All members of primitive tribe survived tsunami

All members of primitive tribe survived tsunami

Now I don't doubt the story is true, but I'm not that impressed with the following:

The Onge (pronounced OHN-ghee) lived while so many others didn't because of their innate understanding of how nature works.

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In their thinking, evil spirits cause floods by taking huge boulders out of the stars and throwing them at the sea.

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I just thought this was kind of funny.

In their thinking, evil spirits cause floods by taking huge boulders out of the stars and throwing them at the sea.

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Hmmm, maybe they witnessed a meteor impact at some point in the past and it stuck in their mythology?

Pandya said the Onge don't know that an earthquake triggered the tsunami. But knowing that the creek rises and falls with the tide, the Onge suspected that the extreme fall in the creek presaged a great flood. In their thinking, evil spirits cause floods by taking huge boulders out of the stars and throwing them at the sea.

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I went to a talk by a seismologist recently, and he pointed out that the last major earthquakes/tsunamis along that fault happened between 100 and 150 years ago - recently enough for warnings of the "if the sea drops suddenly, get inland" kind to be passed along by word of mouth through a few generations.

Far more believable than an "innate understanding of how nature works".

Assuming the story is true...

The Onge (pronounced OHN-ghee) lived while so many others didn't because of their innate understanding of how nature works.

While tourists on a morning swim in Thailand didn't know what was happening when they suddenly found themselves standing on exposed seabed, and fishermen in Sri Lanka ran out to pick up flapping fish stranded by the receding tide, the Onge knew that the disappearing water meant danger.

"The water went away very quickly, and, like breathing in and out of the body, the sea water had to come back very rapidly and in a big way," Totanagey, an Onge man, explained to anthropologist Vishvajit Pandya.

"We saw the water and knew that more land would soon become covered with sea, and angry spirits would descend down to hunt us away," the 60-something man said, according to Pandya's transcription of his notes.

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Innate, or learned? I know when the tide goes out to an extreme distance very quickly to RUN uphill. And so would anyone who's ever paid any attention to tsunami events in history.

How many of the readers here, for instance, have seen the documentary films of the Hilo, HI tsunami survivors from the 'school' telling their stories of the tide going way out and the kids telling each other to look but the others thought it was an April fools joke because it was April 1st, and then the kids ran out into the bay with fish flopping around...and then the wave came in.

I also knew the initial extreme low tide happened in Anchorage in the 64 quake. I also knew when I saw the 9.0 quake on the NEIC web site 12/26/04 what it meant in terms of a tsunami.

This small tribe of 96 people had at least someone in their group who knew the low tide was a precursor to a tsunami. It could have been passed down in their oral histories. That meteor story hypothesis isn't so far fetched.

It is so typical of the news media, and of people who have no clue they actually should have known better, to make statements like it was an "innate" understanding that led these people to flee the coast. It wasn't innate as in "closer to nature" or all the other "noble savage" myths innate understanding implies. It was learned, and these guys were smart enough to pass it on and make sure the kids were warned even though it must be generations between events. It wasn't innate, it was intelligent.

Re: Re: All members of primitive tribe survived tsunami

Donks said:

Hmmm, maybe they witnessed a meteor impact at some point in the past and it stuck in their mythology?

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Or maybe they dropped a small stone in a puddle one day, and extrapolated.

Or maybe they have a proverb- "What goes up must come down."

But they have it wrong?

This story sounds almost identical to the one discussed some weeks ago about the schoolgirl from England who was instrumental in saving many people on the beach where she was. By coincidence, her class had learned about tsunamis some time in the previous term, and the lesson had included the fact that the sea often retreats spectacularly just before a tsunami strikes. She remembered this when she saw the retreating sea, told her mother, who told the hotel staff, who managed to clear a lot of people out of the immediate danger zone before the wave arrived.

Lesson being, that if you have even one person who knows that particular factoid, and manages to get the message across, much good may come of it. How they know it and what their social or educational background may be seems relatively unimportant. Maybe one guy in the "primitive tribe" read it in a book!

Rolfe.

I agree that "innate" is probably the wrong word.

This story reminds me of James Frazier's conviction (of Golden Bough fame) that religion and superstition begin as failed atempts at science. The observation may be ok, but the explanation is wrong, etc.

Of course, it might be innate in the way that these people are used to watch nature. So, when something unusual happens, they notice, and fear it. Add to this their general idea of the sea as a sort of breathing creature, it will not have been difficult to infer than when you see the sea take an extraordinary deep breath in, it is time to seek the high ground, fast!

However, I agree that it is most likely also in their folklore that a sudden very low water will be followed by a big wave.

Hans

MRC_Hans said:

Of course, it might be innate in the way that these people are used to watch nature. So, when something unusual happens, they notice, and fear it. Add to this their general idea of the sea as a sort of breathing creature, it will not have been difficult to infer than when you see the sea take an extraordinary deep breath in, it is time to seek the high ground, fast!

However, I agree that it is most likely also in their folklore that a sudden very low water will be followed by a big wave.

Hans

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A quick read of the article and posting the full quotes from one of the tribes people would have confirmed any of our speculations:

"The water went away very quickly, and, like breathing in and out of the body, the sea water had to come back very rapidly and in a big way," Totanagey, an Onge man, explained to anthropologist Vishvajit Pandya.

"We saw the water and knew that more land would soon become covered with sea, and angry spirits would descend down to hunt us away,"

Pandya said the Onge don't know that an earthquake triggered the tsunami. But knowing that the creek rises and falls with the tide, the Onge suspected that the extreme fall in the creek presaged a great flood.

"Just like the stone chucked by a kid in a pool of water, some water rises and a splash is made,"

From what I've read of their comments, this doesn't constitute "their innate understanding of how nature works", but an understanding based on repeated observations.

Just another part of the "noble savage" legend, which I find more condescending than admitting to ourselves that these people are just as intelligent as us - and just as foolhardy. For instance - I just can't equate slash and burn agriculture with "being at one with the environment".

EHocking said:

Just another part of the "noble savage" legend, which I find more condescending than admitting to ourselves that these people are just as intelligent as us - and just as foolhardy. For instance - I just can't equate slash and burn agriculture with "being at one with the environment".

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I'm reading Collapse, by Jared Diamond, and his acount of the history of Easter Island also heavily undermines that myth.

Matabiri said:

I'm reading Collapse, by Jared Diamond, and his acount of the history of Easter Island also heavily undermines that myth.

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Island populations are particularly sensitive - the Moa of New Zealand was wiped out by the "native" population.

It seems most of us here agree that innate is probably the wrong description of the skills of these people. My point was the growth of "woowooism" that everything natural must be better and the more "primitive" a society, the wiser they are, that is reflected by quite a number of articles in the media these days, and especially regarding the tsunami disaster.