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The tribal man is the most primitive man, the most unevolved, closer to animals than to man. He lives only as a number in the tribe. It is good that tribes have disappeared. The disappearance of the tribe created families.
At that stage, the family was a great advantage because the tribe was a big phenomenon; the family was a small unit. You had more freedom in the family than in the tribe. The tribe was very dictatorial and very powerful. The head, the chief of the tribe was all-powerful, even enough to kill you. There are still a few tribes in very undeveloped countries. In India there are a few tribes of aboriginals.
I have been to those tribes. I got myself appointed in Raipur as a professor just because not far from Raipur is the nearest and the most primitive tribe in India, in Bastar. It is a small state, a tribal state. People still live naked and eat raw meat. Perhaps these are the people from the time when fire had not been discovered, and they have carried on the idea of eating raw meat.
They are very simple, innocent; but as far as the tribe, its conventions and its traditions are concerned, absolutely orthodox. There is no question of anybody rebelling against the tribe. He will be immediately killed, sacrificed to the god, because anybody going against the tribe means he is angering the god -- and the tribe cannot afford to make the god angry.
The tribe is carrying on the tradition created by the god himself They don't have scriptures, they don't have any written language; so the priest, who is also the chief, has all the powers. And it is impossible in that tribe to rebel and still remain alive.
You cannot escape, because outside you will not be acceptable at all. They don't know any language that is spoken outside their tribe, they are naked.... They put on small wraparound clothes only on the twenty-sixth of January every year, when a small group of them goes to Delhi, to participate in the celebrations for Republican Day, when India became a republic.
Just a small group is trained to speak a little Hindi and to use some clothes: "And don't be naked in Delhi, particularly when you are passing before the
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