I probably know more about Adiyaas then anyone else do. The Empire has long known that they have long dwell in the difficult conditions of these mountains . Inf act, I myself have been part of several of Empire’s efforts to seek them out, so as to civilize them. Several times their communities have fleed when we were just moments from getting hold of them. A few times, some of them have actually been caught.
The ones that were caught were always old or sick but never children, either too weak to move. Few who could walk, were too weak to go too far –we had to carry them all on horses. ‘Deserted’ our commander would say. These ones were always submissive – not crying, not wailing, not resisting. Unfortunately, we were forbidden killing those who give themselves up. The Empire expected want them to try and understand about ways of the Adiyaas.
They wouldn’t understand our language when we tried to speak them. Even in case of necessities, they would communicate merely with signs. It was as if they were dumb and stupid. They never ever spoke - even when our torturers would beat them, though their faces would show the signs of pain, they never cried audibly. Not out of strength or pride – I could see that much even back then, but it was as if they just didn’t know how to. And anyway, what was use of crying? Who could have helped them in the civilized worlds. We could have ut they would sing, always sing those songs in some uncivilized language, those very same songs – charming to our ears, meaningless to our minds. Those songs they would sings – try we may, we could never understand their meaning. We couldn’t get them to tell us; ad they would sing them in chorus if they could, or if they couldn’t do so alone then each one would sing it alone, though the later always seemed sadder.
Those songs have always interested me, I first heard them at age of eleven when I first saw them sing while they were tortured – I was with my father who supervised the torture. He didn’t want me to grow into a softy, and he successfully created a man out of me.
It was while being one of the expatiations in search of soldiers that I got separated from the rest of my crew and was a cast away in these almost barren mountains. I was lucky to have been found by Adiyaas. After a couple of days I woke to find myself surrounded by them; they can be as quiet in their moments as fox. One of them held out some food for me, which I fearing it to be poision refused to take, and ran away. They left off in another direction ignoring me, not at all trying to catch me. Having so long lived in civilized world, you develop instinct of expecting everyone else to be civilized like you – and so it took me a while to notice that none of them were carrying any weapons. I myself still had a gun and a revolver, I could use if I needed to and had a gun – o I followed them at a little distance. They noticed me and waited for a while to see if I will join but when I stay at distance, they resume their walk.
We soon reached their tribe. Although awestruck at seeing me in my civilized clothes for a few moments, none of them gave me any soecial importance. It was strange when men in the very uniform I was wearing had been cause of their having to leave their homes so many times. Yet , as soon s hey saw that I was alone and so harmless, they resumed their work. Their only defensive action was to take children out of my sight. I took both my weapons out and cried aloud to scare them. A few of them cam forward – both men and women, especially the older ones; they formed a ring around me and started making gestures which, as after a few moments I realized correctly, meant asking me to throw my weapons away. Except for this, they made no aggressive moments. What I saw on their faces was neith aggressiveness nor fear; but rather ….. how to put it? A tension – a tension born of almost paternal affection, the kind parents show when their children keeps making an error or fail to understand a lesson which must have looked so obvious to parents themselves. And it was this very affection which made me weak and throw the weapons away. Quickly they jumped to weapons and a fire torch was brought in and the weapons were set to fire. Again they offered food to me, this time I took with some hesitation – knowing I will starve to death otherwise.
That night I joined them when they gathered around fire place. Again they offered me food – and though they never talked, they sung those very same songs. Over next few days, they started me with their community – through those very same silences and very same songs. The very same songs the mother sing while rocking their children to sleep, same very songs they sing for the dead.
*
It has been years – I’ve been part of them, have been with their women, have played their children, sung their songs and I don’t yet know what words in those songs mean. Even the very words I use in this little memorial seem so false, so meaningless, so unreal now.
I know as a matter of fact, they have no words for anything – no names for things, people or actions. No adjectives, no qualities. Mothers never teach their children what the words in those songs mean. In fact, it is my belief that the words in the songs mean nothing. The songs communicate through their music, not through their words. And in the music is their whole philosophy of life. You may find it strange, and yet these songs perfected over generations have got everything in them – all that they must remember about, not day to day things, but bigger questions of life. If you would listen to them, sing them along, dance with them – you shall understand. That is how their children are bred, cultured on the very songs of life.
The Empire had kept wondering what maintained their rebellious spirit, what made them accept their death so easily – when answer was always in front of them. Once you have ket the run in your veins with your blood, those songs answer all your questions. You ask them how to fight an enemy as powerful as Empire and they will tell – there are no enemies, only ignorant souls. You ask them how to defend ourselves against such suppression and, listen, for they will tell – “remember what you deserved, remember what you had, remember to call an injustice by its name that even if no one hears you and don’t accept it as fate – they will ask you to get used to it, to forget it, they will try to force you to silence, it may be appear to be of no use, may be no one will listen to you, or they will hate you for saying; and yet you must speak –speak, speak, speak” or in short to keep singing these very songs. To Empire, they had seemed fatalistic, submissive; those old and diseased souls who had sacrificed themselves not to keep others – when they were letting empire beat itself by killing them.
They never use weapons even the traditional ones like knifes – not that they never did but they grew out of them. Now they won’t even use them against animals. ‘Once you get hold of weapons,’ the songs tell you, ‘you will always be looking ways to use them.’
It is weird –this principle, seeing how this makes it difficult for them to defend themselves against animals of prey and how much it makes hunting difficult – for both these purposes as well as preparing and cooking hunted animals, all they can resort to is rocks and fire. Moreover, anything, almost anything can be used as weapons - also, one remember the person considered most wicked in civilized worlds never used a weapon ; except to kill himself; the countless other lives that he took were merely by inspiring violence among people through his words. Even fire and stones, which they do use, can be used as weapons as well. Their principle though seems to be simple – both these things are available in abundance and to animals too, even if they don’t know how to use them. While something like knives would assume use of certain kind of machines. I can think a number of arguments against this ine of reasoning but I shall refrain from indulging in silly argument because I have other things to tell. “You can go on arguing for years on a subject” the songs say, “and you won’t be a day wiser.”
There are other lessons too – ‘Die, but don’t kill’, ‘Beg, but don’t steal’ and so on. They have no gods – except for the songs (a God which answers your questions), no xenophobic regionalism, no sense of property, no delusions like those of ‘honor’, no lack of trust or sense of property which causes institution of marriage. Only responsibility is collective and is towards, in that order – to pregnant and lactating women, to children, to themselves individually, to sick, to weak and to old.
They have no armies, no slaves, no governments. There is a special solitude in those songs if you want it, there is a sense of party if you want that. I never saw a community at such a peace with themselves and their surroundings. Every reward is a shared one, in a civilized society full of, what economists call, self-seeking rational people –this sharing might make people lethargic; for rewards are shared even if you don’t work. I could have lived with them all my life comfortably without working at all and yet not being judged in any manner but those songs cause in you a hypnotic submission, after which you can’t betray them.
*
All this may suggest to you a Utopia or something and yet nothing is further from truth. Given their disgust against weapons they are highly prone to all kinds of threats and have a lot more trouble against hunting. Their disgust at knowledge is so high, for example, is so much that any kind of personal expertise – even in something as crucial as medicine is not allowed to function. And thus their children, who are their most priced and only treasures die due to most easily curable causes. Although, this same thing might have resulted in their loving their children more. Everyone weeps and laments on death of a child – and you won’t be able to tell who were the real parents, they can’t tell themselves. This also means that they have more children – children are the biggest gifts you could offer to community and they are always welcomed.
However repeated pregnancies naturally degrade health of women, even if they have some primitive methods to facilitate the delivery of child. Adiyaas understand how much more women among them struggle and that is perhaps why women are the ones given the right to chose their mates for the evenings – or whether or not they would have one. The tradition is that men would stand in common area and women will when they wish take their pick from among the remaining men and ask him to follow. There are no age bars - but women are allowed complete freedom on subject. Men are to be more submissive on the question –which is justified by songs on account that the act will cost them much lesser. There is in fact possibility that men- who may be physically weak, ugly or physically disabled; who won’t get any sex all their lives, most women despite being outnumbered rather prefer to go without sex. Even these men seems to hold no grudges – and most of them are likely to occasionally attract pity of one or other of women, or a favor from a more sexually charged woman. As regards order, the first woman to chose (or not to chose) each day shall be the last to chose next day while the rest of order remains same. If a new woman joins in, she will be put at head of sequence on first day but shall be similarly moved to last next day. New men are given no such favors. One more observation about this tradition is that though there is a possibility that men may all be taken on some particular day but there will always be some omen, given their higher numbers, who won’t get any sex.
It is difficult to tell around which sex they are based, but wherever there is a clash between Women get both the first and last word. They also outnumber men by a significant count – as I already have mentioned, despite the numbers of women dying at child-birth. The reason for same seems to me that protection given to lactating and pregnant women more than makes up for the loss through maternal morality. And so, women seem to tend to live longer than men.
Still, as I said, they are in no way perfect. In fact, the empire is correct on this one count – they are primitive. But they are primitive not because they don’t have a culture – on that count they are far superior than Empire which is only pomp and show; but because their thought process is not at all scientific, but rather sentimental. Their almost equal treatment of animals will tell you why they won’t accept scientific discoveries – they don’t want anything that will offer them any advantage whatsoever that is superior to other animals. “Great is One,” the songs tell you, “…who has chance and even reason to grab power, but doesn’t.”
And so, life in general is hard. Even though they mature quickly – as in transforming from protected and playful children into self-caring and even care-providing grown-ups (which also sadly means early motherhood); the aging into old is very slow. Also, ages aren’t too high – the oldest among them has seen forty-six winters (that is how they count years) and there are only four people above forty years of age. This means there is almost no one old enough not to be able to provide for himself/herself. The ones that do get old are provided for by society as long as caring them do not obstruct caring of younger ones. And old people almost always very willingly sacrifice themselves to fire when they think they are coming in the way.
I’ve never seen a society more focused on reproducing and survival. The young ones are to be preferred over old, the women before men, the pregnant or lactating women before other women – all these priorities point towards the goal of maintaining the race. Their weakest moment is perhaps death of a child which is something too common – and there won’t be an eye you will find that hasn’t shed tears. And even in those moments they find comfort in their songs.
They do not ask themselves questions, often to their own peril. If you ask the songs – who causes the rain? Who uses the wind to play with flower? Why do people die? They will tell you and, yes, they will tell you – ‘if you ask too many questions about the world around you, a point will come when you will forget yourself – and start asking ‘Who am I’ and won’t know the answer.’ A strange thing to tell to people who don’t even have names. No, they are far from perfection, yet what struck me hard is that even though they haven’t progressed on the grounds of knowledge, they have learnt that peace is the only sustainable way of life.
*
About a few months after I had been with them, I was on a walk alone – I hadn’t still got use-d to their ways so entirely but was learning; when I saw Empire’s forces were coming my way. My ears were still full of the songs that had only shown a distant appeal when I was a child and never before learnt to sing. I opened my mouth to call out to army men, but no voice left my mouth. Rather choice made itself for me and I ran towards tribe to warn. As I knew, they guessed what had happened when they saw me – that is how they communicated, by seeing rather than hearing; and started to leave. I along with them carrying one of their …. our infants. In the hilly mountains, under the shadow of some meaningless songs, I chose to desert the civilization that day and become human.
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