This paper discusses indigenous soldiers in modern militaries in Southeast Asia compared to the Americas, especially their recruitment by the military under both colonial rulers and today's governments since independence. I will also discuss my writings on indigenous people of Latin America and North America, especially the use of the military to preserve, strengthen, and defend traditional beliefs and practices, and the use of indigenous naming, symbolism, and warrior traditions by modern governments to give themselves legitimacy. By contrast, indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia were widely recruited by colonial powers for use against lowland peoples. But since independence the indigenous have often been as marginalized within the military as within the larger national societies. However, one nation-state, the Philippines, has begun employing indigenous people, recruiting them on their own terms, and this may be a sign that patterns seen in the Americas could be repeated in Southeast Asia.

1. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RECRUITED INTO MODERN MILITARIES:
A COMPARATIVE APPROACH, THE AMERICAS AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
Alton Carroll Northern Virginia Community College Sterling, Virginia, US acarroll@nvcc.edu
ABSTRACT: This paper discusses indigenous soldiers in modern militaries in Southeast Asia
compared to the Americas, especially their recruitment by the military under both colonial rulers and
today's governments since independence. I will also discuss my writings on indigenous people of Latin
America and North America, especially the use of the military to preserve, strengthen, and defend
traditional beliefs and practices, and the use of indigenous naming, symbolism, and warrior traditions
by modern governments to give themselves legitimacy. By contrast, indigenous peoples in Southeast
Asia were widely recruited by colonial powers for use against lowland peoples. But since independence
the indigenous have often been as marginalized within the military as within the larger national
societies. However, one nation-state, the Philippines, has begun employing indigenous people,
recruiting them on their own terms, and this may be a sign that patterns seen in the Americas could be
repeated in Southeast Asia.
Keywords: Cordillera, Hill Tribes, Indigenous, Lumad, military
Hello to all of you. I am Dr. Al Carroll. Like many American Indians, I have an interest in the
tribal peoples of Asia, an interest that began because of contact between American Indians in the US
military and the Hill Tribes recruited to fight as US allies during the Indochina Wars. In my experiences
meeting Torajans in Indonesia while teaching as a Fulbright Scholar, I sas so many similarities in
culture, worldview, and in common issues.
I wrote about such experiences in my book, Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: American Indian
Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War. My book is the first work to ever take an
international comparative approach looking at American Indian veteran traditions in the US, Canada,
and Mexico. In my work I argued voluntary indigenous participation in militaries is ultimately tied to
how Natives use the military to maintain or revive tribal traditions and how much the nation-state is
perceived to be defending Native sacred lands or other community needs. No matter the individual’s
motives for joining, each indigenous soldier ultimately becomes part of a debate and contestation over
the question of assimilation into the dominant society. This is what I observed during my own time as
an American Indian soldier of Apache ancestry. Other soldiers treated me differently. Other enlisted
men, sergeants, and officers all expected me to be a good soldier, and indeed often thought I was a
better soldier than I actually was. So many people think tribal people are naturally good warriors.
When Native peoples join the military, there are usually those who want to assimilate them,
make them take on the values of the dominant culture. There are also those who either admire Native
peoples, or admire romanticized Noble Savage images of Natives. This second group likes to use tribal
peoples for perceived martial qualities and fighting abilities. Often they endow us with almost mythical

2. abilities. As wrongheaded as these beliefs are, indigenous people have learned to use such myths to our
own benefit, to win acceptance, to continue old traditions and build new ones, to practice spiritual
beliefs inside the military, and to take skills back to tribal communities that benefit them.
Veterans often make up the overwhelming majority of tribal leaders elected to public office and
activists. Indigenous peoples have become generals and admirals in nation-states like the US and
Venezuela. In countries like Guatemala and Peru, indigenous people make up the majority of the
military, from enlisted to general staffs. Newer syncretic veteran traditions often come at a high price,
being placed in harm’s way in the most dangerous combat. But all indigenous soldiers become part of
questions and struggles over the place of tribal peoples within the dominant societies, especially the
question of assimilation. The first line of conflict between indigenous peoples and governments thus
can start within militaries themselves.
I was often asked while doing this study: How do indigenous and tribal peoples reconcile
military service with the treatment often accorded us by today’s nation-states? As my study proceeded,
I asked myself, how do tribal peoples answer this question for themselves, not only in North America,
not only in Latin America, and but also in Southeast Asia? What part has this military service played in
the development of nationalism among tribal peoples in the region? How can tribal peoples expect to
achieve self-determination, or even in some cases simple survival, if indigenous soldiers enforce the
status quo? Could indigenous peoples be not only in physical danger but also in danger of cultural
extinction caused by nationalism and assimilation, and how can we guard against this? The big
questions are, what can and have tribal peoples done in these situations, and do in the future?
My project and my study strives to explain identities and loyalties in terms of nationalism vs.
identification with indigenous communities. My ultimate goal is to seek out practical methods to avoid
or limit future violence or forced assimilation attempts by nation-states and their militaries against
indigenous people and tribal communities. Above all, I want my work to serve a decolonizing purpose,
to aid in the struggle for cultural survival against dominant societies and institutions.
I also hope that others outside the communities working on tribal peoples’ issues will come to
understand indigenous motivations and interactions beyond simplistic victimology. Voluntary tribal
participation in militaries rises or falls based on how the particular peoples perceive the nation-state to
be capable of, interested in, or useful for defending community needs, especially sacred homelands.
Militaries that protect indigenous needs will gain indigenous loyalties, but importantly, will do so on
the terms of tribal peoples. Understanding tribal roles in past and present societal conflicts will help us
prevent future ones. There is a great need (moral, ideological, and practical) for turning away from and
preventing a return to the sheer brute force and repression.

3. It is not enough to see the military as intrinsically opposed to indigenous interests, or to list
abuses and even atrocities done by the military. This is certainly not to diminish or defend any outrages
done against any tribal people anywhere. It is not defend militarization as a tactic used to control
communities. It is certainly not to diminish the valuable and brave work done by human rights activists.
It is to suggest there are other ways that ultimately offer a way forward which prevent future abuse and
marginalization, namely reform the institutions from within where possible. These reforms can best be
carried out by the very peoples who have the most at stake, tribal peoples, working in tandem with
those in the dominant society who admire perceived indigenous martial abilities.
An anti-military approach ignores the reality that at least some indigenous peoples choose to be
part of militaries for pragmatic or strategic reasons or working from their own convictions. My very
preliminary research shows this is also at least partly true of at least some nation’s militaries in
Southeast Asia, for example in both Indonesia and Laos. As far as joining the military as a strategy to
change it from within, sometimes tribal peoples have proven this does work to preserve traditions.
I thus see a need to urge others to see the military as an institution capable of not being a
reactionary force. There is a long history of people in militaries serving as agents of progressive or
even revolutionary change. If you doubt that, all I need to refute that to Americans in the audience is to
say the name of General George Marshall, father of the Marshall Plan. If you doubt that the military
can serve as agents of revolutionary change, I remind you of the recent president of Venezuela, Hugo
Chavez. Chavez was what is called in Latin America a pardo, a mix of Black and American Indian.
There are important things to look for to see if the conditions which make it possible for the
military to be a means to preserve indigenous traditions and spiritual practices, as was the case in the
US, Canada, and parts of Latin America. Tribal people must be no longer viewed as a serious potential
military or societal threat, either because of small numbers or perceived familiarity. Another is the
willingness of the nation-state to deal with the indigenous collectively as a people. The adoption of
tribal tactics and the use of tribal symbols by the military may be a means to gain acceptance, or be a
sign of an opening. In American Indian Studies, scholars promote decolonization methodology that
includes the willingness to use the conqueror’s tactics against themselves to counter colonialism.
Under decolonization theory, tribal soldiers are a marker of colonialism, and represent a
corruption of tradition. I have no illusions this is possible, and argued it in my own book. The way of a
warrior is often different from a soldier. A warrior follows his conscience and sacrifices himself for his
people. A soldier follows orders, which may or may not include his conscience or putting his people
first. This distortion and conflation of the two roles sometimes produces morally indefensible results. In
Guatemala for example, Native soldiers often slaughtered other Native people in huge numbers. But to

4. say it must always be so is false. Tribal peoples are not “used” by the military. Tribal peoples and
today’s militaries use each other, and we need to discuss how to use militaries and change them.
My work on the topic, on North America, is done and published. My work researching the
subject in Latin America is completed, in the writing stage. My work on Southeast Asia is in the
research phase for several years now. I realized I should also look at indigenous veterans in another part
of the world for comparison. I began looking at Southeast Asia and the Pacific. I looked at Hill Tribes
allied to the US during the US Vietnam War, Hmong in the US.
This eventually led to being a Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia, where I was teaching many
students of the Toraja tribe. Speaking to Indonesian scholars, I saw a pattern that colonial powers in
Asia, whether Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, or Japan, often used highland tribes against
lowland peoples. After independence, many of these indigenous tribes faced retaliation from these new
nations, or at least isolation and exclusion. This is true not only in Indonesia but also in Vietnam,
Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
This leads to my discussion of Filipino indigenous peoples, the Cordillera and Lumad groups.
Under Spanish rule, the Cordillera peoples stayed largely independent, and American rule was only
somewhat more successful in conquest. The Lumad also largely avoided Spanish conquest, though
more by withdrawing than by fighting as the Cordillera did. Both American and Filipino national
efforts to assimilate Cordillera peoples were successful in conquest, but far less at assimilation.
So did this new military tradition begin very early for some Filipino tribal peoples, as was the
case in the US and many Latin American nations? As best I can find, no. While the Cordillera peoples
often gave sanctuary to Filipino independence fighters, there was no formal alliance. Unlike the
Cordillera, some Lumad did take part in independence uprisings against Spaniards. Many Lumad also
fought against American and then Japanese conquerors, but not necessarily in alliance with majority
Filipinos. In the Filipino national period, like the Cordillera peoples, Lumad peoples may have been
politically subject to the Filipino national government, but were socially far less integrated. Some
Cordillera and Lumad individuals likely joined, but I have found no evidence of indigenous tribal
military veteran traditions. That is, until the past few decades of Filipino history.
I started looking at the long insurgency of the New People’s Army or NPA, at the offshoot of the
NPA, the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army or CPLA. After splitting with the NPA, the CPLA later
agreed to lay down its arms. The CPLA and the Filipino government agreed to integrate CPLA fighters
into the Filipino military. Several hundred former CPLA fighters became part of the Filipino army,
while over 500 more were deployed throughout the Cordillera area as paramilitaries. The number of
Cordillera peoples integrated in total was intended to be nearly 4,000, but budget cuts limited that.

5. This integration into the military, done largely in indigenous terms, fits well with my main
thesis, that the degree of indigenous participation in the military rises and falls based on how the
military, government, and society are perceived to be serving indigenous needs, especially holding onto
traditional lands. One of the CPLA’s central demands was they provide the security for the region in
conjunction with the Filipino military. This provides a way for them to preserve older warrior
traditions, while adapting them to newer needs. Indigenous soldiers tend to practice their older religious
traditions, ceremonies, dance, songs, speaking in their own languages, carrying spiritual talismans, and
think of themselves as warriors first, soldiers second.
But there is a very disturbing side to indigenous military veteran tradition, a colonial pattern of
divide and conquer, fighting against other tribal peoples, even against other members of the same tribe,
their own people. A similar pattern can at times be seen with Filipino indigenous soldiers. In recent
conflicts the paramilitaries played often horrific roles. In fighting against the insurgencies of the New
People's Army and Muslim separatist movements in the south, some paramilitaries committed or were
accused of committing human rights violations against other indigenous peoples.
In Mindanao as far back as the 1970s, many Christian armed paramilitary groups were used
against Muslim secessionists. These in more recent years have included the Alamara, a band of Lumads
of the Ata-Manobo group. Alamara may have as many as 500 members, and has forcibly displaced
hundreds, been accused of several murders, accused of being bandits, and of carrying out kidnappings.
The Alamara have mostly targeted those of their own background, other Lumads of the Ata-Manobo
group. Cordillera and Lumad military veteran traditions are so far very recent, no more than a
generation old for most. How will these new traditions change over time?
The Orang Asli of Malaysia were used versus Communist guerilla groups by the British. Since
independence, they are some of the most marginalized peoples in their own nation, and I cannot find
much presence of them in the Malaysian military.
In Taiwan, many of the tribal people joined the Takasago Volunteers while under Japanese
imperial rule. Many of them did so because they completely assimilated Japanese culture. I have found
little presence of them in Taiwan’s military.
The Hill Tribes of Southeast Asia were allies to the US during the US-Vietnam War and suffered
disastrously for that. Most of them were displaced to the United States. Virtually none of the warrior
traditions survive, and most Hill Tribes people strongly discourage their children from joining the US
military, or any military. Within Southeast Asia, in Thailand and Vietnam, both nations have strong
policies of assimilation, and little visible presence of the Hill Tribes in their militaries.
In Indonesia, tribal peoples like the Ambonese, Minahasans, and Torajans that made up most of

6. the Dutch colonial army were largely excluded from Indonesia’s military post-independence. There is a
strong Batak presence in the Indonesian military, and a few prominent Papuan leaders in the Indonesian
military. This limited presence may be similar to what is will happen with Filipino tribal veterans.
Will Filipino or other Southeast Asian indigenous veteran traditions follow instead the pattern of
those in the United States or Latin America? If so, here are some things we may expect to see:
1. Many indigenous veterans will go into politics. The leadership within tribal communities
may be elected mostly from military veterans. This is true for tribal people in the US.
2. Tribal peoples likely bring their religious traditions into the military itself. This means they
practice their rituals inside the military, spiritual charms, ceremonies, dances, and songs.
3. The military experience will be honored by the tribal communities themselves. There may
be community ceremonies for those going off to the military, and welcoming them back.
4. Those who use violence against other tribal peoples may be ostracized. They may be
shunned by their own people, or even driven from the community. This has happened in
much of Latin America, in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.
5. Many veterans will bring violence into their communities, domestic violence against women
and children, and also alcoholism or other drug abuse.
6. Some veterans may turn to radical activism.
7. Some veterans and other members of tribal communities may turn very right wing, may
adopt extreme forms of patriotism and nationalism. One could argue this has already
happened with the co optation of some tribal peoples into paramilitaries.
Is there any way to avoid the worst aspects of indigenous veteran traditions? Yes, veteran
traditions do preserve indigenous culture. But they damage indigenous peoples and communities, alter
them, distort the traditional meaning of what it is to be a warrior who fights for his people, turning one
instead into a soldier who follows orders, even if you disagree with those orders.
Decolonization theory has quite a few advocates among many indigenous scholars such as
Devon Mihesuah in the US and Linda Tuwahi Smith in New Zealand. Lakota author Francis
Whitebird's model of decolonization sees tribal veteran traditions as a sign of colonialism. I debated
with decolonization ideas and scholars before, that indigenous veteran traditions are a mixed blessing,
a means of cultural survival, but also a symptom of colonialism, and destructive.
I argued in my book, articles, and at conferences, one should replace the veteran tradition with
one of activism, go from being a soldier to being an advocate for one’s people. In other words, return to
being a warrior, though one avoids violence. It is this I leave you with today. Thank you.

7. the Dutch colonial army were largely excluded from Indonesia’s military post-independence. There is a
strong Batak presence in the Indonesian military, and a few prominent Papuan leaders in the Indonesian
military. This limited presence may be similar to what is will happen with Filipino tribal veterans.
Will Filipino or other Southeast Asian indigenous veteran traditions follow instead the pattern of
those in the United States or Latin America? If so, here are some things we may expect to see:
1. Many indigenous veterans will go into politics. The leadership within tribal communities
may be elected mostly from military veterans. This is true for tribal people in the US.
2. Tribal peoples likely bring their religious traditions into the military itself. This means they
practice their rituals inside the military, spiritual charms, ceremonies, dances, and songs.
3. The military experience will be honored by the tribal communities themselves. There may
be community ceremonies for those going off to the military, and welcoming them back.
4. Those who use violence against other tribal peoples may be ostracized. They may be
shunned by their own people, or even driven from the community. This has happened in
much of Latin America, in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.
5. Many veterans will bring violence into their communities, domestic violence against women
and children, and also alcoholism or other drug abuse.
6. Some veterans may turn to radical activism.
7. Some veterans and other members of tribal communities may turn very right wing, may
adopt extreme forms of patriotism and nationalism. One could argue this has already
happened with the co optation of some tribal peoples into paramilitaries.
Is there any way to avoid the worst aspects of indigenous veteran traditions? Yes, veteran
traditions do preserve indigenous culture. But they damage indigenous peoples and communities, alter
them, distort the traditional meaning of what it is to be a warrior who fights for his people, turning one
instead into a soldier who follows orders, even if you disagree with those orders.
Decolonization theory has quite a few advocates among many indigenous scholars such as
Devon Mihesuah in the US and Linda Tuwahi Smith in New Zealand. Lakota author Francis
Whitebird's model of decolonization sees tribal veteran traditions as a sign of colonialism. I debated
with decolonization ideas and scholars before, that indigenous veteran traditions are a mixed blessing,
a means of cultural survival, but also a symptom of colonialism, and destructive.
I argued in my book, articles, and at conferences, one should replace the veteran tradition with
one of activism, go from being a soldier to being an advocate for one’s people. In other words, return to
being a warrior, though one avoids violence. It is this I leave you with today. Thank you.