Editor, The Times:
Quite a few years ago when I was living on Saltspring Island I was watching a program on T.V.
It was narrated by Alan Arrera who did such a good job on that wonderful three part series on the Spanish Armada.
A tribe of indigenous people living high in the Andes had sent a delegation to the outside world. Something was going wrong and glaciers were disappearing, streams and waterfalls were drying up. Their world was changing and they thought it so important that after centuries of isolation they came down the mountain to inform the rest of us of the looming danger.
When the Spaniards swept through South America conquering all before them, these people had retreated high up into the mountains. The Spanish evidently thought that they, the people up in the mountain, had nothing of interest—no gold etc … and taking an army, especially Calvary, was not such a good idea.
https://www.clearwatertimes.com/opinion/you-dont-turn-your-back-on-the-crocodile/
So the Spanish left the tribe in the mountain alone. There they have resided for 300 years or more, isolated and insular until about 30 years ago or more. They came to warn us and many of us are still not listening. Oh, but that’s just primitive people talking—with our internet and Facebook, we know it all!
There’s one more story here—remember that terrible tsunami that killed 250,000 people in Indonesia and the surrounding area. There apparently was an island on which a “primitive” tribe lived as they have for centuries as the Tsunami was ramping up, these people read the signs, headed for the high ground and it is said didn’t lose a man, woman or child.
In the meantime, many of those at the resorts along the beach actually walked toward the beach, smartphones and cameras clicking away—look at the pretty waves. It wasn’t until it washed over them that they realized that this wasn’t such a good idea.
The so-called “primitive” people have tried to warn us. However, those who deny global warming-climate change simply get on Facebook and Twitter and link up with their “fellow travellers.” Great minds think alike —fools seldom differ.
I don’t know what happened to those people from the Andes. Did they go back home shrugging their shoulders? Or are they still trying to tell us something?
Dennis Peacock,
Clearwater, B.C.
newsroom@clearwatertimes.com
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