Strategies for Survival

Why does one society survive, while others perish? When two cultures come into contact, how do exploitation, violence, and terror arise? Peter Elsass has been studying cultures in Columbia and Venezuela since 1973. Interested in the survival of various cultures in the face of encroaching white civilization, Elsass has visited and documented the successes and failures of five separate groups struggling to remain independent. Contrasting the Motilon Indians of the Venezuelan lowlands with the Arhuaco of the mountains of Colombia, Elsass describes how the Motilon became spiritually and economically impoverished after the first encounter with Catholic missionaries, while the Arhuaco, possessing a well-organized, hierarchical society, threw out the missionaries in a dramatic move and established their own independent education system. Elsass also describes the Colombian village, Chemescua, the Maroons (a society emerging from slaves), and even the population of Jonestown before its mass suicide, showing how by taking a stand against foreign influences minority cultures can maintain their cultural integrity. This in-depth study of the psychology of survival also contains a lengthy essay on anthropological advocacy prepared with Kirsten Hastrup. In their investigation into the role of the anthropologist in both representing the lives and pleading the cause of the people whom they study, they provide a starting point for a discussion of how to translate concern about the survival of ethnic minorities into action.