DARWIN MEETS THE KAWESKAR
By ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS; Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of ''The Harmless People,'' a study of the Ju/wa Bushmen of Africa's Kalahari Desert. Her most recent book is a novel, ''Reindeer Moon.''
Published: January 15, 1989
WHO WILL REMEMBER THE PEOPLE . . . By Jean Raspail. Translated by Jeremy Leggatt. 213 pp. San Francisco: Mercury House. $18.95.
In 1951, aboard a ship cruising off Patagonia through the Strait of Magellan, the French explorer and ethnologist Jean Raspail saw in the storm-tossed waters a little canoe holding three men, two women and a child. In the bottom of the canoe they carried their fire, the custom that gave Tierra del Fuego its name. To Mr. Raspail, these members of the Alacaluf tribe seemed ''wretched.'' Much taken by his glimpse of the six nomads, he felt the experience was an ''encounter at the crossroads of time.''
As Mr. Raspail tells us, the Alacaluf people have since vanished. But the memory of that little group stayed with him, haunting his writing. In his 15th book, the novel ''Who Will Remember the People . . .,'' he grapples with the memory to exorcise it. The result, as fluidly translated by Jeremy Leggatt, reads like a myth.
Calling his subjects the Kaweskar - their own name for themselves, which not surprisingly means ''The People'' - Mr. Raspail traces the tribe's 10,000-mile journey between the Bering and Magellan straits, a process that took thousands of years and, as he imagines it, was made by a single group that was constantly chased farther south by stronger, fiercer people.
Mr. Raspail gives his Kaweskar the custom of naming children after their parents; hence for many generations the main male character is usually called Lafko and the main female Wauda. This clever device gives continuity to the narrative and helps the reader keep track of who is who. Over the centuries, Wauda and Lafko and the others of their tribe struggle on, often brutish, never very smart or clean, managing to reach the tip of Patagonia in time to be fodder for Magellan's cannonballs.
If Mr. Raspail likes the Kaweskar, he manages to hide his feelings very well. Perhaps, on the other hand, he never envisioned them fully, since he includes details that, lacking further explanation, seem unlikely. He mentions, for instance, a custom of carrying around the neck ''a small bag packed with embers from the fire.'' It is possible that the Kaweskar really did have a method for doing this. If so, Mr. Raspail could have shown his respect for their ingenuity by telling us how they managed it. But instead he seems rather critical of the Kaweskar, calling them seafarers who ''never even invented the sail,'' having them perform unlikely, pointless acts (impotently throwing a stone in imitation of a cannonball, for example) and describing their food from a European viewpoint, which certainly makes it seem disgusting.
Then again, Mr. Raspail doesn't think much of the waves of white Europeans who eventually arrive among the Kaweskar. Those who come to the frontier seldom compare well with the aboriginal people they are caught in the act of exploiting, and Mr. Raspail's explorers, seamen, settlers, whalers, soldiers, sailors and missionaries are no exception. I particularly liked his treatment of Charles Darwin, who in due time turns up aboard the Beagle, since I've always been dismayed that a man so celebrated for observation wasn't more observant of his own kind. Yet Darwin was seized by class consciousness when anyone except the right sort of Englishman came near him. Mr. Raspail's portrait of him deserves applause.
In addition, Mr. Raspail's use of the popular technique of mingling real with fictional people and real with fictional events gives ''Who Will Remember the People . . .'' a certain authenticity. Who can read of a family captured for display in a French carnival (a real-life event) or of men hunted for bounty (also true) without anger? Who can read of the dismal, grave-strewn missions, both Protestant and Catholic, without shame? Mr. Raspail asks us to temper our anger with mourning, and, of course, we do. The victims and their oppressors seem equally squalid, ignorant, pathetic, as the two groups inexorably re-enact the age-old pageant known as Man's Inhumanity to Man.
But some readers, at least, are going to have trouble with this book. For some, it will not be enough to lay it aside filled with sorrow for the failings of human nature, for atrocities committed long ago. Some will wonder why Mr. Raspail made such an effort to recount the evils of the past when even today, in many parts of the world, people almost exactly like the Kaweskar are experiencing genocide by exactly the same forces - absent or indifferent governments and self-seeking frontier interlopers.
In most cases, it would be wrong to criticize a novel for what it is not. Fiction, after all, is fiction. But the general public knows almost nothing about the frontiers of the third world. How could they? The poorest of the third world's people rarely make the front pages of the newspapers or appear on the network news. If a novel presented apartheid as a regrettable phenomenon of bygone days, we'd object. We'd know better. Something is awry in Mr. Raspail's novel too, but most readers won't know better. The question is: does Mr. Raspail? Doesn't he know about, say, the Brazilian Indians who are struggling to survive as miners and settlers pour into the Amazon region? Don't they relate to the Kaweskar?
Its bittersweet quality made ''Who Will Remember the People . . .'' a best seller in France, where it won several literary awards. Americans who prefer their outrage once removed may enjoy this book too. But some readers may find it irritating and fatalistic. For them, a damp handkerchief won't satisfy; a smile through tears won't be enough. Mr. Raspail almost begs these readers to shake him. Yes, the last Kaweskar has gone to heaven, and we're sorry. But what about those like him who remain here below? They want to live. They too are ''The People.'' Remember them?
Photo of Jean Raspail (D. Housez)