Peter Farb Quotes
Only a few years after the permanent settlement of Virginia, some fifty missionaries arrived to begin the massive task of converting the heathen. The Indians on their part, did not respond with alacrity to the idea of adopting a culture that to them, in many cases, seemed barbarous, indeed.
Peter Farb, 1929-1980, Anthropologist, Historian & Ecologist, Man's Rise to Civilization, 1968
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
First Published American Indian Author
Damn this world, Damn this time. Damn this fate That uncivilized Arabs have come to make me a Moslem
This is a huge epic poem that he wrote over several years. At the time, the Persians considered themselves far more civilized and sophisticated than the Arabs who were but tribesmen. They really resented the fact that it was the Arabs that brought Islam. And before, most of the Persians worshipped Zoroaster. Although Islam spread faster and further than any religion in history, it was not always easily accepted as this stanza of the poem indicates. There is to this day a superiority that the Iranians perceive over the Arabs. And to this day, many Arabs resent the Iranians for this attitude.
This is a very interesting quotation because it shows that the South American Indians were not only the victims of Spanish colonialism, but before Europeans ever set foot in the New World, expansionism, conquest and colonialism was alive and well. It was just that one Indian people imposed it on others. Note also the techniques of sending colonists to the new colonies to “civilize” the conquered peoples. Although this was common in Western History (even Alexander the Great used it, it was independently created as a colonial technique in the New World. The most extensive use of this technique was used by the Russians as that expanded to the Soviet Union the consequences of which we see in ethnic strife in the Balkans and the Ukraine even into the 21st century. Often these colonists were used as spies as well, in Peru {641657} as in all the Western examples.
Even at this early time, it was clear that whites had brought numerous diseases that decimated the Indians. Alcohol and disease killed many more native Americans than all the wars—intertribal and with the whites—ever did. Neolin warned but did not have more than regional influence.
This church which was so active later in sending missionaries throughout the world, at first thought the idea absurd.
Peter Farb (1929–1980) was an American author, anthropologist, linguist and naturalist.
