Wednesday, January 15, 2020
  Same pivot, opposite turns

Two items in today's "science" web news relate to old tribes vs new tribes.

1. Anthropologists find that Columbus was probably right when he described one of the native tribes as cannibals.
Christopher Columbus' accounts of the Caribbean include harrowing descriptions of fierce raiders who abducted women and cannibalized men - stories long dismissed as myths. But a new study suggests Columbus may have been telling the truth.

Using the equivalent of facial recognition technology, researchers analyzed the skulls of early Caribbean inhabitants, uncovering relationships between people groups and upending longstanding hypotheses about how the islands were first colonized.

One surprising finding was that the Caribs, marauders from South America and rumored cannibals, invaded Jamaica, Hispaniola and the Bahamas, overturning half a century of assumptions that they never made it farther north than Guadeloupe.
I'd add a strong caution. The Caribs were apparently fierce warriors. Among the old tribes, fake news of "cannibalism" was used as an insult to help fight and defeat the accused tribe. The Tonkawa in Okla were hated by other tribes. The same insult was applied to them, which helped other tribes to wipe them out.

Fake descriptions of the enemy are constant over thousands of years. The enemy is always cannibalistic, always desecrates our gods, always uses dead children as booby traps, always stinks, always farts.... So Columbus accurately repeated what he heard about the Caribs, but probably didn't observe them boiling and eating their enemies. Nevertheless, his bosses found the myth useful in the same way that the old enemies of the Caribs had found it useful:

The Spanish monarchy initially insisted that indigenous people be paid for work and treated with respect, but reversed its position after receiving reports that they refused to convert to Christianity and ate human flesh.
Fake news is always useful for tyrants.

= = = = =

2. Old tribes in Hawaii are halting the construction of yet another telescope by the new tribes. There are already 13 telescope facilities on Mauna Kea. The new secular tribe thinks it needs one more. The old tribes, who consider Mauna Kea sacred, have decided to draw a line.

My sympathy is entirely with the old tribes in this case**. Astronomy is perfectly useless. Astronomy has NEVER solved any human problems. Space flight has NEVER solved any human problems. The whole enterprise is an absolute waste of money and effort that could have been used for real solutions. 13 telescopes ANYWHERE is 13 too many.

In Hawaii the result may end up opposite to the Spanish change of attitude:
For Dempsey, the debate has pushed long-simmering disagreements over science and land rights to the fore. “I’m kind of glad in some ways that we’ve been forced into this conversation,” she says. “We didn’t do enough creative things in our local community in Hawaii until we were forced to — by people saying that this is not okay.”


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** Footnote for clarity: My sympathy is usually with the new tribes in similar clashes. In the Dakota pipeline situation, the "desecration" was a cover for defending the local tribal casino and resort. Often "desecration" of relics halts a USEFUL project. Respect for ancient beliefs is important, but other priorities are usually more important. Astronomy is an exception.
 


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