Indeed. Based on the history of such missionary work, the Sentinelese are well within their rights to continue their hunt until the threat is ended.
I see wat you did dere.
Selling Jebus just ain’t as easy as it used to be.
You can’t fix stupid. Sometimes you just have the let it grasp for its Darwin Award.
I take no satisfaction in that, but I can’t find much sympathy for someone whose stupidity got him killed trying to spread disease.
The Bad Christian podcast did an episode with one of John Chau’s friends/classmates that was illuminating. If you want to hear more, you can listen to it here.
I like you.
There are a couple good books about “primitive” tribes, La Société contre l’État, about the Amazonian tribes, and The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. One of the central themes in these books is that these so-called “uncontacted” tribes would perhaps be better described as “non-contact “ tribes. Most of them were formerly subjects of agricultural valley states, who ran ofc to the hills to become hillbillies because they didn’t want any part if that shit, and whose distrust of the subjects of states was entirely well-founded. In Southeast Asia, they were not pre-literate people, they were consciously post-literate, because their entire experience with writing was that it was an implement of state control.
Obviously, this doesn’t apply directly to the Sentinelese, since these books were written about inland tribes that lived in the hinterlands of agricultural states, but, similarly, their hostility and distrust of outsiders is well-founded and based on their previous experiences with states and their subjects.
As proselytizing religious groups go, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are about the most innocuous. (Not completely innocuous, as they were early pushers of the dangers of fluoridated water and using aluminum pans.)
They also don’t allow their children to have blood transfusions. Interestingly, I’ve heard of incidents where parents have hinted that if the physician insisted on a transfusion they would have no choice but to comply in protest, then thank the physician in private. Apparently god is easily distracted.
Yes, but they won’t insist that you and I are evil for getting transfusions for our children.
My mother in law used to invite them in and give them tea. When I first learned this and learned why (some of them had helped her out at an earlier time in her life) I felt embarrassed for the times I’d been so rude to JWs.
think of it as evolution in action
That’s absolutely true. They’re tolerant of people who aren’t JW as long as they were never members, but they can be viscous to their own. I’ve seen a family torn apart when the parents were forced by the hall to disown their son for leaving the faith. The daughter was eventually also disowned for not abandoning her brother. I heard from a coworker of another instance where there were two sons and one left. Eventually the parents divorced and the father left the faith but still waited three years before reuniting with his son because of guilt. The mother and son who stayed disowned the other two. They see outsiders as potential joiners so they’re careful not to alienate them. It’s like evangelism is a kind of soul hunting. Just like the sociopath in the article, bringing in more souls will reinforce their own faith because they got a win. That reinforcement is the real motivation. Everyone likes to be told they’re right about something. When someone leaves it shakes their faith and they double down.
“In response, the Sentinelese socketed bamboo arrows onto bark-fiber bowstrings.”
“Nocked”. They nocked arrows onto their bowstrings. There’s a word for it.
No, no, no… he did it for Jesus, so it’s okay. Especially since Jesus was down with viral marketing! /s
OMG, that’s hilarious.
It was pretty funny.
Tolerant, hmm.
If Game of Thrones taught us anything, it was the meaning and use of "nock, draw, loose".