Word: tribalized
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...global hemorrhage of indigenous knowledge even fuels the population explosion as people ignore taboos and forget traditional methods of birth control. In many parts of Africa, tribal women who used to bear, on average, five or six children now often have more than...
...difficult for an outsider to imagine the degree to which novel ideas and images assault the minds of tribal adolescents moving into the outside world. They get glimpses of a society their parents never encountered and cannot explain. Students who leave villages for schooling in Papua New Guinea learn that people, not the spirits of their ancestors, created the machines, dams and other so-called cargo of the modern world. Once absorbed, this realization undermines the credibility and authority of elders...
...talks," as kinsmen are called. "They don't like history because history is embarrassing," he says. "They wince when I talk about the way their dad or their mom lived." Mihalic and other members of his order have intervened to prevent the government from burning spirit houses, used during tribal initiation rites. But other missionaries often tell the young people that their customs are primitive and barbaric. Relatives who have left villages for the city and return to show off their wealth and status also influence the young. Girls encounter educated women who work as clerks and are exempt from...
...Sadly, tribal peoples often realize they are losing something of value too late to save it. In the village of Tai, in the Ivory Coast, three brothers from a prosperous family have tried to balance respect for the practices of their Guere tribe with careers in the modern economy. Yet their mother, an esteemed healer, has not been able to pass on her learning. One brother said he wanted to know about the plants she used but was afraid to ask because she would think he had foreseen her death -- the traditional time to pass on knowledge. Another brother would...
Even in the Third World, governments have tended to look at their indigenous cultures as an impediment to development and nationhood. In Papua New Guinea, for instance, European administrators, influenced by colonial practices in Africa, sought to discourage tribalism by consolidating power and commerce in cities far away from the villages that are the centers of tribal life. According to John Waiko, director of Papua New Guinea's National Research Institute, this decision has fueled instability by making government seem remote and arbitrary. Among dozens of nations and regions with substantial native populations, only Greenland and Botswana stand...