-Caveat Lector-
from Money, Murder, and the American Dream
Winchester: Faber and Faber, 1992.
The Mountain People: A Wilding Culture
Between 1964 and 1967, anthropologist Colin Turnbull lived among the
people of Uganda known as the Ik, an unfortunate people expelled by an
uncaring government from their traditional hunting lands to extremely
barren mountainous areas. In 1972, Turnbull published a book about his
experiences which left no doubt that a whole society can embrace "wilding"
as a way of life.
When Turnbull first came to the Ik, he met Atum, a sprightly, little old
barefoot man with a sweet smile, who helped guide him Turnbull to remote
Ik villages. Atum warned Turnbull right away that everyone would ask for
food. WHile many would indeed be hungry, he said, most could fend for
themselves, and their pleas should not be trusted. Atum mentioned that
his own wife was severely ill and desperately needed food and medicine.
On reaching his village, Atum told Turnbull his wife was too sick to come
out.
Later, TUrnbull heard exchanges between Atum and his sick wife, and moans
of her suffering. The moans were wrenching, and when he pleaded for help,
Turnbull gave him food and aspirin.
Some weeks later, he stepped up his requests for food and medicine, saying
his wife was getting sicker. Now seriously concerned, Turnbull urged Atum
to get her to a hospital. He refused, saying 'she wasn't that sick.'
Shortly thereafter, Atum's brother in law came to Turnbull and told him
that Atum was selling the medicine that Turnbull had been giving him for
his wife. Turnbull, not terribly surprised, said that 'that was too bad
for his wife.' Wherepon the brother in law enjoying the joke enormously,
told him that Atum's wife had been dead for weeks, and that Atum had
buried her inside the compound so that you wouldn't know.
Startling to Turnbull was not only the immense glee the brother in law
seemed to take in the 'joke' inflicted on his dying sister, but the utter
lack of embarrassment shown by Atum when confronted with his life. He
shrugged it off, showingno remorse whatsoever, saying he had simply
forgotten to tell Turnbull. That his little business enterprise may have
led to his wife's death was the last thing on Atum's mind. This was one
of the first of many events that made TUrnbull wonder whether there was
any limit to what an Ik would do to get food and money.
Some time later, TUrnbull came across Lomeja, an Ik man he had met much
earlier. He had been shot during an attack by neighboring tribesemen and
was lying in apool of his own blood, apparently dying from two bullet
wounds in the stomach.. Still alive and conscious, he asked for some tea.
Shaken, Turnbull returned to his Land Rover and filled a big, new yuellow
enamel mug. When he returned, Lomeja's wife was bending over her husband.
She was trying to 'fold him up' in the dead position although he was not
yet dead, and started shrieking at Turnbull to leave Lomeja alone because
he was already dead. Lomeja found the strength to resist his wife's
premature efforts to bury him and was trying to push her aside. TUrnbull
managed to get the cup of tea to Lomeja, who was still strong enough to
reach out for it and sip it. Suddenly Turnbull heard a loud giggle and
saw Lomeja's sister, Kiamat. Attracted by all the yelling, she had 'seen
that lovely new, bright yellow enamel mug of hot, sweet tea, had snatched
it from her brother's face and made off with it, proud and joyful. She
not only had the tea, she also had the mug. She drank as she ran,
laughing and delighted at herself.'
Turnbull came to describe the Ik as 'the loveless people.' Each Ik valued
only his or her own survival--and regarded everyone else as a competitor
for food. Ik life had become a grim process of trying to find enough food
to stay alive each day. The hunt consumed all of their resources, leaving
virtually no reserve for feelings of any kind, nor for any moral scruples
that might interfere with filling their stomachs. As Margaret Mead wrote,
the Ik had become a 'people who have become monstrous beyond belief.' The
scientist Ashley Montagu wrote that the Ik are 'a people who are dying
because they have abandoned their own humanity.'
Ik families elevated wilding to a high art. Turnbull met Adupa, a young
girl of perhaps six, who was so malnourished that her stomach was grossly
distended and her legs and arms spindly. Her parents had decided she had
become a liability and threw her out of their hut. Since she was too weak
now to go out on long scavenging ventures,s as did the other children, she
would wander as far as her strength would allow, pick up scraps of bone or
half-eaten berries, and then come back to her parents' place, waiting to
be brought back in. Days later, her parents, tired of hearing her crying,
finally brought her in and promised to feed her. She was happy and
stopped crying. The parents went out and closed the 'asak behind them, so
tight that weak little Adupa could never have moved it if she had tried.'
Adupa waited for them to come back with the food they had promised. But
they did not return until a whole week had passed, when they knew Adupa
would be dead. Adupa's parents took her rotting remains, Turnbull writes,
and threw them out, ' as one does the riper garbage, a good distance
away.' There was no burial--and no tears.
Both morality and personality among the Ik were dedicated to the single
all-consuming passion for self-preservation. There was simply 'not room
in the life of these people,' TUrnbull observes dryly, 'for such luxuries
as family and sentiment and love.' Nor for any morality beyond '
marangik,' the new Ik concept of goodness, which means filling one's own
stomach.
( 6-9)
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