Learning from the "Primitives: How to Dress

Spirit Wrestlers

Lately, headlines have been made about “first contact” with “unknown” and “recently-emerged tribes” on the Peruvian-Brazil border. These people are Korubo-Xingu relatives, and were driven out of their reserve by a US-backed narcotics cartel. Think Fast and Furious Amazon.
There were five naked young men,covered in ash. They wore their penises up in wicker belts, and carried blowguns. That was it.
These Native xi'paals became sick quickly, especially after Brazil's FUNAI “helped” them by giving them influenza vaccines. The survivors of the emergent group were sent back to their village, and international uproar and headlines followed, with little active on-the-ground action. Beyond the EEUU drug cartel, the Christian missionaries and monotheists trying to “help civilize” the natives have way too much power.
Somehow, people living as total humans and in balance with themselves and their environments are considered inferior, and just can't be left alone, or allowed to interact on their own terms. They must be “upgraded”, and “converted” to Western imperial mutterrecht pathologies, or they will not be allowed to exist.
The Eurasian monotheist imperial mind has had great difficulty dealing with the reality of humanity and cultures beyond their own paradigms and control. This has especially been true in the Americas, since their accidental “discovery” by a lost Genoan 522 years ago.
Among the first words recorded by Luis del Torres (a Sephardic rabbinical mercenary, and one of the literate crew members among the 1492 expedition, this quote is one section from 4 pages of similar rantings) in the Americas on December 16, 1492 were:

Xingu preparing for wrestling

“They are the best people in the World, and above all, the gentlest. They became so much our friends, it was a marvel. They traded and gave everything they had, with good will. I sent the ship's boat ashore for water, and they willingly showed my people where the water was, and they themselves carried the full barrels back to the boat. They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil, nor do they murder, rape, or steal. Your highnesses may believe that in all the world, there can be no better or gentler people. They are naked and defenseless, and will make us good slaves.”
The people that del Torres (writing as Columbus) was discussing were of course the NiTaino of the Caribbean, particularly Quiskeya. Pretty fucked up for an opening description, no?
Things have never changed, the Eurasian monotheist imperial mind must always conquest, and look for an angle to dominate. The most common of the earliest cannards was to claim the newly-contacted peoples were cannibals, the Caribs of the Southern Caribbean were the first so accused. The idea of the violent, wild, untamed savage is an idea that quickly dampens Eurasian vaginas, and stiffens Euarsian penises, as plots are made to “protect” the women from this new threat of raw masculinity. Napoleon Chagnon has made a decades-long career out of falsely demonizing the Yanomami people as sub-human beast-men. He has engaged in murder and grave robbing to “prove” his racist, eugenic ideas, and when challenged the first time, he provided ethnic cleansing of the Native uprising by vaccines containing raw viral material.
Jacques Lizot, a French Jesuit-sponsored “scholar”, and a good ally and friend of Chagnon, earned himself the name of “ass-handler”among the Natives for his proclivities. In a native society where homoeroticism is commonplace, and even expected, Lizot set up a system with trade goods, that satisfied his pedophilic tastes, and those of his Jesuit patrons. Boys from ages 7 to 14 were taken from their villages, to live in Lizot's “special boy's village”. They were given trade goods such as batteries, bicycles, radios, and alcohol, to “encourage” them to engage in sexual activities with him. After a time, and after he got more money and goods to trade from France, Lizot expanded his economy, to provide boy-escorts for visiting Jesuit missionaries, and other high-end French tourists come to see Chagnon's “violent ape-men”. Lizot wrote several volumes of damn near pornographic accounts, all based on his fantasies and economic meddling. His writings are in no way, shape, or form accurate depictions of any Native peoples.

Xingu Locker Room

Before the Khazar quackademics start barking there is no proof of these allegations, I direct the reader to two books: Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon, by Patrick Tierney, 2000, W.W. Norton and Company, NY; and Spirit of the Rainforest: a Yanomamo Shaman's Story, by Mark Andrew Ritchie, 1996, Island Lake Press, Island Lake, IL.
To be fair, the kosher quackademics published their own compendium of tenured consensus, to try and defend Chagnon and Lizot. That volume, Yanomami: The fierce controversy and what we can learn from it, by Robert Borofsky, et. al., (2005, University of California Press, Los Angeles, CA) is a sickening apologetics nightmare. Each of the participating essay writers seems more enthused than the next one to vindicate and canonize Chagnon and Lizot. Medical experiments on humans? Why not, they are barely human anyway! Paying men off to act more violent so Chagnon can “prove” his thesis- why not? Chagnon does what everybody else does! Lizot turning the wailis and xi'paals of a village into his own private call boy service, pimping them out to missionaries, priests, tourists and quackademics? Why not, it's OK, many anthropologists fall in love with their subjects! If this is modern academia, I pray for the collapse of the higher education scam. If these are scientists, I am ashamed of them- and this is one of the reasons why few believe anything “anthropologic science” says anymore.
We live in a society rife with cruelty, hatred, rage, murder, violence, rape, war, and thievery- the very things we falsely accuse the Natives of, so we can dominate and destroy them, and take their resources. We really need to look in the mirror, and see we are the beasts, they are the humans. From Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art, by Carl Hoffman (2014, William Morrow, Harper/Collins, NYC), we get this description of Tobias Scneebaum's adventure into the wilderness beyond the last outpost of the Peruvian Amazon. Schneebaum had been warned that:
“(there) were uncontacted tribes who bashed the heads of their enemies and attacked any new attempts at contact from outsiders. But Schneebaum had an insatiable curiosity and deep affinity for indigenous people- they didn't scare him. After four days of walking, he spotted a group of men on the banks of the river. Had he been armed, fearful, on edge, or in a big group, who knows what would have happened. But Schneebaum surrendered totally: he shed his clothes and walked naked into their midst. The violent savages' response? They hugged him and touched him and kissed him all over and marveled at him and led him back to their village where he lived for months.”
In their book Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey (1991, Park Street Press, Rochester, VT), British brothers Lawrence and Lorne Blair relate similar experiences among the Asmat of New Guinea. They and their assistant had to strip naked and act comical, and then they were not killed, but adopted. They were offered milk from the chief's youngest wife's breast, and to be fellated and pleasured by the warriors. The similarity to Schneebaum's experience is blinding.
For good measure, let me quote a book that is part of the permanent text of the Monkey Brothers Playing main website: Jules Henry, writing about the Kaingang tribe of Brazil, in the book: "Jungle People: A Kaingang Tribe of the Highlands of Brazil". 1935/ 1964, Vintage Books, NY, NY.:

Inside Outside Upside Down

"When the children grow up to be young men and women, a strange dichotomy of behavior is noticeable, which is all the more striking because the Kaingang lay no emphasis on such differences. Kaingang young men love to sleep together. At night they call to each other, "Come and lie down here with me, with ME!" Then there is a shifting and squirming so that Nggugn or Waipo or Kanyahe can lie down where he is bidden. In camp one sees the young men caressing. Married and unmarried young men lie cheek by jowl, arms around one another, legs slung across bodies, for all the world like lovers in our own society. Sometimes they lie caressing that way in little knots of three or four. Women NEVER do these things."
"The men like to congregate together, and when the women are in camp they leave them and sit around in groups, weaving baskets, or just talking. They just visit. Like the indiscriminate playing of the children, these caressings, sleeping parties, and gossipings do not follow relationship lines. Whatever may be the specific obligations of cousins or brothers-in-law, they are completely lost sight of in these ephemeral, wholly casual masculine contacts. The basis for a man's loyalty to man has roots in the many warm bodily contacts between them. The violent, annihilating conflicts among men in Kaingang society were all among those who had never shared the languid exchange of caresses on a hot afternoon under the green arched shelter of a house nor lain together night after night under a blanket against the cold. The very transient, unfixed nature of these contacts leaves no ground for jealousy. The relationships built on these hours of lying together with other males bear fruit in the softening of conflicts that are so characteristic of Kaingang society. Indeed, there is a patterned friendship between men that has woven this contact into it's very warp and woof, and that is the friendship of hunting companions. Men who have hunted together day after day, raided the Brazilians together, slept together beside the same fire, under the same blanket, wrapped in each other's arms, hold this relationship above their kinship with their brothers. The consequences for the general integration of Kaingang society are immeasurable."
So, what can we learn from the primitives? Alot. We can learn compassion, we can learn acceptance, we can learn to be in our own bodies, and to be alright with the bodies of others. We can learn to be part of our environment, not just occupying it. We can learn the importance of ritual, and for taking time and doing things right. We can learn that love in all forms- physical and emotional, are the core parts of being human. But these are all topics of other essays. For today, we can learn that nudity is natural and normal.
Clothes are practical. They keep us from the elements, and can protect us from say, blisters on our hands, or thorns cutting into our legs on a forest path. Clothes can also be decoration, part of an individual's expression. Nudity is important to being human as well, and not just in private or hidden circumstances. All of the groups mentioned above run naked the majority of the time. None have any of the shallow ideas of beauty, none have hangups that they are not good enough, none have low self-esteem. And, amazing to a Western mind, none of the tribes above suffer from widespread, rampant sexual pathologies like we do.
We think that less than a millimeter's thickness of material or cloth makes us “decent”, while deliberately wearing clothes that highlight or expose as much of our bodies as possible. I always laugh when I see a female wearing a tank-top or halter-top struggling to keep a more bulky or massive bra as part of the package. On a hot day, would it be so bad to just have one layer or just go topless? (This would be legal in NY, where I am writing). The same for the guys who go swimming, and wear boxers or other underpants under their swim trunks. Or who think the micron-thick spandex compression shorts need underwear, too. Where is the line that is decent determined? Nipples sufficiently flattened? Breasts squashed? Penis tightly held down enough? Who/what determines this? Why not just wear loose kilts or skirts then? Or sarongs? My favorite of all are sports swimmers. They wear clingy, thin trunks or suits, through which it is able to be determined if they are circumcised or not (for males), or if their nipples are erect (for females). Then, if put in a group in a locker room or for bodywork, they flip out, and demand pants or over-shorts. Where does the insanity end?

Xingu Ready to Rumble

Being naked is liberating,it is to be free. I don't necessarily mean be a streaker on the 5th Avenue bus, but when it is useful or practical, why not? And if you are close with people, family or friends, you will end up seeing them naked, and in various forms of undress at different times. It is difficult to live with someone or travel with them with overnight periods without encountering undress.
By trying so hard to NOT be naked, we have tipped the emphasis and gameboard, and become sickly obsessed with it. We go out of our way to hide our bodies, and look like fools as we try and stay covered. When I was younger, I was on a wrestling team. We wore thin Lycra singlets, and were in very close proximity during matches. At first, there was a terror of showering after a match, and showers at that time were really was needed. Showering in a towel, which mimicked the way people would get changed under towels, was quite difficult, soggy, and a drag. Simplest solution- peel out of singlets, shower naked, and then dry and dress at leisure. Seeing the bare cock of the man who just had it in your face under a micron of polyester wasn't much different, and no one got hurt. Also, much like among the Natives above, once you have been naked and seen the others near you naked, the awkward staring and any potential arousal is no longer an issue- it has become redundant, and is commonplace.
Many years ago in Patchogue on Long Island, I worked as a massage therapist for a chiropractor. I also continue to do bodywork, now under the Caribbean/Yucatec Chic'chan tradition. Both twenty years ago, and to this day, there is much awkwardness asking the person being worked on to get as bare as possible. Simply down to boxers and socks would suffice, but even that is a problem. Try working through denim sometime- not a real possibility. Why are we so afraid of being touched? Why is skin on skin so fucking frightening?
The first time I went as a patient to the chiropractor I ended up working for, I was left in a room, and I got naked and lay on the table. Dr. Glynn came in and didn't even blink. He chatted with me, did his work, then left, no drama. The next visit was Dr. Heuser, his practice partner. “Whoah! Get your clothes back on ponyboy!” and he acted all weird, and left.
Even when I was working there, I would ask for someone to remove their shirt. Many males would ask: “you're not a faggot, are you?” If Maggie the other masseur worked on them, removal of shirts was never a problem. She was blonde, smiley, and had a 38 DD.
One day, I asked a bovine housewife to remove her blazer and blouse. She got all kinds of giggly and blushed. She said: “I didn't know you were THAT kind of masseuse!” “I'm not”, I replied- “as your husband asked me yesterday, I'm a faggot.” Her face deflated and I got to work.
We tend to forget we are primates, and touch and nuzzle and grooming each other are essential to our wholeness and well-being.
I will post pictures of the modern-day Xingu to give some idea of what normal humans men dress like....
We will discuss Native homoeroticism, and expressions of affection soon, I promise.... :D