The NYT ran this story, with a big picture, above the fold on page one today: Leaving the Wild, and Rather Liking the Change:

Since time immemorial the Nukak-Makú have lived a Stone Age life,
roaming across hundreds of miles of isolated and pristine Amazon
jungle, killing monkeys with blowguns and scouring the forest floor for
berries.

But recently, and rather
mysteriously, a group of nearly 80 wandered out of the wilderness,
half-naked, a gaggle of children and pet monkeys in tow, and declared
themselves ready to join the modern world.

"We do not want to go
back," explained one man, who uses the sole name Ma-be, and who arrived
with the others at this outpost in southern Colombia in March. "We want
to stay near town. We can plant our own food. In the meantime the town
can help us."

 My Taoist antenna started tingling when I read these lines:

The Nukak have no concept of money, of property, of the role of
government, or even of the existence of a country called Colombia. They
ask whether the planes that fly overhead are moving on some sort of
invisible road.

They have no government identification cards, making them nonentities to Colombia’s bureaucracy.

"The
Nukak don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into," said Dr. Javier
Maldonado, 27, a physician who has been working with them.

When
asked if the Nukak were concerned about the future, Belisario, the only
one in the group who had been to the outside world before and spoke
Spanish, seemed perplexed, less by the word than by the concept. "The
future," he said, "what’s that?"

     The life they were leaving seemed rather like the utopian vision of passage 80 of the Tao Te Ching:

Let nations grow smaller and smaller
and people fewer and fewer,

let weapons become rare
and superfluous,
let people feel death’s gravity again
and never wander far from home.
Then boat and carriage will sit unused
and shield and sword lie unnoticed.

Let people knot ropes for notation again
and never need anything more.

let them find pleasure in their food
and beauty in their clothes,
peace in their homes
and joy in their ancestral ways.

Then people in neighboring nations will look across to each other,
their chickens and dogs calling back and forth,

and yet they’ll grow old and die
without bothering to exchange visits.

   It suggests a primitive, simple, small-scale life, with its own pleasures and beauties, but without the technology and density of interactions modern life demands.  Is is an ideal, unrealizable in a contemporary American or Chinese or European or Singaporean context, or even for many pre-Qin Chinese readers of the TTC, but it creates an image of virtuous innocence as a goal toward which the Way-farer might try to move.

    But the Nukak-Maku aren’t buying it anymore.  Their life in the jungle had been peaceful and simple but they are not going back.  It turns out that the causes of their leaving are not such a great mystery: other farmers and rebel guerrillas most likely pushed them out.  Modernity found them and forced them to change.   And once in a modern context, they seem quite happy to stay; apparently they have no great desire to return to their Way-like existence:

Are they sad? "No!" cried a Nukak named Pia-pe, to howls of
laughter. In fact, the Nukak said they could not be happier. Used to
long marches in search of food, they are amazed that strangers would
bring them sustenance — free.

What do they like most? "Pots, pants, shoes, caps," said Mau-ro, a young man who went to a shelter to speak to two visitors.

Ma-be
added, "Rice, sugar, oil, flour." Others said they loved skillets. Also
high on the list were eggs and onions, matches and soap and certain
other of life’s necessities.

"I like the women very much," Pia-pe said, to raucous laughs.

     So, what is the moral of the story?  Either that the primitive life is not as great as Taoist romantics suggest or that the primitive life is simply impossible under conditions of deepening globalization.

    But, maybe twenty years from now, when the Nukak are in Manhattan and can’t find a decent, affordable apartment, and they are harried and running from work to social appointments to kid’s activities, never able to find parking and, damn!, I just spilled the mocha-chino from the drive-through Starbucks on my Italian jacket and….  maybe then the simple jungle life will look a lot better.