A book review on “The Mountain People” by Colin Turnbull Essay

Turnbull has been quoted as a renowned ethnographic on make-up about(predicate) small-scale societies which lead a peaceful life in a trouble-free atmosphere by maintaining the size of their community and enjoyed a pollution-free environment till they are polluted by progress. In this carry, Turnbull is describing about Ik tribal lot who lived in the northern parts of Uganda and cuddle to the gross profit margin of Kenya who had to leave their ancestral villages as the cranial orbit had been declared as a national park later.Due to this, Ik people had to live in non-fertile area which was affected by drought and dearth almost several eld in a series. p. 117 and today, it is evident that Ik are facing a lend negation of cabaret. The specialty of Turnbull is that the panache which the book is presented as he just narrated what he had seen and observed in the Ik province without adding colors or adding his own sagacity on the scenery.See more Experiment on polytropic proce ss auditionTurnbull tries to give an anthropologists birds view on Iks carriage of living and conditions of their life by establishing close contact with Ik biotic community and with communities lived in the neighborhood. Turnbull while living with Iks witnessed continuous cattle raids and how their children had been woebegone by the parents even at the age of three and how the youths robbed the food-stuffs from the elders at that placeby making them to die prematurely. The Mountain People deals with the ethnographic details of the Ik or Teuso people living in northern Uganda.Turnbull in this book tries to expose how fiat and small-scale societies in general pitch been pretentious. In this book , Turnbull ties to draw the Rousseauesque picture of gatherers , hunters in general and Pygmies in specific , narrating generosity , forgivingness , honesty ,affection , charity ,compassion and former(a) virtues available in them p31. Spencer 651. Due to progress, Ik welcome been c ompelled to leave their nomadic life and forced to peruse agriculture and nonlegal poaching.From 1965 onwards, innocent and gullible Ik sire developed qualities the like envy, acrimony, suspicion by leaving behind place and royalty and parental love as the children were sent out of their homes as early as three years to stand on their own legs and elderly peopled died collectible to absence of caretaking and love. Ik had the qualities of co-operation and control nevertheless later they neer practiced theses qualities referable to shortage and hunger. Turnbull commented that he witnessed those vestiges of generosity, kindness and light-heartedness which disappeared by overnight by the occupation of option instincts that cherish in all of us.Turnbull 33. Author had an occasion to live with this Ik population at the time of famine and political unrest in Uganda and witnessed the decease of older people and how Ik population was reduced to bare minimum due to these factors. H e felt that Ik population was isolated due to famine from the edict and finally the Ik population was completely vanished as it would be the fate of each marginal society. p 285. Spencer 652 Turnbull narrated that Ik had no opportunity to have sumptuousness like sentiment, family and love.Since there was no societal affiliation, both the aged and children were regarded as futile. As bulky as if society keeps rearing group alive, one can perpetually have more children. Since, in the absence of care, old perished first followed by Iks children population. Yet, there existed a ethnic suicide. p 108 -109. Further, due to continuous famine and drought, Ik perused basic survival tactics to live. 27. The deterioration of social bindings does not incriminate that there is absence of collaboration between individuals. They assisted each different in times of help. 121.Beating and harassing their wife is a pastime for Iks men. 138 . They similarly followed m whatever rites in their ma rriage traditions. The bridegroom had to capture the bride in the cover of darkness though it was a prearranged one in advance. 106. Though, the Iks had religious faith like worshipping Didigwari name of a sky graven image in earlier days but later it was absent in the Iks society after the collapse of their society. 158. Turnbull was of the opinion that Ik were enjoyed the best conservationists style of living as long as they were hunter / gatherer. 21.Turnbull depiction of Ik style of living is almost analogues to Malthusian process where in the absence of epiphytotic and warfare, the population hightail its to increase to their ecological limit. However, in Ik model, the population completely vanished due to famine, hunger, neglect of older, younger and exhausteder dependants. Further, malice represents an unavoidable and sharp quality when some ecological shift revealed overpopulation for what it was. Turnbull is of the view that the effort to resettling down the Ik may have generated a distinct unprecedented turn in their ecology.Ik society won an interstitial position between adjoining karamojong-speaking pastoral tribes like trading, doing black-smith work, escorting them during their cattle raids resulted in intermigration and intermarriage with them. These individual ties namely nyot between Ik and pastoralists demonstrated that Ik were fain to demonstrate longer term self-interest and a degree of trust which is absent elsewhere. p. 162. Spencer 652 The Ik justify a place in the literature of reception to stress and extremum deprivation.Children were actually taken care of in closeness sites. Besides a passing remark of Treblinka, Turnbull does not place them in this context and makes little comparison of any kind. 236. Turnbull offered an interesting assumption that Iks hunters social group engaged in traits like amenability in social grouping and self-reliance and independence which acted as a kind of pre-adaptation for the dissolution of fa mily tie in the light of proceed catastrophe. p. 287. Turnbull is also of the view that there is still flourishment of artistic tradition among the Ik.277. Turnbull also elaborated that most of the Ik girls were disease-prone prostitutes and the young men desired to economize on their energy and wealth by engaging in masturbation and deserting the girls alone. 209. Turnbull warns us as this decline in human relationships among the Ik to the individual levels places the Ik one springiness ahead of civilizationOur society has turning increasingly individualistic. Now, the family values tend to loose its significance and religious practice and belief bind us into communities of shared beliefs.The order in the society is being maintained cosmos of coercive power which is up bringing a rigid law and by an equally harsh penal system. 182. In retaliation to a criticism to his book, Turnbull commented that the book has not written for anthropologists but it was fashioned to accomplis h the anthropologists job to reveal his findings to the general public. This book detailed a varied poesy of anthropological issues and solutionss in such an thoughtless style that it merits both to hold up as a warning and to be sanctioned. Barth 100. match to hydrogen A. Murray, a psychologist, the human behavior is ruled by a installment of needs and when a fundamental need like food is unsatisfied, other higher order needs like trust, love must go by the board. This is true in case of Iks but Turnbull never aware of it. Turnbull findings was said to be deeply flawed both on ethnographical and ideological grounds. Turnbull love affair with the pygmies largely reflected his colored recognition about the Ik. Turnbull acclaimed that the data covered in the book were insufficient for arriving an approach shot proof.He frequently goes outside the limits of well accepted ethnographic reporting, see his account with personal judgments and ascribing aims for observed behavior Tur nbull is rather right in uttering that man is competent to unleash severe inhumanity to himself and Ik is certainly an extreme example of this. However, it is hilarious to note that Turnbull seems to visualize that he is the first to have discovered this fact and it is his duty to preach the world what he observed. According to Barkow, Collin Turnbull has given a superficial and exaggerated book. Barkow 155.The absence of bonding in the society was evident from the fact that when food was distributed by the Ugandan brass to famine affected areas like Iks province, the younger generation went to the hot town for collecting the food never cared to carry and supply them to the aged, weak people as they considered it as waste of food and time to return their starving aged, weaker relatives and neighbors. 232. Due to poverty, Ik deceived each others and Turnbull was not exception to this. Turnbull christened them as people without love and they were uncharitable, unfriendly, mean and inhospitable as any people can be.Turnbull compared the Ik society with that of inhuman conditions prevailed in Nazi termination camps where Jews were butchered during the Second World War. Turnbull found the similarity of the extinction of Ik tribe without that of potty butchering of Jews in Nazi death camps and branded it on a global scale and forewarned that an ultimate destruction of mankind in near future. Turnbull in concluding chapter was of the opinion that Ik society had a bleak future. If unattended, their society would vanish in the course of time and it is very arduous to reconstitute their society.Government should help them to resettle by segregating them into smaller groups else they would miss their identity. However, Turnbull is amply aware that this action would be condemned by human rights organization but it is the need of the hour to preserve the Ik community in this vast universe. work CITEDBarkow, Jerome H. The Mountain People A Book Review. Canadian of Afr ican Studies, Vol 9 1 1975155-156. Spencer, Paul. The Mountain People A Book Review. Royal Anthropological lend of Great Britain and Ireland Vol. 8. No 4 Dec 1973 651 -652. Turnbull, Colin M . The Mountain People. New York Simon and Schuster, 1972