Definition of Savage

The word savage has critically changed over the years and is derived from the primary form of northern European experience of nature. The word savage only implies an uncouth person or someone who is untamed. When people are faced with the act of prejudice, they tend to meet newer lifeways and beliefs which make them destructive. The word savage was considered even at the time of colonialism where the minority were less powerful than the new culture practiced (Moore, Savage Theory). The Greeks were the first to divorce from humankind share of history in small-scale society. They were able to form what is referred to an applied term savage to mean barbarism.

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The connotation was made between the nomadic or even between the tribal societies. The word barbarian was used by the Greeks to mean savage, and they applied the dichotomy between advanced, urban civilization and barbarians. They considered it to be a culture inferior. During the seventeenth century, the French and the English used to call the new inhabitants savages (Moore, Savage Theory). They did not care whether they rose from the court poets or the nomads and hunters. Savages according to them were the people who lived in the woods with no religion, without any law and fixed abode. They were seen to be more of the beast than of the men.

The Greeks belief was that they were superior to the savage and they influenced subordination and forced assimilation to the native people. From England to the Greeks, the word Savage was considered to be a noncompliance and the ensuing tactic of violence (Ellingson, p 187). In 1861, there was a report written about the word which indicated that savageness was a way of culture presentation and by adapting civilization, most people in that era were signing a culture erosion agreement.

A savage is someone who does not care about the consequences of his or her actions. They usually carry out their action that would lead to adverse outcomes often violent. In other times it has been defined as an act of being hardcore that is simply the act of going beyond the standard scope of the given situation (Ellingson, p 187). The person becomes out of control, unmanageable and insanely unshakable. In other definitions, they consider the word savage to be an act of brutally but awesome.

When someone lacks restraint, and he is out of human control, then the person is deemed to be a savage or even a criminal. Savages are characterized with bad manners and they therefore, lack sophisticated or even advanced culture (Gaudio, Engraving the Savage). The word was first used in the 13th century from the Middle English, from the Anglo-French, from the Late Latin silvaticus of the woods, wild and from the silva wood forest.

The history of the word savage goes back to the 13th century. It is compared to a Latin adjective silvaticus which is a word that means forest. It also implies growing or living in the forest. The forest is considered to be wild rather than domesticated, and the people who live there are supposed to be savages. The word savages were in a long time considered to mean wild since it implied that the individual was the opposite of being tamed (Ellingson, p 187). The word was passed into the Old French as savage and was later borrowed into the Middle English. The meaning held out for the word savage as wild was applied to the uncultivated fruits and the word untamed was applied to the animals. Even if this was so, the meaning was also applicable to humans whereby the range was from uncivilized to the humans. The case meant that it could range from barbarous to being fierce or cruel.

Since the word savage originally meant wild, it has been considered to have transferred meaning that would be applicable in a human being. In the technical sense, the word savage was used by the colonialist to refer to the people who were no civilized. The early anthropologists, however, were known to consider the word savage and use it to name the individuals who had not yet made any discovery like the discovery of agriculture (Gaudio, Engraving the Savage). They referred to them as barbarians since they never resulted in the act of civilization or even an act of humanity or even any sense of improvement. Savage was used to indicating the act of racism and also the cruel act of tribalism. When a savage tribe in Brazil was examined, the result suggested that those tribes criticized the Western civilization and therefore imposed racism (Gaudio, Engraving the Savage). The tribe was practicing cannibalism which was an act of inhumanity and complete insanity.

In conclusion, the word savage was used in different occasion and was defined as the repudiation and bankruptcy from where the act of civilization turns its Somerset, and it stands to an unrealistic plank of famine. Savages are mostly found in uncivilized places, and they refuse to embrace the changes in technology, research, science and also the simple act of kindness. Savage definition means that it is an act of undignified behavior to another person or even an animal.

Work cited

Ellingson, Terry J. The Myth of the Noble Savage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Internet resource.

Gaudio, Michael. Engraving the Savage: The New World and Techniques of Civilization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Print.

Moore, Rachel O. Savage Theory: Cinema As Modern Magic. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Print.