When I first thought of the title "Peace Child," I never imagined that a peace child was a child that was traded among tribes for peace. In a modern world, trading newborn children in order to achieve something is not acceptable. For example, Mr.Lee wouldn't give his newborn child to Mr.Kim just to have peace among the two. In a modern society, peace is resolved with conversation, compromises, or peace is forced. Also, in the modern society, family is usually put before friends or strangers. For instance, in Korea, mothers take care exclusive care for their child. That caring is extreme to the level where the caring seems almost annoying to the child. Giving up their own child in order to achieve something for themselves is what a Korean mother, or almost any other mother in the world would ever do. The Sawi, however, has a different perspective on this subject. The Sawi giving their children to other tribes is of course very surprising for me, but I was able to somewhat accept their culture since peace child has been a long tradition in their history.
Another Sawi culture that shocked me was cannibalism. Eating other humans in order to gain a knowledge of good and evil, seemed like nonsense to me. In the Sawi culture, however, there is no sophisticated education system, so learning in a barbaric way like eating other humans to gain knowledge may be something very common for them. The fact that people took pride in themselves eating human, even though they did not like the taste, flabbergasted me. How could one eat another human? In our modern society, it would be never possible. But, the Sawi culture is Sawi culture and even though they abandoned cannibalism now, it shocks me that such disgusting idea once existed in the Sawi tradition. |
I was also intrigued by the fact that the Sawi needed to exchange a peace child with another child in order to gain peace with that tribe. It is actually quite shocking, since as you said, peace is something most people today take for granted, including me. Because we have peace so easily unlike the Sawi, I think we should live thankfully. It is even more amazing that a father would actually be willing to give up his own son for the benefit of his tribe. It is definitely something Korean mothers would not do. Even though we often think our mothers are being excessively caring, it is a natural characteristic of a parent, as the mothers of the peace children mourned over losing their children.