Howard Zinn, one of the greatest contemporary Historians, who expired recently, wrote his book---A People's History of the United States-from the point of view of people who suffered because of the events of History. The book is acclaimed as the greatest piece of research. He starts with the following passage, describing the arrival of Columbus in 1492, when he landed on a small island in the Bahamas:
"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts.He later wrote on his log:"
"They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawk's bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They were well built, with good bodies and handsome features...They do not bear arms, AND DO NOT KNOW THEM, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane...They would make fine servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
Those Arawaks of the Bahamas islands were much like the Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable for their hospitality, thrilled and wonder filled curiosity, with the automatic habit of sharing and giving without an iota of fear or suspicion. Theirs was Holistic life, a life of feeling as nature, in nature participating with the flora and fauna.
THE FRENZIED MONEY MAKING CIVILIZATIONS OF THE WEST CARRIED OUT NOT ONE BUT MANY GENOCIDES TILL THEIR NUMBER DWINDLED TO ONE OR TWO PER CENT IN WHOLE OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICAS.
The westerners accustomed to treating women as the incarnations of sin were startled at the blissfully equal or love status of women among the Indians. After all many a Christian preacher in the west, called women as bags of manure. Las Casas described their sex relations as follows:
"Marriage laws are nonexistent: men and women choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance: pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and ARE AS CLEAN AND HEALTHY AS BEFORE GIVING BIRTH. If they tire of their men, they give themselves abortions with herbs that force stillbirths, covering their shameful parts (shameful according to this preacher) with leaves or cotton cloth; although on the whole, Indian men and women look upon total nakedness with as much casualness as we look upon a man's head or at his hands."
For those Arawaks life and happiness were synonyms. The idea of dissecting and analysing to death never occurred to them. They allowed nature to prosper and nature gave them everything. For them the very basic paradigmatic concept of understanding was the spontaneous smile. They connected phenomena to the thrills of happiness and that was the experience of understanding to them. They lived in positive understanding; spontaneous conceptualizations that do not need the arrest of natural conceptualization to drill the brain with math formulae, or meaningless theories.
There are many among us, who are curious to guess as to will happen after death. I do hope to go to a place where happiness and living are synonyms where I do not need Degrees to impress, where I am free from the ailment of analysis.
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