Columbus Revisited & The Real Uncivilized Tribe

Hands on the statue of Columbus painted red to
symbolize his violent treatment of indigenous peopls

It's not really clear why the as-yet unidentified vandal defaced a statue of explorer Christopher Columbus on the east side of Central Park near east 65th street on Tuesday morning.

But it doesn't come as a surprise in these divisive times.

Columbus' statuesque hands were painted red to highlight his brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples that he encountered after initially landing in the Bahamas in 1492 on the first of his four trans-Atlantic voyages on behalf of the Spanish crown.


When I was in elementary school, the textbooks we used generally touted Columbus as the man who "discovered America"; an assertion now known to be inaccurate.

Advances in modern archaeology techniques, new technology (like the wide availability of detailed topographical satellite imagery to uncover previously hidden ruins) and extensive research have revealed that in America at least, Columbus has gotten credit for something he didn't actually do.

The discovery of ancient Norse settlements near the Canadian coast in Newfoundland confirms that the explorer Lief Erikson and his fellow Vikings reached North America in 1000 A.D. (and stayed there for at least a year) almost 500 years before Columbus reached the Caribbean.

Some researchers have even suggested the Muslim Chinese explorer Zheng He, born in 1371, may have reached the west coast of America sometime in the early 15th century.

Portrait of Leif Erikson by Arturas Slapsys

With the discovery of scientific evidence showing that humans migrated across the Bering Strait to parts of the northwestern coast of America as far back as 14,000 years ago (far earlier than scientific evidence previously indicated), it's possible ancient explorers reached North America long before Leif Erikson arrived in Newfoundland by navigating boats along the coastline from Siberia to America.

But don't get me wrong, as a navigator and explorer, Columbus and his men certainly had chutzpah sailing west into uncharted seas.

Their having survived the voyage at all is a reflection of their seamanship and courage.

There's no question that they deserve credit for helping to change the course of human history by opening the gates of the Caribbean and Central and South America up to European exploration and colonization.

But one of the byproducts of Columbus sailing west to find a viable route to Asia and inadvertently stumbling upon the Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic and, eventually, an existing continent, is that it would lead to the systematic genocide of millions of indigenous peoples and lead to the kidnapping and enforced labor of millions of Africans via the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade over the course of hundreds of years.

So while I can understand why many Italian-Americans (including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo) are miffed over the defacing of the statue of Columbus in Central Park, frankly I'm one of those people who remain puzzled about why there are statues of this man in the first place.

After being appointed Viceroy and Governor of what was inaccurately then called the "Indies", historical records show that Columbus' period of leadership on behalf of the Spanish crown was marked by tyranny, savage torture, slavery, murder and nepotism until he was replaced as Governor by Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500.

Portrait of Christopher Columbus 

According to a 2013 article in The Guardian about a 48-page report compiled by Bobadilla at the behest of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who ordered investigations into allegations of Columbus' tyranny, the explorer once congratulated his brother Bartolome´ for having had a woman paraded naked through the streets on the back of a mule and having her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was "of lowly birth."

In all fairness to the popular culture that ascribed a kind of mythical status to Columbus, that  48-page report (supposedly...) wasn't uncovered until recently.

So the folks who wrote songs about him, built statues of him, or dedicated a national holiday in his name may not have lent a whole lot of consideration to how he conducted himself and treated indigenous peoples once he arrived in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Was Columbus "evil" as some suggest? Not in my view.

Though he clearly did some pretty twisted things to other people in the name of profit, empire and the Catholic faith - and of course set the stage for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

Personally I think he was a man of the times, an ambitious individual engaged in the enterprise of colonization to enhance the power, prestige and territory of (and channel financial profit to) the major European powers of the time - as well as the influence of the Catholic Church.

But just like the recent outcry against the Confederate flag and statues of Confederate generals and leaders, the defacing of the Columbus statue in Central Park is just the latest example of high profile non-violent protests challenging widely-held, and frequently incomplete, assumptions about history.

In some ways, the legacy of Columbus is still with us here in the 21st century.

Members of an uncontacted Amazon tribe fire arrows at
an aircraft flying over their settlement in 2008

On Sunday Shasta Darlington wrote an interesting article in the New York Times about a group of gold miners in a remote part of the Amazon who allegedly killed 10 members of a tribe of indigenous people never known to have made contact with the outside-modern world.

According to the article the killings took place when the miners encountered the members of the tribe gathering eggs along a river in the remote Javari Valley in western Brazil.

A federal prosecutor has begun an investigation into the killings.

The Amazon encompasses 2.6 million square miles and over 4,000 miles of rivers snake through what makes up an astounding 40% of the planet's remaining rain forest - within that territory there are still tribes that have never made contact with the outside world or modern society.

As Dan James Pantone reported in an article about the Brazilian government's decision to publish ariel photographs of a previously unknown tribe known only as the Cabellos Largos or "Long Haired People"; shown in the photo above trying to fire arrows at an aircraft that was flying over their settlement in 2008.

According to Pantone's article, another Amazon tribe known as the Matse´s had reported encountering members of the Cabellos Largos in seasonal camps located in the remote Javari River Valley near Brazil and Peru - but apparently the Brazilian government kept the photographs (and existence) of the tribe secret until 2008.

As the photograph above shows, the men dye their bodies red, and the women dye their bodies black - a tradition practiced in some ceremonial events by other Amazon tribes in Brazil and Peru.

To me it's an absolute travesty that a bunch of gold miners would kill members of an indigenous tribe (they reportedly bragged about doing it at a bar), just consider what they might know about native plants or species, or what we could learn about human evolution and behavior.

Charley Boorman & the late Powers Boothe in
John Boorman's 1985 film The Emerald Forest 

But whatever specifically happened to cause this slaughter, at the core, it was the intrusion of "modern society" into a pristine natural landscape inhabited by a people whose way of life may not have changed in thousands of years - it's just as tragic now as it was when Columbus arrived in 1492.

It's hard to put into words, but to me there is something powerful, mysterious, humbling and deeply spiritual about tribes that have never made contact with civilization existing in the modern world.

On a more positive note, there a couple of really good films that portray that conflict between modern man and "unknown" tribes that may have remain unchanged since the Stone Age.

Given that the excellent actor Powers Boothe recently passed away, it might be a good time re-watch (or see for the first time) director John Boorman's visually stunning 1985 film The Emerald Forest - check out Holcomb B. Noble's excellent review of the film in the New York Times which also offers some fascinating insight into the making of the movie as well.

I'm a huge fan of Boorman's Arthurian legend movie Excalibur (which I saw in the theater in Bethesda, Maryland with my younger brother when it came out) and I also saw The Emerald Forest when it came out as well; and went on to rent it on video many times.

It's based on a true story of a Venezuelan engineer whose 7-year old son was kidnapped by members of an indigenous tribe in 1972 - the man spent a decade searching the rain forest for his son.

Daryl Hannah and Tom Berenger in the 1991 film
At Play In the Fields Of the Lord

When he finally found him, the boy had totally integrated into the tribe and his father made the decision to let him live out his life in the jungle.

Boorman's version of the touching story is amazing, it's a really underrated film from the 1980's with a cool soundtrack that offers a glimpse of the way "civilized" man infringes on the life of indigenous tribes in the Brazilian and Peruvian rainforest.



Now if you want a somewhat darker take on that same conflict and you've never seen it, I highly recommend the exceptional 1991 film At Play In the Fields of the Lord, an adaptation of the novel by Peter Matthiessen directed by Hector Babenco.

At Play in The Fields of the Lord revolves around a group of well-meaning, but sadly somewhat delusional American Christian missionaries who come to the remote Amazon interior to spread the Gospel to an indigenous tribe called the Niaruna.

It's a brilliant cast that includes Aidan Quinn, John Lithgow, Daryl Hannah, Kathy Bates, Tom Waits and Tom Berenger.

In one of his best on-screen roles, Berenger plays a half-Cheyenne American bush pilot named Lewis Moon hired to help bomb indigenous people's remote village to drive them from their home so gold miners can move in.

Adian Quinn and Kathy Bates as missionaries
in At Play In the Fields of the Lord

But with his conscience troubling him, Moon gets drunk one night and takes a powerful indigenous hallucinogen and takes off in his plane, while circling the indigenous village as he's tripping, he parachutes out of the plane.

The story follows his introduction to the tribe and eventual transformation into a full-fledged member, and the deterioration of missionary couple Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah who come to recognize that life in the remote rainforest is not what they thought.

And dangerous to their young son.

Their struggle to hold on to their faith and mission as their relationship dissolves is pretty gripping.

At Play In the Fields of the Lord is not for the faint of heart, the violence against the indigenous peoples is pretty graphic, it raises challenging questions about Christian missionaries and self-doubt about faith - and the story takes its time developing - it runs a whopping three hours and nine minutes.

But as a meditation on the search for redemption and self-discovery, the meaning of organized religion and the themes of  Man Versus Nature and Man Versus Man - it's really worth it.

If you happen to be one of the those people fuming about the hands of Columbus' statue being painted red, I'd suggest you watch both these films and think about his legacy in the Americas.

Columbus does have blood on his hands, but he's not the only one - those of us who consume material goods without considering the consequences of climate change and burn fossil fuels without thinking about the impact on the natural environment and the indigenous peoples who live there, have a hand in that too.

As The Emerald Forest and At Play In the Fields of the Lord both demonstrate, the accoutrements that often define "civilized society" are merely masks that hide the truth of who the real uncivilized tribe really is.