Igor Sitnikov: Sovereign Nations and Sovereign States

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Sovereign Nations and Sovereign States

The UN estimates the world’s Indigenous population represented in over 70 countries, to be between 300 and 350 million or approximately 5 percent of the total world population. The interests of states in relation to land and natural resources are often at odds with Indigenous peoples’ wishes. The issue places at theorists’ disposal an important theme to discussion: Can self-governing sovereign nations coexist with a sovereign state and not threaten the dismemberment of the existing state?
The 1993 negotiation between four Indian nations and the United States of America set a standard for future bilateral government-to-government relations between nations and states. Basing on that empirical example R. Ryser (1995) claims that although the Jamestown S'Klallam, Hoopa, Lummi and Quinault are not strategically important nations in any geopolitical sense, their success will point the way to peaceful resolution of conflicts between states and the nations inside their boundaries around the world.There are however some obstacles to assured constructive and positive outcome to government-to-government relations between nations and states. One of them is in the fact that among Indigenous peoples the foraging peoples dominated much of the world until recently (R. Blench 1999). Foragers, by the nature of their society, will not easily form articulate advocacy groups without external assistance. However, without such groups, their rights will be eroded rapidly in many places. For example, even numbers of hunter-gatherers worldwide are extremely difficult to estimate because many national governments such as those of India and Malaysia regard foragers as indicators of backwardness and forbid research relating to them.
I believe and empirical examples of the Quinault, Lummi, Jamestown S'Klallam and Hoopa negotiation with the United States of America as well as the establishment in 1999 of Nunavut, a self-governing territory for the Inuit people of north-west Canada, confirm my stance that the self-governing sovereign nations and sovereign states coexistence is a nearest future of international relationships in the world.

Ryser, Rudolph C., 1995. Resuming Self-Government in Indian Country: From Imposed Government to Self-Rule Inside and Outside the United States of America. Center for World Indigenous Studies. Ed. by Murdoch: University School of Law, Canning Vale, Western Australia. March.
Blench, Roger, 1999. Hunter-Gatherers, Conservation and Development: From Prejudice to Policy reform. Overseas Development Institute. # 43, June. London.

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Igor Sitnikov and Miklukho-Maklai

I was born in Ryazan city (Russia, 3 hours from Moscow) in 1961. 30 years I lived in the Soviet Union on the bank of Oka-river, which is a border between a huge forest and a wide steppe. Then 12 years I spend in the Russia on the same bank, under the same sky. I like Oka, and the steppe with multitude of small slow rivers, and the forest, that carries the name of vanished people “Meshchera”. When I was a schoolboy I had read a book about the famous Russian anthropologist Miklukho-Maklai, who studied peoples of Papua New Guinea. His life was amazing for my childish imagination. I dreamed about long voyages in vast waters of the Pacific Ocean. I was envious of Tur Heyerdal, who could travel along the Pacific islands and to Charles Gogin, who could draw beautiful Tahiti women.If I could imagine that I will become an artist and will live in Pacific?

Saisiyat (賽夏)

The Saisiyat believe that a long time ago, a tribe of three-foot tall, dark-skinned dwarfs once taught them to farm, sing, and dance, but also harassed and threatened the women.
Long ago, a tribe of dark-skinned pygmies arrived in the area inhabited by the Saisiyat. They were skilled in the arts of magic. The Taai (known as the Short People) gave the Saisiyat seeds and taught them the knowledge of agriculture, how to hold ceremonies and offer sacrifices to gods or ancestors.
Therefore the Saisiyat regarded the Taai as their benefactors. Whenever rituals and ceremonies were held, the Saisiyat always invited the Taai to be their guests, and they enjoyed drinking and having fun together.
The Taai, however, gradually began to encroach upon the Saisiyat women. To avoid disrupting harmonious relations between the tribes, those women who were violated remained silent. The Saisiyat tribal elders urged patience for the good of the whole tribe. The Taai, however, stepped up their encroachments on the Saisiyat. When the Saisiyat had had enough, they swore to avenge the insult on the Taai.
The Saisiyat knew that the Taai were particularly fond of climbing on a loquat tree that overhung a precipice. Two Saisiyat youths thereupon took it upon themselves to saw the tree halfway through. That evening, the Taai, not suspecting a thing, climbed one-by-one up into the tree. As more and more Taai scaled the tree, it could no longer take the weight and the trunk snapped. All of the Taai who had been sitting in the tree went over the edge. Those that weren't killed in the initial fall were drowned.
However two Taais, who had escaped the ambush, placed a curse on the Saisiyat tribe, leading to a succession of disasters and poor harvests. In an effort to lift the curse, the Saisiyat sang Taai songs and performed Taai dances to plead for forgiveness while also appealing for fair weather and a bountiful harvest. That is the origin of the Saisiyat tribe's pygmy spirit ritual.

The pygmy spirit ritual gives raise a hypothesis by a Japanese archeologist, Kano Tadao, that the prehistoric peoples living in Taiwan included Negritoes.