So Be Patient. Do Not Compromise. And

Cultural Survival Is Not About Preservation, Sequestering Indigenous Peoples In Enclaves Like Some Sort Of Zoological Specimens. Change Itself Does Note Destroy A Culture. All Societies Are Constantly Evolving. Indeed A Culture Survives When It Has Enough Confidence In Its Past And Enough Say In Its Future To Maintain Its Spirit And Essence Through All The Changes It Will Inevitably Undergo.

Only, In Haiti, I Realized, Is It Possible To Drink Rum And Haggle With A God.

In The West We Cling To The Past Like Limpets. In Haiti The Present Is The Axis Of All Life. As In Africa, Past And Future Are But Distant Measures Of The Present, And Memories Are As Meaningless As Promises.

The Problem Is That Those Of Us Sympathetic With The Plight Of Indigenous People View Them As Quaint And Colorful, But Somehow Reduced To Margins Of History As The Real World [(our World)] Moves On We Will Be Known As An Era In Which We Stood By And Either Actively Endorsed Or Passively Accepted The Massive Destruction Of Both Biological And Cultural Diversity On The Planet.

If We Accept That We Are All Cut From The Same Genetic Cloth, All Cultures Share The Same Genius. And Whether That Genius Is Placed Into Technological Wizardry Which Has Been Our Great Achievement, Or, By Contrast, Placed Into The Unraveling Of Complex Threads Of Memory Inherent In A Myth Is Simply A Matter Of Choice.