I can understand your anxiety, alone, in the dark, on a high mountian pass. What could go wrong there?
We are all descendants of tribal people, long before there was any civilization. Tribes, by their very nature, are highly suspicious of outsiders, non-tribal people, often for good reason. Look at the tribal culture's experiences in North and South America.
The Highland clans in Scotland were a tribal culture too, 300 years ago. I find it fascinating how Irish, Scottish and English Caucasians, can identify almost to the county where another U K citizen is from as soon as they start talking - accents are that important in the UK . Part of their tribal identity.
I remember the first time I spent some time with some Scottish lads in a pub, and was really surprised how they felt, deep down, about the English. I should have been better informed as Scottish history has centuries of conflct with the English, but I didn't realize just how serious many Scots still are. Many would be quite thrilled to leave the UK. Just one of many reasons why, in the link below
There are still bars in the Highlands with signs that say "No Campbells allowed". I saw them last fall when I was there. I don't remember ever seeing signs that say Yankees were not welcome in Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi or Tennessee bars. Although in the back country you might be pressing your luck a bit.
Civilization has brought many advantages to mankind, but many of the advantages of civilization ( much greater agrarian wealth, domestication of animals, military power, large buildings ) originally accrued to the elite powers in the civilization, not the lower classes. Tribes could easily see that truth. Civilization brought great wealth to a fortunate few, and disease and slavery to a great many. Think of the Egyptian Empire, and its Pyramids. Or the Mayans, or the Romans. And the Romans were far more egalitarian than many earlier empires. The elite power structure often benefitted from the tribalism of its lower classes, pitted off against one an other....
Today, most people who are not hungry, but well fed, and warm, modestly educated and prosperous, and FREE, are usually pleasant to meet and interact with. After all, they are quite free to disengage, if you don't behave with courtesy and respect. The importance of good manners is still a fact. Good manners are very important when tribes meet each other. Still.
I have an aquaintance who is a third generation Korean native born American citizen, a native English speaker - but when she was travelling in Japan she would have local citizens get quite annoyed with her when she would/could not respond in Japanese - they saw her face and assumed she was a local, and would become quite insulted that she insisted that she was an English speaker and did not understand Japanese. Making assumptions about people based on race in the modern world, can lead to large misunderstandings.
Really knowing what tribe an individual belongs to, can be far more informative, than just their race.