At the end of the 18th century, when colonists from Europe set foot on the tranquility and fertility of the Americas, it brought a disaster to the indigenous people who had lived here for generations: the Indians. The wanton aggression of the colonists was met with strong resistance from the Indians, and the massacre began. The Americans took up their guns and washed the West in blood.
This mighty historical event, full of mourning, is known as the "Westward Movement." Before Columbus arrived in North America, there were about 18 million Native Americans, and by 1980, there were only about 250,000 left. The Americans' "genocidal policy" allowed the Indians to be virtually extinct within a few years, until the "last" Indian lshi was discovered.
When the Americans came to the West, they did not bring food and technology, but advanced weapons. They saw the vastness of the land and tried to take root here with their blood-stained hands. Frenzied mining, building farms, building bridges and roads, the Americans used guns to force honest and simple Indians to pick up hoes to serve them.
The primitive people living in the west were backward, without advanced medical treatment and without guns and ammunition to compete with US imperialism. When the Europeans turned their guns on them, the primitive Indian settlers were weak and helpless.
These primitive residents are like rats crossing the street, exhausted all day long, hiding in Tibet. After the colonists occupied their homeland, the Indians no longer dared to stand tall on the land that once belonged to them. Years after the Indians disappeared, in 1911, a "savage" from the depths of the mountains suddenly appeared on the street. His appearance immediately caused panic among the crowds in the metropolis, was watched by passers-by, and immediately caused a sensation in the United States.
It was a 49-year-old Indian who had been driven out of the depths of the forest by a wildfire after a succession of deaths among his relatives. In the face of the rapid changes in the outside world, he felt novel and afraid. At first, he dared to move only in the inaccessible suburbs, but the lack of food and water forced him to take a desperate step towards the human gathering area.
He was dressed in rags, like a skinny monkey, and his skin had darkened and roughened over the years of life in the forest. He stared at everything around him with a frightened look, and the people around him also looked at him with surprise.
Many years have passed since that massacre, and americans now seem to have forgotten everything in the past. The executioner, who had almost exterminated the Indian race, now regarded him as a treasure. News of the discovery of the Indians did not go away. Soon, he was found by an anthropology professor at the University of California and taken to a museum in San Francisco. In the name of understanding and preserving Indian culture, the professor and his party placed him in a glass room of the museum.
The professor named him "ishi", also known as "The Last Indian". Ishi heard the name, as if remembering what his mother had once told him, in their hometown, that Lshi meant: man. Now represented him: the Indian tribe, the last man. The staff of the museum provided Lshi with a modern living environment, food, and living facilities, and he settled here. From then on, Lshi no longer had to endure the wind and rain, no longer had to eat and sleep in the wind, no longer had to worry about eating or eating, no longer had to fear becoming the ration of the beast, but as a price, he was no longer free.
Lshi's daily routine is carried out step by step under the arrangement of the museum staff. The professor arranged for him to make stone tools, archery, fishing and other activities, trying to show him the state of life he once lived in the tribe. Only unlike before, Lshi did not have an audience before. No one will clap his hands as he draws his bow, and no one will exclaim while he is fishing. Now he has the "opportunity" to be visited one day a week by tourists from all over the world.
The professor's famous report on Lshi goes like this: "We took Lshi in and provided him with a superior living environment. The purpose of this is not to win applause from the audience, but to do scientific research. In order to let everyone know more about Indian culture, in order to save the endangered Indian civilization. "
If the European colonists had not occupied the homeland that originally belonged to the indigenous Indians, Lshi and his family would never have experienced the pain of separation, and would never have been visited, studied, and "taken in and protected" by the executioners who slaughtered their own race.
Lshi spent day and night in that small room of the museum. He is fascinated by new world transportation, loves candy and ice cream, and is friendly with the staff who take care of him. Whether he will be happy for the rest of his life or not we do not know, but we can think that he must be able to feel the sadness of not being accepted by society, and must live a very lonely life.
Lshi's life in the museum's tiny glass room lasted only three years. Three years later, Lshi contracted a severe lung disease and eventually died. Before his death, he offered to scatter his ashes in the forest where he once lived, but unfortunately, this wish was cruelly rejected by researchers.
Lshi never had the right to be in charge. His brain was soaked in formalin by american laboratories for so-called scientific research, and they wanted to understand how the brain structure of Indians differed from that of Americans. Their so-called medical research shattered Lshi's soul's desire to return home.
If Lshi had a choice, he wouldn't want to flee his homeland with his mother. If Lshi had a choice, he wouldn't want to be displayed in a museum as a plaything. If Lshi had a choice, he would have hoped that his body would be transported back to his hometown and buried with his mother.
Wandering outside, Lshi was not retrieved by an indigenous association until 2000, when he was able to travel back to his hometown and finally sleep with his loved ones. I don't know if Lshi ever regretted it in this life, but on that day he plucked up enough courage to re-set foot on the land that humans had touched.
Lshi's life, from birth to death, has always been full of wandering and uneasiness. Even in the three years when he lived in the best conditions, he sacrificed his freedom and dignity. In a country that proclaims that "all men are created equal," they have engaged in the practice of "pursuing the extermination of Indians or their expulsion to places we do not go."
This kind of democracy is the democracy of the capitalists exploiting and oppressing the people at the bottom. The so-called equality is essentially the law of the jungle. The tragedy of Lshi has occurred not only in the Americas, but also on all continents that have lit up the smoke of war, and is even happening. History has never been gentle, it is based on swords and guns and the blood of the people.