Peaceful Societies

“We are like birds,” said the Mbuti woman. “Today we are here, but tomorrow we will move again. Even when someone dies, we have trouble finding a place to bury him.” Ragi Ngenderezi Abulengu was speaking about her life in the Mugunga Refugee camp, on the outskirts of the city of Goma, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Map of Goma area A news report last week from IRIN, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, quoted Ms. Abulengu extensively about the deplorable conditions in the refugee camp. A similar news story from IRIN last September described conditions in another Mbuti refugee camp near Goma.

Most of the report last week consisted of a direct quote by Ms. Abulengu. She describes the way the various armies fighting in the eastern part of the country have murdered and butchered innocent civilians, particularly the Mbuti. “When they [meaning soldiers] saw children, the militias simply mutilated them,” she reported.

Conditions in the refugee camp are not much better than the forests where they used to live. If someone does not want the Mbuti to stay in one spot too long, they tell the people to move away. Recently, she says, the city turned off the water supply to the camp. She doesn’t mince her words. “And even eating every day is difficult. We live by depending on other people who were living here before. We work for them and they give us a small amount to eat. Like slaves.”

She says that since the Mbuti are not allowed to own land, they have no way to go back where they came from. Some of her people were removed from the Virunga National Park, she says, and sent to the refugee camp. They were supposed to receive compensation, but they have been given nothing. She describes graphically the discrimination they suffer from the other Congolese.

“When we try to go to the park, we are beaten by the security guards,” she says. “They tell us we are dirty; some use their weapons against us. The last time one of us went there, his shirt was torn by the guards. How can we find our own medicines if the park is closed to us?” She says that the health centers refuse them treatments because they can’t pay for it. They tell the Mbuti, she says, “‘You are a pygmy – get out.’”

Ms. Abulengu asserts that the Mbuti have a lot of potential, but they have no access to services. Whenever they try to secure something, the majority people repress them some more.

The Deccan Herald, an important Indian newspaper, carried a story last week summarizing the protracted, bitter fight over the construction of a 163 mw power dam across the Chalakudy River in Kerala.

Kanchi Kohli, the author, describes the way the opinions of the Kadar, whose Vazhachal village would be destroyed by the project, and other local communities that are strongly opposed to it, have been ignored by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB). The Kadar have opposed the dam for years.

The KSEB has campaigned endlessly for it. However, in January last year, the national government’s Minister of Environment and Forests (MOEF) in New Delhi, Jairam Ramesh, reversed the earlier permission given by his agency for the dam. He issued a notice requiring justification from the Kerala government as to why the project should not be cancelled.

The minister cancelled the power project because he finally realized that it would have a severe impact on the Kadar community, and that it would destroy diverse animal and plant species in the area. The article mentions that six other dams have already been built on the river upstream from the proposed construction site, and this last one would eliminate the one remaining stretch of free-flowing river.

Kohli describes the beauty of the relatively untouched forest in the Vazhachal area, where the dam would be built, and the Athirappilly Waterfalls a short ways downstream. Over 10 local communities, in addition to the Kadar village, have also opposed the dam because of its probable effects on their drinking water supplies.

In addition to the Kadar, other groups, expressing their opposition for environmental reasons, have organized meetings and staged satyagraha protests. All of the arguments by the opponents had been dismissed by the Kerala government. The KSEB had indicated, in its environmental impact statement, that there was no local opposition to the project. The author makes clear her own hope for preservation of the river.

Later last week, Mr. Ramesh issued a statement reiterating his opposition to the power project. He said, “There is clear evidence that the project would be ecologically devastating and would destroy rich and valuable biodiversity. Having seen the project site myself, I am more than convinced that the project should not be implemented.”

Mr. Ramesh indicated that he would approach Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asking him if the central government could compensate the government of Kerala for the cancellation of the power project. He suggested that the national government could allocate more power to the state from the central power pool, or perhaps grant monetary compensation. He said, in his letter to the Chief Minister of Kerala, that he would review this matter with the Prime Minister.

The next day, last Friday, A. K. Balan, the former Electricity Minister for Kerala, held a news conference to blast away at MOEF Minister Ramesh. He raised a variety of arguments, mostly alleging underhanded dealings among government officials in New Delhi, which, he feels, may have helped subvert the dam.

The Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (OSV) is continuing its program of outreach into the nation’s schools, but it is evident from a news story last week that their February visit to a Piaroa village has been a highlight of the past year.

Cano Grulla The orchestra launched its “The OSV at My School” program early this year as its way of joining the celebration of Venezuela’s bicentennial. Members of the orchestra had performed in numerous schools in Caracas, but going out into the remote countryside was an adventure. They chose to visit a school in the Piaroa community of Caño Grulla, in Amazonas State, about 60 miles south of the state capitol of Puerto Ayacucho.

Last week’s news story provides a bit more information about their visit to that indigenous community. A couple orchestra staff members accompanied the musicians—five members of a brass quintet, five forming a string quintet, and a drummer. The trip, planned six months in advance, was a unique experience.

About 600 Piaroa children got to interact with the musicians and see them play their instruments. The OSV musicians showed them some of the instruments that form a symphony orchestra: trumpet, horn, tuba, trombone, drums, violin, viola, cello, and string bass. They demonstrated the different sounds the instrument could make and discussed some facts about them, such as how they are manufactured. The orchestra members experienced Piaroa foods, dances, crafts, traditions, rituals, and games in the village.

The OSV at My School program is reaching many communities, to judge by the impressive statistics that the news article reports. However, the article last week does not indicate whether the traditional music of the Piaroa had any effect on the visiting musicians, one of the more intriguing possibilities raised by a news report in February.

Problems with suicides continue to plague the Inuit of Nunavut. Another incident—this time a family homicide, followed by a suicide—horrified Canadians last week.

The capital city of Nunavut, Iqaluit, was stunned to learn that a 44 year old man had taken his life in a cemetery after first killing his 29 year old partner and their two daughters, ages 7 and 2, in their home. The police refused to comment on the rumor that the man had killed himself on the grave of his own sister who had died of suicide earlier.

The day after the murder and suicide, Sheila Levy was on her way to the school which the seven year old had attended to do some grief counseling, but when the taxi driver taking her there learned of her mission, he needed some counseling himself. He, as well as almost everyone else in Iqaluit, knew one or more of the victims of the latest tragedy.

A 2009 report found that about 600 suicides per 100,000 people occur every year among young Inuit men, ages 18 to 24, about 28 times the rate in the rest of Canada. Statistics for other types of violence, such as overall suicides, and rapes among family members, run about 10 times the comparable rates in southern Canada.

Inuit leaders renewed their calls for better government mental health services. Mary Simon, the prominent Inuit leader of the group Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, commented that “mental health services are sorely lacking in all our communities.”

Nunavut has no live-in mental health or addiction treatment centers, and is only slowly attempting to cope with the suicide issue. Problems have to be addressed by sending people south for treatment. It can take up to six months for people who need help to see a counselor. A suicide prevention plan that the territory adopted has yet to be implemented. Agencies that seek to help the Inuit don’t coordinate their services.

Simon expresses her frustration. She realizes that programs such as those cost money, but she says that the Inuit, like all other Canadians, pay their taxes. “Why can’t we have similar services that the rest of Canada take for granted?”

Ms. Levy said that the classmates of the little murdered girl are doing just fine. The school staff and teachers are working with the kids to cope with what happened. Many need to just get back to their normal school activities.

Glenn Williams, a coroner who is involved with suicide prevention, says that each new death compounds the problems and adds to the pain of the community. “In order to go forward, the community and the individuals have to deal with the burden they’re carrying already,” he said. Whenever meetings are called to attempt to devise prevention strategies, they turn, instead, to grief healing sessions. Everyone who shows up has been affected by suicides, everyone is in pain.

Jack Hicks, an authority on Inuit suicides, said the violence is a direct result of the Inuit having been removed from their lives on the land a couple generations ago. The trauma was not noticeable among adults who, themselves, moved in from the land, but among their children and grandchildren.

He refers to the problem in Nunavut as a high rate of intergenerational transmission of historical trauma. “That trauma has to be addressed,” he said, “or there is no reason to expect that rates of suicidal behaviour will decrease.” Earlier reports on Inuit suicides have similarly dated the problem back half a century, to the time when the government of Canada forced the Inuit to move into settled communities.

Mr. Williams, the coroner, told the press of the way he handled the suicide of a school boy in the community of Arctic Bay. He included some friends of the boy when he retrieved the body. They helped build his coffin, and helped dig his grave. The community “didn’t have a suicide for quite a few years after that,” he concluded. It helped make the problem very real to the kids and their parents.

News about the Birhor last week in India’s Jharkhand state included a tragedy in one district one day and a triumph in another the day after.

Jharkhand map In Hazaribagh district, Kishun Birhor, a laborer working at an illegal stone quarry, stopped to take a break next to the edge of the hole. Due to a drought, he walked right out to the edge of the water-filled quarry to bathe and wash some utensils when he suddenly slipped, fell in, and drowned.

Because the quarry did not have a permit to operate, the owner retrieved the man’s body and quickly buried it in a nearby forest to avoid dealing with the police. A villager told the press that “the quarry owners forced the widow of the deceased to succumb to the pressure of the powerful stone mafia and buried Kishun.”

Birhor village leaders went to the local police station to demand that the quarry owners be forced to compensate Kishun’s family. The police meanwhile filed a charge of negligence against the owners. Whether the officials will do anything about the way the Birhor are exploited by the small, local business remains to be seen.

News the next day about another Birhor community, Tulbul village, in the Gomia block of Bokaro District, was much more upbeat. Four out of the five Birhor boys studying at a school set up for tribal children by the Bokaro Steel plant in Bokaro Steel City have passed their graduation exams quite effectively. Only one boy, the fifth in the group, failed to pass.

Evidently, the village was ecstatic. While last year four Birhor boys barely made it through the exams, this year two of them did exceptionally well and obtained firsts. Two others got seconds on the test. The village was in a festive mood as they welcomed home their heroes.

According to a news story in The Telegraph, a leading Indian newspaper, 300 people were out reveling in the village since daybreak, waiting to greet the town heroes when they returned home from Bokaro.

Sundar Birhor, one of the two students who got a first place in the exam, said he might like to go into engineering as a career. His father, Bhikhan, who tends goats, appeared to not really understand what his son was doing, but he is proud of him anyway.

The boy graciously thanked the Bokaro Steel Plant for giving him the opportunity to get his education, and for providing his room and lodging while he was at school. Sundar said he plans to work at the steel plant and to help out other Birhor kids. He feels that raising goats, as his father does, is a waste of time. The steel plant has gotten publicity before for providing schooling for the Birhor children.

Suresh Birhor, who got the highest score of all the students, said he had once tried to run away from the student hostel in Bokaro and return to the village, but he had persevered. He admitted he was overcome with emotion when he learned how well he had done.

Nine Schwartzentruber Amish men lost their appeal to the Kentucky Court of Appeals last week. They had sought a religious exemption from a Kentucky law which requires slow moving vehicle triangles on the back of horse-drawn buggies on public roads. The three-judge court ruled that the public’s right to safety outweighed the contention by the Amish that the highly visible signs violated their religious beliefs.

The nine men had been convicted of misdemeanors in 2008 in a lower court for failing to abide by the law. The garish colors of the triangles—designed to be easily visible at night as well as during the daytime—contradicted their code of modesty, they claim. The Amish also contend that they do not believe in trusting their safety to worldly symbols. Other Amish groups have no problem with displaying the slow moving triangles, and other safety devices, on their buggies.

Alternative approaches that the Schwartzengruber Amish had attempted to use—displaying lanterns, or putting gray, reflective tape on their buggies—had been rejected by the state motor vehicle authorities because they are not visible enough, especially at twilight when accidents are likely to occur.

Assistant Attorney General for Kentucky, Christian Miller, indicated in the court in March that everyone had to obey laws that were designed for the safety of all. On many public highways, he said, vehicles drive at 55 miles per hour (90km/h). A buggy going at less than one-fifth that speed is dangerous not only for the occupants of the buggy, but also for people in motor vehicles.

Miller maintained that, according to federal case law, it is permissible at times to compromise the claims of religious rights by specific groups, as long as laws do not deliberately target those groups.

Senior Judge Ann O’Malley Shake wrote in the decision last week, “this court is not in the business of tenaciously restricting religious practices.” She went on to write, “However, such practices cannot infringe on the rights and safety of the public at large.” William Sharp, from the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which is handling the case for the Amish, expressed his disappointment with the outcome of the appeal. He indicated he would consult with his clients to see if they wanted to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Leaders of the Nubian community, both from Egypt and abroad, met in Aswan last week to air their grievances about their treatment by the Egyptian government and to seek some solutions. They decried the destruction of Old Nubia by a dam built across the Nile at Aswan in 1902, a higher one in 1934, and finally the highest in the 1960s. They are particularly bitter about the shoddy treatment they’ve gotten from the Egyptian governments over the past 100 years.

The representatives decided to renew their pressure on the government to help the Nubian people resettle around the shores of Lake Nasser—as close to their former homeland as they can get. The lake, formed when the High Dam at Aswan was closed, destroyed what remained of Old Nubia. Some Nubians are agitating that the reservoir should be renamed Lake Nuba.

The representatives at the meeting appointed prominent author and critic of Egyptian government policies, Haggag Oddoul, as their representative to negotiate with government officials. Addoul has criticized both the former Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak and the current government of Essam Sharaf. Both governments, he charged, have deceived the Nubian people. Oddoul’s works, such as a collection of short stories in 2005, and a novella in 2009, have been translated into English and gained him international prominence.

A number of representatives at the meeting signed a petition expressing their concerns to the government. Many rejected a recently proposed government scheme to resettle them in Wadi Kurkur, a remote location in the Egyptian desert which is part of the Toshka Project and located far from the Nile.

Government pledges do not mean anything when they don’t recognize the right of the Nubians to return to their homeland—the area around the lake—Oddoul told the meeting. “There has been an undeclared scheme by the Egyptian government to keep Nubians in diasporas,” he declared. He went on to say that the Nubians used to prioritize Egypt over the interest of Nubia, but if they are not successful in their negotiations with the government, they will shift their priorities.

The Hindu, a leading newspaper in India, recently reported on alcohol problems among the Kadar. The same paper last week published two more articles about them, the first of which focused on their new venture—the cultivation of pepper.

The reporter indicates that the Kadar of Pokalapara, located in the Vazhachal Forest District of Kerala, decided to plant 4,000 pepper plants during the last rainy season. The 26 families in the settlement hope to start selling their pepper in a couple years.

They were inspired by a very successful Paliyan venture in raising organic pepper near the Periyar Tiger Preserve, also in Kerala, which was reported in September 2008 and again in March 2009. This article last week indicates that pepper farming by the Paliyans is making a lot of money for them.

The reason the Paliyans are successfully growing pepper organically, according to Omana, a Kadar farmer, is that the vines are otherwise subject to diseases. Apparently, organic manure is the best type of fertilizer for the plants.

Traditionally, the Kadar have subsisted on fishing, gathering, and selling minor forest products such as honey and medicinal plants. They are also employed as guards by the Forest Department. This latest venture is being supported by a government program called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, in which tribal farmers are given financial support for working on their own lands.

The Kadar initially resisted getting involved with farm work, which is not something they have done before. Now they are cooperating with the program, which is managed by Vana Samrakshana Samity (VSS), a collective in their community that coordinates their forest protection work, their collecting activities, and now their pepper cultivation. Omana said that her husband, Biju, also participates in the farming work whenever he is free. The Kadar are growing the pepper as a group project, and the profits from the venture will go back to the people.

Another news story in The Hindu the next day described the honey gathering practices of the Kadar. Apparently, they are going quite badly this year due to too much rain in the region. The Kadar normally search the forests from March through mid-May to locate tall trees with honeycombs hanging from the branches. They pound nails into the tree trunks to climb up and smoke out the bees with torches made from palm leaves. Then they bring the honeycomb back to the central cooperative facility in their village, to the VSS, to be prepared for sale.

The Kadar gatherers are normally paid Rs. 140 (US $3.10) per kg for the honey they bring in. It is sold by the samity, the local government body, for Rs. 300 (US $6.64) per kg. The government agency keeps the profits in the Kadar community.

But honey production will be much less than normal this year due to excessive rains. Kunijivelu, a 65 year old Kadar man who is now too old to climb up the trees and collect the honey himself, said that “the untimely rain will leave just wax in the honeycombs.” Instead of the normal 5 tons of honey gathered each year in the Vazhachal Forest, the Kadar have only brought in 40 kg. Most of the men have simply not bothered to go into the forest to try and find any. Kunijivelu indicated he is now employed by the forest district in conservation work.

Some peaceful societies forbid the consumption of alcohol, which they feel might make them aggressive. Peter Gardner, in an article published in the 1972 book Hunters and Gatherers Today, indicated that the Paliyan have such a prohibition. One of their safeguards for preventing anger is to carefully avoid alcoholic beverages. They believe that it causes aggression among their Tamil neighbors, and it might affect them the same way.

Hunters and Gatherers Today It is not clear from the literature if one of their neighboring societies, the Kadar, have a similar attitude. If so, the prohibition is clearly disintegrating. One of India’s leading newspapers, The Hindu, carried a story last Friday that described the declining health of the Kadar people, where alcoholism is becoming a major problem.

The newspaper article mentions that the use of tobacco, and the spread of tuberculosis, are also threatening the health of the Kadar, but alcoholism appears to be the most significant problem.

P.K. Bijoykumar, a local medical officer, said that alcoholism is prevalent in Kadar villages. A young Kadar mother, Sanimol, told the reporter that most of the men regularly consume alcoholic beverages. She said that her own husband never comes home in the evening without first spending time drinking with the other men.

Mrs. Kanchana Vijayan, who was formerly the president of the Athirapilly panchayat, said, “to my knowledge, no one has quit the habit in the tribal belt despite the number of awareness programmes held here.” The Kadar women in the village of Pokalapara agitated to finally stop the illegal manufacture of alcohol in their community, but now some of the men are able to obtain it in the town of Chalakudy and sell it themselves.

Mrs. Vijayan, who is the president of the Tribal Vana Samrakshana Samithi in Pokalapara, said that the vendors of illegal alcohol are selling it at exorbitant rates. Usha, another Kadar, said that the women had raised the problems of alcoholism in various forums, including at local meetings and before welfare officials, but their activities have not helped—at least not yet.

To judge by the news last week from a village near Sumbawanga, in southwestern Tanzania, the practice of traditional healing continues to be an important aspect of the peaceful Fipa culture.

Recent news from the Rukwa Region of Tanzania has covered other stories about traditional healers. Last year, a predatory healer attacked his victims with his “medicine” and nearly killed them after successfully robbing them. A few years ago, a healer told his followers in his village that he was going to visit the gates of hell. He jumped into a river and drowned.

The news last week may not have been so dramatic, but it threw a little more light on the traditional healing profession among the Fipa. Ms. Christina Chenga, an 18 year old woman in the village of Mtimbwa, declared she had been having strange dreams that directed her to start healing people. She is the only daughter of Mrs. Leonira Fundimabao, a peasant woman.

Ms. Chenga told a newspaper reporter that she dropped out of the local secondary school when her dreams directed her to. Mrs. Fundimabao told the press that her daughter administers a cup of herbal preparation to each of the patients who come to their home. She said they get up to 2,000 patients daily.

The District Commissioner, Colonel John Mzurikwao, admitted he was aware of the curing going on in the village. He said he had directed the District Medical Officer to visit the village, along with other officials, to investigate the safety of the herbs being used.

Ms. Chenga said that her cup of herbal medicine, for which she charges 500 Tanzanian Shillings (US$0.33), cures cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other illnesses. She says that she has gotten calls back from satisfied patients who told her they were feeling better.

This brief news story provides several clues about changes in Fipa attitudes toward their traditional healers since 1964 when Willis finished his studies of magic and medicine in Ufipa. He noted that all of the traditional healers were men—it was an exclusively male profession. The Fipa healers who made the news in 2007 and in 2010 were also both men. The news story last week indicates that the new healer is getting business, so it would appear as if the formerly all-male profession has changed. Women act as healers in other nearby societies, as the photo above illustrates.

Willis observed that patients went to their village healers for treatments of physical ailments and mental illnesses, and for assistance in obtaining desirable objectives. He describes in detail the different ingredients that the traditional healer might use in his medicines—bits of animals, vegetables, and minerals found in the bush. A woman suffering from dizziness, for instance, might have been treated by a healer with pieces of swallow’s nests, symbols of self-contained, but fixed, stability.

The healers in the 1960s might also use, in their preparations, hair from the neck of a male goat, pieces of muskrat, parts of a net used to trap otters, bits of an elephant’s ear, or some of the mounds made by moles. Each ingredient had symbolic values to the Fipa of the period. The news story last week was unfortunately brief, but it did not appear as if the young woman is using anything more than herbal preparations, though the reporter may have missed part of Ms. Chenga’s story.

Willis reported that sometimes healers administered their preparations by burning them into ashes and rubbing them into cuts on the skin of the patients—as the bogus healer did to his victims in 2010. He also reports that healers at times administered their potions to their patients orally, as the young woman near Sumbawanga does today.

He indicated that the tradition of healing had changed a lot in Ufipa by 1964 when he completed most of his field work. An earlier, elaborate structure of mystical beliefs and behaviors had collapsed with the introduction of Roman Catholicism in the late 19th century. The moral and social forces involved with traditional healing were disintegrating. The healer, the asinaanga, in Fipa society evolved from a magician-doctor who practiced divination, to a shaman who was able to divine through spirit possession, to, in 1964, an individual who dispensed simple, ad hoc, medicines.

The news story last week indicates that the last stage of healing that Willis observed is still active in Ufipa. If the numbers of patients Ms. Chenga receives are to be believed, it confirms that the belief in healing is still strong among the Fipa people.

Peaceful Societies

Peaceful Societies

Mbuti Refugee Stories

Conflict Over the Chalakudy Dam Nearly Ended

Symphony Orchestra at a Piaroa Village

Family Murdered, Father Commits Suicide in Nunavut

Birhor Supported, but Exploited

Schwartzentruber Amish Lose Court Appeal

Nubians Appoint Oddoul to Represent Them

Pepper and Honey from Kerala

Kadar Women Try to Stop Alcoholism

A Woman Healer for the Fipa

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