Hiller - The Myth of Primitivism. Perspectives on Art - Esoteric Online

<strong>The</strong> search for virginity 241
How many ways have European artists developed to paint women over the centuries?
And then, why have so many gay men accepted the idea (the accusation) that they are
somehow like ‘women’, and assumed ‘feminine’ attributes which they take right out <strong>of</strong>
the men’s textbook? You guys ought to think about that whenever you pose as gypsies or
savages, or whenever you tell stories about us savages. Didn’t you ever read Genet?
THE SEARCH FOR VIRGINITY
I have been thinking about the Yanomami Indians, even though I know that this is the
German artist Lothar Baumgarten’s territory. It turns out that humans have been around
for at least 3 million years, so let’s give 1 million for initial development and consider the
last 2 million years. Are there some folk who have remained unchanged for 2 million
years? Because that is the only point in time I can imagine when we might all have been
primitive. Those unchanged folks: their language and thought-patterns haven’t changed,
their dance steps haven’t changed, their food and their dinner hour haven’t changed for a
million years? Well I’m a little sceptical. Even if we say they haven’t changed much for
a tenth part <strong>of</strong> a million years, we are then making the very odd assumption that the first
nine parts <strong>of</strong> that million years really do not matter.
<strong>The</strong> Yanomami are now most-favoured primitives. Personally, I’ve seen so many
films and articles about them, and signed so many ‘Save the Yanomami’ petitions that
I’m a little sick <strong>of</strong> them. But there is something very crazy going on. We know that the
peoples <strong>of</strong> the Amazon forest were once about 95 per cent more numerous than they are
at present, that they had extensive intercourse with the Inca Empire, and that they were
once brilliant stone-carvers and potters. Now, you would go through some weird changes
by losing half your population to smallpox even if you had no direct contact with the rest
<strong>of</strong> the world. It seems to me that as ‘Virgin Territory’ the Yanomami are pretty battered
and used. If us primitives have some primitive wisdom that may be taken home as a
souvenir <strong>of</strong> your visit, I would not trust the virginity <strong>of</strong> Yanomami wisdom any more
than I would that <strong>of</strong> the Xhosa.
Virginity and primitivity are the same value to you guys, but your reasons for placing
value on either concept are pretty silly. You want to be ‘first’ more out <strong>of</strong> fear than
conquest (although the two go together), and then you want to be ‘the only’; and that
makes you bored after a while because the whole set-up is too empty. So you have a
never-ending search for true virgin territory. ‘Untouched Wilderness.’ ‘Breaking new
ground.’ ‘Thrusting through the barriers to new frontiers.’