was glad to come, establish links with other indigenous groups in the nation, and focus on peace. He commented, in Filipino, “the summit is a big help to have peace because we could talk with each other in one language.”

Some of the discussions also focused on issues of particular concern to local communities, such as large development projects that had been opposed by the indigenous people. Dindo Dumago, from one of the Mangyan societies on Mindoro—the news report did not indicate which one—complained about a power plant that was being built near some Mangyan villages.

An NCIP representative told him that since the project was already approved, the best they could do was to monitor it to make sure that the memorandum of agreement was followed. Other indigenous people had the chance to discuss similar, local, issues.

An earlier news report on the conference quoted Arnold Reyes, a Buid man whose conclusions about the conference focused on the more general peace theme. His comments, in Filipino, were translated as “the summit was a good opportunity for a peaceful dialogue.”

KWF director general Anoñuevo concluded the conference by saying that “peace issues” were the basic concerns of the Philippine indigenous peoples, and that they should be discussed in Filipino rather than English. He added that the conference highlighted the need for government agencies to interact with the indigenous citizens—“in the language of the people,” he said in Filipino.

The government of India has approved the construction of a huge port facility on the southeast coast of Andhra Pradesh, though the exact location is unclear. Last week the proposal received a scathing review for the harm it would do to the local villagers, to some Yanadi communities in the area, and to a unique bird sanctuary.

What is clear is that the central government approved the port facility of more than 4,000 acres in Pulicat Lake, north of Chennai on the southeast coast of the Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh state. The government is pushing to develop new ports around India’s coast to handle increasing international trade. The proposed port would be near the village of Dugarajapatnam, to the east of the town of Sullurepeta, which is just inland from the shores of the lake.

A news report in December pointed out that if the port were to be built as proposed, it would harm the habitat of over 30 million migratory water birds such as pelicans and flamingos. It would also have an impact on the lives of more than 40,000 fishermen.

Another news story in January indicated that the buffer zone around the lake, established to protect the fragile wildlife habitat, was 10 km. wide, and it would have to be reduced to 2 km. in order to allow the port development. It was not clear at that point if that hurdle could be overcome. The Pulicat Lake Bird Sanctuary is the second largest brackish wetland in India.

Concern seemed to ease in February when the Times of India, one of the most prestigious newspapers in the nation, reported that a decision had been reached to move the port facility some miles to the north, to get it away from the fragile lake environment—and, incidentally, the tens of thousands of fisher folks who live around it.

Last week, the same newspaper changed its story, reporting that concerns were again focusing on the Pulicat Lake site. And, finally, the report made it clear that numerous Yanadi families would be affected, along with other fishing communities, and millions of migratory waterfowl.

The occasion for the latest news was a report prepared by the Human Rights Forum, 10 members of which visited the site of the proposed port, plus five villages in the Vakadu Mandal, part of Nellore District, which would be directly impacted by the 5,300 acre facility. The Human Right Forum is an NGO that works to overcome structural inequalities in society. It argues on its website that “the essence of human rights is the notion of equality in human value and worth.”

V. S. Krishna, General Secretary of the HRF, told reporters after the group concluded its assessment that a large portion of the land needed for the port was already part of the Eco-Sensitive Zone of the Pulicat Lake Bird Sanctuary. The HRF acknowledged that the livelihoods of thousands of fishing families, including the Yanadis, depend on the natural resources of the huge wetland, and they would be severely impacted if the development were to go ahead.

“This is nothing but environmental vandalism,” Krishna said. He expressed strong opposition to the designs of the government to reduce the Eco-sensitive Zone from 10 km. to 2 km. to accommodate the port project. The sole reason for making such a change was to allow the facility to move forward. He said, instead, that Pulicat Lake should be designated as a Ramsar site, a wetland of worldwide significance, and given complete protection.

The fascinating experiences of an Orthodox Jewish woman researcher, who lived with a Pennsylvania Amish family recently, were related in a newspaper article last Thursday.

Ayelett Shani interviewed the researcher, Dr. Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar, to find out how she was able to arrange to live with the Amish family, what she observed, and how she compared the conservative Pennsylvania Anabaptist people with the Haredi, the Ultra-Orthodox Jews. The interview, published in Haaretz, a major Israeli newspaper, is revealing.

As a feminist, though also an observing Israeli woman who wears a head covering, she was studying what she perceives to be a conflict between the desires of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women to have careers in a culture that frowns on that sort of thing. Her adviser suggested that she read up on the Amish. But she was told to not expect to be able to interview them. They won’t agree to interviews. Besides, she was working as a postdoc in Boston.

But while she and her husband were visiting relatives in Pennsylvania, they took a drive through Amish country. They happened to see a beautiful Amish girl along the road so they stopped and the researcher asked her if they might talk for a moment. The girl asked what she wanted. She explained that she also wore a head covering, that she believed in God the same as she did, but she came from Jerusalem. Could she see their farm?

The girl agreed. Rivka asked if she might be permitted to also see inside the house, and the girl’s mother, Mary, was willing. (The interview carefully does not reveal even the first name of the girl.) Mary invited her in and they talked for a bit. Later, via correspondence, Mary agreed to let Rivka come and stay in their home with them.

Rivka concealed the fact that she was a researcher—she strongly suspected that her home-stay would not be accepted if they had known. She immediately tried to fit into the family life. She pitched in with work in the kitchen, washed the dishes, helped out with the laundry, and, even more critically, offered to use her car to take Mary places that she needed to go. To judge by the interview, it sounds as if the two women got along well.

The charm of the interview is in the personal details and the penetrating insights that Rivka offers. Ayelett, the interviewer, asks about why the Amish can take some forms of public transportation and not others—why are some things permitted in their society and others are not? They can ride in cars but not on airplanes.

Rivka explains that whatever is easy is forbidden, an explanation that simplifies Amish rule-making. She concludes that because of their restrictions, they tend to spend a lot of time at home rather than traveling about. Ayelett insists it’s a form of suppression, and Rivka disagrees.

Some of the best parts of the story are the comparisons of the Amish lifestyle with that of the Haredi. They might seem superficially similar, but Rivka explains the differences. The day to day lives of women in the two societies are quite similar. Chores are not peripheral to women—they are the main driving force of life. Of course, the Haredi woman might have a washing machine that uses electricity, but up to that point, they are remarkably comparable.

The bigger difference, in Rivka’s opinion, is that the Haredi woman reads. Apparently Mary didn’t read much, because Rivka found her to be woefully ignorant about many aspects of contemporary life. Rivka finds some aspects of Amish life to be better than Haredi life in Israel. The Amish do not live in totally separate communities, for instance, and they are involved, to some extent, with other Americans.

Mary’s beautiful daughter works as a maid in a regular American home—exposed to all the enticements of secular U.S. life. Educationally, the Haredim are more open, but culturally, the Amish are more connected. The interview probes these differences.

One facet of Amish society that seemed to bother Rivka is the way they view life in a hierarchical fashion. They see God at the top, and then, in order of subordination, Jesus, men, women, children, then animals. Rivka asked Mary if she really believed that women were inferior to men. She did. Absolutely—it was in the Bible. Rivka makes it clear—her candor is refreshing—that she had a hard time not being judgmental. But she kept telling herself that she was a guest in their home.

An interesting incident occurred when she drove Mary somewhere and they couldn’t find a parking space in the community they were visiting. Mary simply suggested that they pull onto the lawn of a stranger. Rivka explained that they couldn’t do that. The owner would probably call a towing service and have her car towed away. “Why call a tow truck for someone who’s parked in your yard? After all, if he’s parked there it means he couldn’t find another parking spot,” Mary said naively.

Some of the facts about the Amish discussed in the interview will be familiar to anyone who reads about Amish society. The sanctions they place on members who deviate from their rules, for instance, or the importance of modest dress. The best parts are the more personal observations the scholar makes about Mary and the Amish more generally.

Ayelett asks Rivka if she thinks Amish women lead good lives. She admits that she discussed that with them, and that “I envy their inner state.” She personally finds modern life to be quite complex, but she found Mary to be serene. She works extremely hard, but she believes that her life is a good one. “She is certain she is doing the right thing. I wish I knew that I am doing the right thing,” Rivka concludes.

At the end of last week in Thailand, news reports were cautiously hopeful, since protesters had mostly ended their blockades, expecting the courts to resolve the political crisis. While the impasse continues between the government of prime minister Yingluck Shiniwatra with her mostly rural power base and the urban/elite anti-government faction, at least Bangkok traffic was moving once again.

The news has focused a lot in recent weeks on the government’s supposed corruption in administering rice subsidies for the Rural Thai farming people, and the role of rice cultivation in the culture of that nation. A scholar who specializes in Rural Thai studies, Jonathan Rigg, will be presenting a paper on Wednesday next week which may help throw additional light on the culture of that nation.

Rigg, a Professor in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, is a prolific author of books, chapters in edited volumes, and journal articles. Prof. Rigg will be speaking on “Personalising the Middle-Income Trap: An Inter-generational Migrant View from Rural Thailand.” His presentation will be delivered in AS3, Level 6, SEAS Seminar Room (06-20) at the university in Singapore, from 4:00 to 5:30 pm on 19 March, according to a press release.

The announcement indicates that Rigg has studied issues related to agrarian change in Rural Thailand, and in Southeast Asia more broadly, for 30 years. He investigates how the Thai people are adapting to the processes of rural transformation, which recent news stories have emphasized. In short, his scholarship should be in hot demand currently, if the politicians and leaders of mass rallies would listen to him and read his works.

The focus of the presentation next Wednesday will be to convey an understanding of why and how migrants who have attained some levels of education and left their rural communities continue to keep their commitments and their roots tied into their native villages. He’ll explain why the rural village remains the centre of the migrants’ feelings of security, belonging, and livelihood. In essence, he argues that the former villagers are caught in a middle-income trap that is structural, institutional, and, for the migrants, personal as well.

One of Rigg’s earlier articles analyzing the social changes occurring in rural Thailand was reviewed in this website in late 2009.

The idea of separating Ladakh from the rest of India’s state of Jammu and Kashmir, simmering for many years, got a renewed boost last week. On Monday, March 3, the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council, the upper chamber of the state legislature, passed a resolution calling for the creation of a Union Territory for Ladakh, which would have the effect of separating it from the rest of the state.

The resolution was introduced by a Council member from Ladakh, Nurboo Gialchan. He argued that the Ladakhis sought to separate from the much more populous regions of the state because of the inconvenience of maintaining ties to the distant Kashmir valley. “This kind of distance is the biggest hurdle in development in our region,” he said.

Gialchan added that the region he represents has always been underdeveloped and neglected. He added, “people face problems because of larger distances between Kashmir and Ladakh. We remain cut off from rest of the Kashmir division for six months.” The deep snows of winter close the main highway from the lowlands up through the mountains to Ladakh each winter.

Ladakhis have been demanding political separation from the state for decades, Gialchan said, and it was now time to give Ladakh its separate status. Agha Syed Ali Rizvi, another legislator from Ladakh, seconded the resolution, which, not surprisingly, the state government itself opposed.

Ajay Sadhotra, Minister of Planning and Development for the state, told the Legislative Council that there was no need to separate Ladakh from the rest of Jammu and Kashmir. “Ladakh is on the path of progress and development. All three regions of the state are getting equal shares of development,” he said.

However, Gialchan refused to withdraw his resolution, despite the government’s opposition, and it was approved by the council five votes to four. The Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council, Ajatshatru Singh, declared that the resolution had been adopted.

Ladakh is physically quite large, with 117,000 sq. km., three-fifths of the total area of Jammu and Kashmir, though it has a population of only 280,000 people, about 3 percent of the state. Part of their reason for wanting to become a Union Territory is to separate from the political strife and separatist agitations of some of the Kashmiris. They have also felt discrimination from the people of Kashmir, who dominate the state government.

But Gialchan framed his resolution in a more neutral fashion. “This august House resolves that in order to provide proper administration control over the largest region of Jammu and Kashmir, a separate Ladakh division may be created,” he said in moving the resolution.

In October 2005, the people of Ladakh voted out the Congress Party from its political control over the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, the regional administrative and legislative body, and voted in to replace them the Ladakh Union Territory Front. The primary demand of the LUTF was that Ladakh should become a Union Territory in India. The party was founded in 2002 with that basic agenda.

The reasons for the growth of the LUTF, at least through 2005, were feelings of disenchantment with agitations emanating from the Kashmir Valley. Many Ladakhis do not want to get dragged into conflicts between warring factions.

An independent Union Territory has a lot of appeal to them, though the government of India has opposed the idea since it appears to be based on religious grounds and India has tried to avoid allowing political divisions to form because of religion. However, the popularity of LUTF as a political party faded, it was subsequently folded into the Bhartiya Janata Pary (BJP), which was then defeated at the polls in Ladakh in 2010.

It is evident from the news last week that the idea of political separation from the state and its many problems is still popular in Ladakh. However, it is not clear from the various news reports if the measure has any chance of being passed by the Legislative Assembly, the lower house of the state legislature, much less of being approved by the state governor or officials in New Delhi. But it is a straw in the wind.

Last Friday, February 28, the government of Nunavut concluded a two week celebration of Inuit native languages that began on Monday, February 17. The Nunavut Languages Commissioner, Sandra Inutiq, expanded what had previously been a one-week annual celebration into two weeks of activities. The point was to get school children more involved with using their language.

Ms. Inutiq’s opening message for the affair was to urge the Inuit people to use their languages in all possible circumstances. “I think almost all of us share that vision of wanting to keep our language,” the commissioner said.

The Department of Culture and Heritage of Nunavut launched a collection of multimedia works on its website on Feb. 17, all in Inuktut, a term which the government now uses for both of the Inuit languages used in the territory, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun. The agency promised to deliver either print or recorded versions of its new works to public libraries and schools throughout the territory.

Educators agree that school children need to have printed and audiovisual materials in their own native languages if they, and the cultures they represent, are to be taught in the schools and preserved in the society. A news report in early February discussed this issue in light of a new dictionary of Ju/’hoansi and the importance that the Ju/’hoan people place in teaching their language in written form to their children. The Inuit clearly feel the same way.

Commissioner Inutiq commented on the fact that the previous language celebrations had occurred during the mid-winter school breaks, but she decided to change that. “Every single year it’s coincided with children not being in school,” she said. “And it kind of defeats promoting the language. . . . We don’t want a whole important part of our society to miss out.”

One of the publications issued for Inuit children in Inuktut is called Ilarnaqtut!, a comic book prepared by 10 Inuit authors. Also available in Inuktut in print and online are a series of birthday songs, issued both on a CD and online, and a small dictionary for health professionals issued in print format and on the website.

The commissioner expressed her alarm at the disappearance of the native languages. “We now have communities like Iqaluit, like Rankin Inlet, Resolute, Baker Lake, Gjoa Haven, where if we don’t start to do anything about it now, we’re in danger of losing our languages,” she said. “So it’s good to gather, and validate why it’s important to protect our languages.”

The website of the Commissioner has a copy of a news release issued for Inuit Language Weeks, which should properly be called Uqausirmut Quviasuutiqarniq. She states, “I challenge Inuit language speakers to proudly speak as much of their language to other speakers as they can for the duration of the celebrations and onwards. And for the limited Inuit language speakers to go beyond their comfort zone and try to speak!”

The press release listed a variety of suggested activities that groups and schools could engage in to show their interest in and commitment to their language. It described a media campaign, a phone-in show on CBC radio, the co-launching of a film called “Millie’s Dream: Revitalization of Inuinnaqtun,” and other related activities.

In 1977, a tree fell during an evening thunderstorm on a Chewong camp in a central Malay Peninsula forest, killing and injuring several people. Anthropologist Signe Howell arrived shortly after the tragedy had occurred, but the Chewong dismissed her thought that it was bad luck for them—they had no conceptions of good or bad fortune.

Instead, they felt that the tree had fallen on them that night, killing three people and severely injuring two others, because of moral errors that some had made earlier that same evening. Several people had laughed at some millipedes that had happened into their lean-to.

Laughing at living things is strongly prohibited in their society, a sanction that they call talaiden. They had broken rules in their belief system, proscriptions that are part of what Howell refers to in a recent journal article on Chewong conceptions of causation as their “semantic and moral universe (p.134).” The camp had been severely punished for their infraction.

The author provides a careful explanation of how Chewong beliefs explain their highly peaceful society—and, of course, the events of that tragic stormy night. It seems as if Tanko, the thunder spirit who lives in the sky above, and Original Snake, who lives in the sea below the earth, decided to inflict their punishment—the heavy rain storm—on the rule-breakers.

The Chewong were convinced that their own actions had brought about the tragedy. The fact that some of the people who had been inured were not, themselves, involved in teasing the animals was not relevant. Talaiden rules have wide applicability: laughing at animals may endanger a whole community.

In order to explain better the Chewong way of thinking, Howell describes the values and principles that form their social world, which they see as co-existent with the cosmos. For they live in an environment in which most sentient beings, including humans and spirits, exist in the same moral universe.

They all follow the same cosmic rules, which maintain proper order and social behavior. Correct knowledge of those rules of proper conduct is imperative so that all can live harmoniously together in the forest. All men and women are thought to have full knowledge of the basic rules.

This principle forms the organizational basis of Chewong society. All people—which also includes non-human beings that are characterized as “people”—are thought to be equal, with identical qualities and attributes. “People” are defined as beings that possess consciousness and rationality—ruwai in their language. They see the universe as a unity, but it is a unity that is filled with different species of sentient beings, each of which has its particular identity.

The Chewong gain their understandings of the nature of reality from their many myths, which they all know quite well. Their myths allow them to understand the world in which they live; they confirm the causes and effects of activities in their lives. Myths explain for humans and other sentient beings the principles under which the world operates. Furthermore, they provide practical demonstrations of the rules of proper behavior.

The Chewong do not make value judgments on individual achievements or lack thereof. Actions or personal qualities that are highly desirable, or those that are undesirable, are not judged. In fact, the abilities or achievements of individuals are ignored. While individual attributes may be recognized, people do not make much of them. Success or lack of success are dismissed as irrelevant. If Howell commented on someone being a good hunter, the person she was talking to would inevitably respond, “all men are good hunters.”

Not surprisingly, there is no sense of social status or hierarchy in Chewong society. “Theirs is a society in which peaceful co-existence is not only valued but lived and competition is not a meaningful behavioral category,” she writes (p.139). The spirits, who are offended by acts that break rules, are the ones who punish the offenders. Humans, however, may not institute punishments for human antisocial acts.

Another important rule that guides Chewong behavior is the punén rule. Punén requires anyone bringing food into a settlement or camp to share it with everyone present. If someone else learns that there is food in the camp that has not been properly shared, he or she might experience an extreme, and dangerous, feeling of unfulfilled desire. The danger is that the envious person could fall seriously ill due to that desire—and that illness would be the fault of the stingy individual.

A séance would then be conducted by an experienced shaman which might help retrieve the soul (ruwai) of the ill person, the one who has been so distressed by the lack of sharing. But if the shaman is unsuccessful and the sick person dies, the stingy person will be responsible for the death. Thus, the Chewong place extraordinary sanctions on anyone who contradicts the fundamental social need to share forest foods.

Howell sums up these points by writing that the Chewong have many other intricate rules governing their behavior in addition to talaiden and punén, which she describes in detail. She explains other dos and don’ts, taboos that proscribe all sorts of activities, rules that must be followed: the way knots are tied in a carrying basket, the manner in which beams are fastened together in the rafters of a house; the way people are forbidden from whistling in the forest; the fact that the afterbirth of a newborn baby must be wrapped in a certain leaf and placed in the top of a particular tree.

Their rules may seem to be heavy, but they have no institutionalized ways of maintaining the social order—no police force to keep the peace, no concrete way to restrain bad behaviors. Their rules accomplish that for them, and yet they provide maximum freedom for them within the context of their life in the forest. Their rules, their practices, constitute their cosmological knowledge, and help maintain their highly peaceful society.

Howell, Signe. 2012. Knowledge, Morality, and Causality in a ‘Luckless’ Society: The Case of the Chewong in the Malaysian Rain Forest. Social Analysis 56(1), Spring: 133-147.

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