I have been working on Electrical Engineering homework and study all night. When I say this, it’s implied that I stopped for a while to watch the “Travel Channel” (my new distraction of choice). When I flipped the TV on, I was surprised and excited to see a new show I have been looking forward to. It was just getting started, so I couldn’t possibly keep doing homework. It was called “Living With the Mek: The Adventures of Marc and Olly”.

Two British Fellas are on an epic 3 month expedition into uncharted Mek Tribe territory in Papua. It’s interesting, because the Mek are about as untainted as humans get, they are said to have existed in almost the same state of living for over 9000 years (I don’t mean to offend you young earth creationists). Until this point, this particular tribe had never seen Westerners.  When Marc and Olly and their posse of luggage carriers and cameramen arrived, the Mek chief start yelling and beating an axe into the ground, apparently telling the white devils to leave (how cliche’) . After saying the Mek word for “Hello”, “Thank You”, and “Greetings” apparently all the same word, Marc handed the chief a pouch of tobacco.

The chief, named Markus, took the tobacco and smiled, shaking the Brits’ hands, and gladly invited them back to the village, as they approached he hollered “White devils are coming into the camp, I couldn’t get them to leave”.

This is where things started to bother me. Every woman in the tribe was almost fully nude, their leathery humid-worn skin bared for all to galk at, and all the men were nude except for certain bones and a big slim gourd over their genitals — at least part of their genitals. I know this all sounds rather boring, because we’ve all grown up reading “National Geographic” and nude natives are no surprise to most of western civilization. If a black person has bones stuck in their nose, we almost expect them to be naked, but take a second to consider the Bible.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they were ashamed, and “realized they were naked”. They took to the nearest plant to scavenge some leafy garb (I like to think they were skinny jeans).  Later, God showed them who was boss, and made them wear the remains of their now meatier dinner over their once pure bodies. What seems so bizarre is that the Mek have no shame, in fact many of these tropical tribes have no shame, trading in their pride for a more comfortable existence in the damp, sweaty rain forest.

My question is not with the book of Genesis, but with the people themselves. Do you think that deep down, they are embarrassed when people outside of their tribe see their worn bodies? It sure didn’t seem like it when a heap of the Travel Channel’s finest waltzed into the camp. Perhaps this comes from years of conditioning and becoming used to being naked, or maybe, the need to be clothed was something that Adam and Eve needed to survive in the harsh conditions outside the Garden. Their skin was probably soft and spoiled from being lavished with the finest foods and no harmful sun rays, or thorny bushes.

God was doing them a favor before he kicked them out on their butts. It’s like he was saying “Yeah, um, you’re gonna go spend a lifetime working and bleeding, and spawn children that will do the same, but until you either adapt to the outside world, or invent sunscreen, you better put these pants on.”

Perhaps now, wearing clothes is still a matter of necessity more than shame, I mean, I live in Oregon, and I definitely appreciate pants and my Columbia Coat, but dark people in Mexico have no excuse! They should be able to eat their tasty burritos in the buff whenever they want to on the tropical shores of Cabo.

Sure in Modern civilization its considered rude to flash your big white buns at people, but who knows, maybe someday this bizarre ritual will disappear and we can learn to live free of odd social dynamics and greedy shopping habits like the Mek people.

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