SAVAGERY: MEANING AND EXAMPLES - LITERATURE - 2025

The wildness is the way forward that has a person that resembles the behavior that would have wild animals or individuals, but also refers to the basic stage of history. Thus, we can see that savagery is approached from different branches, such as archeology or anthropology, and experts place this period of the human being 400,000 years ago.

If we consult the Royal Spanish Academy, it defines savagery as a way of being or acting typical of savages; and he also attributes it to something that has the quality of savagery.

In other words, reference is made to a person today, based on what human beings were many years ago, when they had no notion of community, much less "civilized" behavior.

Despite the effort made by anthropology to locate this early age of man (which we will delve into later), today there are still behaviors that qualify as such, even communities that deny having any type of contact with human beings of these times.

Savagery and anthropology

Observed from anthropology, according to the 19th century evolutionary theory of Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881), considered one of the founders of anthropology, savagery is the first stage of the cultural evolution of human beings.

According to the book Social Evolution by Gordon Chidle, this stage is followed by barbarism and civilization, at least seen from economic and technological development. This stage is subdivided into lower, middle and higher savagery.

Lower savagery

Continuing with Morgan's scheme, lower savagery (something like the "childhood" of humanity) is the most backward cultural stage, with man in the midst of small nomadic hordes in tropical or subtropical forests, where promiscuity is prevalent. order of the day and whose economy is based on the collection of fruits and root-based nutrition.

At this stage, the main advance was the formation of an articulate language. It is also not ruled out that there have been cases of cannibalism (those who eat the flesh or tissues of human beings).

It is difficult to locate this period in time, since clearly there is no reference that places it precisely. However, the best-known archaeological representations of this stage belong to the Paleolithic and Mesolithic Ages, that is, we are talking about 400 thousand years ago.

Medium savagery

The man also began to feed on fish, mollusks or crustaceans; discovered fire; He began to carve the stone to make tools and used the first weapons, such as spears. Thanks to these events, man became independent of climate and places.

Superior savagery

Here, man has already created the bow and arrow, he became a hunter and this becomes a normal activity on which he sustains himself. In addition, certain ties were prohibited, such as marriage between siblings or the system of descent by maternal line (matrilineage). In addition, sedentary tendencies and community life began.

Pottery was what delimited the passage from savagery to what Morgan called barbarism, which was an evolution in the life of the human being, and a step prior to civilization.

For savagery, the bow and arrow was the main weapon, just as the iron sword was for barbarism, and a firearm for civilization.

Examples of wild tribes of the 21st century

We have already seen that savagery is ancient, many millennia ago, and although it may seem incredible, there are still small communities that are impervious to these times, and in many cases, they are hostile to any type of approach.

The Korowai

This community lives in Papua New Guinea, on the continent of Oceania, and the first time that anthropologists had contact with them was in 1974.

They are expert architects specialized in the construction of houses in height, more precisely in the trees that abound in the Jayawijaya mountain range, where they live.

In the past some members were cannibals, but with the passage of time this practice was eliminated. Today they are a tribe connected to the society that surrounds it, with between 3,000 and 4,000 inhabitants remaining under traditional conditions.

The Mascho-Piro

This community lives in Peru, South America, more precisely in the area of ​​Madre de Dios and Ucayali. Despite being isolated of their own free will for decades, in recent years they have been more open to being seen.

They usually appear on the banks of the Alto Madre de Dios River to search for instruments and farm products for their daily life. Despite the approaches, they have no will to integrate into modern society.

The Sentinelese

They made headlines for shooting down an American tourist who had tried up the area to preach Christianity.

They live on North Senitel Island, in the Bay of Bengal, India, located in the Indian Ocean and thousands of kilometers away from any port in mainland India.

Little is known about them, since they are totally aggressive in the face of any type of contact with foreign people. They are believed to be direct descendants of the first migrants from Africa, and have inhabited the area for 60,000 years.

Their extreme rejection of any contact dates back a long time: in 1974, a documentary filmmaker received a crush on one of his legs when he tried to film them. In 2004, after the tsunami at the end of that year, the government of India wanted to get closer to find out if they had survived, at which time the helicopter in which a team of professionals was traveling was showered with arrows.

Two years later, two fishermen who roamed the area were killed after being hit by the fearsome arrows of the Sentinelese

It is estimated that today between 50 and 150 people live on this small island, and any type of plague, however minimal, could destroy the entire population since they are highly fragile to infections.

References

1. Savagery. (2019). Royal Spanish Academy. Recovered from: dle.rae.es
2. Gordon Childe. (1988). «Social Evolution». Recovered from: books.google.bg
3. Manuel Marzal (1996). "History of Anthropology". Recovered from: books.google.bg
4. BBC World (2019). Who are the Sentinelenses. Recovered from: bbc.com/mundo
5. Aurelia Casares. (2006). "Anthropology of gender". Recovered from: books.google.bg