Nas Dailys on a daily basis

In one of my field work studies in Mindanao, I asked a tribal leader what he thought was the biggest need of his forest community. I was shocked and a bit disappointed by his answer. He told me that what they needed was a power chain saw. When I asked why, he told me they needed it for their livelihood to reduce the drudgery of cutting trees in the forest.

Here I was, a young social scientist minted in the literature of indigenous worldviews about nature being confronted by the reality that these Indigenous Peoples are no longer the mythologized and romanticized museum pieces we want them to be, but are now partially, if not fully, influenced by modern capitalist worldviews.