Many of the American Indian indigenous cultures had a high degree of respect for women, or high tolerance for gays, or often both. Some, like the Iroquois, had better treatment of women than *we* do (the notion of the origin matriarchy that lived in perfect harmony is a myth, but the Iroquois were in fact about as matriarchal as we are patriarchal, which is to say they didn’t actively discriminate against men, but men went to live with wives’ families and most of the governing power was concentrated in the hands of the women’s council. Of course, the Iroquois would also kill you dead if you crossed them, thus disproving the notion that matriarchy is peaceful and pacifistic.)

They are animals unless you are claiming they are plants, protists, fungi, or bacteria.

Jesus, people. I realize humans are animals. I was using the word “animals” in its most common form, which typically refers to non-human animals. Ok? Ok. Now let’s move on.

the reported treatment of women is shudderingly horrifying to our sensibilities.

See, this is where I start to have trouble with the cultural relativism and separate observer ideals of anthropology. Shouldn’t the rape of women be considered an atrocity to any sensibility?

And how is permanently walling off a culture (presumably to preserve/study it) any less condescending if you change the wording from “natural habitat” to “homeland”? Or for that matter, morally superior to interacting with it? Why does a stultifying/violent culture that only involves 30 people deserve protecting, but one with 30,000 or 30,000,000 doesn’t?

Of course, I don’t know exactly what this recently discovered culture is like, and I’m not calling them savages, but I also don’t think there’s anything sacred about having been exceptionally isolated from the modern world.

Fine by me.

“Natural habitat” is dehumanizing, yes. The problem is not treating them as animals. All human beings are animals. The problem is treating them as not-human.