Talk:Don Richardson (missionary)

Sawi NOT cannibalistic, other inaccuracies

The information I removed from the article is from a fictionalized book about a missionary living among the Sawi that has exaggerated inaccurate information about this tribe. I am aware of nothing beyond Don Richardson's book that indicates that the Sawi were cannibalistic, and though some New Guinea tribes did practice ritual cannibalism, it was not widespread and not typical of the indigenous peoples in that area. The claims about the complexity of the language would indicate that the Sawi language is unique among it's language group, and nothing like related languages which are far simpler in grammatical structure. Mr. Richardson greatly exaggerated the difficulties of living among the Sawi in his book and a claim that is cited only in his book with no corroborating evidence from trained researchers should not be in the article. This article and the Sawi Language article were obviously made to corroborate the questionable claims made in the books Mr. Richardson was selling on the site formerly linked in this article. 69.154.76.219 17:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Please provide counter references to back up your assertions. Given the age and widespread readership of Richardson's book, if it was inaccurate I'm sure there's gonna be refuting documentation. Your edit summaries and comments show a clear POV, and so your edits are questionable without references. AKRadecki^Speaketh 18:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

My POV is that it's wrong to assert libellous facts about a tribe of people without any independent verification. Mr. Richardson was not an unbiased observer of these people, he's stated in print that he believes followers of non-Christian religions are being deceived by Satan to believe in false gods. You can't practice unbiased ethnography when you are so clearly biased against the beliefs of the people you are studying. There is no independent confirmation that these people are cannibals, or that their language is one of the most complex in New Guinea, and the claims in the article itself are clearly condescending towards the Sawi people. If someone can provide cites for any of this information outside of Mr. Richardson's highly biased book, I'd be surprised. 69.154.76.219 19:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

First, it's "Richardson", not "Henderson". Second, you need to check your definition of "libel". Third, I'm not interested in getting into a content dispute, I'm merely addressing process issues, specifically blanking large sections of cited material. So, first, let's deal with the citation issue. Richardson can easily be shown to be an expert on the language, since he thoroughly learned the language to fluency, which was unwritten at the time, developed an alphabet for it, developed reading primers, and taught the recipients how to read. After all that, he's easily the foremost expert on the language, and his writings, therefore, can be considered expert and reliable, unless you can specifically point to academic text that counters his material. Just because you have an issue with his religion, and with his goal of spreading that religion, is not justification for removing large amounts of cited material, especially when you have yet to provide a single reference that counters the text. You opinions about the validity of the citations, since they are not backed by any sources, are nothing more than your POV opinion, and carry no weight, and repeatedly blanking large sections of cited text is considered vandalism. The fact that you've repeatedly blanked cited material and are in violation of 3RR, therefore, has earned

you a block.

The block you got me from your false claim that I made 3 reverts has been removed. I have since removed JUST the reference to the Sawi being cannibalistic headhunters as this is libelous and flies in the face of modern New Guinea ethnography. A lot of old misconceptions about New Guineans and other indigenous people were spread by missionaries who misinterpreted or flat-out lied about the people they lived with, and modern anthropologists agree that cannibalism was not common among these people, and "headhunting" is a derogatory term for warfare that usually had other, non-trophy related reasons. Without outside confirmation, claiming that a tribe ate other people and killed others for their heads is certainly libel, and not unlike the blood libel spread about Jews by Christians throughoug much of history. I have strong doubts about a lot of the things that Richardson wrote about the Sawi and his condescending attitude still shows in this article, but I'll leave his interpretations of Sawi behavior up for now as it is an article about him and not the Sawi people. One claim that I found odd in the article is the claim "The world's largest circular building made strictly from un-milled poles was constructed in 1972 as a Christian meeting place by the Sawi". I can't find anything documenting how large this structure was, what the previous world record for circular buildings made from un-milled poles was, and whether this record still stands. I find it hard to believe that there is an accurate accounting of the sizes of such buildings across the world and considering some of the other claims made by Richardson, I feel it should probably be removed until there is some confirmation or clarification. The way this is stated does not make it clear whether this building set the world record at the time but has since been surpassed or whether it still holds the record. It also does not say whether this structure is still standing. How about we just put in the dimensions of the structure without making record-making claims? 69.154.76.219 12:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Wanted to add that Wikipedia's own article on New Guinea indicates that cannibalism was not widespread - "New Guinea is well-known in the popular imagination for supposed ritual cannibalism that was apparently practiced by some (but far from all) ethnic groups." This belief was inflated by missionaries who frequently would exaggerate how savage the people they lived with were. If you do a google search for "cannibalism new guinea" your first two links will come from a racist Christian site called www.heretical.com, which has the lovely sentiment "When women can't find Mr Right they somehow don't mind settling for Mr Wog" at the very top of the page. This is representative of the type of people who still insist that cannibalism is common among the New Guinea people. 69.154.76.219 13:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not here to debate the issues with you, what I'm mainly concerned about is that you and any other editors here work within policy. If, as you said, modern ethnographies discount what is said in this article, cite them. Removal of cited material based on your opinion alone is nothing more than vandalism. The way Wikipedia works is that if there are two opposite views, both are presented as long as there are citations. You don't simply remove the material that you don't like. If you feel like certain parts need further citation, instead of removing them, tag them with a {{Verify source}} template. Consider how your actions appear to others: you come here anonymously and without establishing an account, identity or reputation as a reliable editor, and then start removing large sections of text, with the only justification being that you disagree with it and you believe it to be fictionalized, and when you are challenged to produce citations backing up your assertions, you are silent. What comes across is simply someone who feels that the best way to deal with controversial material is to simply hide it/delete it. And since you're so concerned about libel, have you considered that your repeated assertions about Richardson's falsifying his data, without providing any backing cites, is in itself libelous? So can you now see how your actions are easily seen as nothing more than vandalism and POV-pushing? If you are here to push your opinion or your agenda, that's contrary to our policies. If you are here to add meaningful information and bring accuracy and intengrity to the article, that's great, but the proper way to do so is by following proper academic protocols as well as our policies and justify your edits through citations. AKRadecki^Speaketh 13:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

What does this sentence mean?

The article currently contains the current unclear sentence - "Don was able to become proficient in the dialect after 8-10 hour daily learning sessions." Does this mean he became proficient in the langage after 80 hours (eight 10-hour learning sessions) or after studing eight to ten hours a day? If the latter, one wonders how long he studied the language eight to ten hours a day. 69.154.76.219 13:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)