Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism

by Jack D. Forbes

this type of learning is often reinforced by the structure and content of school disciplines, such as history, that exalt the aggressive and the exploitative (Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Cecil Rhodes, James K. Polk, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, who was both a dedicated slave owner and an insatiable imperialist against Native Americans) and tend to categorize as “backward” or “uninteresting” persons who do not conquer others or acquire vast amounts of stolen property.

“Civilization does not mean electric lights being installed. It does not mean introducing atomic bombs, either. Civilization means not killing people.”

The life of Native American peoples revolves around the concept of the sacredness, beauty, power and relatedness of all forms of existence. In short, the ethics or moral values of Native people are part and parcel of their cosmology or total world view. Most Native languages have no word for “religion” and it may be true that a word for religion is never needed until a people no longer have it. As Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman) said: “Every act of his [the Indian’s] life is, in a very real sense, a religious act.”

Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think—all of these things—twenty-four hours a day.

But to argue that murderers are forgiven when they continue to murder (or pay and hire the killers) is, I would argue, a form of blasphemy.

The “cosmology” or “world-view” of a people is closely related, of course, to all of their actions. The world-view influences actions and, in turn, actions tell us what the world-view really is! In short, one must judge cosmology by actions as much as (or more than) by listening to words.

We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and the winding streams with tangled growth as “wild.” Only to the White man was nature a “wilderness” and only to him was the land infested by “wild” animals and “savage” people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.

The “west” of the United States became “wild,” then, only when European imperialism commenced the annihilation of the Native people, of the buffalo, and of the social and cultural structures of the Native nations.

It is true, of course, that Columbus’s voyage was an important undertaking, much the same as Marco Polo’s land journey to China of an earlier century. But no one pretends that Marco Polo discovered China! Why? Perhaps because there are no European colonial settlers in China who need to evoke Marco Polo as a symbol for a successful but still contested conquest.

Modern capitalism has been a major source of negative appraisals of human life, but dogmatic communism, Calvinistic and Lutheran Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and many other European or Euro-Mediterranean systems of thought have also viewed humans in a negative way, to one degree or another. Another powerful source of such thinking is (or has been) authoritarian political agencies and hierarchical social systems (ranging from Fascism and Nazism to the ancient cult of empire to the militaristic-right wing police officer syndrome).

True, Churchill did not kill as many people as Hitler, but then again, he was defending an already established empire, not trying to carve out a new one. The latter process is apt to be much more openly violent and repulsive to those who view such things from a distance.

It is very sad, but the “heroes” of European historiography, the heroes of the history textbooks, are usually imperialists, butchers, founders of authoritarian regimes, exploiters of the poor, liars, cheats and torturers. What that means is that the wétiko disease has so corrupted European thinking (at least of the ruling groups) that wétiko behavior and wétiko goals are regarded as the very fabric of European evolution. Thus, those who resist wétiko values and imperialism and exploitation specifically, such as the Leveller rebels in England, St. Francis of Assisi, Swiss mountaineers, or Scottish clansmen, are regarded as “quirks,” “freaks,” or rude democrats (“peasants”) who could never exploit enough people to build a St. Peter’s Cathedral or a Versailles palace.

Thus they regard a wétiko-dominated society as being “civilized” and a non-wétiko society as being “barbaric,” “primitive” or “backward.” Why? Because many European historians, anthropologists, cultural evolutionists, statesmen, and so on, are first of all materialists. (It does not matter if they profess to believe in God or if they are a priest or a pope, they still are usually materialistic in that what they spuriously consider to be “things spiritual” are only manifested in material forms or are only valued when they are reflected by impressive material monuments.) Thus, a society is only highly esteemed by them when it produces huge monuments, impressive public works, accumulates great surplus wealth, and has a “leisure” class.

The creation of such material products or their accumulation is, of course, closely associated with imperialism and stratified social systems. Therefore, the European thinker tends also to greatly admire empires and authoritarian societies. It is precisely these kinds of societies which are wétiko. They are the ones where exploitation of others is accepted, at least by the rulers, as a proper or at least necessary way of life.

Over and over again we see European writers ranking as “high civilizations” societies with large slave populations, rigid social class systems, unethical or ruthless rulers, and aggressive, imperialistic foreign policies. Conversely, societies with no slaves, no distinct social classes, no rulers and no imperialism are either regarded as insignificant (not worth mentioning) or primitive and uncivilized. This weird method of evaluating human cultures reaches the ridiculous when we discover European historians of the Southwestern United States continuously exalting the Spaniards as representing “civilization” while the democratic, non-aggressive Native people are “barbarians.” The civilized Spaniards burn, loot, rape, exploit, deceive and massacre, but it is always the Native defenders who are cast in the role of savages and villains.

It is very clear, incidentally, that Yehoshu’a ben Yosef (better known as Jesus) has been saved from being regarded as a savage or a primitive only by virtue of the popes and Christian archbishops who managed to pervert his teachings into a materialistic, wétiko series of cults. Yehoshu’a ben Yosef (Jesus son of Joseph) was an “Indian.” That is, he was a non-white (brown skin, black and probably curly or kinky hair) of very poor origins who worked as a craftsman or carpenter for many years, retired to the desert or mountain peaks to seek visions, never built any monuments, never saved any money, challenged the wealthy and the powerful, and publicly condemned greed, dogmatism and the acquisition of wealth. He bears no resemblance whatsoever to most later Christians, but it is the latter who have made him famous.

WHERE WOULD we go today if we were looking for people living like Yehoshu’a? Not to the “born-again” Christian world, that is clear. Also not to the East Indian “gurus” who have to have their photograph on every piece of publicity their cult followers publish. Not to the “holier-than-thou” sanctimonious cults who display the intolerance and aggressiveness of wétikos. The people who live most like Yehoshu’a, and who still seek visions in the desert and on mountain peaks, are traditional (non-Christian) Native Americans and other folk or tribal people. The “primitives”!

I would suggest that it is the development of violent, warlike, aggressive societies which lead to the subsequent debasement of women, and not the reverse. That is, the development of rigid patriarchy follows the wétiko disease, even as the slave system in the southern United States led to a decline in the status of English women relative to conditions in the non-slave colonies. I would suggest that a feminism which does not also seek to alter the exploitation of poorer women is not feminism at all, but is simply a variant form of upper-class politics and self-privileging.

In any event, the wétiko psychosis is a very contagious and rapidly spreading disease. It is spread by the wétikos themselves as they recruit or corrupt others. It is spread today by history books, television, military training programs, police training programs, comic books, pornographic magazines, films, right-wing movements, fanatics of various kinds, high-pressure missionary groups, and numerous governments.

You lost me a little bit here

The very structure of their [the oppressed’s] thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity. Thus, the behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor.11

As Juan points out, the humility of a warrior, of a free man, must not be confused with the humility of a beggar. The beggar only appears to be humble when, in fact, he is merely fearful or currying favors. Thus also the outward humility of oppressed peasants, workers, or lower-middle class bureaucrats in a wétiko society may mask fear. True humility does not arise from fear, but from a profound sense of one’s place in the universe.

The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding. Thus, one’s intention and one’s motivations are crucial. This is what I mean by authenticity and sincerity. Indians believe that one cannot fool the spiritual world by uttering words that contradict what is in one’s heart, what one intends. Indians often pray silently, with their thoughts, because they believe that, in effect, our thoughts are what we are.

This is the secret of colonialism, how to divide the conquered masses (who are usually the majority population) into rival groups, with a small sector (the ladinos, or mestizos, or light mulattoes in the plantation south of the United States) being used to kill, lash and control their more oppressed relations.

A colonial system almost always assigns low status to all Native customs, and if racial differences are apparent, also assigns low-status to the physical characteristics of the conquered population. The conquered people are made to feel inferior and this inferiority is used as a weapon of psychological warfare to control them . . . The low status assigned to the Native culture and race is used as a weapon against all persons of “mixed” ancestry or all Natives who seek to “rise” in status. Such persons must deny and denigrate Native values and characteristics if they wish to escape from the lowest, most exploited sectors of the society . . .

THE CONCEPT of the Devil or Satan, as an anthropomorphic evil force theoretically opposed to God, introduces a decidedly unsavory element into the European Christian’s world, especially since Satan is historically often closely identified with all deviations from cultural “normalcy,” frequently with the natural world itself, and, ironically, with most spiritual experiences.

Of course, anything and everything is justified when one is “fighting with the Devil” and when one can classify that which is different as “satanic.”

THE EUROPEANIST fascination with the torture of “condemned souls” in purgatory and Hell is a most revealing phenomena. It may be that envisioning one’s enemies or adversaries as being tortured in Hell forever is a projective device (a substitute for impotent or unfulfilled hate and aggression) but it reflects a mátchi-minded view of the Creator.

IF HELL is the fate the Christian God has in store for human beings born in original sin by His own act of eternal punishment for Adham’s alleged first sin, then we must admit that such a God is not an enemy of Satan, but an accomplice (as it were) who supplies Satan with multitudes of subjects for the latter’s sadistic tastes. More significantly, an angry and punishing God, terrible in his wrath, is quite clearly not a pleasant being to live with.

Whether the woman was a prostitute only pretending pain to provide erotic stimuli for a sadist, or whether she was actually being tortured, I will never know, but either circumstance reflects the strange association of sex and aggression found in Euro-Mediterranean cultures.

Losing me again, jack

An important aspect of the mátchi syndrome in the modern period is the apparent drive of some white people, especially scholars and university people, to de-sanctify that which has been regarded as holy and sacred, or beautiful and spiritual, especially for non-whites. A telling example has been the drive to collect Native American skeletons and grave offerings from cemeteries and to store them or display them in a callous manner which says, “these remains are not deserving of respect. We can display them, or destroy them, just as we can display a rock or destroy it.”

Ruby Modesto, a Cahuilla doctor, noted that people from white universities were always eager to listen to what she had to say until she told them that each plant and rock had a spirit: “In our religion everything has a spirit . . . But people from the university don’t believe these things . . . they have lost touch with the spiritual forces of the earth . . . They are lost men and their own spirits are starved.7 But it isn’t merely that University people are lost. No, the significance of de-sanctifying the earth, the animals, the plants, the trees, and even human beings is that the world is made a potentially ugly and very exploitable place.

The desire of white settlers to “subdue” nature (as well as the natives) in the Americas, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and so on, cannot be separated from their view of cities, manors, and human-created things (machines, for example) as being part of God’s world, while the wilderness (nature in all of its beauty and splendor) is untamed and, like a woman, has to be overcome or destroyed.

It is significant to call people sheep or beasts when one is aware of what many (or most) Europeans think of sheep and beasts. It makes humans slaughterable, it makes them suitable objects to be consumed by wétiko cannibals. When people become beasts one can eat them!

The women’s liberation movement should keep in mind that it is not enough merely to achieve “equality” with white men, for that might merely mean that the woman has as much right as the man to be a wétiko, to be an exploiter. Sadly enough, many European women who have risen to positions of power in the past have been as apt to be murderers, imperialists, torturers, and exploiters as their menfolk (for example, Lucretia Borgia, Elizabeth I, and Isabella of Spain, not to mention tens of thousands of white women of wealth enjoying the luxury of having black or Indian household servants as well as living off of slave or peon labor).

This serves to explain why such colonized people often seem to delight in destroying each other by means of vicious gossip, or by other, more violent means. It also helps to explain why mestizos, as well as Europeanized natives, often are vicious enemies of everything non-European. It may also serve to clarify the rise of machismo (male arrogance) among oppressed peoples.

Sophistication is a nice word, isn’t it? It means “lacking natural simplicity or naiveté” and is derived from “sophist: One who is skillful in devious argumentation.” Isn’t it revealing that one of the favorite words of the European elites, used to describe themselves, points openly towards deviousness and falsity?

Unfortunately the new wétikos, whether created by missionaries, soldiers, colonialist landlords, robber barons, or industrialists, often leave a record of murder and terror that is shocking in the extreme. And the people who usually suffer the most are honest, “simple,” democratic people of the world, the non-materialistic, the freedom-loving, and the truly spiritual. These people, whether Native Americans, traditional Africans, European peasants, or Asian peasants, are precisely lacking in the insane desires and delusions which motivate the wétiko. (Non-wétikos may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty.)

Genocide—a necessity and a pleasure. The seringueiros delighted in killing . . . They liquidated the primitives as if to prove to themselves that they were “civilized.” They refused to see their own image in these naked and barbarous creatures of the jungle. So they exterminated, while being themselves condemned to a slow death.17

Capitalism death cult comparisons are always gonna slap

Revenge can, of course, become a curse among the victims of imperialism because the fulfillment of that desire can lead to incessant warfare, great cruelty on all sides, and eventual annihilation for the weaker party.

We must no longer allow eurocentric scholars to define “human sacrifice” in such a manner as to lead us to believe that a priest in a weird costume must cut the heart out of a victim in order for the act of sacrifice to become human sacrifice. Quite the contrary, the greatest and most extensive acts of human sacrifice have been, or are being, carried out by secular forces acting within the framework of ideologies that justify the necessity of sacrificing human lives for some larger goal, be it the attempted Nazi conquest of the Soviet Union, the anti-communist crusade, the earlier Roman Catholic crusade to convert the Americas, or the capitalist’s demand for cheap raw materials and compliant economic fiefdoms. Perhaps most victims are now being sacrificed at the feet of the god “Profit.”

As Barbara Cavalier of the California, Manufacturers’ Association is quoted as saying in 1986, “We believe you should not inject social standards in investment practices.”20 Thus the desire for profit in the financial centers of Europe, North America, Japan, Latin America, Africa, and everywhere, takes precedence over “social standards” and sets in motion the most far-reaching crimes imaginable.

Tragically, European academics sometimes not only form a part of these teams, but also help to provide the intellectual rationalizations sometimes used by imperialists.

This is a passage written by a European who, clearly, does not imagine any Indians to be among his readers, least of all any Urubus. More significant, however, is the incredible cultural chauvinism which blinds Huxley to the realities of Portuguese (and British) behavior and leads him to ignore almost 450 years of European aggression against the Americans of that part of Brazil.

Incredible! So we find that these “savages” are, in fact, only a mixed remnant of hundreds of years of warfare, involving direct aggression by Europeans, and yet their character and their culture is forever defined as savage.

OVERPOPULATION IS, no doubt, a very dangerous phenomena from the viewpoint of freedom and sanity. It also would appear to be a direct result of the creation of wétiko-dominated societies, or at least correlates nicely with the latter. Perhaps this results from the degradation of women in a wétiko system, or perhaps it correlates with the disintegration of traditional folk values, or perhaps it is stimulated by the need of industrialists, generals, and dictators for continual supplies of cannon-fodder and cheap labor.

For my part, I am of opinion, that so far as we have reason, we have a right to use it, in determining what is right or wrong; and should pursue that path which we believe to be right . . . If the Great and Good Spirit wished us to believe and do as the Whites, he could easily change our opinions, so that we would see, and think, and act as they do. We are nothing, compared to His power, and we feel and know it. We have men among us, like the whites, who pretend to know the right path, but will not consent to show it without pay! I have no faith in their paths—but believe that every man must make his own path!

Unfortunately, while Native American societies tend to cultivate self-disciplined but non-coerced individuals who have a right to follow their own paths, certain other societies very often seek to train their youth to “follow orders” and to conform to rules formulated by others, whether moral or immoral, logical or illogical. Thus Admiral Yamamoto of the Japanese Navy, although personally opposed to a war with the United States (for ethical as well as tactical reasons) accepted his orders and “obeyed his emperor.” He planned the secret attack upon Pearl Harbor in 1941 and then proceeded to vigorously lead Japan’s naval war, all because he was “obeying orders.” Yamamoto appears to have been a deeply sensitive man, a man who could have set an example for those Japanese who despised militarism and imperialism. Instead he became a high-class murderer, killing tens of thousands for a cause in which he did not believe.

Many “Big Wétikos” are loyal to very little except their own self-interest, but their success often depends upon convincing others that “loyalty and obedience” are life’s highest virtues.

What I am saying is that terrifying popular forces into silence during a crisis because they might seem “subversive” is in itself a form of subversion because it outlasts the crisis and hands extraordinary power to right-wing forces

It should be stressed that Native Americans had to give up their gardens, clearings, cemeteries, housing, pecan trees, other groves and sacred or ceremonial places every single time they were forced to move. Many times attempts were made by the people to remove ancestors’ bones for transport to new cemeteries, or to continue to visit burial places in spite of white occupation. Can one imagine the psychological shock of such forms of terrorism? It is no wonder that some observers have suggested that many Native Americans continue to suffer from post-traumatic shock even today. Alcoholism may be one symptom of such collective trauma.