BOOK 2

DO NOT read this book. DO NOT read this book. DO NOT read this book. Truer words have never been uttered than Thomas Gray’s “Ignorance is Bliss.” I urge you, if you want to continue living in the sweet, comforting, happy life of bliss, remain ignorant. Remain ignorant of this book and its content. Its devilish content that broke me free from my prison. I was a willing prisoner, but after this book, I fear there is no re entering this cell block. I fear I must face the world with this new knowledge of life, of the world, of the universe, I fear I am no longer ignorant.

The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World by Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, Wade Davis, has transformed my views of the world. I grew up in a beautiful traditional Catholic Mexican household, rich in traditions, stories and faith. One caveat, however, is that I did grow up with a rigid perspective of life, one seen through a Catholic, Wester-oriented lens, where our morals and traditions were rooted in church teachings and Aztec/ Mexican traditions. Davis challenges his readers to remove their lenses and read his book through the lens of the people themselves, of the people who he writes about, in order ‘‘to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world’” (Davis 69). The Church warns about moral relativism and its harmful effects, but Davis eased my worries by explaining, “In truth, no serious anthropologist advocates the elimination of judgment. Anthropology merely calls for its suspension, so that the judgements we are all ethically obliged to make as human beings may be informed ones” (Davis 69). With this, Davis set the stage to take his readers through a world of diverse culture, forgotten histories and pre-colonial wisdom.

There are different indigenous groups talked about from all over the world, each honored and brought to life through recollections of their stories and rituals. Learning about the People of the Anaconda in the Amazon rainforest captivated me in many ways. They see life through a starkly distinctive way than western civilization. Time, money, food, it's all thought about in ways that I had never imagined. Time is something that's ever present and at the same time not there. The past lives in the present and the present is in the future. Shamans memorized their stories of creation and can pinpoint every location on their land. They memorize the topography and recount the stories that have occurred there, not in the past tense, but in the present tense. It's as if there are two or three dimensions in the same land all happening simultaneously. When going hunting, certain animals are off limits due to divine mandates, but the food that is gathered, mainly fruits and vegetables and at times animals, is asked for by the shaman in the spiritual realm, asking those spirits for permission and if the tribe could be honored by getting their “energy,” as it's that energy that keeps the tribe alive. They truly believed that all aspects of their life in the Amazon is connected, balanced out, where all things are living and have a “right” or some level of dignity that must be respected. 

The way history classes are taught, it always makes it seem as yes, colonialism was bad, but at least they got rid of the barbaric uncivilized ways of the indigenous peoples and civilized them. Davis really helps challenge this mindset by showing that, in many ways, indigenous mindsets and philosophies were more peaceful and potentially more effective than that of western civilizations. Davis writes how other anthropologists for the longest viewed civilization and evolution of societies as linear. For example, in order to be considered civilized, you HAVE to have a form of writing system. The Barasana people, one of the tribes that make up the People of the Anaconda, do not have a writing system. They memorize everything and have a rich oral tradition. I asked myself, are they really less of a civilization than us just because they don't have a writing system. Wouldn't having the ability to memorize vast amounts of knowledge make them equally or potentially even more intelligent than the average western-soecity individual? I would be hailed a genius if I could memorize the drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, now imagine how much more of a genius I would be considered if I memorized centuries of traditions and topology. 

I highly recommend reading The Wayfinders by Wade Davis. I picked the book because it sounded interesting, but truly it's a lot more than interesting, it literally shows you different ways of life. You will learn so much about different cultures and philosophies that might help you understand life. Read it with an open heart and open mind and see what you learn. Nobody can change the past, the colonial periods did happen, but it doesn't mean we can't save and learn from the vast ancient amounts of knowledge that these civilizations had for centuries before their attempted destruction.