We Took Possession According To Our Customs
On Monday nights, a group of biology graduate students and professors have gathered to discuss a book. It happens to be my all-time favorite book, one that I’ve already read. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, is an ambitious attempt to explain the why the world came to be as it is. That is, why certain societies came to have guns, germs, and steel and others didn’t.
One of the things I’ve been reflecting on is the way our cultural identity affects the way we perceive reality. A particularly stark example follows from two opposite perspectives. In 1835, the Maori of New Zealand arrived in the Catham Islands, some 500 miles to the east, where they proceed to annihilate the local inhabitants, the Moriori.
Listen to the way a Moriori survivor describes the event.
[The Maori] commenced to kill us like sheep… [We] were terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves, in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed — men, women, and children indiscriminately.
Guns, Germs, and Steel - page 53
Now listen to the way a Maori describes the same event.
We took possession … in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed, and other we killed — but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom.
Guns, Germs, and Steel - pages 53-54
The justification is terrifying to me. In accordance with our custom. This was a normal response to discovering a new people.
Such atrocities have also happened in Christendom. Diamond retells the tale of Francisco Pizarro’s encounter with the Incan emperor Atahuallpa on November 16, 1532. An astonishing 168 Spaniards bested an army of 80,000 Incans without the loss of a single soldier. Diamond tells of the event by weaving together the eye witness accounts from six of Pizarro’s companions (including two of his brothers). It’s lengthy, but attention grabbing.
The prudence, fortitude, military discipline, labors, perilous navigations, and battles of the Spaniards–vassals of the most invincible Emperor of the Roman Catholic Empire, our natural King and Lord–will cause joy to the faithful and terror to the infidels. For this reason, and for the glory of God our Lord and for the service of the Catholic Imperial Majesty, it has seemed good to me to write this narrative, and to send it to Your Majesty, that all may have a knowledge of what is here related. It will be to the glory of God, because they have conquered and brought to our holy Catholic Faith so vast a number of heathens, aided by His holy guidance. It will be to the honor of our Emperor because, by reason of his great power and good fortune, such events happened in his time. It will give joy to the faithful that such battles have been won, such provinces discovered and conquered, such riches brought home for the King and for themselves; and that such terror has been spread among the infidels, such admiration excited in all mankind.
For when, either in ancient or modern times, have such great exploits been achieved by so few against so many, over so many climes, across so many seas, over such distances by land, to subdue the unseen and unknown? Whose deeds can be compared with those of Spain? Our Spaniards, being few in number, never having more than 200 or 300 men together, and sometimes only 100 and even fewer, have, in our times, conquered more territory than has ever been known before, or than all the faithful and infidel princes possess.
[…]
Governor Pizarro now sent Friar Vincent de Valverde to go speak to Atahuallpa, and to require Atahuallpa in the name of God and of the King of Spain that Atahuallpa subject himself to the law of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the service of His Majesty the King of Spain. Advancing with a cross in one hand and the Bible in the other hand, and going among the Indian troops up to the place where Atahuallpa was, the Friar thus addressed him: ‘I am a Priest of God, and I teach Christians the things of God, and in like manner I come to teach you. What I teach is that which God says to us in this Book. Therefore, on the part of God and of the Christians, I beseech you to be their friend, for such is God’s will, and it will be for your good.’
Atahuallpa asked for the Book, that he might look at it, and the Friar gave it to him closed. Atahuallpa did not know how to open the Book, and the Friar was extending his arm to do so, when Atahuallpa, in great anger, gave him a blow on the arm, not wishing that it should be opened. Then he opened it himself, and, without any astonishment at the letters and paper he threw it away from him five or six paces, his face a deep crimson.
The Friar returned to Pizarro, shouting, ‘Come out! Come out, Christians! Come at these enemy dogs who reject the things of God. That tyrant has thrown my book of holy law to the ground! Did you not see what happened? Why remain polite and servile toward this over-proud dog when the plains are full of Indians? March out against him, for I absolve you!’
[…]
If night had not come on, few out of the more than 40,000 Indian troops would have been left alive. Six or seven thousand Indians lay dead, and many more had their arms cut off and other wounds. Atahuallpa himself admitted that we had killed 7,000 of his men in that battle. The man killed in one of the litters was his minister, the lord of Chincha, of whom he was very fond. All those Indians who bore Atahuallpa’s litter appeared to be high chiefs and councilors. They were all killed, as well as those Indians who were carried in the other litters and hammocks. The lord of Cajamarca was also killed, and others, but their numbers where so great that they could not be counted, for all who came in attendance on Atahuallpa were great lords. It was extraordinary to see so powerful a ruler captured in so short a time, when he had come with such a mighty army. Truly, it was not accomplished by our own forces, for there were so few of us. It was by the grace of God, which is great.
Atahuallpa’s robes had been torn off when the Spaniards pulled him out of his litter. The Governor ordered clothes to be brought to him, and when Atahuallpa was dressed, the Governor ordered Atahuallpa to sit near him and soothed his rage and agitation at finding himself so quickly fallen from his high estate. The Governor said to Atahuallpa, ‘Do not take it as an insult that you have been defeated and taken prisoner, for with the Christians who come with me, though so few in number, I have conquered greater kingdoms than yours, and have defeated other more powerful lords than you, imposing upon them the dominion of the Emperor, whose vassal I am, and who is King of Spain and of the universal world. We come to conquer this land by his command, that all may come to a knowledge of God and of His Holy Catholic Faith; and by reason of our good mission, God, the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things in them, permits this, in order that you may know Him and come out from the bestial and diabolical life that you lead. It is for this reason that we, being so few in number, subjugate that vast host. When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand the good that we have done you by coming to your land by order of his Majesty the King of Spain. Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian.’
Guns, Germs, and Steel - pages 69-74
After keeping Atahuallpa captive for eight months, and promising to release him in return for ransom, Pizarro collected enough gold to fill a room 22 feet long, 17 feet wide, and 8 feet high — the largest ransom in history. Pizarro them executed Atahuallpa.
Now I know we’re not committing genocide, but I imagine that for each of us, there’s something we’re doing “in accordance with our custom” that we ought to really give a long, hard look at. For the Christian, I imagine we can identify some things that aren’t being done according to the custom we aspire to uphold. In fact sometimes, our failure to uphold this custom is done in the very name of the one we’re disappointing.
My reaction to reading an account like the Spaniards give is visceral. But it’s also inspiring. It’s a reminder of how easily you can put yourself and your cultural understanding in front of others. And in being reminded, it makes you a little more aware and little more careful of those feelings that sneek in uninvited.
You probably wouldn’t realise this, but what you’ve written there in New Zealand would be considered highly ‘racist’ and people would call for your head. There are quite a few people over in New Zealand who get rather sensitive about that particular issue. Also, it’s worth noting that the Moriori and the Maori are actually the same people (genetically anyway), but that the Moriori were just the ‘initial’ settlers who happened here first. They were killed when the second lot of travellers arrived and drove them off (who later became the Maori).
So why is it considered highly racist? And why are people so sensitive? I’m interested in knowing from the perspective of one that lives there.
Also, as you probably understood, I just took these quotes straight from the book, unaware that any controversy existed.
It’s partly because of lingering ‘colonial guilt’, where basically we came along (By ‘we’ I mean Europeans) and then massacred the Maori with both weapons and diseases. Their population fell from millions to a few thousand and much of their land was unfairly taken. Later, a treaty was signed that basically gave a form of guarantee to uphold Maori rights and the like. It’s this particular treaty that makes it fairly hard to discuss things like the original Maori (Moriori) who first came here being massacred by the second wave that arrived.
It’s all just politics, where certain activists like to go on about how horrible Europeans are to the environment, the Maori in the past (One Maori politician described colonial times as a “Maori holocaust”) and such forth. Unfortunately, the Maori get very upset when its pointed out they were responsible for destroying several New Zealand species (the Moa for example) and for their own massacre of the original settlers here.
It’s basically all politics but the book is basically correct. Though the Moriori are basically the same people, so it’s not really a genocide but rather two tribes killing one another.
Jay, kind of off the subject but from an emerging historian’s point of view, the incident with Pizarro “conquering” the Incans in Diamond’s book is rather one-sided. He only uses one source, and a biased one at that: the account written by Pizarro’s brother, who was also on the expedition. Numbers are distorted (it wasn’t really 80,000 against 200 or whatever they want you to believe), accounts are skewed, and of course the Spaniards are made to look like the “victors.”
Sorry, I know that this is not what you were really writing about, but just the fact that he only used one biased account of the story is reason for me not to believe a lot of what Diamond says later in his book, which is sad, because a lot of what he says seems to make sense in a way. True, he is a scientist, and from what I understand scientists don’t really get into the objectivity of a source, but it really discredits him in this case (at least for historians).
On Pizzaro, one can make the point that some people use religion as a cover for their evil, like the so-called priests that molest little
boys. On the other hand, if Jesus is telling the truth, that he is the only way to the Father, all the Indians would spend eternity in hell
if the truth about Christ had not come in to their [remaining] lives. Then again, sometimes God had the Israelites wipe out an entire
people, but it was not with a view to their evangelization. We don’t live under a theocracy now, though, and we have to sort out what
God wants government to be in a fallen world. Probably wouldn’t need much of a government if Adam had not dropped the ball
Eloquently put Ray. Were I to agree with you, I would undoubtedly conclude that God does not exist.
Fortunately, I do not agree with you.