Reading recent accounts of the death of Boa Sr and with her the Great Andamanese language ‘Bo’, as an unquestionably a historical flag moment was sad to read. Boa Sr was reported to be the oldest of the remaining 52 descendants of the oldest human cultures on Earth and it seem an inevitability that extinction of more than this one lady and one language is just around the corner.
Perhaps the United Kingdom-based human rights organisation ‘Survival International’ is justified in serving us an ominous warning. The facts cannot be denied, these and other ancient tribes are likely to die out or be diluted with incoming settlers under the weight of progression. But is extinction not as natural as birth?
These reports left me wondering if the seemingly noble attempts of those fighting to preserve the past are as wholesome as they appear on the surface. Are the efforts being made by western crusaders any less paternalistic than the colonial policies that first brought poverty, disease and a class divide that enslaved so many cultures around the globe?
Nothing shaped this idea more, than the comment made by the Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry, where that the death of Boa Sr and the resulting extinction of the Bo language meant that a unique part of human society was now just a memory and that “this must not be allowed to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands”. Surely preservation isn’t natural and the idea of a manufactured preservation would be nothing more than a smokescreen for a human zoo.
Imagine a zoo containing people who are provided for in order to maintain their conditions to be as ‘natural’ as possible. Introductions and interactions would be limited to scientists, studying local traditions and customs and advisors to politicians, comfortable enough to make consult with the tribes in order to legislate in their best interests. We all know how much politicians act as objective guardians of the people they serve. And for purely economic and fiscal reasons, selected trading operatives – all fair-trade of course could be approved. What could go wrong?
However, well intended preservation attempts might be, there is the possibility that they are misguided and laced with double standards and irony. Our history books are littered with examples of integration and domination of peoples and their cultures, resulting in the rebirth of a new bastardised version of society.
In Scotland there rages a similar fight to preserve the Gaelic language from the very fate that the introduction of Gaelic heralded to Pictish tongues spoken long before Gaelic had ever been whispered over Scottish soil. Those consumed with conservation fail to acknowledge the path that laid history up to the present.
Perhaps this illustrates the romantic nature of humans. To remember the good, ignore the bad and re-write the downright awful. It’s so easy to romanticise the past eras when you are no longer living the reality first hand. Boa Sr herself was reported to have said that she thought a neighbouring tribe ‘Jarawa’ were lucky to live away from settlers. This statement is duplicitous; yes Boa Sr could be denouncing the arrival of incomers and their untraditional ways. Or perhaps it is nothing more than the nostalgic reminiscing of an old woman looking back upon a sugar coated romantic history. Given that the tribes embraced some benefits from settlers (guns and arms to name one) I think the latter is more likely.
Interestingly, another, less reported story this month involving the elderly female leader of the Ewenki tribe. Suo Maliya lives where her people have roamed for centuries in the forests of the Greater Hinggan Mountains, in Mongolia. This nomadic tribe are referred to as “China’s last hunting tribe” but Suo Maliya is the last female who still follows the traditional ways of the Aolu Guya Ewenki Suo’s tribe. When she dies, the remaining Ewenki will become a settled tribe, occupying a thriving community built for them by the Local Government 5 years ago.
In that short space of time, most of the tribe have decided that the comforts of settled housing and the enjoyment of increased incomes are a fair exchange for the freedom of roaming the forest and tradition. It is a choice most are happy to make.
In one family two brothers may have different opinions, but their choices influence the future for each other. One brother, Yi Su is clear, “I'm not interested in those things that Yi Lie does. I've heard enough from my grandfather about those forest stories”. Whilst his brother Yi Lie is one of the few tribesmen who are happy taking care of his the reindeers the forest.
At the moment Yi Lie is able to continue with tradition but the overall choice of the tribe to inhabit the village means that maintaining a nomadic lifestyle will become less and less sustainable and will inevitably lead to those traditions being changed or abandoned. The Scottish community of St. Kilda fell to the same cultural fate back in the 60’s when there were too few active people to sustain the communities way of life and the Island’s inhabitants had to be evacuated.
So to my mind these changes are not new; but if the traditions are well recorded then they don’t become extinct they live on as memories and recorded history. Surely this is where efforts should be made not to forget but to sing our historical stories loud and clear for all to celebrate and remember.
