Friday, May 30, 2008

Uncontacted Tribes of Earth

John Nigro forwarded me the following article, which I wanted to post. While I was growing up in New Guinea every so often I remember hearing of another new tribe being "discovered". The people on who's land we lived had been "discovered" only 30 years before I was born there.

That human beings still exist free of the modern world's dilemmas, free of the intellectualism of the more disconnected cultures, and are a people still native to the earth and the forests, represents an vital link for the rest of humanity... a link to who we were, and who we still are.

Today, "after all of this", which cultures are the richer now? Much has been gained by man's so-called advance, but we need also to ask, "What was lost? Are we more or less human now?"

I hope the modern world now claims enough sensitivity, compassion and wisdom to protect these still original cultures from our barbarism, at least until we have righted our place upon the earth and can meet with them in wisdom, respect and reverence. In saying this I'm not idealising these un-contacted cultures. It's just that right now the rest of humanity has nothing good to bring them. Not medicine, not religion, not science, not technology, not coca cola... let's not ruin more tribal cultures, but instead preserve and protect them from our predation. If not ourselves, then let them, at least, live in relative peace.

-Stuart

One of Earth's last uncontacted tribes

DailyMail.co.uk
By Michael Hanlon, 30th May 2008

Skin painted bright red, heads partially shaved, arrows drawn back in the longbows and aimed square at the aircraft buzzing overhead. The gesture is unmistakable: Stay Away.

Behind the two men stands another figure, possibly a woman, her stance also seemingly defiant. Her skin painted dark, nearly black.

The apparent aggression shown by these people is quite understandable. For they are members of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes, who live in the Envira region in the thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian frontier.

Thought never to have had any contact with the outside world, everything about these people is, and hopefully will remain, a mystery.

Painted: In a thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian border, these tribespeople are thought never to have had any contact with the outside world

Their extraordinary body paint, precisely what they eat (the anthropologists saw evidence of gardens from the air), how they construct their tent-like camp, their language, how their society operates - the life of these Amerindians remains a mystery.

'We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,' said Brazilian uncontacted tribes expert José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior. 'This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.'

Meirelles, who despite once being shot in the shoulder by an arrow fired by another tribe campaigns to protect these peoples, believes this group's numbers are increasing, and pointed out how strong and healthy the people seemed.

But other uncontacted groups in the region, whose homes have been photographed from the air, are in severe danger from illegal logging in Peru and populations are being decimated.

Mystery: The tribespeople are likely to think the plane that took this photograph is a spirit or large bird


Logging is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated five hundred uncontacted Indians already living on the Brazilian side.

'What is happening in this region [of Peru] is a monumental crime against the natural world, the tribes, the fauna and is further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilised' ones, treat the world,' said Meirelles.

It is extraordinary to think that, in 2008, there remain about a hundred groups of people, scattered over the Earth, who know nothing of our world and we nothing of theirs, save a handful of brief encounters.

The uncontacted tribes, which are located in the jungles of South America, New Guinea and a remote and the beautiful and remote North Sentinel island in the Indian Ocean (the inhabitants of which have also responded to attempts at contact with extreme aggression) all have one thing in common - they want to be left alone.

And for good reason. The history of contact, between indigenous tribes and the outside world, has always been an unhappy one.

Human nature: One man points at the plane. Others ready their weapons

In our overcrowded world their very future hangs in the balance. Almost all of these tribes are threatened by powerful outsiders who want their land. These outsiders - loggers, miners, cattle ranchers - are often willing to kill the tribespeople to get what they want.

Even where there is no violence, the tribes can be wiped out by diseases like the common cold to which they have no resistance.

According to Miriam Ross of Survival International, which campaigns to protect the world's remaining indigenous peoples, 'These tribes represent the incredible diversity of humankind. Unless we want to condemn yet more of the earth's peoples to extinction, we must respect their choice. Any contact they have with outsiders must happen in their own time and on their own terms.'

As to who these people are, how they live their lives, what language they speak - we know nothing. 'Normally you can tell who tribes are by their language, how they wear their hair, how they adorn their bodies and so on, but in this case the photos don't allow us to get close enough to see,' says Ms Ross.

Hidden homes: The tribe's tent-shaped dwellings deep in the rainforest

When anthropologists first overflew the area, they saw women and children in the open and no one appeared to be painted. It was only when the plane returned a few hours later that they saw these individuals covered head-to-toe in red. 'Tribes in the Amazon paint themselves for all kinds of different reasons - one of which includes when they feel threatened or are aggressive,' Ms Ross says.

'And they are almost certain to feel threatened by or aggressive towards a plane, which was where the photos were taken from. They are almost certain not to understand what the plane is - perhaps a spirit or a large bird.

'The jungle is fundamental to their lives and survival. It's their home, their source of food, the source of their culture etc. Without it, they could not exist as a people.'

Contact is usually a disaster for these remote tribespeople, who live a life probably unchanged for more than 10,000 years. Even if the loggers do not shoot them (which they often do) or force them off their land, diseases against which these isolated humans have no resistance typically wipe out half an uncontacted tribe's numbers in a year or two.

Stay away: The anthropologists saw evidence of gardens, but exactly what they eat, how they build their huts and why they paint their bodies remains unknown

Ms Ross added: 'These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist. The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.'

For more information on Survival International

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

From Val Hensey, Bristol, UK

Dear Stuart,

I will be doing a walk around the area I live on Saturday morning, in spite of the rain!!

It is soft, gentle summer rain and fairly mild, and I always let my tears for our beautiful planet mingle with the tears from Heaven, it is so healing to my spirit...I think of others who are doing the same, and then I don't feel so lonely...

I walk out from my house right on to a beautiful area of "common" land, where there are Badgers, Deer, Hare, Foxes, insects of all kinds, and some very beautiful Sky Larks, and other rare birds, also there are some extremely rare orchids, and the most amazing part is that all this is within half a mile from Bristol International Airport...So, one thing does compensate for another, I find this as I go through Life.

much love, Val Hensey

Monday, May 26, 2008

FNM World WALK - June 2008

Dear Friends and "World Walkers",

Please join us this weekend, at your convenience, by embarking on an invocatary, contemplative, walk in your area... on your mountain, along your river, around your lake, or alongside your free-way... The location and duration is up to you.

Scan through older blog-posts to familiarize yourself with the purpose and intent of these walks.

The Lake County Fear-No-More World WALK will journey the 15 miles from the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary to Middletown, once again leaving at 5am, Saturday 31. Contact Stuart for more info.

Stuart
www.fearnomorezoo.org

Friday, May 23, 2008

No Fixed Address

Robyn Davidson is, perhaps, best known for her trek by camel across Australia's outback. Her books, "Tracks" and, "From Alice to Ocean: Alone Across the Outback" detail that journey.

The following is excerpted from another of her books, "No Fixed Address: Nomads and the Fate of the Planet".


TRANSCRIPT - Robyn Davidson:
For thirty years on and off, I have been visiting, reading about, living or travelling with traditional nomads all over the world.

Wherever I have looked, I've found that those ways of life are under enormous pressure and will, I believe, soon disappear. Given that we have been nomadic since our time as Homo sapiens sapiens began - about 200, 000 years ago - and given that we have planted crops and lived in settlements for only ten thousand of those years, that strikes me as an extraordinary fact.

During these last ten thousand years, we have made massive, unprecedented changes to the environment, creating problems for ourselves that we may not be able to solve.

We get out of cul-de-sacs by retracing our steps to find out where we went wrong. I would like to suggest that one wrong turning occurred when we gave up cultures of movement, for cultures of accumulation. I do not mean to say that we should, or could, return to traditional nomadic economies. I do mean to say that there are systems of knowledge, and grand poetical schemata derived form the mobile life, that it would be foolish to disregard or underrate. And mad to destroy.

The agricultural revolution transformed the earth and changed the fate of humanity. It produced an entirely new mode of subsistence, which remains the foundation of the global economy to this day. It gave us greater quantities of low quality food, and a rapidly increasing population dependant on that food. And there is no going back. Without human labour hacking at weeds, felling trees or redirecting water, domesticated grains would die out, and without that grain, so would we. Agriculture provided no exit other than famine.

By requiring humans to become sedentary, it changed the way we conceive of our place in nature, and it changed the way we distribute goods. Pre-agricultural peoples saw themselves as embedded in and working with nature, rather than struggling against it. Because they were mobile foragers, they didn't produce surplus, and they couldn't carry much weight.

In 10 000 BC all human beings were hunter-gatherers, by 1500 AD I per cent were hunter-gatherers. Less than .001 per cent of people are hunter-gatherers today.

Agriculture set us on a path to the urban then the industrial revolutions, and finally to the wild consumerism of late capitalism. Like previous chapters of the agricultural story, the present one is achieving material wealth, longer life, greater choice - all the benefits that people like me enjoy. But they are available to the few at the expense of the many. This is axiomatic. The pyramidical social structure, which formed around the storage of grain, with goods, power and resources concentrating towards the top, is as fundamental today as it was in those first cities of five thousand years ago.

Most importantly, the generation of our wealth requires an increasing pillage of the environment. Global warming should be terrifying enough to galvanise us into changing habits of consumption. It does not appear to be doing so. Four billion years of life on earth. Millions of those reigned over by the dinosaurs. Us lot a mere 200 00 year blip and according to Lord Rees, the UK Astronomer Royal, we are not looking good to get through the next century, let alone compete with the dinosaurs.

In every religion I can think of, there exists some variation on the theme of abandoning the settled life and walking one's way to Godliness. The Hindu Sadhu, leaving behind family and wealth to live as a beggar; the pilgrims of Compostela walking away their sins; the circumambulators of the Buddhist kora; the Hajj. What could this ritual journeying be but symbolic, idealized versions of the foraging life? By taking to the road we free ourselves of baggage, both physical and psychological. We walk back to our original condition, to our best selves.,

While there can be no literal return to previous modes of living, there might be ways into previous kinds of thinking. Pilgrimages, let's say, to newly imagined territories where, instead of dismissing the traditional as useless to modernity, we might integrate the best of each.

But if that is too much too expect, at least attention to nomadic world views might get us closer to finding whatever solutions to the disintegrations of modern life are actually available to us.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

"Friends Walking"

"Friends Walking"
A sculpture in bronze
Kenneth Armitage, 1952

NEXT WALK : May 31 - June 1

The next Fear-No-More World WALK is set for the weekend of May 31 & June 1.... please join us by going on a walk in your area.

On this fifth walk we honor all the people (human and non-human) around the world who have walked, run, swum, fasted, sat in trees, on rocks or in one way or another made a stand for betterment within themselves and in the world around them, regardless of the obstacles

-- people such as....

Peace Pilgrim, Peace Pilgrim Two, Julia Butterfly Hill, Mahatma Gandhi, Shivapuri Baba, Wangari Maathai, Martin Strel, Genshin Fujinami, Black Elk, Nugi Garimara, Roger Fouts, Digit, Skidboot, Mottaipaiyan, Ananda Mayi Ma, Apisai Bati, Kenny Ausubel, Jane Goodall, Brighty, Washoe, Chief Sequoyah, Chomolungma, all the great rivers, and countless others.....

These humans, animals, trees, mountains and rivers and countless others have, in one way or another, stood out for tolerance, peace, environmental protection and for sheer life! They and their efforts continue to be inspiring for their enduring effects.

Swami Vivekananda once told a gathering of people seated in front of him, "All of you here are not less, but greater than, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and Mohammed because you are alive here right now, at this very moment!"

He was telling his audience that the achievements and inspirations of others, no matter how great, are efficacious only to the degree that others, we -- you and me -- take up their lead. He emboldened everyone he met to be as great, or greater, than the most impressive people in history in terms of action and life.

If we are merely inspired by the seven year running feats of Buddhist monks, the tree-sitting of environmental activists, or the great realizations of spiritual giants, we support and further very little of what their lives attempted to set in motion.

Martin Strel wrote: "there are millions of people throughout the world gazing out the same window. Occasionally a crazy thought comes into their head from somewhere so far away they can't even fathom its sources, but they quickly discard it and return to the surface to deal with the seemingly important aspects of everyday life that crowd their inbox. Years pass, their children have children, and every time they gaze out that window, those old dreams flood their minds again. Big dreams. Dreams they are afraid to try to reach but yet linger. They may think they’re too fat or too old or whatever their excuse. They all have an excuse that prevents them from reaching those dreams. If a fifty-two year old, slightly fat man can swim the Amazon, what can you do? Remember, those last two hours before sunset can often be the best swimming of the day".

The monthly Fear-No-More World WALKS are an opportunity for everyone to not just admire others for their heroic efforts, but to put our own energy forward also, bare our sweat a little, exercise our muscles for the simple sake of the life before us and around us -- inspired by all those others who have stepped out more dramatically then we to induce a positive life. If our lives come to match our potential these great friends of humanity may never need to extend themselves so again. As they have done for us, we also can relieve them by our greatness, how we live, what we understand and do.

Let's pick up their energy for life and carry it with us, take up their action and prayer and re-enliven it as our own... carry their intentions forward as they would have wanted us to... they are part of our human lineage and legacy as we are theirs.

WALK for a world free of unnecessary fear, perhaps even to free fear from its own desolate solitude of unhappy self...

Stuart

"NO" = "KNOW"

The root meaning of "No" is not punitive, suppressive, demeaning or controlling.

"No" is rooted to "Knowledge".... "to know".

Using the word, "no", with its most positive intent would not be to tell you, "No! don't do that!"

Instead "no" would be calling you to knowledge, "to know", to be aware and thereby do the right thing.

So "yes" and "no" are sisters communicating the same intent of agreement and knowledge.

"Yes" and "no" are not opposites but companions communicating approval and wisdom, a point of view free of doubt and fear.

Fear-No-More World WALKS are walks for "yes" = "no".

Resist telling someone "No, you cannot".

Never tell yourself, "No, I cannot".

When we tell someone, "no", let's do so to draw each other beyond limitation and suppression... into self-know-ledge, awareness and freedom, helping to undo the fear and doubt this present culture tends to prefer, that strange fear we've come to feel safe within...

Yes and No-ledge, in their fullness, are not different or opposites.

They are the same.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Walks in SFO Area - Tom Stiles

On Saturday May 3rd I walked for "Fear-No-More" in three parks in San Francisco. Primary among these was the Presidio, in the north-west corner of the city, along the shore on either side of the Golden Gate Bridge, out to the Pacific, and on up the hill half a mile all along.

The Presidio is home to many species of trees, including eucalyptus, and therefore also many birds and other wildlife.

I walked on part of the Bay Trail in the Presidio….. this is a trail that traces the shoreline of San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, over 500 miles when it’s done, and it’s over half completed now. It offers non-motorized access to some of the most scenic, and in some cases wildlife-protected shoreline on the Bay.

I walked in a dog-walk zone where human people exercised their relationships to canine people... observing how dogs bring people together.

May all people come together on the ground of a fearless world for non-humans and humans alike.

Tom

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Boston Walk post

The Boston walk happened on Sunday May 4 between 10:30am and 1:00pm….overcast and “moody”. I could feel a palpable union with all other walkers, and the INTENTION of the walk…very enjoyable…I did not see one single negative thing for the 2 ½ hours, even though I was right in a big city. Every unit that came to my attention felt blessed via my regard. I started in Winter Hill, Somerville, famous in the past as a home of gangsters. Blessed them. Passed a Revolutionary War gunpowder magazine stone structure…blessed all political revolutionaries. Then 3 dogs, a few birds, saved an earthworm stranded on a wet sidewalk.

Then was wandering down streets in a general direction, but didn’t exactly know where I was….stumbled on a beautiful bike-path/greenway that ran right thru Somerville/Cambridge for miles!! Greenery bowing in from above, happy walkers, babies and dogs. Overcast, gray, and timeless. Fed birds.

Then came a miracle of synchronicity! I came out of the greenway to a giant MURAL….huge! in vibrant colors! and there are: a green chameleon, a rabbit, 2 parrots with green, red and yellow feathers!! just like on the FNMZoo brochure I had just seen that morning. Also there were fish, pastures and sky, snakes. After my happy shock, I saw it was on the brick side wall of a petstore….wow. Once on the subway, I read of rescuing elephants in Sri Lanka, and what a great job the Buddhists there are doing moving them to sancturies… with tranquilizers and trucks! Finally got home…joyful.

Can’t wait til the next one………may all beings be blessed by these walkabouts…….

love, loretta

Sunday, May 4, 2008

One More Fear-No

This weekend Victor, Coal and I walked from the MOA Sanctuary to Middletown.

Starting at 5am we were done by 10am. A good walk. A good meditation. The canyon, creek, crags, old trees, dawn sickle moon, rising sun and blue sky were full and alive.












Orangutan

The big red ape squats beneath a large tree, gazing across farmlands and smouldering hillsides. Out in the fields the smooth-skinned apes are shouting. They seem confused, bewildered and lost. A small bird flits from bush to bush to sip from rocky pools. The large orangutan scratches his backside and yawns.

People come and go from his forest, destroying everything.

To the silent, woolly, orangutan human life appears anxious, disconnected, unsustained somehow, failing to touch what he knows without effort. Like us, the red apes and others, know fear and death. Unlike us, non-humans know to fold themselves more gracefully within the flow of life's changes and passings. They possess the capacity for a deep, simple, yielded life that is ours also -- if we want it.

A younger orangutan arrives, sitting quietly beside the old man. Their eyes brush, and soften. Broad hands rest momentarily across hairy shoulders.

What differentiates our passionate intentions to save and preserve wilderness from our more massive urges toward its ruin? Some of us fear losing healthy forests, oceans, and skies. Others fear not fully exploiting them. To the calm ape it must plain that his human cousins share together a bewildering and common fear, regardless of the differing motivations among them.

The orangutans sit close, shoulders touching, two red-orange backs at forest edge, and warm sun.

None of conservation, deep-ecology, or environmental preservation will save their kind while our other hand simultaneously deals in their destruction. The world of non-humans experiences the overall influence, and impact, of humans as a single, creeping, force.

The orangutans climb quietly into the forest and disappear among the leaves and shadows that will also disappear. The small bird flits again from rocky pool to nearby root buttress, tail twitching... A leaf flutters to ground.

Orangutan, gorilla, elephant, horse, spider, snail and lizard live a direct demonstration of life without constraint.

A pure humanity would likewise confirm all of life.

Until we remember how to ride within the waves of life no lasting stewardship, or conservation, will ever be gifted by us to the world we so depend upon.

Remaining lost we simply continue to drift in ancient human fear, confusion, and the sense of separation from life... until we re-discover how the orangutan breathes and sits... what he sees, what he feels and knows...

Stuart