Posted: April 24th, 2025

The Price of Progress By John Bodley (1998) REFLECTION QUESTIONS on Indigenous Peoples Day

 

1. What is the end goal of government as per Bodley’s Article? Provide evidence to support your response.
2. What is the point or proclaimed value to sacrificing traditional culture? B. For what sacrifice and what gain?
3. According to Bodley, why is American benefit paramount (most important)?
4. In your opinion, A. are the tribal people being abused or advantaged? B. What about according to Bodley?
5. How does the author define “Standard of Living?” B. It is determined by whom? C. Why is it “better/ higher” amongst the rulers and not the ruled? D. What is the standard?
6. Does progress increase or decrease the physical needs of the tribal people? Provide clear evidence to support your response.
7. If more developed economies have more diseases and societal issues than what you’d consider low quality of living, what makes the former (like USA) more advanced?
8. What happened as tribal groups became larger societies?
9. What is the significance of imported food upon tribal societies? B. Discuss relationship between economic development and Mental health. Provide evidence to support your responses.
10. Did colonization cause more natural disasters? What are the science and the spiritual dimensions? Provide evidence from Bodley article.

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The Price of Progress

John Bodley

In aiming at progress… you must
let no one suffer by too drastic a
measure, nor pay too high a price
in upheaval and devastation, for
your innovation.

Maunier,

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9:

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UNTIL RECENTLY, GOVERNMENT
planners have always considered eco-
nomic development and progress benefi-
cial goals that all societies should want to
strive toward. The social advantage of
progress—as defined in terms of in-
creased incomes, higher standards of liv-
ing, greater security, and better health—
are thought to be positive, universal
goods, to be obtained at any price. Al-
though one may argue that tribal peoples
must sacrifice their traditional cultures to
obtain these benefits, government plan-
ners generally feel that this is a small
price to pay for such obvious advantages.

In earlier chapters [in Victims of
Progress, 3rd ed.], evidence was pre-
sented to demonstrate that autonomous
tribal peoples have not chosen progress
to enjoy its advantages, but that govern-
ments have pushed progress upon them
to obtain tribal resources, not primarily
to share with the tribal peoples the bene-
fits of progress. It has also been shown
that the price of forcing progress on un-
willing recipients has involved the
deaths of millions of tribal people, as
well as their loss of land, political sover-
eignty, and the right to follow their own
life style. This chapter does not attempt
to further summarize that aspect of the
cost of progress, but instead analyzes the
specific effects of the participation of
tribal peoples in the world-market econ-
omy. In direct opposition to the usual in-
terpretation, it is argued here that the
benefits of progress are often both illu-
sory and detrimental to tribal peoples
when they have not been allowed to con-

trol their own resources and define their
relationship to the market economy.

PROGRESS AND THE
QUALITY OF LIFE

One of the primary difficulties in assess-
ing the benefits of progress and eco-
nomic development for any culture is
that of establishing a meaningful mea-
sure of both benefit and detriment. It is
widely recognized that standard of liv-
ing, which is the most frequently used
measure of progress, is an intrinsically
ethnocentric concept relying heavily
upon indicators that lack universal cul-
tural relevance. Such factors as GNP, per
capita income, capital formation, em-
ployment rates, literacy, formal educa-
tion, consumption of manufactured
goods, number of doctors and hospital
beds per thousand persons, and the
amount of money spent on government
welfare and health programs may be ir-
relevant measures of actual quality of
life for autonomous or even semiautono-
mous tribal cultures. In its 1954 report,
the Trust Territory government indicated
that since the Micronesian population
was still largely satisfying its own needs
within a cashless subsistence economy,
“Money income is not a significant mea-
sure of living standards, production, or
well-being in this area” (TTR, 1953: 44).
Unfortunately, within a short time the
government began to rely on an enumer-
ation of certain imported consumer
goods as indicators of a higher standard
of living in the islands, even though
many tradition-oriented islanders felt
that these new goods symbolized a low-
ering of the quality of life.

A more useful measure of the benefits
of progress might be based on a formula
for evaluating cultures devised by Gold-
schmidt (1952: 135). According to these

less ethnocentric criteria, the important
question to ask is: Does progress or eco-
nomic development increase or decrease
a given culture’s ability to satisfy the
physical and psychological needs of its
population, or its stability? This question
is a far more direct measure of quality of
life than are the standard economic cor-
relates of development, and it is univer-
sally relevant. Specific indication of this
standard of living could be found for any
society in the nutritional status and gen-
eral physical and mental health of its
population, the incidence of crime and
delinquency, the demographic structure,
family stability, and the society’s rela-
tionship to its natural resource base. A
society with high rates of malnutrition
and crime, and one degrading its natural
environment to the extent of threatening
its continued existence, might be de-
scribed as at a lower standard of living
than is another society where these prob-
lems did not exist.

Careful examination of the data,
which compare, on these specific points,
the former condition of self-sufficient
tribal peoples with their condition fol-
lowing their incorporation into the
world-market economy, leads to the con-
clusion that their standard of living is
lowered, not raised, by economic
progress—and often to a dramatic de-
gree. This is perhaps the most outstand-
ing and inescapable fact to emerge from
the years of research that anthropologists
have devoted to the study of culture
change and modernization. Despite the
best intentions of those who have pro-
moted change and improvement, all too
often the results have been poverty,
longer working hours, and much greater
physical exertion, poor health, social dis-
order, discontent, discrimination, overpopu-
lation, and environmental deterioration—

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Article 35. The Price of Progress

combined with the destruction of the tra-
ditional culture.

DISEASES OF
DEVELOPMENT

Perhaps it would be useful for pub-
lic health specialists to start talk-
ing about a new category of
diseases.… Such diseases could be
called the “diseases of develop-
ment” and would consist of those
pathological conditions which are
based on the usually unanticipated
consequences of the implementa-
tion of developmental schemes.

Hughes & Hunter, 1972: 93

Economic development increases the
disease rate of affected peoples in at least
three ways. First, to the extent that devel-
opment is successful, it makes developed
populations suddenly become vulnerable
to all of the diseases suffered almost
exclusively by “advanced” peoples.
Among these are diabetes, obesity, hy-
pertension, and a variety of circulatory
problems. Second, development disturbs
traditional environmental balances and
may dramatically increase certain bacte-
rial and parasite diseases. Finally, when
development goals prove unattainable,
an assortment of poverty diseases may
appear in association with the crowded
conditions of urban slums and the gen-
eral breakdown in traditional socioeco-
nomic systems.

Outstanding examples of the first sit-
uation can be seen in the Pacific, where
some of the most successfully developed
native peoples are found. In Micronesia,
where development has progressed more
rapidly than perhaps anywhere else, be-
tween 1958 and 1972 the population
doubled, but the number of patients
treated for heart disease in the local
hospitals nearly tripled, mental disorder
increased eightfold, and by 1972 hyper-
tension and nutritional deficiencies be-
gan to make significant appearances for
the first time (TTR, 1959, 1973, statisti-
cal tables).

Although some critics argue that the
Micronesian figures simply represent
better health monitoring due to eco-
nomic progress, rigorously controlled
data from Polynesia show a similar

trend. The progressive acquisition of
modern degenerative diseases was docu-
mented by an eight-member team of
New Zealand medical specialists, an-
thropologists, and nutritionists, whose
research was funded by the Medical Re-
search Council of New Zealand and the
World Health Organization. These re-
searchers investigated the health status
of a genetically related population at var-
ious points along a continuum of increas-
ing cash income, modernizing diet, and
urbanization. The extremes on this ac-
culturation continuum were represented
by the relatively traditional Pukapukans
of the Cook Islands and the essentially
Europeanized New Zealand Maori,
while the busily developing Raroton-
gans, also of the Cook Islands, occupied
the intermediate position. In 1971, after
eight years of work, the team’s prelimi-
nary findings were summarized by Dr.
Ian Prior, cardiologist and leader of the
research, as follows:

We are beginning to observe that
the more an islander takes on the
ways of the West, the more prone
he is to succumb to our degenera-
tive diseases. In fact, it does not
seem too much to say our evidence
now shows that the farther the Pa-
cific natives move from the quiet,
carefree life of their ancestors, the
closer they come to gout, diabetes,
atherosclerosis, obesity, and hy-
pertension.

Prior, 1971: 2

In Pukapuka, where progress was
limited by the island’s small size and its
isolated location some 480 kilometers
from the nearest port, the annual per cap-
ita income was only about thirty-six
dollars and the economy remained es-
sentially at a subsistence level. Re-
sources were limited and the area was
visited by trading ships only three or four
times a year; thus, there was little oppor-
tunity for intensive economic develop-
ment. Predictably, the population of
Pukapuka was characterized by rela-
tively low levels of imported sugar and
salt intake, and a presumably related low
level of heart disease, high blood pres-
sure, and diabetes. In Rarotonga, where
economic success was introducing town

life, imported food, and motorcycles,
sugar and salt intakes nearly tripled, high
blood pressure increased approximately
ninefold, diabetes two- to threefold, and
heart disease doubled for men and more
than quadrupled for women, while the
number of grossly obese women in-
creased more than tenfold. Among the
New Zealand Maori, sugar intake was
nearly eight times that of the Pukapu-
kans, gout in men was nearly double its
rate on Pukapuka, and diabetes in men
was more than fivefold higher, while
heart disease in women had increased
more than sixfold. The Maori were, in
fact, dying of “European” diseases at a
greater rate than was the average New
Zealand European.

Government development policies
designed to bring about changes in local
hydrology, vegetation, and settlement
patterns and to increase population mo-
bility, and even programs aimed at re-
ducing certain diseases, have frequently
led to dramatic increases in disease rates
because of the unforeseen effects of dis-
turbing the preexisting order. Hughes
and Hunter (1972) published an excel-
lent survey of cases in which develop-
ment led directly to increased disease
rates in Africa. They concluded that
hasty development intervention in
relatively balanced local cultures and
environments resulted in “a drastic dete-
rioration in the social and economic con-
ditions of life.”

Traditional populations in general
have presumably learned to live with the
endemic pathogens of their environ-
ments, and in some cases they have
evolved genetic adaptations to specific
diseases, such as the sickle-cell trait,
which provided an immunity to malaria.
Unfortunately, however, outside inter-
vention has entirely changed this picture.
In the late 19

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0s, sleeping sickness sud-
denly increased in many areas of Africa
and even spread to areas where it did not
formerly occur, due to the building of
new roads and migratory labor, both of
which caused increased population
movement. Large-scale relocation
schemes, such as the Zande Scheme, had
disastrous results when natives were
moved from their traditional disease-free
refuges into infected areas. Dams and ir-
rigation developments inadvertently cre-

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ANNUAL EDITIONS

ated ideal conditions for the rapid
proliferation of snails carrying schistoso-
miasis (a liver fluke disease), and major
epidemics suddenly occurred in areas
where this disease had never before been
a problem. DDT spraying programs have
been temporarily successful in control-
ling malaria, but there is often a rebound
effect that increases the problem when
spraying is discontinued, and the malar-
ial mosquitoes are continually evolving
resistant strains.

Urbanization is one of the prime mea-
sures of development, but it is a mixed
blessing for most former tribal peoples.
Urban health standards are abysmally
poor and generally worse than in rural ar-
eas for the detribalized individuals who
have crowded into the towns and cities
throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin
America seeking wage employment out
of new economic necessity. Infectious
diseases related to crowding and poor
sanitation are rampant in urban centers,
while greatly increased stress and poor
nutrition aggravate a variety of other
health problems. Malnutrition and other
diet-related conditions are, in fact, one of
the characteristic hazards of progress
faced by tribal peoples and are discussed
in the following sections.

The Hazards of Dietary Change

The traditional diets of tribal peoples are
admirably adapted to their nutritional
needs and available food resources. Even
though these diets may seem bizarre, ab-
surd, and unpalatable to outsiders, they
are unlikely to be improved by drastic
modifications. Given the delicate bal-
ances and complexities involved in any
subsistence system, change always in-
volves risks, but for tribal people the
effects of dietary change have been cata-
strophic.

Under normal conditions, food habits
are remarkably resistant to change, and
indeed people are unlikely to abandon
their traditional diets voluntarily in favor
of dependence on difficult-to-obtain ex-
otic imports. In some cases it is true that
imported foods may be identified with
powerful outsiders and are therefore
sought as symbols of greater prestige.
This may lead to such absurdities as Am-
azonian Indians choosing to consume

imported canned tunafish when abun-
dant high-quality fish is available in their
own rivers. Another example of this sit-
uation occurs in tribes where mothers
prefer to feed their infants expensive nu-
tritionally inadequate canned milk from
unsanitary, but high status, baby bottles.
The high status of these items is often
promoted by clever traders and clever
advertising campaigns.

Aside from these apparently volun-
tary changes, it appears that more often
dietary changes are forced upon unwill-
ing tribal peoples by circumstances be-
yond their control. In some areas, new
food crops have been introduced by gov-
ernment decree, or as a consequence of
forced relocation or other policies de-
signed to end hunting, pastoralism, or
shifting cultivation. Food habits have
also been modified by massive disruption
of the natural environment by outsid-
ers—as when sheepherders transformed
the Australian Aborigines’ foraging ter-
ritory or when European invaders de-
stroyed the bison herds that were the
primary element in the Plains Indians’
subsistence patterns. Perhaps the most
frequent cause of diet change occurs
when formerly self-sufficient peoples
find that wage labor, cash cropping, and
other economic development activities
that feed tribal resources into the world-
market economy must inevitably divert
time and energy away from the produc-
tion of subsistence foods. Many develop-
ing peoples suddenly discover that, like
it or not, they are unable to secure tradi-
tional foods and must spend their newly
acquired cash on costly, and often nutri-
tionally inferior, manufactured foods.

Overall, the available data seem to in-
dicate that the dietary changes that are
linked to involvement in the world-mar-
ket economy have tended to lower rather
than raise the nutritional levels of the af-
fected tribal peoples. Specifically, the vi-
tamin, mineral, and protein components
of their diets are often drastically re-
duced and replaced by enormous in-
creases in starch and carbohydrates,
often in the form of white flour and re-
fined sugar.

Any deterioration in the quality of a
given population’s diet is almost certain
to be reflected in an increase in defi-
ciency diseases and a general decline in

health status. Indeed, as tribal peoples
have shifted to a diet based on imported
manufactured or processed foods, there
has been a dramatic rise in malnutrition,
a massive increase in dental problems,
and a variety of other nutritional-related
disorders. Nutritional physiology is so
complex that even well-meaning dietary
changes have had tragic consequences.
In many areas of Southeast Asia, govern-
ment-sponsored protein supplementation
programs supplying milk to protein-defi-
cient populations caused unexpected
health problems and increased mortality.
Officials failed to anticipate that in cul-
tures where adults do not normally drink
milk, the enzymes needed to digest it are
no longer produced and milk intolerance
results (Davis & Bolin, 1972). In Brazil,
a similar milk distribution program
caused an epidemic of permanent blind-
ness by aggravating a preexisting vita-
min A deficiency (Bunce, 1972).

Teeth and Progress

There is nothing new in the obser-
vation that savages, or peoples liv-
ing under primitive conditions,
have, in general, excellent teeth.…
Nor is it news that most civilized
populations possess wretched
teeth which begin to decay almost
before they have erupted com-
pletely, and that dental caries is
likely to be accompanied by peri-
odontal disease with further
reaching complications.

Hooton, 1945: xviii

Anthropologists have long recognized
that undisturbed tribal peoples are often
in excellent physical condition. And it
has often been noted specifically that
dental caries and the other dental abnor-
malities that plague industrialized societ-
ies are absent or rare among tribal
peoples who have retained their tradi-
tional diets. The fact that tribal food hab-
its may contribute to the development of
sound teeth, whereas modernized diets
may do just the opposite, was illustrated
as long ago as 1894 in an article in the
Journal of the Royal Anthropological In-
stitute that described the results of a
comparison between the teeth of ten
Sioux Indians were examined when they

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Article 35. The Price of Progress

came to London as members of Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West Show and were found
to be completely free of caries and in
possession of all their teeth, even though
half of the group were over thirty-nine
years of age. Londoners’ teeth were con-
spicuous for both their caries and their
steady reduction in number with advanc-
ing age. The difference was attributed
primarily to the wear and polishing
caused by the traditional Indian diet of
coarse food and the fact that they chewed
their food longer, encouraged by the ab-
sence of tableware.

One of the most remarkable studies of
the dental conditions of tribal peoples
and the impact of dietary change was
conducted in the 1930s by Weston Price
(1945), an American dentist who was in-
terested in determining what caused nor-
mal, healthy teeth. Between 1931 and
1936, Price systematically explored
tribal areas throughout the world to lo-
cate and examine the most isolated peo-
ples who were still living on traditional
foods. His fieldwork covered Alaska, the
Canadian Yukon, Hudson Bay, Vancou-
ver Island, Florida, the Andes, the Ama-
zon, Samoa, Tahiti, New Zealand,
Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji, the
Torres Strait, East Africa, and the Nile.
The study demonstrated both the supe-
rior quality of aboriginal dentition and
the devastation that occurs as modern di-
ets are adopted. In nearly every area
where traditional foods were still being
eaten, Price found perfect teeth with nor-
mal dental arches and virtually no decay,
whereas caries and abnormalities in-
creased steadily as new diets were
adopted. In many cases the change was
sudden and striking. Among Eskimo
groups subsisting entirely on traditional
food he found caries totally absent,
whereas in groups eating a considerable
quantity of store-bought food approxi-
mately 20 percent of their teeth were de-
cayed. This figure rose to more than 30
percent with Eskimo groups subsisting
almost exclusively on purchased or gov-
ernment-supplied food, and reached an
incredible 48 percent among the Van-
couver Island Indians. Unfortunately for
many of these people, modern dental
treatment did not accompany the new
food, and their suffering was appalling.
The loss of teeth was, of course, bad

enough in itself, and it certainly under-
mined the population’s resistance to
many new diseases, including tuberculo-
sis. But new foods were also accompa-
nied by crowded, misplaced teeth, gum
diseases, distortion of the face, and
pinching of the nasal cavity. Abnormali-
ties in the dental arch appeared in the
new generation following the change in
diet, while caries appeared almost imme-
diately even in adults.

Price reported that in many areas the
affected peoples were conscious of their
own physical deterioration. At a mission
school in Africa, the principal asked him
to explain to the native schoolchildren
why they were not physically as strong
as children who had had no contact with
schools. On an island in the Torres Strait
the natives knew exactly what was caus-
ing their problems and resisted—almost
to the point of bloodshed—government
efforts to establish a store that would
make imported food available. The gov-
ernment prevailed, however, and Price
was able to establish a relationship be-
tween the length of time the government
store had been established and the in-
creasing incidence of caries among a
population that showed an almost 100
percent immunity to them before the
store had been opened.

In New Zealand, the Maori, who in
their aboriginal state are often consid-
ered to have been among the healthiest,
most perfectly developed of people,
were found to have “advanced” the fur-
thest. According to Price:

Their modernization was demon-
strated not only by the high inci-
dence of dental caries but also by
the fact that 90 percent of the
adults and 100 percent of the chil-
dren had abnormalities of the den-
tal arches.

Price, 1945: 206

Malnutrition

Malnutrition, particularly in the form of
protein deficiency, has become a critical
problem for tribal peoples who must
adopt new economic patterns. Popula-
tion pressures, cash cropping, and gov-
ernment programs all have tended to
encourage the replacement of traditional

crops and other food sources that were
rich in protein with substitutes, high in
calories but low in protein. In Africa, for
example, protein-rich staples such as
millet and sorghum are being replaced
systematically by high-yielding manioc
and plantains, which have insignificant
amounts of protein. The problem is in-
creased for cash croppers and wage la-
borers whose earnings are too low and
unpredictable to allow purchase of ade-
quate amounts of protein. In some rural
areas, agricultural laborers have been
forced systematically to deprive nonpro-
ductive members (principally children)
of their households of their minimal nu-
tritional requirements to satisfy the need
of the productive members. This process
has been documented in northeastern
Brazil following the introduction of
large-scale sisal plantations (Gross &
Underwood, 1971). In urban centers the
difficulties of obtaining nutritionally ad-
equate diets are even more serious for
tribal immigrants, because costs are
higher and poor quality foods are more
tempting.

One of the most tragic, and largely
overlooked, aspects of chronic malnutri-
tion is that it can lead to abnormally
undersized brain development and ap-
parently irreversible brain damage; it has
been associated with various forms of
mental impairment or retardation. Mal-
nutrition has been linked clinically with
mental retardation in both Africa and
Latin America (see, for example,
Mönckeberg, 1968), and this appears to
be a worldwide phenomenon with seri-
ous implications (Montagu, 1972).

Optimistic supporters of progress will
surely say that all of these new health
problems are being overstressed and that
the introduction of hospitals, clinics, and
the other modern health institutions will
overcome or at least compensate for all
of these difficulties. However, it appears
that uncontrolled population growth and
economic impoverishment probably will
keep most of these benefits out of reach
for many tribal peoples, and the interven-
tion of modern medicine has at least
partly contributed to the problem in the
first place.

The generalization that civilization fre-
quently has a broad negative impact on

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ANNUAL EDITIONS

tribal health has found broad empirical
support (see especially Kroeger & Bar-
bira-Freedman [1982] on Amazonia; Re-
inhard [1976] on the Arctic; and Wirsing
[1985] globally), but these conclusions
have not gone unchallenged. Some crit-
ics argue that tribal health was often poor
before modernization, and they point
specifically to tribals’ low life expect-
ancy and high infant mortality rates. De-
mographic statistics on tribal
populations are often problematic be-
cause precise data are scarce, but they do
show a less favorable profile than that
enjoyed by many industrial societies.
However, it should be remembered that
our present life expectancy is a recent
phenomenon that has been very costly in
terms of medical research and techno-
logical advances. Furthermore, the bene-
fits of our health system are not enjoyed
equally by all members of our society.
High infant mortality could be viewed as
a relatively inexpensive and egalitarian
tribal public health program that offered
the reasonable expectation of a healthy
and productive life for those surviving to
age fifteen.

Some critics also suggest that certain
tribal populations, such as the New
Guinea highlanders, were “stunted” by
nutritional deficiencies created by tribal
culture and are “improved” by “accultur-
ation” and cash cropping (Dennett &
Connell, 1988). Although this argument
does suggest that the health question re-
quires careful evaluation, it does not in-
validate the empirical generalizations
already established. Nutritional deficien-
cies undoubtedly occurred in densely
populated zones in the central New
Guinea highlands. However, the specific
case cited above may not be widely rep-
resentative of other tribal groups even in
New Guinea, and it does not address the
facts of outside intrusion or the inequi-
ties inherent in the contemporary devel-
opment process.

ECOCIDE

“How is it,” asked a herdsman…
“how is it that these hills can no
longer give pasture to my cattle?
In my father’s day they were green
and cattle thrived there; today
there is no grass and my cattle

starve.” As one looked one saw
that what had once been a green
hill had become a raw red rock.

Jones, 1934

Progress not only brings new threats to
the health of tribal peoples, but it also
imposes new strains on the ecosystems
upon which they must depend for their
ultimate survival. The introduction of
new technology, increased consumption,
lowered mortality, and the eradication of
all traditional controls have combined to
replace what for most tribal peoples was
a relatively stable balance between pop-
ulation and natural resources, with a new
system that is imbalanced. Economic de-
velopment is forcing ecocide on peoples
who were once careful stewards of their
resources. There is already a trend to-
ward widespread environmental deterio-
ration in tribal areas, involving resource
depletion, erosion, plant and animal ex-
tinction, and a disturbing series of other
previously unforeseen changes.

After the initial depopulation suffered
by most tribal peoples during their en-
gulfment by frontiers of national expan-
sion, most tribal populations began to
experience rapid growth. Authorities
generally attribute this growth to the in-
troduction of modern medicine and new
health measures and the termination of
intertribal warfare, which lowered mo-
rality rates, as well as to new technology,
which increased food production. Cer-
tainly all of these factors played a part,
but merely lowering mortality rates
would not have produced the rapid pop-
ulation growth that most tribal areas
have experienced if traditional birth-
spacing mechanisms had not been elimi-
nated at the same time. Regardless of
which factors were most important, it is
clear that all of the natural and cultural
checks on population growth have sud-
denly been pushed aside by culture
change, while tribal lands have been
steadily reduced and consumption levels
have risen. In many tribal areas, environ-
mental deterioration due to overuse of
resources has set in, and in other areas
such deterioration is imminent as re-
sources continue to dwindle relative to
the expanding population and increased
use. Of course, population expansion by
tribal peoples may have positive political

consequences, because where tribals can
retain or regain their status as local ma-
jorities they may be in a more favorable
position to defend their resources against
intruders.

Swidden systems and pastoralism,
both highly successful economic sys-
tems under traditional conditions, have
proved particularly vulnerable to in-
creased population pressures and outside
efforts to raise productivity beyond its
natural limits. Research in Amazonia
demonstrates that population pressures
and related resource depletion can be
created indirectly by official policies that
restrict swidden peoples to smaller terri-
tories. Resource depletion itself can then
become a powerful means of forcing
tribal people into participating in the
world-market economy—thus leading to
further resource depletion. For example,
Bodley and Benson (1979) showed how
the Shipibo Indians in Peru were forced
to further deplete their forest resources
by cash cropping in the forest area to re-
place the resources that had been de-
stroyed earlier by the intensive cash
cropping necessitated by the narrow con-
fines of their reserve. In this case, certain
species of palm trees that had provided
critical housing materials were destroyed
by forest clearing and had to be replaced
by costly purchased materials. Research
by Gross (1979) and other showed simi-
lar processes at work among four tribal
groups in central Brazil and demon-
strated that the degree of market involve-
ment increases directly with increases in
resource depletion.

The settling of nomadic herders and
the removal of prior controls on herd size
have often led to serious overgrazing and
erosion problems where these had not
previously occurred. There are indica-
tions that the desertification problem in
the Sahel region of Africa was aggra-
vated by programs designed to settle no-
mads. The first sign of imbalance in a
swidden system appears when the plant-
ing cycles are shortened to the point that
garden plots are reused before sufficient
forest regrowth can occur. If reclearing
and planting continue in the same area,
the natural patterns of forest succession
may be disturbed irreversibly and the
soil can be impaired permanently. An ex-
tensive tract of tropical rainforest in the

5

Article 35. The Price of Progress

lower Amazon of Brazil was reduced to
a semiarid desert in just fifty years
through such a process (Ackermann,
1964). The soils in the Azande area are
also now seriously threatened with later-
ization and other problems as a result of
the government-promoted cotton devel-
opment scheme (McNeil, 1972).

The dangers of overdevelopment and
the vulnerability of local resource sys-
tems have long been recognized by both
anthropologists and tribal peoples them-
selves. But the pressures for change have
been overwhelming. In 1948 the Maya
villagers of Chan Kom complained to
Redfield (1962) about the shortening of
their swidden cycles, which they cor-
rectly attributed to increasing population
pressures. Redfield told them, however,
that they had no choice but to go “for-
ward with technology” (Redfield, 1962:
178). In Assam, swidden cycles were
shortened from an average of twelve
years to only two or three within just
twenty years, and anthropologists
warned that the limits of swiddening
would soon be reached (Burling, 1963:
311–312). In the Pacific, anthropologists
warned of population pressures on lim-
ited resources as early as the 1930s
(Keesing, 1941: 64–65). These warnings
seemed fully justified, considering the
fact that the crowded Tikopians were
prompted by population pressures on
their tiny island to suggest that infanti-
cide be legalized. The warnings have
been dramatically reinforced since then
by the doubling of Micronesia’s popula-
tion in just the fourteen years between
1958 and 1972, from 70,600 to 114,645,
while consumption levels have soared.
By 1985 Micronesia’s population had
reached 162,321.

The environmental hazards of eco-
nomic development and rapid population
growth have become generally recog-
nized only since worldwide concerns
over environmental issues began in the
early 1970s. Unfortunately, there is as
yet little indication that the leaders of the
new developing nations are sufficiently
concerned with environmental limita-
tions. On the contrary, governments are
forcing tribal peoples into a self-rein-
forcing spiral of population growth and
intensified resource exploitation, which
may be stopped only by environmental

disaster or the total impoverishment of
the tribals.

The reality of ecocide certainly fo-
cuses attention on the fundamental con-
trasts between tribal and industrial
systems in their use of natural resources,
who controls them, and how they are man-
aged. Tribal peoples are victimized be-
cause they control resources that outsiders
demand. The resources exist because trib-
als managed them conservatively. How-
ever, as with the issue of the health
consequences of detribalization, some
anthropologists minimize the adaptive
achievements of tribal groups and seem
unwilling to concede that ecocide might
be a consequence of cultural change.
Critics attack an exaggerated “noble sav-
age” image of tribals living in perfect
harmony with nature and having no visi-
ble impact on their surroundings. They
then show that tribals do in fact modify
the environment, and they conclude that
there is no significant difference be-
tween how tribals and industrial societ-
ies treat their environments. For
example, Charles Wagley declared that
Brazilian Indians such as the Tapirape

are not “natural men.” They have
human vices just as we do.… They
do not live “in tune” with nature
any more than I do; in fact, they
can often be as destructive of their
environment, within their limita-
tions, as some civilized men. The
Tapirape are not innocent or
childlike in any way.

Wagley, 1977: 302

Anthropologist Terry Rambo demon-
strated that the Semang of the Malaysian
rain forests have a measurable impact on
their environment. In his monograph
Primitive Polluters, Rambo (1985) re-
ported that the Semang live in smoke-
filled houses. They sneeze and spread
germs, breathe, and thus emit carbon di-
oxide. They clear small gardens, contrib-
uting “particulate matter” to the air and
disturbing the local climate because
cleared areas proved measurably warmer
and drier than the shady forest. Rambo
concluded that his research “demon-
strates the essential functional similarity
of the environmental interactions of
primitive and civilized societies” (1985:

78) in contrast to a “noble savage” view
(Bodley, 1983) which, according to
Rambo (1985: 2), mistakenly “claims
that traditional peoples almost always
live in essential harmony with their envi-
ronment.”

This is surely a false issue. To stress,
as I do, that tribals tend to manage their
resources for sustained yield within rela-
tively self-sufficient subsistence econo-
mies is not to make them either innocent
children or natural men. Nor is it to deny
that tribals “disrupt” their environment
and may never be in absolute “balance”
with nature.

The ecocide issue is perhaps most
dramatically illustrated by two sets of
satellite photos taken over the Brazilian
rain forests of Rôndonia (Allard &
McIntyre, 1988: 780–781). Photos taken
in 1973, when Rôndonia was still a tribal
domain, show virtually unbroken rain
forest. The 1987 satellite photos, taken
after just fifteen years of highway con-
struction and “development” by outsid-
ers, show more than 20 percent of the
forest destroyed. The surviving Indians
were being concentrated by FUNAI
(Brazil’s national Indian foundation)
into what would soon become mere is-
lands of forest in a ravaged landscape. It
is irrelevant to quibble about whether
tribals are noble, childlike, or innocent,
or about the precise meaning of balance
with nature, carrying capacity, or adapta-
tion, to recognize that for the past 200
years rapid environmental deterioration
on an unprecedented global scale has fol-
lowed the wresting of control of vast ar-
eas of the world from tribal groups by
resource-hungry industrial societies.

DEPRIVATION AND
DISCRIMINATION

Contact with European culture has
given them a knowledge of great
wealth, opportunity and privilege,
but only very limited avenues by
which to acquire these things.

Crocombe, 1968

Unwittingly, tribal peoples have had the
burden of perpetual relative deprivation
thrust upon them by acceptance—either
by themselves or by the governments ad-
ministering them—of the standards of

6

ANNUAL EDITIONS

socioeconomic progress set for them by
industrial civilizations. By comparison
with the material wealth of industrial so-
cieties, tribal societies become, by defi-
nition, impoverished. They are then
forced to transform their cultures and
work to achieve what many economists
now acknowledge to be unattainable
goals. Even though in many cases the
modest GNP goals set by development
planners for the developing nations dur-
ing the “development decade” of the
1960s were often met, the results were
hardly noticeable for most of the tribal
people involved. Population growth, en-
vironmental limitations, inequitable dis-
tribution of wealth, and the continued
rapid growth of the industrialized na-
tions have all meant that both the abso-
lute and the relative gap between the rich
and poor in the world is steadily widen-
ing. The prospect that tribal peoples will
actually be able to attain the levels of re-
source consumption to which they are
being encouraged to aspire is remote in-
deed except for those few groups who
have retained effective control over stra-
tegic mineral resources.

Tribal peoples feel deprivation not
only when the economic goals they have
been encouraged to seek fail to material-
ize, but also when they discover that they
are powerless, second-class citizens who
are discriminated against and exploited
by the dominant society. At the same
time, they are denied the satisfactions of
their traditional cultures, because these
have been sacrificed in the process of
modernization. Under the impact of ma-
jor economic change family life is dis-
rupted, traditional social controls are
often lost, and many indicators of social
anomie such as alcoholism, crime, delin-
quency, suicide, emotional disorders,
and despair may increase. The inevitable
frustration resulting from this continual
deprivation finds expression in the cargo
cults, revitalization movements, and a
variety of other political and religious
movements that have been widespread
among tribal peoples following their dis-
ruption by industrial civilization.

Bibliography

Ackermann, F. L. 1964. Geologia e Fisiogra-
fia da Região Bragantina, Estado do
Pará. Manaus, Brazil: Conselho Nacional
de Pesquisas, Instituto Nacional de Pes-
quisas da Amazonia.

Allard, William Albert, and Loren McIntyre.
1988. Rondônia’s settlers invade Brazil’s
imperiled rain forest. National Geo-
graphic 174(6):772–799.

Bodley, John H. 1970. Campa Socio-Economic
Adaptation. Ann Arbor: University Mi-
crofilms.

_____. 1983. Der Weg der Zerstörung: Stam-
mesvölker und die industrielle Zivilization.
Munich: Trickster-Verlag. (Translation of
Victims of Progress.)

Bodley, John H., and Foley C. Benson.
1979. Cultural ecology of Amazonian
palms. Reports of Investigations, no. 56.
Pullman: Laboratory of Anthropology,
Washington State University.

Bunce, George E. 1972. Aggravation of vita-
min A deficiency following distribution
of non-fortified skim milk: An example of
nutrient interaction. In The Careless Tech-
nology: Ecology and International Devel-
opment, ed. M. T. Farvar and John P.
Milton, pp. 53–60. Garden City, N.Y.:
Natural History Press.

Burling, Robbins. 1963. Rengsanggri: Family
and Kinship in a Garo Village. Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Davis, A. E., and T. D. Bolin. 1972. Lactose
intolerance in Southeast Asia. In The
Careless Technology: Ecology and Inter-
national Development, ed. M. T. Farvar
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Dennett, Glenn, and John Connell. 1988. Ac-
culturation and health in the highlands of
Papua New Guinea. Current Anthropol-
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Goldschmidt, Walter R. 1972. The interre-
lations between cultural factors and the
acquisition of new technical skills. In The
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Bert F. Hoselitz, pp. 135–151. Chicago:
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Gross, Daniel R., et al. 1979. Ecology and ac-
culturation among native peoples of Central
Brazil. Science 206(4422): 1043–1050.

Hughes, Charles C., and John M. Hunter.
1972. The role of technological develop-
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Keesing, Felix M. 1941. The South Seas in
the Modern World. Institute of Pacific Re-

lations International Research Series.
New York: John Day.

Kroeger, Axel, and François Barbira-Freedman.
1982. Culture Change and Health: The
Case of South American Rainforest Indi-
ans. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang.
(Reprinted in Bodley, 1988a:221–236.)

McNeil, Mary. 1972. Lateritic soils in dis-
tinct tropical environments: Southern
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Mönckeberg, F. 1968. Mental retardation
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Montagu, Ashley. 1972. Sociogenic brain dam-
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1061.

Rambo, A. Terry. 1985. Primitive Polluters:
Semang Impact on the Malaysian Tropi-
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University of Michigan.

Redfield, Robert. 1953. The Primitive World
and Its Transformations. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press.

_____. 1962. A Village That Chose Progress:
Chan Kom Revisited. Chicago: University
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Smith, Wilberforce. 1894. The teeth of ten
Sioux Indians. Journal of the Royal An-
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TTR: See under United States.
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Office of Territories. 1953. Report on the
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United States, Department of State. 1955.
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From VICTIMS OF PROGRESS, 1998, pp. 137-151. Copyright © 1998 by The Mayfield Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of The McGraw-
Hill Companies.

7

The Price of Progress

PROGRESS AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

DISEASES OF DEVELOPMENT

The Hazards of Dietary Change

Teeth and Progress

Malnutrition

ECOCIDE

DEPRIVATION AND DISCRIMINATION

Bibliography

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