September 02, 2008

What "primitive" Indians really think

Here's a decent satire about Amazon Indians. It expresses how people think about them and how they (probably) think about us.

Lost tribe of Amazon and the Indian connectionHow is life in the jungle, cut off from all forms of civilization?

Life is pretty tough here. Sometimes you see our internet speeds drop below 2 MBPS and then it becomes tough to download those songs.

You have internet here?

Hey, what did you think we are in some primitive place or something? We often browse the web for all sorts of things--including knowing about our friends in different parts of the world. Some of them are in some place called parliament in your country.

You mean you have relatives there?

No silly, they were a bunch of jokers who were too primitive and uncivilized to be part of our cultured and learned tribe, so we banished them and they escaped to different parts of the world. I see so many of them on your television news channels.

That’s interesting. Do these guys stay in touch with you?

They dare not. We will never take them back and considering what they are doing to your country and the rest of the world, we don’t want them back.

How do you look at the rest of the world? Do you want to join the mainstream civilization, so to speak?

You guys are far more primitive than us. Just look at your infrastructure, the way you drive, the way you behave and treat your fellow human beings…such a way of life in unacceptable in our society. Out here every individual is respected and treated with love and care. We believe in fostering relationships and celebrating diversity and the welcome all forms of innovation and radical thinking with an open heart. We may be primitive in your world where technology is the sole judging criterion; but in terms of humanity, we are far advanced, we don’t need technology to stay in touch and we don’t have artificial relationships. For us everything is genuine and friendships are above everything else.
Comment:  Actually, there have been stories about Amazon tribes using Google Maps to protect their land from encroachment. So maybe this isn't a satire after all.

For more on the subject, see Indiana Jones and the Stereotypes of Doom.

4 comments:

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
And the main thing EuroMan forgets is that, because he only recently (anthropologically speaking) left the Arctic, his feet still resemble those of his ape ancestors. That gap between the big toe and the second toe tells it all, that he nowhere near is as evolved as the rest of humankind. A white man is white because his kind lived out of the sun and existed wearing furs, whereas the rest of men sought the real world...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Spiritual Sherpa said...

Hey Rob,

Glad that you liked the piece that you have reproduced here. It would have been great if you could have quoted the source here..

http://karmicsoliloquy.blogspot.com/

Thats my blog and this is my article.

Rob said...

I found the article at

http://bangalore.indiainteracts.com/2008/08/31/lost-tribe-of-amazon-and-the-indian-connection/

and linked to this source. If your blog was the original source, sorry I didn't realize it. Thanks for correcting the record.

Rob said...

Re "That gap between the big toe and the second toe tells it all, that he nowhere near is as evolved as the rest of humankind": Sounds like nonsense, anthropologically speaking. Like everyone else, Caucasians originated in Africa, not the Arctic.