Indigenous peoples 土著人

by Richard Sidaway 理查德.赛德威著

'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children’ (Native American proverb)
我们并不是从我们的祖先那继承了这个地球，而是借用了我们子孙后代的地球。(美国谚语)

In December 2005, Evo Morales became the new President of Bolivia. He was only 46 years old and openly supported the production and use of the coca plant. He also wanted the state to take control of the profitable natural gas industry. But what was really significant was where he came from. He was born into a farming family in the Andes and spent much his life campaigning for the interests of the original inhabitants of the country. He was one of the first leaders of an indigenous people to make it to the top.
2005年12月，埃沃.莫拉莱斯成为玻利维亚的新总统。那时候，他只有46岁，并公开支持种植和使用古柯植物。但真正重要的是莫拉莱斯来自何方。莫拉莱斯出生于安第斯山的一个农民家庭，他的大半生在为国家原始居民利益的战役中度过。他是做得最好的土著人领导人之一。

There are perhaps 370 million indigenous peoples in 70 countries around the world. They live on 20% of the world’s land, and they contribute 80% of the world’s biological and cultural diversity. For the last few hundred years, however, European colonialism has marginalised them. Europeans gave them diseases against which they had no defences, suppressed their culture and language, and tried to assimilate them into western societies.
全球70个国家大概有3.7亿土著人口。 他们居住在占了全世界陆地的百分之二十的土地上，构成了世界生物和文化多样性的百分之八十。然而，在过去的几百年里，欧洲殖民主义把他们驱逐出境。欧洲人给他们带来了他们无法抵御的疾病，压制了他们的文化和语言，并试图将他们同化到西方社会中去。

Sometimes they almost disappeared from history. Few people today have heard of the Herero of Namibia. Eighty per cent of their population died from starvation a century ago at the hands of German colonisers. In 1803, there were 10,000 people living in Tasmania, but after the British declared war on them twenty years later, only 300 survived. The last Tasman died in 1905.
有时候，他们几乎从历史上消失了。当今，很少有人听过纳米比亚的赫雷罗人。 一个世纪之前，赫雷罗人在德国殖民者的手中死于饥饿。1803年，塔斯马尼亚居住了10000人，但是20年后，当英国宣布战争后，只有300人幸存。 最后一个塔斯马尼亚人在1905年去世。

The main reason for the decimation of indigenous peoples has been to get their land and natural resources. In Colombia, a hundred years of oil extraction has resulted in the pollution of rivers, soil and drinking water. The story is repeated in Ecuador and Peru. In Brazil, the government plan to build five large dams on the Xingu River. These will flood thousands of square kilometres of tribal reserves and destroy much agricultural land.
土著人口大量死亡的主要原因是他们为了获得住地和自然资源。在哥伦比亚，100多年的石油提炼导致了许多河流，土壤和饮用水的污染。这样的故事在厄瓜多尔和秘鲁也不断上演。在巴西，政府计划在兴谷河上建5个大的水坝。 这将会使得数千平方公里的部落保护区遭受洪涝，也将会破坏大量的农田。

Often governments have used forced relocation to get the local inhabitants out of the way. In Botswana today it is happening because of diamond mining and tourism. In the islands of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, the entire population were banished forever in order to build an airbase.
政府经常使用强制迁移的办法来驱逐当地居民。当今的博茨瓦纳，由于钻石采矿和旅游业，仍然存在着这样的强制迁移。为了建立一个空军基地，在迪戈加西亚环礁岛，在印度洋，所有的人口都被驱逐出去。

Land has a spiritual significance for indigenous people. In 1985 the Australian government finally recognised this and returned ownership of Uluru (Ayers Rock) to the Pitjantjatjara Aborigines. In the USA, however, the government is planning to store radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, although it is a sacred site for the Shoshone nation.
对于土著人来说，陆地有着精神上的意义。1985年，澳洲政府承认了这一点并把乌鲁鲁巨石（艾尔斯岩）归还给皮塔塔塔拉土著居民。然而，在美国，政府打算把放射性肥料填埋在内华达州的卡亚山，尽管那是肖松尼族人的宗教场所。

Businesses often try to take possession of indigenous cultures. Multinational companies wanted to become the owners of traditional knowledge in areas such as food, farming and health. They have tried to create patents on plants and medicines that indigenous people have used for centuries.
商业发展总是试图占领土著文化。跨国公司想要成为一些区域的传统知识的拥有者，例如食品，农业和保健行业。它们试图在土著人使用了几千年的农作物和药物方面创造专利。

Native languages are also disappearing. They were banned in schools for decades. Parents stopped using them to communicate in the home, and so they were no longer passed from one generation to another.
本地语言也正在消亡。本地语言在学校里禁止使用已经有几十年了。在家里，家长也不再用本地语言交流了，这样，本地语言就不能再世代传承下去了。

Sometimes families have been affected in more dramatic ways. In Australia, it was government policy from 1900-1972 to forcibly remove aboriginal children from their parents and bring them up in institutions.
有时候，许多家庭也会被很戏剧性的方法所影响。1900年到1972年，澳大利亚政府强制把土著孩子从他们的家长中迁移出来，让孩子们在社会机构里接受教育。

Health problems such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes are another feature of indigenous life. The writer Paul Theroux, travelling in the Pacific, noted that most islanders’ diets nowadays consisted of junk food and canned fish imported from Japan thousands of miles away - despite the fact that they were surrounded by water, and fishing had been a way of life for millennia.

土著人生活的另一特点健康问题，例如肥胖，心脏病和糖尿病。作家保罗.泰鲁出游太平洋的时候注意到，尽管现在大多数岛上居民居住在被海水围绕的地方，而且几千年来捕鱼也是他们谋生的一种方式，但是他们的饮食却是垃圾食物和从几千英里外进口的日本罐装鱼。

So is the election of Mr Morales, in one of the world’s poorest countries, a sign that things are finally getting better? Various peoples around the world now have their own representation. There is a Sámi parliament in Sweden and an Assembly of First Nations in Canada.

所以，莫拉莱斯的当选是否意味着全世界最贫困的那些国家终于要有些改观了？世界各地的不同种族都有代表为自己发声。瑞典有一个萨米人的议会，加拿大也有原住民议会。

Formal Apologies were passed in several Australian State Parliaments in 1998 for the past mistreatment of the Aboriginal population. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi Act has made it possible for Maoris to claim back land, fisheries and forest in special courts where they have equal representation with non-indigenous people. The Miskito Indians in Nicaragua have had similar success.
1998年，政府在澳洲几个州议会上，正式对过去虐待土著人口致歉。在社会主义党/新西兰，在一些毛利人跟非土著人拥有平等代表权的特殊法庭上，怀唐伊日法案条约，使得毛利人要求归还土地、渔场和森林的要求变成了可能。

Some Native American Tribes have recently become extremely wealthy because of a change in the law. They can now start casinos on their own land. Some people worry about the morality of this, but some of the profit has been used for improvements in education and health.
近来，因为法律的变更，一些土著的美洲部落变得极其富裕。现在，他们可以在自己的土地上建造赌场。一些人对这样做的道德观而担忧，但是赌场带来的一些利润已用于教育和医疗的改善。

The meeting between western and indigenous cultures has not often been a happy one, but perhaps there is hope yet for the continued diversity of humankind.
西方文化和土著文化的相遇，经常都是不愉快的，但是由于不断延续的人类多样性，这也许还有希望。