Today’s verbum prohibitum is “indigenous”—specifically when it is followed by “peoples.” Dr. Boli has nothing against the word when it is used by botanists or zoologists, who may talk about the indigenous flora of New Caledonia or the indigenous reptiles of the Galapagos Islands to their hearts’ content with his entire approval. But “Indigenous peoples” is out.
Why does Dr. Boli make that sweeping prohibition? For the usual reason: that the word has become meaningless; and insofar as it has any meaning, it is wrong.
First of all, there are no peoples who are indigenous. The best guess of paleontology is that the human species developed in eastern Africa. Every human who is not currently in eastern Africa is descended from people who came from somewhere else. Every human who is currently in eastern Africa is almost certainly descended from people who went somewhere else, and then came back and kicked the older population out.
What, then, do people mean when they say “Indigenous peoples”? It’s a surprisingly slippery term. “Indigenous peoples,” says the Wikipedia article on “Indigenous peoples,” “are non-dominant people groups descended from the original inhabitants of their territories, especially territories that have been colonized.” We have already remarked on the difficulty with calling any inhabitants “original.” As for the other qualification, it adds another layer of absurdity: if your ancestors had dwelt on the site of the Garden of Eden since the time of Adam and Eve, you still could not be “indigenous” if you were “dominant.”
Indeed, the Wikipedia article admits the problem in the second sentence. “The term lacks a precise authoritative definition,” it says. But then it adds, “although in the 21st century designations of Indigenous peoples have focused on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territory, and an experience of subjugation and discrimination under a dominant cultural model.”
There’s a lot to peel apart in that attempt at a definition.
The first qualification is “self-identification.” That means that if you call yourself “Indigenous,” the rest of us are obliged to take your word for it. We shall doubtless run into some difficulties with native-born Yinzers who insist on being called Indigenous inhabitants of Pittsburgh, but what can we do? They certainly are culturally different from other groups in the state of Pennsylvania. Furthermore, it is only quite recently that the Yinzer dialect has been embraced rather than deprecated and shunned by every Pittsburgher who gained a smidgen of education, so there’s your experience of subjugation and discrimination. As for a special relationship with their traditional territory, just try to take away a Yinzer’s black-and-gold anything and see where it gets you.
In current popular thought, however, there is a specific meaning for “Indigenous peoples” that the Wikipedia definition hints at but does not dare to say out loud. What we mean by “Indigenous peoples” (usually with a capital I) is “noble savages.” You can read about the Noble Savage at Wikipedia, where you will find that “One question that emerges is whether an admiration of ‘the Other’ as noble undermines or reproduces the dominant hierarchy,” so perhaps you might skip that article after all, because it doesn’t look as though you’ll get anywhere. Noble savages are good and wise with a deep natural wisdom, and we could all learn a lot from them, as long as we don’t actually have to be them. When we see “Indigenous wisdom” held up as a thing to admire, that is what is meant. The praise of “Indigenous wisdom” is merely the myth of the noble savage under a pseudonym.
Let us look, for example, at “The Wisdom of Indigenous Cultures” at EARTHDAY.ORG. It begins: “Of the more than 4,000 religions worldwide, several hundred are considered Indigenous religions, associated with distinct cultural beliefs and traditions.”
Right away we know we are in the realm of romantic fantasy, and specifically Western European romantic fantasy. If you try to pick apart that statement, you cannot find any meaning in it.
Let us take the example of Pittsburgh again. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were founded in Pittsburgh, and Pastor Russell, the Laodicean Messenger, lies buried here near a scale model of the Great Pyramid, which he believed was a complete prophecy in stone of the shape of human history. There are still Jehovah’s Witnesses in Pittsburgh, where the movement was born; they are therefore indigenous to Pittsburgh in the only sense of that term that has any definite meaning. Furthermore, they have distinct cultural beliefs and traditions: ask any former Witness who has left the movement and as a result has not been allowed to see her family for years.
But are Jehovah’s Witnesses among the faiths “considered Indigenous religions”?
Any religion began somewhere; if anyone still practices it in that place it is indigenous to that place. But that is not what is meant by “Indigenous religions.” Usually what is meant is “the religions of noble savages.”
We assign a romantic vision of goodness and wisdom to these noble savages, untainted by the things we recognize as worst in our own civilization. That seems very complimentary, so many people who belong to groups we would call “Indigenous” are happy to embrace it.
But many others are not happy at all, because they have realized that, in shrouding them in our romantic haze, we take away their right to be seen as people, as distinct human beings, with good and evil qualities so thoroughly twined together that the tangle can never be sorted out. We speak of their “wisdom” in just the same way we talk about how clever our dogs or horses are, and our patronizing kindness is the same. We despise someone who abuses “Indigenous peoples” the way we despise someone who beats his dog.
Then what should we do? The only way to bring “Indigenous peoples” back to a full measure of humanity in our own imaginations is to recognize that they are just as bad as we are. They are not worse, but they are not better. They are not a distinct variety of human—Homo sapiens indigenus—with a special gift of wisdom. Some individuals are good, some bad, some indifferent, most just scraping by like the rest of humanity.
Perhaps it is paradoxical, but we shall always see “Indigenous peoples” as less than human until we recognize that they have the same capacity for evil and the same fatal and stupid pigheadedness that we have. Then we shall at last see their individual virtues and their delightful peculiarities, and even their wisdom.
The first step along that path to full recognition is to give up the word “Indigenous,” which has picked up such a load of connotations and associations that it is broken. It no longer conveys any real meaning, and therefore, through the mighty power of arrogance, Dr. Boli prohibits it.