By the Waters of Babylon open response

Why has Johns tribe revert back to a more primitiva way of life?

 John's tribe, the Hill People, reverted to a more primitive way of life because of an apocalyptic event. When John is in a Dead House in the city, he has a vision of the city being destroyed by fire and poison. The fire is most likley due to a large scale war. Because everything was destroyed the people who survived didn't have things like cars or T.V.s so their kids never saw them and they started to live a more primitive lifestyle. Also, most people don't know how to read or write. After the destruction people were probably more focused on staying alive than learning knew things, therefore they would not teach there kids anything and eventually everybody would forget how to read and write. Also, alot of books were probably lost because of the fire, so people didn't have anything to teach there kids how to read out of. Because of the apocalyptic events the Hill People reverted to a more primitive lifestyle.