Peaceful Societies

Curiosity about the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to the peaceful societies led to a news report in a major Indian newspaper on April 10 which indicated that as of that date Sikkim had not yet reported any cases of the coronavirus. Sikkim, a small state in northeastern India, is the home of the Lepcha people. All of India is coping with the pandemic by lockdown orders from the national government.

A more informative piece about the ways the Lepchas are handling the crisis appeared in a different news story the next day, April 11. That report indicated that they are turning to their traditional religious practices for support. Olley Lepcha, a bongthing, their term for a traditional priest, performed appropriate rituals in his village, Naga, in North Sikkim, a district with a lot of spectacular scenery. His rituals sought to expel the coronavirus demon and keep Sikkim, the rest of the Himalayas, and all of India safe from the aggressive disease.

The news article goes on to report that the bongthing is the head of a school for bongthings located in the village and that his students helped him perform the “wonderful ritual.” He chants, offers prayers, and performs rituals to help people cope with various social issues and calamities. The bongthings, the article concludes, are traditional healers who appease the gods and chase away the demons that cause the suffering of humanity.

More information about bongthings turns up in the literature on the Lepchas. These priests of their faith, referred to as “Bon” or “Bone,” are representatives on earth of the Mother Creator. The bongthings used to be present at all Lepcha rituals to appease the demons and gods and make proper offerings. The shamans retain all the sacred knowledge of the people and they serve as the keepers of Lepcha culture and tradition.

The virtual disappearance of the shamans in recent times is one of the major factors that is causing the abandonment of the Lepcha’s localized knowledge and ritualized life, which is weakening their society and culture. A news story from November 2011 indicated that the performance of the rituals at Mount Kanchenjunga would soon be lost since the bongthing there, Sandup, had discontinued performing them in the mid-1970’s. In fact, the rituals were preserved, recorded by the Danish scholar Halfdan Siiger, who had gained the confidence of Sandup’s father, the previous Kanchenjunga bongthing, in 1956. The elder priest had allowed him to record the rituals.

The rituals that Samdup used to perform at Nung, his village, were the basis for Lepcha nationalistic pride. Other bongthings also offered rituals to Kanchenjunga, but the one at Nung was the most important. The secret ritual, and its accompanying processional song, would now be lost except for the recording that Siiger made and transcribed into his book The Lepchas: Culture and Religion of a Himalayan People.

The gradual influx of Buddhism into Sikkim had begun to dilute the Bon nature worship several hundred years ago. The annual Kanchenjunga rites at Nung were the strongest surviving relics from that earlier era. The bongthing from Nung used to process to the seat of Sikkim power, the capital at Gangtok, where the Chogyal, the Buddhist king, would honor him with many gifts and a symbolic yak, obtained from much higher mountains. The bongthing would take it all back to the altar at Nung with great ceremony.

So while the bongthings now may not be much involved in grand ceremonies, it is interesting to learn that in these times of great stress, a low-key, peaceful society such as the Lepchas can still turn to their traditions for help. And that at least one surviving priest and his students will respond.

The government of India’s West Bengal state is taking pains to keep the Birhor and the other tribal groups safe as long as the COVID-19 pandemic lasts. While most of the earlier news reports about the Birhor focus on their lives in Jharkhand state immediately to the West of Bengal, a news story dated April 12 concentrates on the work of the West Bengal government for the tribal community within its borders. It also provides some useful information about the small Birhor village there.

The reporter, Pritesh Basu, writes that government officials in West Bengal are taking all possible steps to keep the Birhor and the other tribal people safe and well fed during the national shutdown. The news story focuses on a Birhor community of 89 families, about 300 people, living in the town of Bhupatipalli, in the Purulia District of West Bengal. The town is very near the border with Jharkhand and is quite close to popular tourist destinations in the Ayodhya Hills.

The Birhor live in the forested hills on the east side of the town where they collect firewood to sell for fuel. Many of them also work as agricultural laborers. In recent years their children have started attending school and their young people have been given training as beekeepers.

The Kendumundi resettlement colony consisting of pukka houses — The Kendumundi resettlement colony consisting of pukka (or pucca) houses (Photo copyright by Deborah Nadal and used with permission)

Over the course of the past nine years, the state government, under the direction of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has been working hard to promote the welfare of the Birhor, the reporter writes. They have received pucca (or pukka) houses. Elderly people over 80 are now receiving a pension from the state of Rs 1,000. As of April 1, over 160,000 tribal people in West Bengal have received the new monetary benefits.

Since the Hutterites live together in colonies consisting of many closely-knit families, how are they coping with the coronavirus crisis? Are they avoiding their large, communal dining halls? The answers published last week in news reports by several different Canadian news services are, perhaps not surprisingly, that they are reacting sensibly—but a bit differently from one another.

According to a news report from Swift Current, Saskatchewan, the Bench Colony near Shaunavon, SK, convened a meeting of their entire membership to discuss how they would react to the guidelines about social distancing and protecting themselves from the virus. As a result, they have locked the entrance to the colony, they avoid socializing with other colonies, and they only go into town to shop for necessities.

They continue to eat their meals in their dining hall though they sit six feet apart. All homes in the colony have sanitizers and they have put gloves and masks in their vehicles. They are doing their best to follow the guidelines when they need to work in the barns.

Gillian Slade, a reporter writing last week for a news source in Medicine Hat, Alberta, discussed an interview she had with Mike Hofer, the farm manager at the Elkwater Colony. Mr. Hofer told her that at his colony they have stopped eating together in the colony dining hall. The Hutterite families now eat alone.

Attending their church services is an essential aspect of Hutterite life and they continue to do so but at the Elkwater Colony they limit themselves to15 people at any one service. They have prepared a rotation schedule so everyone has a turn at attending church. They avoid contacts with outsiders and they plan to start wearing facemasks.

Another Alberta news story last week from the Lethbridge Herald discussed the establishment of the Hutterite Safety Council. The HSC provides guidance to the hundreds of colonies on ways to protect themselves from the pandemic—social distancing, isolation, and so on. It suggests that the “risk of the coronavirus reaching our communities is very real.”

The Safety Council, which is involved with all three branches of the Hutterites—the Lehrerleut, Dariusleut and Schmiedeleut Hutterite communities—provided a range of very standard, but quite sage advice about the need for social distancing. While protecting themselves, the HSC is also urging colonies to reach out and help their broader community neighbors whenever needed, a standard Hutterite ideal.

The Council suggested specifically that, if the need arises locally, Hutterites could give food donations, blood donations, or make face masks. Reaching out to non-colony neighbors to help them, whenever needed, has been a recurrent theme of Hutterite colony life.

The New York Times ran a news story on April 3 about the Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle and the fact that the community, which is famed for its artisans, has not yet reported a case of coronavirus.

A Zapotec woman and her husband weaving in their workshop in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca (Photo by Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The primary source of information for the indigenous people in the community to learn about the pandemic and the proper ways to help prevent it from spreading is via radio programs broadcast in Zapotec. The host for one of the Zapotec-language programs, Jose Abel Bautista Gonzalez, said it was difficult for the people to adjust to such cultural changes as the way they should greet one another on the streets.

With tourists now avoiding places like Teotitlan del Valle, the economy and people of the community are suffering. A rug seller named Froilan Mendez told the reporter that tourists are essential for the town—they purchase the crafts the Zapotec make. Mendez added, “if there are no tourists then we will not have an income.”

In Magdalena Apasco, another indigenous community in Oaxaca state, Mayor Jesus Santiago told the reporter that the approaches suggested for the people are not always understood. The Zapotec do not always appreciate the protective measures as a means of preventing an outbreak of the disease. Instead, “they take it as an abuse of authority.” A case of coronavirus had prompted community officials to close all but three access points into the village.

The mayor said that they are trying to strike a balance between protecting the community and making the people aware of what is going on.

Several months ago, as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread in East Asia, sports fans speculated about what would happen to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, scheduled for July 24 through August 9. The subsequent news that it was going to be postponed came as no surprise but the announcement on Monday last week was more startling.

Logo of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 (Image from Wikimedia, in the public domain)

The Tokyo Olympics will be held in 2021 on almost the same days as they would have been this year, but for COVID-19. “Opening Ceremony Rescheduled” reads the headline in the AP news release: it will be held on July 23 and the closing ceremonies on August 8. The official making the announcement clarified the importance of the rituals associated with the Olympics. “The schedule for the games is key to preparing for the games,” Yoshiro Mori, Tokyo organizing committee president, said.

This announcement raises several questions related to the study of peaceful societies. How are they reacting to the news? And more importantly, how much do they care about competitive sports anyway? Are their rituals at all comparable to the ceremonies and rituals that surround the quadrennial Olympics? Is participation in sports increasing or decreasing among the peaceful societies?

Some of these questions could be answered with the simple response that it varies depending on the society and situation. But a paper published 23 years ago (Bonta 1997) concluded from a survey of the literature that a large percentage of the peaceful societies do avoid competition. Not all, but many raise their children to not play competitive games. Many associate competition with aggression and violence.

Young Hutterite women hanging out on a Winnipeg street (Photo by Dave Shaver on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

But if they avoid competition, how do they react to competitive sports? A few enjoy them—see a recent news story about some Hutterite women and their passion for ice hockey. Most of the peaceful societies are not nearly so enthusiastic about sports as those Hutterite women.

The question about the Olympics and the rituals that surround them is important—and most other competitive sports such as baseball and football have their rituals also. Competitive sports, it can be argued, consist in part of rituals that serve to reinforce the pervasive belief that competition is an essential aspect of human nature. This conviction supports the argument that free market capitalism is the best way to organize modern societies.

In comparison, rituals in some of the peaceful societies serve similar functions as the rituals do for the Olympics and for sports in the U.S. They serve to unify people around their ideals and values.

Five Buid mediums chanting prayers above a pig (Photo by Ms. Reggie Aquino and provided courtesy of ANGOC

One example of the way rituals help foster cooperation instead of competition is provided by the Buid, people who live in the mountains of southern Mindoro Island in the Philippines and who rarely make the news. Gibson (1990) writes that the Buid believe that violence is caused by boasting, self-assertion, quarreling, aggression, and competition. They avoid all of those activities in order to remain free from violence.

When they do have a quarrel, the parties to the dispute will sponsor a ritual sacrifice of a pig owned by one of the parties to the argument. If a married couple quarrels, they will settle the matter by ritually sacrificing one of their pigs. After all, the earth spirits might become angry at the unresolved dispute and terminate their protection of the entire village. The meat from the sacrificed pig is divided carefully among the members of the community, with appropriate portions being given to the spirits as well as the humans.

The ritual—sharing the pig meat—reunifies the community and strengthens the Buid beliefs in the ideal household: a home that is tranquil, cooperative, and free of jealousy and competition, Supporters of the Olympics have their rituals to promote their sports and their beliefs; the Buid have theirs.

A Piaroa ritual (Screenshot from the video “Piaroa Culture: Venezuelan Amazon, by ProBiodiversa on Vimeo, Creative Commons license)

Another example will support this argument. The Piaroa of southcentral Venezuela are revolted by violence and by human activities that may, in their view, promote it such as competition. Overing (1986 and 1989b) describes the beliefs of the Piaroa: they see their gods as emblematic of many human failings. Their creator god, for instance, was mad and quite evil. His powers in mythic times were poisonous to the other gods.

And those poisons persist to the present day. The mystic forces of production, such as their gardening, are infused by competition and all the other evils associated with it—lust, arrogance, greed, and of course violence. To combat those evils, the village shaman every night performs his ritualistic chanting and blows the words of his chants into honey and water. When the people of the village drink the protective brew the next morning, the adults and children who have consumed it will be safe and peaceful for another day.

If the peace-inducing rituals of the Buid and the Piaroa seem weird to readers, perhaps the rituals associated with the Summer Olympics, such as relays of people carrying a torch over vast distances, would be hard to fathom by those residents of the mountains of Mindoro and the forests of Venezuela.

The next question is to wonder how much the pervasiveness of the violence-tolerating, sports-obsessed cultures around the world has subverted the opposition by the peaceful societies to competition. The challenge is to find recent information about the more remote peaceful societies that have accepted sports. In essence, are the peaceful societies holding firm on their opposition to competition?

The answer must be framed as somewhat speculative in nature, but there appears to be very little about organized sports being played among the remote peaceful communities, the ones that are quite separated from the mainstreams of the world. The one exception to this was a couple news stories in the Indian press about the introduction of boxing among some Birhor young people.

Adhikary, in his 1984 book Society and World View of the Birhor, only mentions that their society is characterized by economic cooperation and individual independence. In essence, there is virtually no competition among them for scarce resources and individuals rarely accumulate possessions. It is not clear from his ethnography how strongly they are opposed to competition—only that they don’t compete for resources.

A news story in July 2009 reported that competitive boxing had been introduced to the young people of Chalkari, a Birhor village in the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, a state in northeastern India, and the villagers shared the passion of the young boxers-in-training. Mahesh, a student in Chalkari, said enthusiastically, “We learn boxing in the mornings and evenings. This is going to help us move ahead in life.”

The boxing coach, Paritosh Kumar, expressed his warm support for the sport making a positive impact on the people. He said he decided to work with the Birhor youngsters because they are very poor. He added, “I want to help them in getting noticed and bring them onto the map of India through boxing.” The coach plans to guide his young fighters into a training program so they can compete in district and state boxing matches.

Nearly two years later, the Indian press focused on the girls of Chalkari, who had also become enthusiastic participants in boxing. The report indicated that 21 girls between the ages of 12 and 14 finish their evening chores every day, put on their boxing gloves, and get together to practice their sport. They are as determined to succeed as the boys are.

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 reporter talked with several of the girls. One, Suman, practicing in the courtyard of her home, said she intends to grow up to be a boxer. “We have the talent that people in the cities do not have,” she said, radiating self-confidence. She and two other girls made it to the state boxing championship competition the previous year. She does admit that she and her boxing friends no longer have time for playing with dolls. When the work of the day is over, they only have time for their sport.

Are sports necessarily the foster parents of violence? Is competition really an evil twin of aggression? The Buid, Piaroa, and other peaceful societies such as the Ju/’hoansi and the Semai think so. But some of the Birhor have been changing their minds. And unlike the Olympics, no one is going to make a decision about the future of their rituals except themselves.

The Kadar people of the Anamalai Hills in southern India exhibit a profound knowledge and appreciation for nature, which they share with travelers who take forest walks with them. In an opinion piece published in the New Indian Express newspaper on April 2, travel writer and tour leader Pravin Shanmughanandam explains why he is so deeply impressed by the indigenous guides.

A towering crest of the Anamalai Hills in southwestern Tamil Nadu (Photo by Marcus334 in Wikipedia, Creative Commons license)

He writes that he has learned a “profound wisdom” from the Kadar about the meanings of a bird calling, a leaf rustling, or a branch breaking in the woods. All of these sounds may mean something. The forest is like a living, breathing creature. He has gained a whole new perspective on nature by walking beside the Kadar in their forests.

To say the naturalist and tour leader is deeply impressed by the Kadar would be an understatement. For about four years he has enjoyed more than walking in the woods with them. As they sit around the fire in the evenings, the Kadar share with him their stories of close encounters with tigers, elephants, and sloth bears. They also share their traditional beliefs about the souls of their ancestors residing in the wilderness.

Two women and their children, probably Kadar, showing off their fine clothing — Tribal family, old and young women plus children, probably Kadar, photographed in a Kadar area near Kochi, Kerala (Photo by Eileen Delhi on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Kadar express the importance of existing peacefully with one another as well as with the forest. When they go for walks in the woods, they have learned to accept its authority over them. They deeply respect all forms of life. Their forest walks are unscripted, and they don’t mind the fact that they may get lost—though they normally know their way intimately.

Shanmughanandam is impressed that the Kadar not only survive but thrive in the forests of the Anamalai Hills—leeches and monsoon rains only fuel their knowledge of, and appreciation for, their natural environment.

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds around the world, the Ebola epidemic in northeastern DR Congo appears to finally be winding down. A report dated March 25 on the website of Trócaire, the overseas development agency of the Irish Catholic church, provides information about the fight against Ebola and the ways the Mbuti are reacting to that crisis.

The author of the report, Garry Walsh, traveled to the Ituri Forest in the Congo in January to learn first hand what progress the people, including the Mbuti, have been making. He clearly hopes the lessons of the Ebola fight may have an impact on the worldwide responses to the coronavirus pandemic. For after 18 months of working with Congolese people to help them change their ways, it appears as if the fight against Ebola is nearly won.

The author writes that Ebola initially springs from animals to humans when the latter feed on infected prey, an origin that is comparable to the coronavirus in people. Walsh hangs out with Alundo Matope, a Mbuti leader in the local village and an enthusiastic beekeeper who enjoys showing off his hives to the visitor. Alundo tells the others in the village to stop hunting forest animals, to never touch dead bodies, and to always wash their hands.

Trócaire provided Alundo with his two beehives to encourage him to stop going into the forest in search of wild bees. The agency encourages him to earn money through the sale of honey. People are learning to use hand-washing stations that the charities have provided. The Mbuti children are drumming along with the song they sing that deals with the Ebola campaign. The kids clearly know the words by heart. Walsh concludes that the fight against Ebola is working, in this village at least.

The Mbuti came to remember two who had died (Photo by Terese Hart on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Walsh devotes the rest of his report to the work the charity has been doing to combat Ebola—developing the infrastructure of sanitation, training doctors, mounting information campaigns, working with community leaders, and so on. He concludes that the fight is almost over. The number of new cases has dropped dramatically. The last patient was released from a treatment facility two weeks before. People are holding their breath, hoping it is finally over. Two-thirds of the 2,200 people in the DR Congo who contracted Ebola died from it.

But if Ebola is beaten, the first cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the country. We can hope that the lessons Alundo and the other Mbuti have learned about sanitation from the health workers will continue to be part of their lives.

A small Ladakhi village now requires all visitors to wash their hands before they are allowed to enter, according to a news report in the Deccan Herald last Thursday.

Some men in Kargil (Photo by Saurabh Chatterjee in Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The village of Latoo, in the Kargil District of Ladakh, is taking its own approach to fighting the spread of the coronavirus. The villagers posted a sign at the entrance to the community stating in both English and Urdu, “Don’t enter this village without washing your hands.” Latoo has about 40 – 45 houses.

A much longer article on Latoo dated December 2018 describes the difficult history of the village, located on the border with Pakistan, as a continuing series of conflicts with neighboring villages and with the Pakistanis. As a result of their hard-scrabble experiences, the people of Latoo are used to innovative and spur-of-the-moment decision making to protect themselves and their future. Their response to the COVID-19 crisis is characteristic of them.

According to the Deccan Herald, 13 people in Ladakh have so far tested positive for the disease. Feroz Khan, the Chief Executive Councilor for the Kargil Hill Council said, “This is a very appreciable step. People in Kargil are at the forefront of the battle against coronavirus.” Baseer-ul-Haq Choudhary, the Deputy Commissioner for Kargil, expressed similar praise for Latoo in a tweet.

On March 18, Matteo Fagotto published an article in a news magazine that was partly a travel piece about his homestay with a Lepcha farmer in the Dzongu region and partly an investigation of organic agriculture in all of Sikkim. He points out that the famed organic farming in Sikkim has been championed vigorously by his homestay host.

View of Kanchenjunga from the Gangtok area of Sikkim (Photo by proxygeek on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The author notes that Sikkim is the first completely organic state in the world. Pesticides and chemical fertilizers were phased out in the small state in northeastern India in 2003 as farmers were trained to use organic methods in their work. Wildlife and bee populations have increased in Sikkim as a result.

Tenzing Lepcha, Fagotto’s homestay host for a week, is a 39-year-old farmer, environmental activist, and proponent of preserving the earth, which he and many of his neighbors consider to be sacred. As Mt. Kanchenjunga rears up above the morning mist surrounding the Dzongu village, Tenzing tells the author, “This mountain is sacred to all Lepchas. We believe we were created by its snow. Whenever one of us dies, anywhere in the world, his soul travels back to the mountain.”

A Lepcha man (Photo by Ernst Schäfer in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

Tenzing felt compelled in 2008 to leave the comforts of urban life in Kolkata and, returning to his roots in the Dzongu, began working on his farm. And like some others in the neighboring villages, he opened his home to visitors. The author enjoys the daily rhythms of farm life, such as sharing warm cups of milk tea after spending time harvesting and husking rice. He visits hidden waterfalls, hot springs, and sacred Buddhist ponds.

On Sunday morning, Tenzing leads his guests on a two-hour hike up a steep path to a clearing in the forest where a wedding is taking place. While a priest blesses the bride and groom with burning incense and ghee, girls in colorful dresses serve drinks and food to the dozens of guests gathered in the single-story, red and blue house in the clearing. The guests wait their turns to give silk scarfs to the newly wedded couple. Then they all leave the house to join circles of dancers in the forest clearing.

After dark, Tenzing leads his homestay guests back down to his house where everyone gathers at the fireplace and drinks traditional beer served in hollow bamboo logs. Tenzing has topped the beer with a few grains of rice, a symbol of respect for his guests. Everyone shares stories and a delicious, entirely organic, dinner of rice, greens, and soups.

Children playing in a Lepcha village (Photo by Kandukuru Nagarjun on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

When asked about the future, Tenzing admits that he and his colleagues cannot tell the upcoming generations what to do. “What we can do,” he says, “is show them a path that was created by our ancestors, and which my fellows and I decided to follow.” The path created by the ancestors was, of course, veneration for the sacred mountain and love for the land, expressed through the use of organic farming techniques.

Fagotto repeats one of his central arguments: that Sikkim led the world by becoming, in 2016, the first completely organic state on earth. The goal of the people was to build a healthier environment for the human and the natural inhabitants of the eastern Himalayas where the state is located. All 76,000 hectares of farmland in Sikkim are now certified as organic and free of imported chemicals.

The author concludes that humans are not the only ones to benefit from the popular decision to go organic. Not only are local authorities recording increases in wildlife and bees, but researchers at Sikkim University have noticed surging numbers of butterflies in cultivated areas. These improving numbers show that the switch back to traditional agricultural techniques may be best for the land and all its living inhabitants.

How much are the peaceful societies affected by the coronavirus epidemic? The answer, of course, is that it depends on how much contact they have with infected outsiders. Isolated islands such as Tristan da Cunha and Ifaluk, which have few if any cruise ships stopping, are doing fine so far—at least there is no news yet about any cases. While these very isolated societies do have health facilities, they would be hard pressed to cope with a major outbreak. They are being quite cautious about admitting visitors.

An elderly Orang Asli woman in Gopeng (Photo by lets.book on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Larger, more heavily touristed peoples such as the Ladakhi and the Amish either already have numerous cases reported or are preparing for the onrushing epidemics. The valid question is, how are the in-between societies faring, the groups of people who are isolated but have some sporadic contacts with outsiders?

An article published on March 17 on the Malaysian news website Free Malaysia Today explored the status of the possible infections among the Semai and the other Orang Asli societies. At this point that article is 9 days out of date so the situation may have changed.

Tijah Yok Chopil (Screenshot from the video “Orang Asli Struggle for Land Rights, by Malaysiakini TV, Creative Commons license)

The reporter summarized that the Orang Asli communities, located as they are in remote areas, are (or were) largely unaffected by the virus. Tijah Yok Chopil, a prominent Semai activist, said that here and there the people are still holding weddings. She added that no cases of the virus have been reported so far from the villages, and that the villagers only know about the disease from their contacts through the social media.

While hundreds of cases have been reported around Malaysia, the other Orang Asli societies, much like the Semai, have not been affected. Zanisah Sani, a Semelai researcher, said that her community has not as yet been bothered with any cases.

Temuan children (Photo by A satan incarnate on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Salmiah Anai, a Temuan woman, told the journalist that her people only get information through word of mouth or the social media. She said that the Orang Asli are still holding large gatherings, with people coming from considerable distances to participate. There is a lot of confusion as to what to do, and “there are absolutely no awareness campaigns here.”

The journalist contacted Alberto Gomes for his take on the situation. The prominent Australian anthropologist is an expert on Orang Asli affairs. Gomes said that he had just visited an Orang Asli village in Selangor the previous Sunday. The people in that village were aware of the spreading disease but for the most part the Orang Asli in the interior are unaware of the pandemic.

Colin Nicholas from the Center for Orang Asli Concerns said that the government ministry in charge of the original people had banned outsiders from visiting the Orang Asli villages to try to retard the spread of the virus, a development that he favored. He said that the absence of reported cases so far does not mean that none have occurred.

He warned that the Orang Asli may have low resistance to the infection so outsiders from the affected areas of Malaysia should be very cautious about exposing them. Nicholas suggested that the government try to raise awareness about the epidemic through the Orang Asli radio channel.

There is no reason to assume that the peacefulness of the Orang Asli groups would have any effect on the incidence of the disease among the people. But it is worth watching for clues to see if any of them handle the outbreaks in unique or interesting ways.

Peaceful Societies

Peaceful Societies

Lepcha Bongthing and the COVID-19 Demon

Birhor in West Bengal

Canadian Hutterites Cope with COVID-19

Zapotec Adjust to Coronavirus

Olympics Postponed—Should Peaceful Societies Care?

Kadar Knowledge of Forest Life

The Mbuti and the Ebola Epidemic

Ladakhi Response to Coronavirus

The Lepchas: Organic Farmers

Coronavirus in the Peaceful Societies

Subscribe to our weekly digest

Subject Listing

Previous News and Reviews