Living Off Grid...Really Off Grid

[Rick]

This is a pictorial story (sorry for those on dial up) of the Korowai tribe in Indonesia. Fascinating stuff!! Look for the right arrows on the right center margin of the pictures. You may have to move off the picture and back on for the arrow to appear.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pict...-dwellers.html

[BENESSE]

Simply fascinating!!! What amazing structures!

One very troubling sentence under a pic:
"...Now that we know who they are, their numbers and characteristics, they won't be isolated anymore. We can ensure they get access to education and health care just like any other Indonesian."

I wish they are left alone or at least untempered with in any way. We don't have a good track record with that sort of thing.

[Rick]

I felt the same way. Folks have lived like that forever and someone is going to make them a better life.

I was fascinated how specialized their arrows were. Not a stone head in the bunch, either.

[Justin Case]

Is that Native Dude in Pic #2 ?

Very Interesting Rick, Thanks for the link The author did a great job at describing things also, Such as "The grubs taste like soggy walnuts",,

[crashdive123]

Fantastic. Climbing to a house 164 feet up a tree, let alone building it.....

I was a bit troubled by the arrogance of at least one......

"...Now that we know who they are, their numbers and characteristics, they won't be isolated anymore. We can ensure they get access to education and health care just like any other Indonesian."

Since they did just fine, not knowing that anybody else existed in the world other than themselves, I think they'd do just fine if they were left alone.

[crashdive123]

Ah - B - you posted while I was viewing/typing.

[BENESSE]

We're on the same wave length Crash.

[Sourdough]

Wow, That is very impressive. Thanks

[Rick]

Interesting too that the stones for the axes had been handed down through enough generations that they didn't know where they came from.

[BENESSE]

I wish someone shot a documentary on them building one of those tree houses, start to finish. I would love to know what they do and how--blow by blow. (Kinda like AS did with his show 'n tells)

[oldtrap59]

not to worry. The advanced people of this world will figure out a way to screw these people up. Look at the record in cases like this. The dogooders have a really high batting average. To bad!!! You'd think they would mess up once in awhile and fail to screw things up.

oldtrap

[Alec_end]

Ok now before I start I am going to put it out there that I am only 15 and by no means do I believe that I understand everything. My views on this subject are that is their population dropping rapidly, are they likely to cause harm to others now they know there are others and finally do that want the help of so called civilised people. If none of these things are true then no government has the right to intervene with them. This is their way of life and it has been so for thousands of years. As Old tram said look at the track record of the so called “Advanced” people of this world whenever they try and bring Civilisation to people they conspired less advanced it ends in great amount of bloodshed. Form the Inca of South America to the Native Americans and even her in my home land of Australia with the aborigines. What gives us the right to intervene with their way of life I just don’t understand it. In some ways they may be even more advanced than us because they live with the land instead of off it.

Thanks for listening to my rant Alec.

[crashdive123]

Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to spend time and be able to communicate with these people? Think of all that we could learn from them. The funny thing is that we'd call it learning survival skills and they'd call it day to day living. When you get right down to it, that's all it really is - just living.

[Alec_end]

I couldn't agree more crash. I think it would be amazing to see how they just lived but not at the expense of our presence damaging their society through disease, interference or the impact of our way of life affecting there’s.

[BENESSE]

This is just not going to end well and I am usually not a pessimist.
We've never been able to leave well enough alone. It may start with "learning from" segue into "helping" and end in exploitation. The MO of those who consider themselves more advanced.

[your_comforting_company]

I believe it is morally wrong to disrupt their way of life. Census should not have been taken. They should be left alone.
Contact with "civilized people" is what shattered the Muscogulgi society as a whole. DeSoto (or whoever, I suck at history) came from the sea with massive ships and boomsticks, and diseases.
Now the general view of the people who used to live right where I'm typing from, is that they are a bunch of drunks and wastrels, when 700 years ago, they were highly and extensively connected throughout the country, in some of the most civil ways possible. Those who live closely to the earth have it all right... We, the "civilized" are the ones destroying everything we come into contact with. We rape and pillage our resources and then sell them for profit, while these people conserve, utilize, their resources for the survival of the whole, rather than the individual, and never for "profit".

IMHO the Census, and scientists, and tourists, and even those like myself who simply desire to learn their ways of living close to / with the earth should just stay the hell out of there and let those people continue their ways. When Teotwawki happens, they might be the only people left to re-institute the human race.
In my mind, leaving them alone would be insurance for species survival.

I wonder just how many diseases, etc. that the photographer in this case has introduced into their population, through direct and indirect contact. Remember that the diseases DeSoto introduced to North America killed most of the indigenous peoples, and what was left were killed by the gun.

Very interesting, and I learned a lot from the pictures, but to be honest, the whole thing disgusts me. I think Census should just forget they ever found these people and erase their records. Laws should be set up to keep outsiders outside. Next thing you know, they'll be playing PSP's, wearing cardigans, and hosting survival TV shows. Smells like ruin to me, and soon enough there will be no people left who truly live as close to the earth as these people do.

I'll get off my soapbox now.. sorry for the rant.

[BENESSE]

I feel the same way YCC. It makes me sick at heart.

[your_comforting_company]

I learned something very interesting just now.

They fell the sago trees, and leave them for 4-6 weeks to rot. In that time they become infested with grubs!

The general danger of eating bugs is that you don't know what the bugs have been eating, but in this case, you know the bugs have eaten nothing but sago.. the same thing the Korowai are eating! Cultivating bugs as a source of protein and fat and you know they are safe to eat!
How can such brilliance be called "savage" or "stone age", especially when you consider the level of experience these folks have with "modern" ways.

I think it's pretty smart!

[Rick]

Probably not that many, fortunately. Remember that in the days of DeSoto diseases like smallpox were common and there was no method of treatment. That's not true today. The photographer and others that are in contact with them are probably not providing a pathway for diseases that could wipe them out. That said, they will most likely be introduced to new viruses that will give them new strains of cold they have not been infected with in the past.

I don't know what their life span is but I would guess 30s or 40s. I suppose if you asked them if they would like to live to 30 or 80 their answer would be the latter. So, in some ways I suppose outside contact is a good thing. Medical care both in terms of prevention and treatment will make their lives more comfortable and probably extend their life span. However, their way of life will certainly be impacted. The good news is we have become more intelligent about how we view contacts like this after having done such a poor job with those mentioned above. Let's hope some reasonable balance can be achieved...for their sake.

The truth of the matter is they probably aren't all that keen about eating iguana every day. They'd probably like a bacon sandwich now and then.

[BENESSE]

I just don't trust us, Rick. We can't help ourselves to drive a good thing into the ground. Can't think of a single example of restraint in anything.