By Cirilo F. Bautista This week we give some thought to our tribal communities, those dim, misty groups of persons we commonly ignore and often abuse. In fact, they are considered folks on the fringe of our national concerns because, by persisting to remain unsullied by the materialistic drive and political grandstanding of their citified brethrens, they intervene in the so-called program of development, are deemed a nuisance, and so are left behind to fend off for themselves. Ruled by a primitive desire to preserve their ancestry, leadership, customs, and tradition from the havoc of outside interferences—such as the white men and the missionaries of European imperialism—they are a hardy and tenacious lot whose survival quotient is awesome and impressive. Because of the purity of their consciousness as manifested in their simple ways of life and of the joy which this life seemed to emanate, they became in the 19th century in Europe the counterpoint to the evils of the policy of territorial expansion then being pursued by the affluent, civilized nations. The “noble savage,” as each member of the tribe was called, became a symbol of the ideal person, one who was in harmony with his natural surroundings because he understood and protected its secret codes, which were the wellspring of his happiness. He was really the world’s first ecologist and repository of natural literature and wisdom. Indeed, romanticism, which emerged in this period, counterposed the need to return to nature as a condition for the salvation of the human spirit because society had failed in its function. Rousseau’s argument that a human order need not be a product of society relied on the contention that it was already existing in nature’s realm. Artists and writers, always in the forefront of experimental living, led the way in search of such a piece of natural paradise—Byron, Southey, Shelley, and Wordsworth found it in the Lake District of England, Gauguin in Tahiti, Van Gogh in the South of France, Rizal in Belgium and Germany, etc.—and thumbed their noses at civilized conventions. Society was a contract entered into by its members for the advancement and enhancement of the human spirit. When that contract failed, society ceased to have meaning and the members, the Romantics argued, had the right to abandon it and conduct their quest for happiness in some other ways. The best way was to go back to the saving grace and soothing embrace of nature. The romantics adopted the philosophy of transcendentalism, an Indian refinement of the concept that, since God created everything, God resided in nature and, therefore, nature was divine. Wordsworth’s The Daffodils. Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind, Keats’s Ode to a Skylark, and Rizal’s Mi Retiro contain the implicit beneficence residing in nature. Man must harmonize with, not antagonize, nature in order to participate in its benevolence. Peace of mind, tranquility, bodily health, and a pervading gladness at being alive are natural rewards unobtainable anywhere else. Not even intellectual progress and material affluence can take the place of these. Citified pleasure, business, and fame, Thomas Gray argues in Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, are only transient illusions, which ultimately will lead one to despair and sadness. Anyone renouncing the village—which for Gray stands for nature—to chase after these illusions will end in perdition, for he will always be longing for his tribal source: “While some on earnest business bent/ Their murmuring labors ply/ ‘Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint/ To sweeten liberty:/ Some bold adventurers disdain/ The limits of their little reign/ And unknown regions dare descry:/ Still as they run they look behind/ They hear a voice in every wind,/ And snatch a fearful joy.” The power of tribal spirit can never be subverted by external elements, Gray says, not even the prospect of a university education and urban luxuries. The villagers are better off being simple but uncorrupted, poor but happy: “Yet, ah, why should they know their fate/ Since sorrow never comes too late,/ And happiness too swiftly flies?/ Thought would destroy their paradise/ No more: where ignorance is bliss,/ ‘Tis folly to be wise.” The equation, “Ignorance = Paradise, Intellectuality = Hell,” was Gray’s anticipatory transcription of the 19th Century dilemma—though tribalism was a form of backwardness, modernism was not necessarily a step forward. How to progress without losing their heritage was a grave concern for the English, for instance. For the romantics, a return to nature was the only philosophical and social solution compatible with man’s nobility, thus the emulation of the noble savage. Man was born free, Rousseau wrote, but everywhere he was in chains forged by society. He must return to the only organization meant for him. For the classicists, intellectual amelioration and superiority were the keystone in life. Thus, the primitive milieu must be replaced by a man-made, rational, and orderly domicile—the city. This tribal problem concerns us even now. In the Archipelago, the existence of a dozen or so tribal groups has been creating areas of conflict that affect governmental management and objectives. The Mindanao insurgency, the problems of a national language and illiteracy relate to the way in which we handle tribal matters. Of course, our writers have long ago delineated some aspects regarding this matter. In fiction, for instance, F. Sionil Jose’s The God-stealer warns against foreign abuse of culture through deceptive economic aids; while Cirilo F. Bautista’s Ritual focuses on the futility of unenlightened attempts at integrating tribal intelligence with western wisdom. In literature as in real life, however, these concerns must be addressed with tact and delicacy so as to prevent the decimation of tribal pride or the suspicion of governmental high-handedness. The presence of either of these will undoubtedly be frustrating and devastating to the cause.