Blogs, discussion forums, and news websites have been all a-buzz today over some just-released aerial photographs of what experts are saying is one of the last untouched, un-contacted Amazonian Indian tribes in Brazil.
The pictures, released by an advocacy group in Brazil, show a tiny community within a vast rain forest. In a few of the pictures, the people on the ground are caught surprised by the airplane flying over them; in one photo, two men are clearly aiming bows and arrows at the airplane after dressing up in war paint.
Everyone’s wondering how best to keep this tribe isolated, to ensure that they don’t come in contact with modern man, who may carry a death sentence for the tribe in the form of a deadly cold, smallpox, or other disease.
But I’m taking a different angle. With just these scant, precious few photographs, I’m wondering what these people, these individuals who are humans like us but ignorant of all of our human history, can teach us? In particular, what lessons can we draw here in Santa Clarita from a supposedly primitive people, lessons which we can then use in our discussions about this town.
I’ve thought about it a bit, and here’s what I’ve found.
Lesson One: Local Policing Makes Sense
There’s no dependency on the much larger tribe two rivers over with the huge bureaucracy and the difficult-to-access tribal council meeting. There’s no competition with other tribes in the same region over village-security resources, and this village doesn’t have to pay whatever hard earned currency (bananas?) they have to that bigger tribe.
Oh sure, I’m certain it costs more to have the members of this tribe drop the hunting and gathering in order to defend the village, but you know what you get for the price?
That’s right. Local accountability.
So chalk one up for these untouched Indians over the SCV. They have a police force that makes sense.
Lesson Two: Huts on a Grid Iron Layout trump Valencia Master Plan
This one’s pretty obvious to anyone even remotely familiar with the history of humanity and who’s glanced at a map of Valencia.
Mass transit by way of donkey, alpaca, or llama in such a village would never be a problem. All streets intersect, there are no dead-ends and no cul-de-sacs, no gates on public roads that pit one village dwelling against another, and no confusion in the local police force when a domestic disturbance happens in a hut. No dispute about the tribal witch doctor’s dwelling and whether it ought to be expanded or not due to access.
We know most great cities have been laid out in just this way, and today’s photos are like a shot from back in time that prove the wisdom of the grid pattern.
Contrast that with the supposedly modern and advanced design of the Valencia Master Plan. Here we advanced Americans have built a place that’s entirely dependent on the auto, that’s confusing and hard to get around on, and that’s dependent on miniature highways like McBean to feed gas-hungry cars to tiny little streets. Oh sure we have our Paseos, but I’d wager the Amazon village is more pedestrian friendly than Valencia.
Lesson Three: One for the Anti-Growthers among us
Finally, there’s one last lesson these folks in the jungle can teach us. Communities that successfully implement no-growth policies usually end up alone, backwards, and without significant outside contact. Their lives likely are short, brutish and nasty, just as Hobbes said, and they probably lack the time to creat works of literature, art, or music.
So that’s something to consider for the anti-growthers here in the SCV who’d like to seal up the 5/14 Interchange and not allow anyone else in.
Share the love here or try your luck in the jungle!