Mountain People

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and thought-provoking...
Review: Colin Turnbull's, Mountain People, is a study and commentary on the dark side of human nature. Easily readable, and at times humorous, this account of Turnbull's fieldwork with the Ik will not produce warm fuzzies, or reestablish one's faith in the innate goodness of mankind. Anyone with an interest in anthropology, psychology, or sociology will appreciate the observations made by Turnbull. He takes a controversial stand in the book, advocating the separation and relocation of the Ik people. His reasons for making such a shocking suggestion are fully developed in the text. It is also of interest to note that Turnbull's fieldwork was done in the 60's, and much water has passed under the bridge since then... for the Ik, and the world in general.

Rating:
Summary: Author's thesis as disturbing as the events described
Review: I'm surprised that the other reviews haven't been more critical of this book. Yes, it is captivating, the sort of book that engrosses you and that you can't wait to pick up again to continue reading. But its worth mentioning that in the end the author, an accomplished anthropologist, concludes that these Mountain People are worthless and should be forcibly disintegrated as a society. He finds them to have become basically inhuman, not as caring as animals, and recommends that the government launch a military style operation to forcibly remove them far away so that they can't return to their lands. And to break them into small groups of 10 or so individuals and purposely break up the family groupings and deposit them among people of other cultures (in Uganda), so that they will lose their language and culture and finally cease to exist. Since the government didn't like this idea, he hopes that the people's sheer isolation will cause them to die out forever.

Now, its worth reading the book to see how someone can come to these conclusions, and he's got a decent argument. I don't disbelieve what the author saw, and I've spent years working in Africa myself. I know that people can be treacherous and deceitful, and had to accept that their moral system was not my own. I'm glad that Turnbull exposes just how nasty and awful to each other people can be. This is normally glossed, painted and plastered over when people write about Africa, and its refreshing to see someone really give an non-romanticized account of day to day life. But the author constantly passed judgements on the people in this book, something I try hard not to do because its important to see out of the boundaries of one's own cultural beliefs.

What happened to scientific impartiality, and how can an anthropologist be so ready to judge this odd culture and deem them absolutely worthless and in need of anihilation? The conclusions voiced in the final chapter made me reexamine the views expressed throughout the book, and wonder about bias.

The society and humanity of the Ik disintegrated as they were pushed into starvation, in large part because their traditional hunting grounds were turned into a national park and they were shut out. I'm not sure why the anthropologist didn't recommend (since the government asked) that they be given some limited subsistence hunting rights, or be integrated into the tourism economy, so that they would regain food security and possibly start changing for the better. In the end the most puzzling thing was the author's unhidden hostility toward the Ik--who do sound horrible, but this is no impartial anthropological work. It made me wonder about background and personal biases or agenda of Turnbull, who grew up and began his career in the days of colonialism.

Rating:
Summary: amazing in more ways than one
Review: In this book Colin Turnbull describes his long stay in the late '60s with the Ik ethnic group, situated on the borderlands of Uganda, Kenya and the Sudan. Turnbull writes about how the Ik have been pushed into bare survival after being forced off of their grazing lands and into the mountains. He is no doubt a good writer - I found the book easy to read as a non-anthropologist - and is good at drawing out the horror of living on the edge and how the fight to survive has destroyed much of Ik society, including any sense of what we call morality. It was harrowing to read of one Ik who, upon coming in contact with his mother for the first time in years, merely asked her if she had any food; when she said no he left without another word.

I would have therefore given the book four or five stars if not for the last chapter, where Turnbull becomes even more immoral than the Ik in his suggestion that they be dispersed among other neighboring ethnic groups so that they assimilate and lose their Ik identity. This is nothing less than a call for genocide, which is remarkable coming from anyone but even more so from an anthropologist, a person who is trained to respect other cultures. Regardless of how despicable Ik society may have become, Turnbull has no right to claim that they are beyond rescue, that reintroduction into their former lands or some such plan might rescue their society and reinstall a sense of morality.

Looking at the book again after finishing the last chapter, I found some of it even more amazing than the conclusion. For instance, in his acknowledgements Turnbull thanked the Ik for treating him as one of their own, 'which is about as bad as anyone can hope to be treated.' Where he gets this idea is beyond me - not only did the Ik treat him with far more respect than the Nazis did the Jews (to bring up one of many examples), they treated him with more respect than he would treat them!

Sad then, that Turnbull completely ruins a well-written book with such a horrendous ending.

Rating:
Summary: Reveals the most primitive aspects of human nature.
Review: Tells the story of a tribe in Africa which has abandoned all social norms and reveals the darkest, most primitive side of human nature. As a philosophy student I found it to provide a great counter-example to the modern notions of morality in human societies and individuals. I was fascinated and horrified at the same time. A fine book.

Rating:
Summary: Social "Fabric" is Fragile
Review: The Mountain People by Colin Turnbull gives anthropolical "proof" of how tentative and fragile are the things that we like to think make us human. In Turnbull's study of the Ik tribe in northern Uganda, he shines a bright light on a couple of items. First, his facts bear out how conceited the "civilized" world can be about their social and cultural values; it is easy to treat our fellow people nicely as long as our bellies are full. Indeed, the examination of the Ik shows just how much our morality and good nature is a luxury, added on to make us feel self-important. The conclusion to this observation is further proof that our morals are tentative and made-up. By no means are they universal or written in our brains by God, as religion suggests. Second, Turnbull makes another strong point about how similar we are to animals. The differences between animal behavior and human behavior are very slight and subtle. To him, this is not a bad thing. I suppose the book would be quite shattering for one who shallowly believes in the superiority of humanity over all else. Of course, because the book is so well presented, one could draw different philosophical observations. Generally, Turnbull refrains from philosophizing, and presents his accounts of the Ik without judging them.

Rating:
Summary: Hypocrisy that gave me the Creeps
Review: This book is eloquently written by an anthropologist who lives with the Ik tribe in Africa for two years while they suffer thru starvation. It is a painful account of the sociological nature of man and his relationship with his tribe while awaiting his inevitable death. I read a lot of non-fiction, but this one gave me nightmares. Any book that has made much of an impact for me is worth reccommending, and so I do.

Rating:
Summary: Author's thesis as disturbing as the events described
Review: This is a profoundly disturbing book. The author's reflections on what he saw of a completely disintegrated society - the Ik people of Africa are chilling. The ultimate implication is that human nature is not so tightly bound to inherent goodness as one might wish to think. The newspapers daily play out isolated, but ever more frequent stories of the Ik in our midst ... of the Ik within us all.

ofs

Rating:
Summary: Classic field study of undeniable relevance
Review: Turnbull's study of the Ik is less known than his Forest People, yet speaks with far more relevance to our present condition. The formerly prosperous, but now starving Ik, scratch out a bare existence in their resource-depleted environment by adopting an extreme libertarianism - yep, "the virtue of selfishness" - which corporate hustlers, like those in the Bush/Reagan administrations, have been using as de facto ethical justification for their policies since the early post WWII years when Ayn Rand first gave them "acceptable" articulation. Turnbull concisely details, under these conditions, the brutal breakdown of every ethical bond we hold sacred, adumbrating a terrifying portrait of human relations in a society which undeniably mirrors the rougher edges of our own.
Best citation: "Goodness", marangik, is simply defined as "food", or, if you press, this will be clarified as "the possession food", and still further clarified as "individual possession of food". (defeats naturalist fallacy)