viral wétiko mind disease comes of age

Native peoples in North America had no written laws nor dogmatic religious codes,
only an ongoing dialogue,
verbal agreements were never etched in stone, but left open-ended, subject to change.
As long as you continued the ongoing dialogue,
violence as a solution to human conflict could be averted.

Historian Jack D Forbes and his work
Columbus and other Cannibals: The Wétiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism
states that the overriding characteristic of a wétiko, a Cree word literally meaning “cannibal,”
(windigo in Ojibway, wintiko in Powhatan)
...an evil person or spirit who terrorizes other creatures by means of terrible acts…
By cannibalism Forbes does not necessarily mean eating the flesh of another human, but defines the concept in an extended metaphor as a form of spiritual dysfunction and psychopathic behavior, even insanity, in which in all its multifarious ways greedy predatory men have exploited and murdered and destroyed the cultures (most often indigenous peoples) of other humans deemed “savages” via war, colonialism and imperialism.
He tells us that for the wétiko, “Brutality knows no boundaries. Greed knows no limits. Perversion knows no borders. . . . These characteristics all push towards an extreme, always moving forward once the initial infection sets in. . . .
This is the wétiko mind virus disease of consuming of other creatures’ lives and possessions for profit.”

The “Wetiko” psychosis-
"I believe that the exploitative consumption of the earth, the living creatures of the earth, and, above all, other human beings and their homelands, constitute actual, real, unmitigated cannibalism. Tragically, the cannibalism of which I write has become more and more an acceptable part of modern economic and personal exploitation, with those who do the consuming giving little or no thought to the diminishing or even elimination of the lives of those at the receiving end of their quest for profit and super-sustenance.
...the accumulation of Wetiko deeds has accelerated to the point where we face severe environmental and societal hazards such as to threaten the very fabric of life on this incredibly beautiful and loving planet. We are destroying our home with our grasping after wealth, power, advantage, and materialism. We seem willing to push selfishness (individual and national) to an obscene degree."
Jack D Forbes