American Missionary Killed by Indigenous Tribe

[fundiefan]

1 hour ago, LilMissMetaphor said:

This is an extremely un-nuanced view of the many non-religious, non-proselytizing, deeply educated anthropologists, sociologists and linguists/language lovers that we are lucky enough to have in this world.  

How do any of those benefit, help or improve the lives of their subject matter? 

Say a deeply educated anthropologist finds a way onto Sentinel Island without getting killed. Say he or she learns to communicate with them.What do they get from the interaction? Said deeply educated anthropologist gets lots of new information, writes a paper, gets to share his discovery and all that new knowledge.

While he's giving lectures around the world, where are the Sentinelese? How have their lives been affected? 

We see things through our lense. The Sentinelese - or any other isolated society, to whatever degree - see through their own lense. What are the benefits to them after the deeply educated anthropologist leaves?

[LilMissMetaphor]

23 minutes ago, fundiefan said:

How do any of those benefit, help or improve the lives of their subject matter? 

Say a deeply educated anthropologist finds a way onto Sentinel Island without getting killed. Say he or she learns to communicate with them.What do they get from the interaction? Said deeply educated anthropologist gets lots of new information, writes a paper, gets to share his discovery and all that new knowledge.

While he's giving lectures around the world, where are the Sentinelese? How have their lives been affected? 

We see things through our lense. The Sentinelese - or any other isolated society, to whatever degree - see through their own lense. What are the benefits to them after the deeply educated anthropologist leaves?

You certainly do see things through your own lens.  You clearly stated earlier that you believe the only reason why someone would want contact with another culture is to convince them that their way of life is wrong.

Those aren't rose-colored glasses, those are blackout blinds.

[HarryPotterFan]

5 hours ago, fundiefan said:

It's impossible to judge the Sentinelese by the rules of society as we know them. 

This is the exact kind of thing my AP World teacher in high school would say. And I think that sums a lot up pretty well. She is honestly one of my favorite teachers I’ve ever had. Her class was tough as hell, but she never let anyone get away with making a judgement about another society or culture from an Americanized 21st century point of view. She wanted us to not only learn about other cultures but respect and try our best to understand them.

3 hours ago, Carm_88 said:

It's sad that we will never really know much about the tribe. However, if they are happy and living in their own little world, then they are. We always think that we know better then the people themselves, look what we have done with native tribes around the world. We've fucked them up. Just leave them be, we aren't that great!

Imagine how happy they are not knowing Trump exists...

[snarkopolis]

2 hours ago, LilMissMetaphor said:

Oh FFS.   I am not interested in talking about the actual fucktard who visited the island, but in the surrounding circumstances, which some of the other posters have been engaging in dialogue with me about, thankfully.  If nuance isn't your thing, then maybe move along. 

I'm sorry I failed to recognize the anthropological pedestal your nuanced thoughts emanate from. It's far more important to discuss what we could learn from the tribe (that doesn't want us there--hence the arrow shooting) and what we could share with them (who doesn't want ac and solar panels?) in an abstract way rather than look at the history of their reaction to outsiders bringing all this "knowledge" in a very real concrete way.

I sincerely hope you can grasp my "nuanced" sarcasm in this response.

[nastyhobbitses]

6 hours ago, DarkAnts said:

I think it’s important to point out the fact that he made multiple trips to the island. The tribesman warned him to stay away with arrows and spears but he did not listen to them.

Guys like him are the reason we have warning labels on ride-on lawnmowers that say "do not use to trim hedges". 

[AmazonGrace]

American Intruder killed by Indigenous Tribe

  He may have had delusions of being one but IMO what he did doesn't count as "missionary".

[Duggarite]

 

The debate about what is the right thing to do for the small number of isolated tribes that exist is a complicated one and I declare I have not enough knowledge to have an opinion on the matter. In any case I do believe that in those cases abiding by the law is probably the best course of action for people like me. If the Indian government decides to leave them alone, as a not enough educated part of the society, yes, I will leave them alone. 

[anjulibai]

Most anthropologists and archaeologists I've ever known (and I worked for one for many years) don't believe their desire for knowledge outweighs the desires of the peoples they study to self-determination. In the history of those fields, and the fields of linguistics and sociology, the subjects never end up better off than how they were before.

As for the Sentinelese, they have lived on that island for thousands, likely even 10s of thousands of years. They are going to be just fine on their own. Hand wringing about their culture dying out is disingenuous. The best way for their culture to be preserved is for them to be left alone to practice it. It is contact that is most likely to lead to the extinction of the Sentinelese way of life, just as it is doing to the neighboring tribes in the rest of the Andaman Islands.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

12 hours ago, LilMissMetaphor said:

Again, I'm not talking about the guy.  He was obviously an asshat who didn't listen and thought he was, I don't know, above the law or something.  I'm talking about the other issues, like watching a culture, a language die out.  How can we share things with other cultures without hurting them? How can they share things with us?  Isn't it sad from a purely etymological perspective? No? Do we all just want to rant about the dumb guy who knocked on the one door he reallllllly shouldn't have knocked on? Okay then, let's do that. 

 

What if they DON'T FUCKING WANT to share their culture with us? It seems to me that they made it perfectly clear that they don't want any contact.

Also you assume that a) that every culture should be preserved in the memory of Western culture for eternity and b) that (as you said in your previous post) this culture is going to die soon.

Regarding the first point, it is based on OUR culture's need to preserve memories, on OUR need to put them in the anthropology textbooks. If they wanted to share their culture with us they had multiple occasions to do so and chose to not do it. What about respecting that?

As for your second point, anthropologists hypothesize that they have existed on that island for 60000 years. Why should they be dieing out now? Apparently we don't even know how many of them there are, we don't know about their future. And even if you were right and they were dieing out and their culture with them, our intervention would hardly save anything (as has been demonstrated many many times), it would just accelerate things. So, again, why should we not respect their clear wish to be left alone?

[Foudeb]

Yes, a thousand times yes to the last two posters. If we don't force our germs in them they're hardly likely to die out and their unique language and culture will be faithfully passed on to their descendants. Who knows, maybe in a thousand years or so we'll have found a way to keep our germs to ourselves and they will have decided they want to try interacting with us. They've been there 60000 years, what's another few millennia. 

Second of all there are plenty of wonderful unique languages dying out today, languages whose speakers actually want to interact. You don't even need to go that far from home, try retirement houses in places like New York that have lots of immigrants and you *will* find elderly people happy to trade giving you some of their knowledge for regular visits and attention. No need to go invade the space of people you're likely to kill and who emphatically don't want you there. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

8 hours ago, LilMissMetaphor said:

But this is why I keep thinking about such situations.  How can they? All of them, I mean.  I'm picturing those who are not able to run out to the beach with arrows to defend their way of life.  The old grandmas if there are any left, the mothers, the young people, those who may be hidden (of their own choice, or not).   I'm not saying they need to be saved.   It just makes me wonder if those ones have any agency.  Can you imagine being the only one of your tribe who did want to leave? Or did simply want more information/contact about the others out there? It's a bit of a Hollywood fantasy, right, but not impossible? 

When people say "they can leave if they want to," I don't see how that's actually possible.  It's not as if they're Amish and can just walk down a road to freedom.  They're literally insular.   

This reeks of Americans teaching brown people how to do democracy. Spoiler alert: it never ends well.

Can you please tell me why you assume that not all of them have agency?

And yes yours sounds exactly like a Hollywood trope full of American dogmas about "freedom" and Western cultural superiority.

[fundiefan]

8 hours ago, LilMissMetaphor said:

You certainly do see things through your own lens.  You clearly stated earlier that you believe the only reason why someone would want contact with another culture is to convince them that their way of life is wrong.

Those aren't rose-colored glasses, those are blackout blinds.

In some cases, I am happy to wear my black out blinds. I don't need to know about cultures and societies that don't want me to. When it comes to the Sentinelese, until this insane asshat went and tried to infiltrate them, I'd only barely known they existed, having somewhere in my life heard of the island and its inhabitants and that they have no contact. I was perfectly content to leave it at that. Still am. 

And I do believe that the only reason someone would want contact with such an isolated culture would be for their own benefit, not the benefit of those living in that culture. 

[Terrie]

The whole "What if some of them DO want contact?" is the same projective thinking that helped this asshat pull off this stunt. And it was a stunt. In one article from CNN, one friend explicitly compared him to Jim Elliot. Gag me. He's apparently been talking about wanting to do this since high school, and it tells you what sort of people he was surrounded by that no one sat him down years ago and told him he was way out of line. If what he wrote in his journal was reported accurately, he apparently prepped by reading adventure novels, because he had a huge fantasy built up his mind of how things would go, and seemed to be shocked by reality. Did he "deserve" to die? No. No one does. But this was the equivalent of a grown ass man jumping off the roof and using an umbrella as a parachute. All you do is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and go "Well, what did you expect to happen?"

[luv2laugh]

I think his parents knew what he was doing. I wonder if they tried to stop him and couldn’t because he was over 18? Could they have alerted authorities about his intentions?

Edited November 23, 2018 by luv2laugh

[luv2laugh]

I am feeling more pissed off the more I am researching this.

A friend (I think Ramsey) said he wasn’t surprised when he heard Chau died as he said Chau had been researching the Sentinelese for years, knew it was illegal, travelled to the Andanman Islands before to make Christian friends, etc. He also said Chau told many people. He was pretty inconsiderate of everyone around him, the tribe, and his parents knowing they’d have to grieve his death without being able to bury him.

I am trying to find out if the parents supported him going or not. 

I found his public Instagram https://www.instagram.com/johnachau/

He was in South Africa in October. His last two photos that he took are clearly in the Andaman Islands but he wouldn’t admit to it and closed comments on the photo. He also kept calling it “Endless Summer”. I’m assuming he meant “endless” as in he planned to live there forever with the tribe or die. Perhaps he meant “endless summer” as in, going to Heaven? He also referred to his last photo as “Adventure awaits”.

Here is a picture of Chau as a baby with his family. 

Edited November 23, 2018 by luv2laugh

[gustava]

Fundie bubble boy mentality:

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/22/1814707/-Death-of-American-on-remote-Indian-island-is-an-indictment-of-fundie-bubble-boy-mentality?utm_campaign=trending

[Palimpsest]

40 minutes ago, gustava said:

Fundie bubble boy mentality:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/22/1814707/-Death-of-American-on-remote-Indian-island-is-an-indictment-of-fundie-bubble-boy-mentality?utm_campaign=trending

Excellent article. It lays out the whole story very clearly.   It also sums up what I was trying to say yesterday in better words:

Quote

When all is said and done, whoever helped Chau get to India should share responsibility for his death. But to my mind, his death should also be an indictment of the fundie mentality. Keeping kids away from the outside world doesn’t just leave them unprepared for the real world. It could potentially kill them.

And potentially do untold damage to others, as in this case.

Another interesting article about how the best way to benefit isolated tribes and ensure their survival is to protect them and their environments from intruders.  As India is trying to do for the Sentinelese.

http://aktk.in/six-isolated-tribe-encounters-the-results-are-usually-violent/

[Lisafer]

I really, really hope that the Sentinelese don't catch any diseases from this guy. They've been exposed to his body, obviously--it would be an actual tragedy if they're decimated by some microbe. ☹️

[formergothardite]

2 hours ago, luv2laugh said:

He also kept calling it “Endless Summer”. I’m assuming he meant “endless” as in he planned to live there forever with the tribe or die.

Like John Shrader he probably had this missionary fantasy where he would swoop in to save the heathen natives, live the rest of his life on the island and at his funeral they would thank him for coming in to save their souls. 

 

[Walking Cat Bed]

Something I've been thinking about: we don't know anything about their society, their language is not recognizable, we don't know how many people live on the island. I'm not going to assume that they're primitive or "savage". 

For a pop-culture example: on The Walking Dead, there was a group living in a landfill who used really odd speech patterns. They'd managed to avoid contact with other survivor groups with a mantra of "we take, we don't bother" -- they'd scavenge and find supplies, but avoided interacting with others. But they used shipping containers as houses and used materials from the landfill to create art. But they wanted to be left alone and left everyone else alone (until). 

We don't know anything about the Sentinelese; they could very well have a written language, documented history, a radio to listen to what's going on outside of the island...or they could be happy to live in a world without modern "conveniences". We don't know.

[fundiefan]

4 minutes ago, Walking Cat Bed said:

Something I've been thinking about: we don't know anything about their society, their language is not recognizable, we don't know how many people live on the island. I'm not going to assume that they're primitive or "savage". 

For a pop-culture example: on The Walking Dead, there was a group living in a landfill who used really odd speech patterns. They'd managed to avoid contact with other survivor groups with a mantra of "we take, we don't bother" -- they'd scavenge and find supplies, but avoided interacting with others. But they used shipping containers as houses and used materials from the landfill to create art. But they wanted to be left alone and left everyone else alone (until). 

We don't know anything about the Sentinelese; they could very well have a written language, documented history, a radio to listen to what's going on outside of the island...or they could be happy to live in a world without modern "conveniences". We don't know.

True. Human beings evolve, and just because they haven't done so in the same way as "modern society" does not mean they haven't. Somehow, people have always managed to degrade, demoralize and villainize people they don't understand. Calling them 'savages', claiming they're evil, etc. 

Even now, with all the talk of this situation, some of the things I've read have been disturbing. 

They're not like "us". We know that. But, essentially, that's all that anyone knows and for far too many, that's too terrifying to tolerate.

[samurai_sarah]

7 hours ago, anjulibai said:

Most anthropologists and archaeologists I've ever known (and I worked for one for many years) don't believe their desire for knowledge outweighs the desires of the peoples they study to self-determination. In the history of those fields, and the fields of linguistics and sociology, the subjects never end up better off than how they were before.

(snip)

OT:

During my undergrad one of our anthro professors used to tell us the same story again and again: A colleague in the 1960s or so, had made contact with a nomadic people in Africa. Every so often, he would wake up in the morning, alone. This happened with increasing frequency, until it became a daily occurrence. He finally got the hint and stopped chasing after them.

Anthro professor kept on telling us the story to make sure that if anyone decided to follow into the field, we knew that we weren't entitled to anything and wouldn't harass anyone. His main message was that people are doing the researcher a favour, not the other way around. And get a hint!

[Black Aliss]

I keep thinking the world would be a much better place if only more isolated indigenous people had done what the Sentinel Islanders did when Christian missionaries barged in on them. 

[CelticGoddess]

On 11/22/2018 at 10:26 AM, SamiKatz said:

William Stark, ICC's regional manager, paid tribute to Chau and condemned his killing.

'We here at International Christian Concern are extremely concerned by the reports of an American missionary being murdered in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands. 

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to both John's family and friends. A full investigation must be launched in this this murder and those responsible must be brought to justice. India must take steps to counter the growing wave of intolerance and violence.' 

Isn't going to an isolated island, where the people are protected from outsiders in order to protect their lives and lifestyle, kind of the definition of intolerance?

I have empathy for this guy (and  his family), and certainly don't wish death on him but this whole statement by the ICC manager kind of reeks of entitlement.

I want to ask William Stark if he believes in the various castle doctrine laws throughout the US.  Would he just allow someone to come onto his property and cause harm/destruction?  Or would he defend his land.  That's what the people of the Island tribe did, they protected their land.  But, he'll probably just say it's different because blah blah blah

[Rachel333]

5 hours ago, Terrie said:

In one article from CNN, one friend explicitly compared him to Jim Elliot. Gag me.

I think that's a pretty apt comparison, actually. I see Jim Elliot in a similarly negative light as the way I see this guy.