Rihtwis Tribe: A Heaven within the Barbaric Times

At this moment, the Mongol civilization is thoroughly studied by numerous

anthropologists due to its noteworthy contributions in the history of humankind. They are
characterized as obscure, nomadic and disunited group of people from Mongolia. The height of
the Mongol conquest was reached when Genghis Khan dominated China and established the
Mongol Empire during the Yuan Dynasty (1279 – 1368). As the Mongols are known as one of
the greatest civilization existed, their historical records are well-kept and conserved. Recently, a
group of linguistic anthropologists found a journal wherein a brutal conquest was vividly
narrated. The Mongolian conquest in a modest group of people was roughly colonized and
recorded in the ancient remnants of the Mongols. Thus, a story of a lost tribe was unlocked. This
is an ancient civilization which shows uniqueness within the tribes first known to the modern
world. The “Rihtwis Tribe” lived upright and righteously long before the Mongols dominated
their tribe and buried their culture in the dust of Chinese plains. “Rihtwis Tribe” stands-out
among the tribes which are known to be as savage, wild, nomadic and uncivilized. They are the
Yi people in Chinese which is translated as righteous people in English. The group of
anthropologists decided to name the recently discovered tribe as ‘Rihtwis’ which was derived in
the Old English term for righteous that can generally describe the tribe .
It became a big question for the anthropologists how this civilization lived the way
opposite to what is expected. As their era is characterized as savage, fierce, cruel and everyone’s
business is imperialism and enslavement, the Rihtwis tribe remained righteous and principled.
Though there is no evidence found in the remains of the Mongols how this unique tribe
established their own society, the anthropologists analyzed each of the data gathered to enlighten
the tale of their beginning. A group of people which is believed to establish this civilization are
from the Central China where the Chinese civilization begun. In the long run of imperialism and
slavery, a group of upright people wanted to depart from the system as they see its wickedness,
unjust and discriminative system. They absconded and decided to reside far from the civilization
from which they sprung. As they fled, they brought with them the necessary tools and crops for
survival, and most importantly, their beliefs of uprightness and righteousness. They hid
themselves in the wide plains surrounded by the mountains and started to live a life which is
completely opposite to the other civilizations.
The Rihtwis tribe is believed to thrive in the wide plains of the North China Plain, as they
describe their terrain to be absolutely flat, rolling and slightly hilly. In addition, there are no
words found for ocean which depicts that their area is far from any immense body of water. On
top of that, climate is characterized by its diversity, as several words for precipitation most
translating as rain and only one meaning for snow. Though there are no words found in the
journal describing summer and fall, further analysis with the presented data proves that a specific
area described having rain and snow have four seasons. In other words, it is considerably
understood that the cycle of the weather must go through the four distinct seasons. There are
actually a lot of areas in Earth characterized with this kind of climate but due to the tribe’s
dependence to grain such as wheat lead the linguistic anthropologists to conclude that these
people are most probable to live in the North China Plain. During those times, only the oriental
people are able to produce rice as its major crops. Though other areas in the eastern part of the
globe are also capable of producing grains, the climate characterized with such features strongly
supported the idea that they lived in the northern part of Asia. Furthermore, they are situated far
from ocean and are surrounded by inconsiderably rolling and slightly hilly mountains. Hence,
they dwelt in valley. The topography of the North China plain is described with the same
manner.
By having this kind of topography, Rihtwis tribe subsisted through agricultural means
since they are relatively distant to any forms of water and could not depend on fishing. There are
dozens of terms recorded in the Mongols’ journal for grains including eight for wheat alone
which they harvested and is necessary for their survival in the midst of the valley.
According to the evidences kept in the journal, the tribe had terms for praise translated as
“peacemaker” and “conciliator”. It is clearly evident that the tribe is peace-loving as they think
highly of those people who uphold peace and acts as mediator and conciliator. With this idea,
each member of their society make great efforts to maintain peace and order within their tribe
and gain praises for self-regard.
There are terms recorded for woman which are the same with wife and mother and there
are also terms for man presented in the same manner, as husband and father. Consequently, this
shows that this tribe also believes in social equality, gender equity, and classlessness. If their
system is somewhat patriarchal, their language should translate it as something that pertains to a
leader, boss, authority, head or chief, but it is translated the same manner with women’s or the
other way around. In other words, men and women are equal in every aspect. Moreover, several
words for leaders are found but all are plural which shows their belief to democracy. They
believed in the rule of majority, which contradicted the idea of imperialism under the rule of an
Emperor. Having said that the tribe is characterized by their love for peace and order, they have
an orderly form of government which is vested on a group of leaders who are most likely the
peacemakers with the consideration of the majority.
They gave importance to the role of every child in their group. This is supported with
several words for children that are translated as wise small one, innocent leader, and little
stargazer. This explained their high appreciation in the potentials of every child in their society.
As they refer to every child as wise small one who can actively participate in any issues
involving the concern of the whole tribe; an innocent leader that could be a great leader someday
and will highly uphold peace; little stargazers which shows the child’s potential to be one of the
future stargazers necessary for predicting seasons for their crops. Their high appreciation to the
role of child is somewhat similar with the beliefs of other civilizations that the upcoming
generations depends upon the youth.
There are recorded words which are use to describe the stages of life consisting seven
terms from birth to puberty and only one term to describe puberty and only one term to describe
life from puberty to death. This depict that Rihtwis tribe is primarily compose of young idealistic
people before the puberty stage.
It is also inferred that the tribe are also progressive in the field of science, to weather
prediction specifically. They were able to identify the weather which is characterized to be rainy
and sometimes snowy. Based on the number of terms found for arts and sciences, they paid more
attention on the development of arts rather than focusing on science.
The tribe protects their morality by upholding moral beliefs. Records in the journal
provide some terms for sex which is translated as “to plant wise one”. It only means that sex was
not just an act to fulfill the desire of their lusts but to plant wise one or to conceive a child. In
relation to this, peace and order is also maintained showing fidelity to only one man or to their
husband. By holding this moral belief, peace is maintained in the tribe because adultery does not
prevail and it helps them to lessen the conflict between each people within the tribe.
In regard of their spiritual beliefs, any practice by which man sustains himself at the
expense of other sentient beings is considered wrong. The tribe considered non-human life to be
Divine just as is human life. Animals are seen to be an evolving kingdom of living creatures
destined in time to attain perfect enlightenment. Since animals are considered to be traveling
towards enlightenment just as man is, neither are they to be harmed, discouraged or hampered in
their progress. This is inferred with the words found in the journal which designates cows, pig
calf and sheep but there are no terms for beef, pork, veal, leather or mutton.
The Rihtwis tribe had high appreciation towards literature and its role to education. Base
on the written history of the Mongols, the Rihtwis tribe had different books for various fields as
twenty words for books are presented. There are four words for theater and nine words for artists
found. It is much related to their form of entertainment which comes in the variety of performing
arts. Performing arts could be in the form of singing, acting, or dancing. Having said that
performing is the main form of entertainment for them, this could be the result of their education
which focuses more on arts and not on science.
The Rihtwis tribe exhibited the different elements of a society by the use of their
language. This proves that language and culture is connected to each other as what Ralph Waldo
Emerson said, “Language is the archives of history”. Language is the mirror of man’s culture. By
merely analyzing the language used by a civilization, we are able to infer, understand and
determine how these people think and live.
However, behind the marvelous and seems to be flawless existence of the Rihtwis,
branching questions arises on how their presence had come to an end. Despite of the developed
sense for governance, how do the Mongols had conquered the Rihtwis? Based on the treasured
historical journal of the Mongols, the anthropologists had inferred that the Rihtwis paid more
attention in developing their moral, intellectual and social aspect and paid little attention on
developing their physical preparedness. Thus, it made them vulnerable to threats of invasion.
Another inference made by the anthropologists was the Rihtwis truly uphold their belief in the
sacredness of life that they do nothing but faithfully believe to their ‘peace keepers’ which
eventually lead to their demise. Hence, the collected data in their language depicts that the
Rihtwis tribe is a righteous civilization who lived uprightly in the midst of its age.

II – B BSBT
Calimlim, Rajean Nicole Lenizo, Annavel Taguba, Ferdinand Ryan
Cortez, Christine Faith Pecajas, Mark Ariel Tigas, Rose Ann