GUNS, GERMS & STEEL, Jared Diamond | Documentary by National Geographic
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1998 it won a Pulitzer Prize and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. A documentary based on the book and produced by the National Geographic Society was broadcast on PBS in July 2005.
(1) Out of Eden (2) Conquest (3) Tropics
Charles Darwin in Patagonia
"Las criaturas más abyectas y miserables que jamás viera" (...) "embadurnaban de blanco sus rostros repelentes, su piel era sucia y grasosa, sus cabellos una maraña, sus voces eran disonantes, su idioma inarticulado, sus gestos violentos, carentes de dignidad" (...) "su instinto merece ser comparado con el del animal". —Charles Darwin, 1838.
The Last Selk'nam
Jared Diamond attempts to answer the question of why Europeans came to dominate the world rather than, say, New Guineans or Aztecs. He concludes that geography is the key factor. Eurasia, with its huge ... tracts of land ... contained the most plant and animal species suitable for domestication. The opportunity to rely on food production rather than hunting and gathering allowed many Eurasian societies to become sedentary and develop civilization. The east-west orientation of the continent allowed plants, animals, and technology to spread quickly to other civilizations at similar latitudes. On other continents, even those societies that did develop agriculture that allowed them to grow beyond small bands of hunter-gatherers were confined by geographical factors to relatively small areas with little contact with other regions; consequently their technology lagged behind that of the Eurasians, while their immune systems, exposed to relatively few diseases, remained susceptible to visitors' germs. Thus, the fact that we do not live in a world in which aboriginal Australians colonized and enslaved the rest of the world is not mere happenstance.
THE ORIGINAL PEOPLES OF THE WORLD'S END
Five hundred years ago, a voyage changed the course of world history, shaping the way we live even today. This voyage opened up the Last Great Ocean, created new trade routes, and revealed the true scale of our Planet.
It was 1522, and the “Victoria” had just become the first ship to circumnavigate the Globe. It was a triumph of the human spirit; an epic tale of courage and endurance, starvation and mutiny, heroism and death. And it turned one man, Ferdinand Magellan, into one of the most celebrated explorers in the history of the world.
With the discovery of a passageway to the West, on 1520—which we now know as the Strait of Megellan—came the myth of "Patagonia", a region of the New World to be known across the Globe as Regio Gigantvm, the Region of Giants. Since then and for the next 250 years, tales of a mythical race of people reaching heights of 12 to 15 feet or more would take a hold over European concepts of the southermost region of the planet.
Among the so called Giants of the New World and afar from any legends, were several native tribes: the Aonikenk (Tehuelches), Selk’nam (Onas), Manekenk (Haush), Kawésqar (Alacalufes), Yamana (Yaganes).
It was not long after these tales were demystified that General Julio Roca, the head of the Argentinean Military at the time, planned and performed the “Campaña del Desierto” through which, in 1857, he would ‘promise’ the Prime Minister of Argentina to “in two years, organize the troops, provide them with the highest weaponry available and bring the best European volunteers to clean up this land from the native scum”. This macabre endeavor would aim to “secure the greatness of the country and add 50,000 square leagues of the most productive land in the Universe” to their territory.
FROM ADMIRATION TO DISDAIN
Initially, the recounts of foreign sailors and explorers of the 16th Century would hold the "Patagonians" in high regard:
“We had been two whole months in this harbor without sighting anyone when one day (quite without warning) we saw on the shore a huge giant, who was naked, and who danced, leaped and sang, all the while throwing sand and dust on his head. Our Captain ordered one of the crew to walk towards him, telling this man also to dance, leap and sing as a sign of friendship.”
—Antonio Francesco Pigafetta, 1520 (Magellan's journalist)
“For as the men in height and greatness are so extraordinary that they hold no comparison with any of the sons of men this day in the world, so the women are answerable to them in stature and proportion every way; and as the men never cut their hair, so the women are ever shorn, or rather shaven, with a razor of flint stone, whereof they make all their edged tools and cut one of them with another.”
—Francis Fletcher, 1578 (English Admiral and Privateer Sir Francis Drake’s Chaplain)
"We hardly set foot on shore, but we saw six Americans come to us on horseback, in full gallop… What makes them seem gigantic are their prodigious broad shoulders… their nerves are braced, and their muscles are strong … their language seemed very delicate.”
—Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, 1772
However, with the sophistication of the European societies, somehow their view of these austral peoples changed dramatically:
The day before Christmas, Captain James Cook, during his second great voyage of discovery, was sailing through this very strait, which he appropriately named Christmas Sound. Of this first meeting with the Yaganes, he wrote: “I now learnt that a number of natives in nine canoes have been alongside the ship and some on board”. Sunday the 25th they made us another visit. They are a little ugly half-starved beardless race. The canoes were made of bark and in each was a fire over which the poor creatures huddled themselves. They all retired before dinner and did not wait to partake of the Christmas cheer. Indeed I believe no one invited them, and for good reasons, for they are dirty persons and the stinge they carried about was enough to spoil any man’s appetite.”
—Captain James Cook, 1774.
“…the whole assemblage of their features form the most loathsome picture of misery and wretchedness to which human nature can be possibly reduced.” “…if ever the preeminence of the civilized life over that of the savage could be have been reasonably disputed, we might, from the bear contemplation of these miserable people, draw the most striking conclusions in favor of our superior happiness.”
—George Forrester, from the Cook Expedition, 1774.
Charles Darwin in Patagonia
“La guerra se desarrolla de la manera más bárbara. Los Indígenas torturan a sus prisioneros y los europeos le disparan a los suyos”.—Charles Darwin, 1832.
"Las criaturas más abyectas y miserables que jamás viera" (...) "embadurnaban de blanco sus rostros repelentes, su piel era sucia y grasosa, sus cabellos una maraña, sus voces eran disonantes, su idioma inarticulado, sus gestos violentos, carentes de dignidad" (...) "su instinto merece ser comparado con el del animal". —Charles Darwin, 1838.
The Last Selk'nam
Lola Kiepja, argentinean shaman and chanter, is considered the last member of the Selk'nam culture who held the knowledge of the traditions, chants and arts of this ancient tribe of Tierra del Fuego.
The Last Yamana
Cristina Calderón, the last member of the Yamana tribe, in Puerto Williams, Chile.
