Shannon Nicoletta Manns

Very interesting story; please keep an open mind; any comments?

Nicoletta



> Here is a little article about one of the world's happiest cultures and
> how they let their children learn, the older kids teaching the younger
> ones and all living and loving cooperatively.
>
> The Muria are not mentioned in our history books which are mostly
> written by historians brought up in a war-like culture. Hence we are
> given the impression that all humans have wars and that is entirely
> untrue. Though violent warlike cultures have destroyed many peaceful
> cultures (and appear to be destroying the rest of the planet also),
> humans are not "normally" violent. We all lived tribally for over a
> million years, that's at least 99% of our time on earth. Though "Communal
> living" - the modern tribe - is often seen as "strange" and "cultish" in
> our "culture", it is actually far more natural than the nation state.
>
> However, for rulers to have power over us they have to make us as
> insecure as possible so that we seek security from the state. Therefore
> their schools teach competition instead of cooperation, and individual
> separate "mongamous" lifestyles instead of tribal societies which were
> the way it was far longer. Tribal societies did have problems and some (a
> minority) also had wars. But for the most part they are peaceful and
> loving and relatively good for the planet.
>
> Dr. James W. Prescott who spent most of his life researching the causes
> of human violence can attest to that. Though his work is not yet
> well-known in the U.S., he is being listened to more and more. His
> website (written in English) comes out of Germany but anyone can access
> it with a click http://www.violence.de and there you will find some of
> the best information on raising healthy, peaceful children who will not
> find drugs attractive.
>
> Here is the story of a culture anthropologists consider the happiest
> culture on earth:
>
> KINGDOM OF THE YOUNG
>
> EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an article by Gordon Troeller and Claude
> Deffarge, translated from the German magazine, Stern (August, 1972). It
> is a sociological observation of children of another culture, included
> here to demonstrate the validity of mental control of conception. We do
> not in any way suggest that sex among children is appropriate in
> present-day North American culture.
>
> KINGDOM OF THE YOUNG is the title of a book by Verrier Elwin, the
> British theologian mentioned in the article, detailing objectively the
> life of the Muria people and their ghotul dormitory discussed below.
> Elwin devotes an entire chapter to the issue of the apparent infertility
> of the girls, only four percent of whom become pregnant before marriage,
> despite regular sexual relations.
>
> He notes that, within the ghotul, no relationships are considered
> sinful, and if a pregnancy occurs, it is usually blamed on activity
> outside of that dormitory. Elwin mentions the fact that each girl, upon
> entering the ghotul, partakes of a ceremony in which the god of the
> ghotul is requested to keep her from becoming pregnant before marriage.
> Apparently, a mental or spiritual form of birth control is being used
> with outstanding success.
>
> The Story:
>
> We are sitting in a small hut in the Indian jungle. Around us is
> a group consisting only of children from five to seventeen. It is
> evening. While the little ones play in the corner, the older children
> assign their roles for the night.
>
> "Do you want to share your bed with Mukwab today?" the chief of
> the group asks a girl who is perhaps fourteen.
>
> She shakes her head vigorously.
>
> "Then I suggest Defedar," the boy says.
>
> "I don't want him either."
>
> "Who, then?"
>
> "Halvaldar," she shouts, and her eyes glow.
>
> Silence falls. Small groups form. They seem to be consulting.
> >From the corner where the youngest children are playing a voice suddenly
> breaks out: "That is impossible," shouts a nine-year-old boy, "you've
> already shared your bed with him three times. Tonight I want to sleep
> with you. Please ......
>
> The girl smiles and goes to the little boy. "Agreed," she says
> and begins to comb his hair. But stop! We must tip-toe into
> paradise. Softly, lovingly, quietly. Unburdened by our judgments. Like
> man before the Fall. Innocent and uncorrupted. Prepare yourself to assume
> for fifteen minutes that your world and morality are not absolutely the
> only correct ones
>
> Perhaps we needn't go as far as Verrier Elwin, a famous
> theologian and anthropologist. When he came to convert the Muria people
> he laid aside his cassock and declared: "There is no god but truth." He
> thought he was closer to this god among the Murias and could serve him
> better there than by strict conformity to Christian doctrines and the
> spreading of Western civilization.
>
> On Elwin's track we reached the territory of the Murias, a people
> numbering 200,000, living south of New Delhi in the territory of Bastar,
> in the heart of India, surrounded by tigers, snakes, and Indians who,
> convinced of the doctrine of Hinduism, suspect the devil to be at work
> among the heathen Murias.
>
> We met the first "devil" on a narrow forest path. A boy of
> perhaps ten. Alone. Happy. Singing. Since we have been traveling in
> India, this is the first time we have heard a song. Except in the houses
> reserved for music-making prostitutes, singing is never heard. In the
> villages people don't even smile. And here suddenly is a little person
> who sings contentedly at the top of his lungs - and who is startled with
> fright when he sees us, although the bush is thick and the territory
> dangerous.
>
> In his hair are four red flowers. Around his neck he wears a
> necklace of carved wood. Boldly he approaches Claude Deffarge and offers
> her a flower.
>
> "Are you a motiari (unmarried girl)?" he asks.
>
> Claude nods.
>
> "Then take this flower. It is a token of love."
>
> Now we feel captured by this gallant child of the jungle. Out of
> sheer embarrassment I ask the little cavalier who gave him the flowers.
>
> "My motiari," he says, and a tender light gleams in his eyes.
>
> "And how old is she?"
>
> The boy raises his hand to the level of his chest and opens them
> as though cautiously clasping two small rounded objects. "No older than
> that," he explains. "Her breasts are still as small as lemons. But she is
> the most beautiful in the whole village!"
>
> When we meet the first girls we practice guessing their ages.
> This is not at all difficult. Over their backs and breasts they wear a
> folded cloth that reveals their "birth certificates" with every lively
> movement.
>
> The little one who tells us that the oldest man of the village of
> Chilputi cannot receive us is - according to the "scale" of our young
> friend - already of grapefruit age. She offers us salfi, a palm wine,
> which tastes better than champagne. But that cannot comfort us. Without
> the permission of the mayor we cannot do anything here.
>
> An older boy explains: "The village elder is only a little drunk.
> He thinks he will offend you if he doesn't appear before you sober. Have
> patience."
>
> A wise man! That comforts us. But we want more than the
> permission to stay here. We want to study the life of, the Murias. They
> belong to the 30 million natives whose forefathers already inhabited
> India before the Aryan conquerors overran the subcontinent.
>
> The Murias live, as they always have, by agriculture, hunting, and
> fishing and they have hardly been touched by Hinduism. They have also
> preserved an institution to which they owe the privilege of being called
> the happiest people on earth: the ghotul - the children's house.
>
> Every village has such a children's house. Usually it is set
> apart, at the edge of the jungle. The parents keep only the infants with
> them, and all other children of the village community live together in
> this house, which they have built themselves. Alone. Without adult
> supervision. It is an independent republic of minors, in which they live
> according to their own laws.
>
> We are concerned above all with this ghotul. To gain entrance is
> very difficult. Up to now few have succeeded.
>
> We are lucky. The polite young man who asked us to pardon the
> inebriated village elder, is the chief of the local ghotul. He has even
> been to school. We can therefore easily convince him that we are not -
> like Indian travelers and loiterers - lasciviously on the lookout for
> vice. What interests us is that even European sociologists call the
> children's house of the Murias the "world's healthiest education."
>
> We exchange a few gifts. In the evening we are already permitted
> to observe the daily dances of the children. Two days later we are
> officially named relatives. From now on I am the brother of the chief.
> Yes, in spite of my age I receive a noble title. Claude Deffarge, also.
> She becomes "Balosa," I "Divan." These titles designate important
> functions in the republic of children.
>
> But our noble titles do not protect us from the strict command to
> stay in the ghotul only until midnight. What happens after that is
> exclusively a matter for the children and must remain hidden from adult
> eyes.
>
> So there we sit in the circle of these young people who are
> assigning their roles for the night. It is eleven o'clock.
>
> The fourteen-year-old girl who earlier declined vigorously to
> share her bed with the partners suggested for her is finished with the
> combing. Now she takes off the shirt of the little boy who pleaded so
> loudly for her nocturnal companionship, and massages his back and arms.
> She is a head taller than he. A woman, in comparison to this child.
>
> It is difficult to remain calm and not to judge according to our
> standards. Our Indian interpreter doesn't succeed. He is breathing
> heavily. "They are reincarnated devils," he whispers. "Shameless
> creatures. Why doesn't our government forbid such a thing?"
>
> I can imagine what is going on in his head. But only there. For
> there is no hint here of sex or perverse games. The massage in no tender
> stroking. I have tried it out. One's skin ends up in tatters, but one's
> muscles are relaxed after the day's work.
>
> The children are doing everything with great seriousness. I would
> almost compare them with European Scouts who are discussing the next
> day's tasks around the camp fire. While five girls are combing their
> partners' hair, a group of older boys is discussing the harvest. The jobs
> are assigned and the little children must report what they have done
> during the day.
>
> The chief, called "Sirdar," and the mistress, the Belosa, oversee the
> order in the ghotul. Punishments are handed out when necessary and no one
> objects. Authority is embodied in the whole group and accepted by
> everyone. Rights and duties are continually reborn out of the inner needs
> of the children -and exclusively administered and strictly observed by
> them: for these rights and duties correspond to their world.
>
> The parents have nothing to say in the ghotul. They may at no
> time interfere. Their authority is limited to the administration of the
> community, The council of elders regulates the relationships with
> neighboring tribes and the Indian government offices. It also oversees
> the schools, which many voluntarily attend nowadays.
>
> Naturally the parents provide their children's meals - in return
> for which the children do a large part of the farming work. During the
> day the young people are in school or in the fields. But punctually at
> six the time at the ghotul begins.
>
> The children's house does not by any means serve only for sexual
> education. It is the center of village activity. Its members organize the
> harvest. the hunt, and marriage and burial ceremonies. Without the ghotul
> the Muria community could not function.
>
> At the moment the Belosa is asking who will take over the tiger
> watch tonight. Four boys volunteer. Two are appointed. A big boy and a
> little one.
>
> Commands are never given. Everything is decided in common. Sirdar
> and Belosa are not tyrants. Nor do they get their posts because their
> parents, say, are rich and therefore have more influence, perhaps, than
> others. There is nothing like that here. The best one automatically rises
> to the highest rank and there is unanimity about it.
>
> My brother, the Sirdar of this ghotul, is the son of a simple
> smith. Now he is smiling at me, because an eight-year-old girl has taken
> possession of him and is almost tearing his hair out. The little girl
> wants to show that she too can already comb the way she should.
>
> "Have you chosen her for yourself?" I ask.
>
> "No, the little girl wants to share my bed tonight, and I cannot
> say no," he answers, his face distorted by pain. Tufts of hair are stuck
> in the girl's comb.
>
> Tonight, also, a fourteen-year-old girl will share her mat with a
> nine-year-old boy, and the sixteen-year-old Sirdar must sleep with the
> wildly combing child.
>
> What will happen? Probably nothing at all. Or very little. Here
> there is no repressed sexual curiosity suddenly aware of a
> once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For the occasion is not unique. It
> belongs to life like eating and drinking. The fourteenyear-old will take
> her little comrade into her arms and then peacefully go to sleep with
> him. Other couples may exchange a few caresses before sleepiness
> overcomes them -and older children perhaps steal softly out of the house
> in order to make love outside.
>
> Meanwhile a few boys have spread out their mats. Next to them
> stand the girls. They have combed and massaged them. Now they wait until
> we have left the ghotul so that they can lie down to rest in the arms of
> the boys.
>
> Belosa bends over Claude Deffarge. "Only ten minutes more," she
> says, "then unfortunately, you must leave us." They are not
> sending us away because we might be witnesses to some love games. Whoever
> caresses or loves here must do it unobserved. Discretion and
> considerateness are very strict rules. And in general nothing forbidden
> ever happens. Here everyone holds very exactly to the prescribed laws of
> the children's republic.
>
> This concept is hardly understandable for a European. In the
> ghotul, caresses and sexuality are just as harmoniously included in life
> as work and dancing in the day's events. The Murias are convinced that
> sexuality is the chief problem of man and that a society can only
> maintain its equilibrium if this primordial power is given a place that
> corresponds to its importance. Instead of damming it up - as we, the
> Indians, and many others do - with prohibitions, the Murias have made an
> attempt to tame sexuality in the ghotul and even to sublimate it: and in
> fact sexual harmony and inner peace reign in their paradise.
>
> The proofs are not lacking: other peoples of India and even the
> modern Indians must attest to a real inflation of crimes, suicides, and
> sexual offences. But among the Murias there is no criminality, no
> prostitution, no homosexuality - not even petty thefts. Here, according
> to Indian statistics
> which are certainly not exactly friendly to the Murias - live the most
> harmonious people in the world. And if we had not visited them ourselves
> in many villages, I would not have believed it either.
>
> In the ghotul, besides, there is no learning, instruction, or
> drilling. The basic attitude toward sexuality is simply the complete
> opposite of ours. We learn for instance from the thirteen-year-old girl
> on my right, who will share her bed today with a fifteen-year-old boy,
> that she is still a virgin. Not because her parents want it or a
> particular moral code dictates it. She has quite simply not yet found
> anyone with whom she will take the last step together - although she has
> been sleeping for five years with a different boy every night.
>
> When we must leave the ghotul, the hour of sleep or caresses - or
> love - begins. It may even happen that the fourteenyear-old girl tonight
> will initiate her nine-year-old comrade into love. Perhaps, too, a
> sixteen-year-old boy will cautiously show a twelve-year-old girl what it
> means to be man and wife.
>
> It is a part of the essential wisdom of the ghotul that it is
> bettor to be led by an older child than to be seduced or taken by
> surprise by an inexperienced one - without conscience pangs, without
> difficulty, but also without any obligation. And if a boy does try to
> force a girl or even to be tender with her against her will. then he is
> strictly punished.
>
> At the beginning of the evening we were shown how that happens: a
> boy was hung by his thumbs with a rope. He stood it for a few seconds. In
> a serious case the punishment lasts three minutes. And in case the person
> who is punished this way tries again to overpower a girl's will, he is
> excluded from the society of the children for a considerable time. Here
> that is almost as serious as death.
>
> Sirdar gives us the sign. It is just midnight. Each of the
> children touches our left shoulders briefly and wishes us, good night.
>
> At the door I ask the Sirdar how old a child must be to enter the ghotul.
> "When he no longer goes in his pants at night and is big enough to gather
> wood for our fire."
>
> "Is that the only standard?"
>
> "Certainly not," he says, seriously now. "The children come into
> the ghotul as soon as they understand what happens at night between their
> fathers and mothers. That is bad for a child. You understand? When a
> child suddenly sees that his father is taking his mother away from him,
> it is high time to send him to the ghotul.
>
> The Murias know what a mental burden it can be for a child when
> he is half asleep to witness his parents' love. They also seem to suspect
> that the awakening sexuality of a child usually is transferred to his
> mother or father and can lead to pathological complexes. They escape this
> danger by sending the child from his parents' house into the ghotul,
> where his sexuality can be directed at the proper time to others of his
> own age. The unconscious and often deranging sexual rivalry with the
> father, which psychoanalysis has made famous under the name of the
> Oedipus complex, is thus avoided.
>
> Also. the collision between the child's need for activity and
> parental authority does not exist here. Father and mother are soon
> replaced by another "orderer": the community of all the children. Their
> rules and laws are never questioned - because they bind everyone. They
> are not, as at home, the sum of privileges - often arbitrarily
> administered -by two adults with all their weaknesses, moods, and
> pedagogical bumbling, but the self-chosen duties of a republic of
> children.
>
> In short: Among the Murias there is no unavoidable conflict
> between parent and child - either in the unconscious sexual or in the
> conscious authoritarian realm. Consequently, love for parents is much
> greater than elsewhere, and lasts the whole life long.
>
> That sounds almost too beautiful to be true. But in a singular
> way, this observation agrees essentially with the discoveries of European
> psychiatry: The ghotul of the Murias is, so to speak, the psychoanalytic
> ideal of education. Naturally, it contradicts our traditional family
> order and sexual morality. But many sociologists and even the Swedish
> parliament are seriously considering today whether the experiences of the
> Murias might not show us too a way out of our threatening sexual anarchy.
>
> Be that as it may, we at any rate have never seen so many
> lighthearted people as in this "paradise." And we have rarely met people
> who are as sexually fulfilled as the Muzias.
>
> But what happens when one of these girls falls in love? When she
> prefers one special boy and wants to have him for herself? The laws of
> the ghotul forbid that. A girl may be with the same boy three times. Then
> she must change, or she will be punished. Later she may make love with
> him again three times. but she must always give some other boy the
> opportunity in between.
>
> "In this way love is preserved," an old Muria says to us. "If the
> children attach themselves to one partner early, their love is lost."
>
> We try to convince him he is wrong and tell him of Europe and
> America, where it is believed that young love can last beyond the grave.
>
> He only shakes his head. "Where there is too much love before marriage,
> there is less and less afterward."
>
> "In this way, too, it is easier for a person to remain faithful
> later," adds another Muria. "Someone who has already learned everything
> as a child is no longer curious later on."
>
> But what happens when a girl is in love and later is married to another?
>
> "That happens," the old man explains. "If the love is really
> great, then the couple separate from their spouses, whom they love less,
> and marry each other. We have three such cases in the village. Everyone
> finds that normal. And no one would protest. Least of all the unloved
> spouse."
>
> We ask many young men for their opinion. They all answer
> unanimously: "In the ghotul there must not be any firm pairs, or jealousy
> and competition would creep in. Society could no longer function justly.
> And what would happen in such a case to the ugly ones? Should they be
> thrown out or made to stand aside?"
>
> "Doesn't a lover become unhappy when he knows that the girl he
> prefers is in the arms of another?" we want to know.
>
> "That happens only rarely. We get used to sharing everything very
> early. If a boy frowns because of jealousy he is punished."
>
> We ask some girls if they would rather not have a steady friend. "Then we
> would all be pregnant," one of them answers. "Oh, no - never! In the
> ghotul everything is all right as it is."
>
> The Murias are convinced that a girl can only become pregnant
> when she binds herself to a man in her mind and remains physically true
> to him. That may be a ridiculous superstition. But somehow this
> conviction must have anchored itself so deeply in the consciousness of
> the Murias that it is effective. For there are hardly any pregnancies
> among them: only 4 percent - with complete sexual freedom. That is
> incredibly few. But as soon as one of these girls marries, the first
> child appears in the first year of the marriage.
>
> Physicians and psychologists have concerned themselves with this
> phenomenon without finding a satisfying answer. Perhaps there are in the
> ghotul rules and prescribed times of love which explain this limitation
> on conception. We do not know.
>
> In spite of everything we and others before us have been able to
> find out the republic of children still contains a thousand secrets. They
> are guarded all the more carefully as more and more Indians traveling
> through look upon the ghotul as a brothel and try to gain entrance as
> "customers." Thank God they have not yet succeeded!
>
> This is the image "civilization" presents: foreign people who
> laugh at the Murias as primitives and scorn their customs, but who, at
> the first opportunity, try to exploit them shamelessly - supported by
> liquor, gifts, or threats. They are the snakes of paradise.
>
> The Murias are not primitives. In their little world they have
> consciously created the most harmonious society we have ever seen.
>
> **************************
>
> Further study of the writings of Verrier Elwin reveals that there
> are two types of ghotuls. In the older type, couples do pair off on a
> semi-permanent basis. In more recently established ghotuls there is a
> three - or four-day limit. The English theologian Verrier Elwin,
> who has spent part of his life among the Murias, wrote: "While I shared
> the free, happy life of the Murias, I often asked myself if I was
> centuries behind the times or centuries ahead. I am not proposing that we
> transform our middle schools into ghotuls. But I should like to point out
> that there are elements of the life and the teaching of the ghotul that
> we should study attentively, and that there are few of us who could be
> harmed by being infected by the spirit of the Murias."
>
> **********************************
>
> So, where do we go from here ? Is there any way that we can listen to
> Mahandis Gandhi when a reporter asked him:
>
> "Mr. Gandhi, What do you think of Western Civilization ?"
>
> Long pause.
>
> Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea"
>
>
> Peace and Love, Art Rosenblum <artr@...>
> Aquarian Research 5620 Morton St., Philadelphia, PA 19144
> Working together for positive future, tax exempt since 1970.
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