Perfidious denisovan 2

H/T Gustav (Edit: not meant to be interpreted as endorsement of the crazy theory)

>:^)

Fox’s notes

pineapple video:
– the natives blamed the missionary for the death of a child (!)
– always stealing instead of making an effort to build something. I guess this is the strategy for types that can’t build anything on their own. They stole various goods and tools he had.
– eating bananas and pineapples that weren’t ripe yet. Probably because they had to eat it before someone else ate it. Another explanation: They liked the non-ripe fruit more.
– the missionary’s attempt to train them to behave socially (“I’ll open the clinic again if you stop stealing pineapples”) failed completely.
– the natives watched the missionary couple all day, in a way controlling how much they ate (and demanding the rest)
– “they never bathe”, “they could never sneak up on you”
– very strong reaction to the large dog (fleeing, hiding in high places)
– the natives don’t know the concept of “privacy” (at least not with regard to the missionary family), they formed thick crowds around the missionar’s wife when in need of medicine not leaving her any “elbow room” – people who have empathy or can think about other people’s perspectves wouldn’t do that.
– they always asked the missionary why he’s “always angry”, never understanding that it was their behaviour that made him angry. Apparently they couldn’t understand cause and effect.
– dividing the pineapple garden into two halves, one of which was reserved for him, had no effect – still everything was stolen
– hidden almost ripe pineapples were stolen, too
Plot twist:
– they thought “whatever you plant, you eat” (“my hands planted them, by mouth eats them), instead of believing that the pineapples were the missionary’s since he owned the land (having bought it from the chief), and had brought the pineapples there.
This lets much of the former stuff appear in a very different light
Then he paid the native planters well and made an agreement that they would forfeit their right to the pineapples despite planting them. Nevertheless, the pineapples were stolen again.
– when he said that he doesn’t own the garden anymore, the natives refrained from stealing, since the owner could have been a “headhunter” or “witchdoctor” – this shows that they did understand ownership, but only cared about it when it was backed by a credible threat (violence or magic).
– intense bad magic shit happened in the village after the missionary “gave” the pineapples to god (the natives had not known this and taken pineapples like before)
“nothing was going right in the village”, “after I gave my garden to god, everything started to go wrong for them, because they were touching god’s pineapples …”, “the rain wouldn’t fall, the gardens wouldn’t grow, they let the fishhook in the river, nothing would come up, they’d hunt and they’d never get any pork … they said “our women aren’t getting pregnant, there’s no babies being born, we’re gonna be outnumbered by the enemy tribes””
What the natives did as a reaction: “they’ve been making sacrifices to the demons, they’ve been having talks “who has wronged them? Who has turned them off? What is wrong?”, they couldn’t find the problem”
After hearing that the missionary gave the garden to his god, they blamed him “missionary it’s you, you’re the cause of the trouble, get in there and get the garden back”
After he refused they said “we want you to own the garden, we never gave you permission to give it to your god, he is not to own any property around here”
A discussion ensued.
He was asked: “Your god’s big, isn’t he?”
He responded: “Oh yes he’s big, He controls the rain, he controls whether your wife gets pregnant, he controls whether you catch fish, whether you shoot pigs, he controls whether your child gets sick, everything, you can’t even breathe without god’s help, you’d die if it wasn’t for god’s sustained power in your life”
As a result: “about half of the crowd quit stealing, cause they were afraid of god. You know when you have a fear of god … that’s when they were converted”
(Two further points he says in the video: After he gave the pineapples to god, they started growing much bigger. The same happened with bananas later.)
“inevitably, when somebody stole, something would happen in his house, somebody get sick [sic], house would burn, his chickens would die, something would happen”
As a result, they wouldn’t even want to touch the pineapples any more (even if the missionary gave them permission to do so when he was away).
Note that before giving the garden to god, he had been angry for many months and had had health problems: “my nerves were bad”, “I was on tranquilizers”, “my health was bad”.