Isolated groups classify total strangers as nonhuman, not merely foreign

Evidence

If the group were sufficiently isolated, it might conceive itself to be the only group of humans in the world. As such, any stranger who might appear could only be, quite logically, a nonhuman. And in no human society is the appearance of a humanlike nonhuman a routine event. Special measures are always called for. Among some groups, like the Tiwi, who inhabited two islands off the coast of Northern Australia, killing the intruder appeared the most satisfactory solution: Tiwi tradition is firm and certain that before the white man’s arrival there was no contact between the islands and the mainland. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 41

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Lofland’s central project — how humans classify strangers — and to the reader’s cross-reading of how city dwellers categorize strangers in public space, per the stated purpose.