How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
In the 1970s, Claudio Villas Boas, who was one of the great defenders of Amazonian Indians, told a reporter, "This is the jungle and to kill a deformed child—to abandon the man without family—can be essential for the survival of the tribe. It's only now that the jungle is vanishing, and its laws are losing their meaning, that we are shocked." (3.8)
There is a different type of morality in the jungle. Some people believe they should go impose their own morality on these people, Book of Mormon-style, while others believe their culture should be observed without interference.
Quote #2
After studying members of the Siriono tribe in Bolivia in the early 1940s, [anthropologist Allan R.] Holmberg described them as among "the most culturally backward peoples of the world," a society so consumed by the quest for food that it had developed no art, religion, clothes, domesticated animals, solid shelter, commerce, roads, or even the ability to count beyond three. […] They were, he concluded, "man in the raw state of nature." (3.9)
The word "backward" implies that the rest of the world is "forward," which is a fallacy that leads to a lot of misinterpretations about Amazonian cultures. Is it really so wrong to not be able to count beyond three if you don't need to? The French can't even count past 70.
Quote #3
Just as Fawcett had been taught to see the contours of the earth, he was not taught how to observe the Other—what Hints to Travelers referred to as "savages, barbarians, or the lower civilised [sic] nations." The manual warned each student against "the prejudices with which his European mode of thought has been surrounded," even as it noted that "it is established that some races are inferior to others in volume and complexity of brain, Australians and Africans being in this respect below Europeans." (6.11)
People are still trying to figure out how to relate to other cultures at this time. At times they are sensitive and insensitive simultaneously.