tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3621152690310837562024-03-20T19:06:08.941-04:00Notes from the EthnogroundAs an ethnobotanist and photographer who has worked for over thirty years in the Amazon, I often travel in what Wade Davis calls "the ethnosphere." I use this log for reflecting on journeys and explorations both outward and inward, recent and past.Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-5118775117203263662023-09-24T15:00:00.005-04:002023-09-28T21:02:11.688-04:00Star Girl: Making the prize-winning Kayapó-language film "Nhakpoti"<p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Over years and across long distances, an international filmmaking team collaborated to bring to life the origin story of how agriculture came to Kayapó communities, Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon.</i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Just ahead, a Kayapó warrior in flip-flops slashes through forest undergrowth with his machete. Behind him, filmmaker Pat-i navigates the narrow path with a boom microphone. The rest of us on the filmmaking crew follow close behind. Suddenly, Pat-i stops. He points the boom mic into the forest and says, “I remember seeing a </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">wang-ynh</i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> this way.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It was late June 2019. We were searching the forest near the village of A’Ukre in the Brazilian Amazon for a particular species of flexible tree. The wang-ynh tree figures prominently in the Kayapó story of “Star Girl,” or “Nhakpoti.” The story recounts how a Kayapó boy declared his love to a beautiful star, who then came down from the heavens to marry him. Not satisfied with the meager mushroom diet of her primordial Kayapó in-laws, Star Girl flies back into the sky, propelled by a wang-ynh catapult, and brings down agricultural crops for the village.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD__o0fij1OIfRtOMGBZeiot4p4yVmkbnfIrVdZkrE-7cswyR8GD3Jbd374Z54-JNL9etlVDpn8gHeGmAd5aILlAhNtXD9Jg7PukeHKpWrFllBXvAhwTnJ34HdLxbr2QeNO1HvIIOxwyKipxTGZdBIjEHxYW7NT3It8mPG6XRctclRrklnjmivBzjIQWKy/s2634/NP%20nite%20decends-full-fxd.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="2634" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD__o0fij1OIfRtOMGBZeiot4p4yVmkbnfIrVdZkrE-7cswyR8GD3Jbd374Z54-JNL9etlVDpn8gHeGmAd5aILlAhNtXD9Jg7PukeHKpWrFllBXvAhwTnJ34HdLxbr2QeNO1HvIIOxwyKipxTGZdBIjEHxYW7NT3It8mPG6XRctclRrklnjmivBzjIQWKy/w640-h358/NP%20nite%20decends-full-fxd.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>A still from the short film Nhakpoti shows Star Girl descending from the heavens. <br />Photo: Paul Chilsen<br /></b></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">For the film adaptation of the story, our production team envisioned a scene catapulting a novice Kayapó actress into the heavens—using nothing more than a sapling, some vines and climbing rope for guy wires, and a little fancy camera work.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;">The Kayapó (who call themselves Mêbêngôkre) have been pioneers in the growing <a href="https://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/9780826522122/from-filmmaker-warriors-to-flash-drive-shamans/"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;">global Indigenous media movement</span></a>. In the early 1990s, anthropologist Terence Turner <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2783265"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;">described one community’s innovative use</span></a> of video to document and defend their culture. Inspired by Turner’s work, co-author Glenn Shepard Jr. began collaborating with anthropologist Richard Pace in 2010 to train more Kayapó filmmakers and <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/04/miss-kayapo-filming-through-mebengokre.html"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;">better understand</span></a> their perspectives. In 2017, co-author and filmmaker Paul Chilsen joined forces with anthropologists Shepard, Pace, and Laura Zanotti (who had been working independently on <a href="https://www.teachinganthropology.org/ojs/index.php/teach_anth/article/view/574"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;">Indigenous media in A’Ukre</span></a> since 2012). The team started providing additional equipment and training for a growing cadre of Kayapó filmmakers in several villages.</p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;">Up until recently, Kayapó-made films have mainly focused on recording <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/714080"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;">traditional ceremonies and political rallies</span></a> in real time. However, as a result of training workshops and contact with other Indigenous media-makers, Kayapó filmmakers have started to explore other film storytelling genres beyond documentaries. Co-author Pat-i expressed an interest in experimenting with the fictionalized narrative genre—the first of its kind in his community. And so, we began adapting the tale of Nhakpoti into a short film.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtQDAvA_zub56y2XUteVoGkwtCDXCm5rpqAtLltB5qBqKaj3pTeYEMFDL5eZdR_Ltyqwfe8Tr8ZLDH-8ZEcP92bZQ_V5RoVtHEwkmYOphFlrAnq9JIqsIVYJkEMK8LGXZXHMuv5FSoyHn_lozbS9xj_PPwFHYxVCqchGqpqE6XGH85jkiqf6EQB8CvF0v/s4984/NP%20decends%20Jungle%20fxd-compd.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3323" data-original-width="4984" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtQDAvA_zub56y2XUteVoGkwtCDXCm5rpqAtLltB5qBqKaj3pTeYEMFDL5eZdR_Ltyqwfe8Tr8ZLDH-8ZEcP92bZQ_V5RoVtHEwkmYOphFlrAnq9JIqsIVYJkEMK8LGXZXHMuv5FSoyHn_lozbS9xj_PPwFHYxVCqchGqpqE6XGH85jkiqf6EQB8CvF0v/w400-h266/NP%20decends%20Jungle%20fxd-compd.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>The team films a pivotal scene for Nhakpoti featuring actress Boni Kayapó.<br />Photo: G. Shepard</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;">“Growing up, Nhakpoti is one of many stories I heard from our elders,” explained Pat-i. “We chose this story to be our first narrative film because it’s short. We thought it would be easy to make as our first film. In our minds, it would take just a few days.”</p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">However, the process turned out to be more complicated and time-consuming than the Kayapó team anticipated.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The entire filmmaking process—storyboarding, casting, writing dialogue, shooting, and, finally, editing—was carried out in collaboration with elders and the filmmaking collective from Pat-i’s home village of A’Ukre in the Brazilian Amazon. As part of a two-week training course in A’Ukre in 2019, a multicultural crew, including Indigenous filmmakers and actors, U.S. college students, and U.S. and Brazilian researchers, worked together to produce the film. With COVID-19 delays, travel restrictions, multilingual translations, and working across the miles, the film was finally completed in early 2023.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The film alternates between a scene of a current village elder, Krwyt, telling the story to his grandson in the present day, and a reenactment of the legendary story of Nhakpoti by Kayapó actors. By blending the mythical past with the present, the film is faithful to <a href="https://www.revistas.usp.br/gis/article/viewFile/142190/141949"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;">deeply rooted Kayapó notions</span></a> of time and history. Kayapó rituals and aesthetics emphasize how ancient forms and values are always reproduced in the present. Indeed, during Nhakpoti’s wedding feast at the end of the film, mythical events become virtually indistinguishable from a current-day Kayapó ceremony, </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">reflecting what Shepard and Pace <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/714080"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.6px 0px 0px;">have described</span></a> as a distinctive “Kayapó film aesthetic.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The production revealed the complexities of transcultural filmmaking. For example, the initial male lead was shy in front of the camera, so a collective decision was made to replace him with a more assertive actor. However, the female lead suddenly refused to speak her lines to the new actor, bringing production to a halt. We learned that kinship taboos prohibited her from addressing this particular relative directly. To respect Kayapó customs, we had to find a new female lead.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">In another learning experience, Kayapó filmmakers who had previously worked mostly in documentaries realized they needed to shift their audio recording techniques for this film. They suddenly had to worry about roosters and gasoline generators interrupting the harmonious mythical soundscape the film was attempting to create.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">To facilitate the creation of more narrative films in the future, the village filmmaking collective is now considering building a remote shooting location far from anachronistic sights and sounds. Such a site could help the Indigenous filmmaking collective in A’Ukre achieve even more independence within the global media industry.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">For Chilsen, Shepard, and the other collaborators from outside of A’Ukre, the goal has always been to affirm and prioritize Indigenous voices and to understand the unique Kayapó cultural perspective on filmmaking. Rather than transposing a Hollywood studio model on A’Ukre, the making of <i>Nhakpoti</i> shows how Kayapó filmmakers are creating their own filmmaking tradition: a sort of “A’Ukrewood in the making,” <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/714080"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;">as Shepard and Pace put it</span></a>.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“It was a learning process,” Pat-i reflected on the collaboration. “We understood that this is how ‘White people’ make films. Now, hopefully, we can make our own narrative films without their help.”</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioepmZMDPWiI_TeNShLwXcir1AwRMNJOAzzLolPbOCGSjVyGyPtnIUPHzs1uKuLK-UTZWquQTh-0YrWhSaE63lxJ6p1TKVaBwEd04t5oaa-cSQJmWDGm1j5bh1aNKsBJX0SXzth0BB4FqZnQZ-FubPa74yV0gYchI4EOZL5wWi0xV2nqbzGGEhGiuBD8hD/s5472/Martini%20shot%20Nhak%20Poti.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3648" data-original-width="5472" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioepmZMDPWiI_TeNShLwXcir1AwRMNJOAzzLolPbOCGSjVyGyPtnIUPHzs1uKuLK-UTZWquQTh-0YrWhSaE63lxJ6p1TKVaBwEd04t5oaa-cSQJmWDGm1j5bh1aNKsBJX0SXzth0BB4FqZnQZ-FubPa74yV0gYchI4EOZL5wWi0xV2nqbzGGEhGiuBD8hD/w400-h266/Martini%20shot%20Nhak%20Poti.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>The film shoot in the village of A’Ukre in 2019 brought together Kayapó filmmakers and actors, U.S. college students, and U.S. and Brazilian researchers.<br />Photo: G. Shepard</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">
</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Back in the forest that day, we were nearing the end of our shoot, and we all could feel how this intense, critical scene embodied the depth and significance of this cultural, creative exchange.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">After locating the wang-ynh tree in the forest, we set about working out the complexities of “catapulting” Nhakpoti into the heavens.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The non-Indigenous members of the film crew relied on the ingenuity of Kayapó woodsmen-grips as they lashed together saplings and vines, using a tree fork to create an improvised jib for the Star Girl’s heavenly flight. Likewise, Kayapó filmmakers were fully engrossed in seeing how strategic camera angles could produce the magic of special effects. Working together, we all helped Star Girl soar.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 28px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"> ---</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">
</span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Nhakpoti<i> debuted at the </i><a href="https://presenceautochtone.ca/en/programmation/nhakpoti/"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;"><i>Montreal First Peoples Festival</i></span></a><i> in August, taking home a prize for </i><a href="https://presenceautochtone.ca/en/communiques/internaonal-first-peoples-fesval-awards/"><span style="font-kerning: none; text-shadow: rgb(0, 0, 0) 0.8px 0px 0px;"><i>Best International Short Film</i></span></a><i>. </i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i> </i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i>Nhakpoti was co-directed by Pat-i Kayapó and Paul Chilsen (view a <b><a href="https://vimeo.com/856547014" target="_blank">trailer</a>)</b></i></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b>Text by Paul Chilsen, Glenn H. Shepard Jr. and Pat-i Kayapó</b></i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><i>First published </i><i>by <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/indigenous-kayapo-filmmaking-brazilian-amazon/" target="_blank">Sapiens</a> on Aug. 24, 2023 </i><i>as "Bringing Nhakpoti, the Kayapó Story of Star Girl, to the Screen" </i></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /></i></span></p>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-74871391433047698352022-04-18T12:24:00.002-04:002022-08-19T12:31:49.622-04:00The Cosmic Serpent: A poem on carnival and karma, first published by Sapiens<p><span style="font-size: small;"><i style="font-family: verdana;">Most Carnival celebrations in Brazil were canceled for a second year in a row in 2022 due to the resurgence of COVID-19. This poem, which I wrote during Carnival preparations in the tropical city of Manaus many years prior, was recently published by </i><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/the-cosmic-serpent/" target="_blank">Sapiens</a></span><i style="font-family: verdana;"> for the first time.</i></span></p><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div><br /></div><div><u>The Cosmic Serpent:</u></div><div><br /></div><div>I am bit by a copy of a key</div><div>fitting the lock</div><div>of a door ajar</div><div>a melon wedge</div><div> </div><div>of moon lent </div><div>as a blessing by a sultry sun</div><div>upon slick yearning bodies</div><div>below</div><div> </div><div>I fit snug in this body of nails</div><div>teeth hard things animate </div><div>in a herd of elbows</div><div>with eyes</div><div> </div><div>snapping in recoil from</div><div>pain slave to pleasure</div><div>shuddering at the pinwheel</div><div>sky</div><div> </div><div>I am hunger</div><div>in ebbs and flows</div><div>hormonal despot over the senses</div><div>one more consumer</div><div> </div><div>lusting a wake</div><div>through this world</div><div>this mad race before the door</div><div>catches</div><div> </div><div>I am bit by a copy</div><div>of a copy of a key</div><div>a lock of helical hair</div><div>a serpent eating its tail</div><div> </div><div>beneath the spiraling galaxies</div><div>wondering what is</div><div>why where is my sharp-toothed</div><div>love?</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQKebnaj0NyvqVDoPra-pzVL6tosqh9zOHPUawtoSvgrFFQn2Ul3v4fsccI1_9lirenWnTk5cHXJUIGEt-CzkKFbq6gWp8WqmUQ9I0r1Ly_P487WGeNqV185AcGbXTycC24y9k6mOxFBxxx6kh6L2Kvoh2ijLAFBugIhZCws3_vZn2G7gWC3zTKS9Uag/s1024/01_snake-in-the-stars-1024x676.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="1024" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQKebnaj0NyvqVDoPra-pzVL6tosqh9zOHPUawtoSvgrFFQn2Ul3v4fsccI1_9lirenWnTk5cHXJUIGEt-CzkKFbq6gWp8WqmUQ9I0r1Ly_P487WGeNqV185AcGbXTycC24y9k6mOxFBxxx6kh6L2Kvoh2ijLAFBugIhZCws3_vZn2G7gWC3zTKS9Uag/w400-h264/01_snake-in-the-stars-1024x676.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">-----</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">Read the story behind this poem at </i><a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/the-cosmic-serpent/" style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;" target="_blank">Sapiens</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">Other poems:</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> </i><a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/world-poetry-day-fish-trap/" style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>The Fish Trap</span></span><i> </i></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> </i><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2021/04/unlikely-blessings-poem-on-hope-despair.html" style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;" target="_blank">Unlikely Blessings</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/03/yellow-jessamine-coronavirus-haiku.html" style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;" target="_blank">Yellow Jessamine</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-2120903585343553242021-12-13T14:33:00.001-05:002021-12-13T14:33:23.798-05:00The Mind of Plants: Book launch by Synergetic Press on December 15<p> <i> --Synergetic Press has just released </i><a href="https://synergeticpress.com/catalog/the-mind-of-plants/" target="_blank">The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence</a><i>, edited by </i><i>John C. Ryan, Patricia Vieira and Monica Gagliano, and with a foreword by Dennis McKenna. Here is the jacket blurb I wrote for the book:</i></p><p><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">From apples to Ayahuasca, from spinach to Xiang-Si, this wide-ranging collection serves up forty essays and fourteen poems that, each in its own singular voice, collectively meditate on how and why plants scratch, sting, enchant, nourish, illuminate, intoxicate and enslave us. The contributors—including biologists, ethnobotanists, chemists, physicians, anthropologists, philosophers, writers and artists from diverse cultural backgrounds—enliven the emerging field of study on plant intelligence by interweaving poetry, personal stories, scientific findings and spiritual insights, sometimes within the same entry. Authors Jeremy Narby and Prudence Gibson invite us to “vegetalize” our thinking as well as our writing, while Alex Gearin warns of the dangers of projecting human intentions onto the radical otherness that constitutes the plant mind, lest we “reckless sorcerers of the Anthropocene” leave the world a sadder place. Equal parts herbal manual and alchemical spell book, this beautifully illustrated volume will appeal to scientists, shamans and poets alike. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><b>Join the editors for a conversation on <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/on-the-minds-of-plants-with-john-c-ryan-patricia-vieira-monica-gagliano-tickets-202629910517" target="_blank">December 15th</a> at 1 PM PST. </b></i></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KFAxPDwDnHQ/Ybea9W1rtsI/AAAAAAAALJE/kzxtqfULR84u2msEt8Lpz8mMz3GmBfkRgCNcBGAsYHQ/s2754/Mind%2Bof%2BPlants%2Bbook%2Bcover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2754" data-original-width="1780" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KFAxPDwDnHQ/Ybea9W1rtsI/AAAAAAAALJE/kzxtqfULR84u2msEt8Lpz8mMz3GmBfkRgCNcBGAsYHQ/w259-h400/Mind%2Bof%2BPlants%2Bbook%2Bcover.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">-----</span></p><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-67097308913314307842021-11-19T09:58:00.519-05:002021-12-13T15:02:35.910-05:00Women Have Hair, Men Have Nicknames: Remembering Jay Dautcher<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">When I first created this blog ten years ago, I had trouble deciding on a name for it. So I called Jay Dautcher, my multi-talented polyglot musician-climber-anthropologist friend and fellow Berkeley anthropology Ph.D. who had been my go-to title crisis counselor for years. We had a long brainstorming session over Skype (back when that was a thing), and after he had grilled and goaded me for almost an hour about my vision for the site, and mercilessly shot down all of my corny, half-baked title suggestions, somehow the name of Dostoevsky came up and he suddenly blurted out "Notes from the Ethnoground." </span><br />
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<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I said, "Jay, that's it! You're a genius."</span><br />
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<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And the rest, so they say, is history.</span><br />
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<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Jay Todd Dautcher was indeed a genius, and he left this world, tragically young and still in peak physical and mental condition, just over three years ago, victim of a uniquely severe allergic reaction caused by a rare immune system disease known as systemic mastocytosis that he himself, in typical Jay fashion, correctly diagnosed after months of inconclusive medical testing and his own obsessive online research. </span><div><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q7X5DIkuUeM/Yaj4wuU_WEI/AAAAAAAALIE/_-Fc3Rm6VvYl1QN8HUEd0R6Oa4KpXmzoACNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Jay%2BSanta%2BCruz%2BIMG_7958.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q7X5DIkuUeM/Yaj4wuU_WEI/AAAAAAAALIE/_-Fc3Rm6VvYl1QN8HUEd0R6Oa4KpXmzoACNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/Jay%2BSanta%2BCruz%2BIMG_7958.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Jay on the beach near his home in Santa Cruz, 2018. Photo: Lyn Jefferey.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Jay was a child prodigy. He finished high school a year early and went on to take college-level math and science courses as well as foreign languages in Switzerland. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1985 with a degree in physics, and from there pursued a Master's in physics in China (and in Chinese!) at Peking University. Yet in the end, his passion for languages and cultural immersion outstripped his natural talent for math and science. He left the hard sciences for the social sciences, continuing his studies in China and getting a Master's Degree in Folklore at Beijing Normal University in 1991. </span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Jay was a great lover of music and a talented musician in his own right. He played guitar and sang at bars around Beijing, where he met and befriended a number of <a href="https://music.apple.com/us/album/folk-music-of-china-vol-18-folk-songs-of-the-uyghur-peoples/1588953811" target="_blank">prominent folk musicians</a>, notably Uyghur artist <a href="https://www.livingmythologies.com/single-post/alimjans-tambur-solo" target="_blank">Alimjan Tursun</a> from Xinjiang in western China. Alimjan later achieved international recognition for his perfomance of traditional music in the Oscar-winning film <i><a href="http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/101658.htm" target="_blank">Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</a></i>. </span><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZLLqcQNLq9Y/YajsL_SnfSI/AAAAAAAALGw/E6YekRussIsVQwEjFA9nv7g8QwMZJJeuQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1024/Jay%2BLake%2BKarakul%2B1990s.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="1024" height="434" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZLLqcQNLq9Y/YajsL_SnfSI/AAAAAAAALGw/E6YekRussIsVQwEjFA9nv7g8QwMZJJeuQCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h434/Jay%2BLake%2BKarakul%2B1990s.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>Jay at Lake Karakul in Xinjiang ca. 1995. Photo: Eric Karchmer, courtesy of Lyn Jefferey.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Already fluent in Chinese after living and studying in China for five years, Jay began traveling in Xinjiang and learning Uyghur, the Turkic language spoken by this Muslim ethnic group that has long suffered under Han Chinese domination. </span>In 1991, he entered the Ph.D. program in anthropology at U.C. Berkeley (a year after I did) where he studied under the legendary folklore scholar <a href="http://folklore.berkeley.edu/gift" target="_blank">Alan Dundes</a>. As part of his dissertation fieldwork,<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"> he</span> entered Xinjiang University in Urumqi to study the Uyghur language formally. <span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">With his tireless drive and prodigal language skills, he become fluent in Uyghur as well. </span></div><div>
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<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">With our shared interest in languages, travel and acoustic music, it was inevitable that Jay and I would become friends. I will never forget sunny days sitting in the eucalyptus grove along Strawberry Creek on the Berkeley campus, Jay with his Martin D-28 and I with my banjo, picking away at bluegrass classics, bossa nova, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXttjHlVBxI" target="_blank">swing tunes</a> and the occasional <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B_DfXKSnvhM/" target="_blank">Charlie Parker bebop</a> standard. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L_Bt2EhaWyQ/X1EHNxPGo-I/AAAAAAAAKsQ/PJi7NbMxTvgjA7XGvuyHX47i2o_3yU8PgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Jay-GuitarSmile_Berkeley-1995-Lele%2527sGraduationBarbecue-10.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="891" data-original-width="582" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L_Bt2EhaWyQ/X1EHNxPGo-I/AAAAAAAAKsQ/PJi7NbMxTvgjA7XGvuyHX47i2o_3yU8PgCLcBGAsYHQ/w261-h400/Jay-GuitarSmile_Berkeley-1995-Lele%2527sGraduationBarbecue-10.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Pickin' and grinnin' (and Wild Turkey). Berkeley, 1995. Photo: Maria N.F. da Silva.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div>Jay's mind never stopped, and yet his body was never far behind. As he reinvented himself intellectually and professionally, time and time again over the years, he also maintained himself in prime physical condition through weight training and rock climbing. In his youth, he accompanied mountaineering legend <a href="https://www.climbing.com/people/the-father-of-chattanooga-traditional-climbing-rob-robinson/" target="_blank">Rob Robinson</a> in discovering the "Tennessee Wall" near Chattanooga for climbers in the mid-1980s. Jay made a number of first ascents on routes that still bear his name, and of course his creative titles such as <a href="https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105892674/finger-lockin-good" target="_blank">"Finger Lockin' Good"</a> and <a href="https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105888375/jay-walker" target="_blank">"Jay Walker."</a> </span><br />
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<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">After finishing his Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1999, Jay went on to a post-doctoral position at Harvard, where he began work on his pioneering book about the Uyghur people, <i><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674032828" target="_blank">Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China</a></i> (Harvard University Press: 2009). </span><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Being one of the few fluent American speakers of Uyghur in the U.S. in the early 2000s, Jay was called upon by public defense attorneys to translate for a number of Uyghur prisoners at Guantanamo Bay detention camp who had been captured during the U.S. war in Afghanistan. A total of 22 Uyghur were captured and detained despite being unarmed and not apparently involved in hostilities against the U.S. The last <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/15/china/china-xinjiang-guantanamo-uyghurs-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank">Uyghur captives</a> were finally released only in 2013 after more than ten years of imprisonment. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LBtsSzQl8QU/X1EMEPaWtpI/AAAAAAAAKsg/b6JBWD96gOE3dNgUYmi8Scxa7MWQuCxcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/JayUyghur%2BGitmo%2BCROP_IMG_6995.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1044" data-original-width="1600" height="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LBtsSzQl8QU/X1EMEPaWtpI/AAAAAAAAKsg/b6JBWD96gOE3dNgUYmi8Scxa7MWQuCxcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h260/JayUyghur%2BGitmo%2BCROP_IMG_6995.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Jay's notes from his visit to Guantanamo.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Jay was a brilliant and <a href="https://lynjeffery.wixsite.com/dautcher/post/jay-dautcher-memorial-fund" target="_blank">acclaimed scholar,</a> and he landed the most coveted position in the entire United States in the field of folklore at the University of Pennsylvania in 2001. Yet he walked away from this dream job a few years later and moved to</span> Santa Cruz, California, to be with the love of his life, Lynn Jeffery, and her son Ethan, whom he raised as his own. </div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The academic grind was ultimately too narrow for Jay's warp-speed mind and voracious curiosity. After leaving academia, he held numerous jobs and consulting positions in translation, <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1559-8918.2010.00002.x" target="_blank">industrial ethnography</a> and data analysis, working for a telescope manufacturing company based in China, a medical facility in the Midwest, Ricoh electronics and the "TurboTax" parent company, Intuit. </span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">During the last three years of his life, Jay returned to his roots in the hard sciences, reinventing himself once again as a data scientist. He spent a year <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-dautcher-ba788a/" target="_blank">teaching himself machine learning</a> and then immediately landed a job at one of Silicon valley's top internet security firms. </span>Throughout these permutations and reinventions, Jay was also an avid amateur inventor, and spent years creating designs for a "fish suit" that would allow people to swim with greater mechanical efficiency. </div><div>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">As a consummate folklorist, Jay amassed vast collections of jokes, sayings, scams, folk songs and urban legends in Uyghur as well as Chinese. I remember one particular Uyghur saying that was important to his research into masculine identity: "Women have hair, men have nicknames." The saying refers to male joking practices among the Uyghur, a major focus of one chapter in his book. Uyghur boys receive nicknames, usually in reference to some embarrassing childhood incident that haunts them for the rest of their lives. Just as hair for women represents an intimate part of their social identity that must be hidden from all but their closest relations, men's nicknames are also a reflection of both intimacy and danger. Or to put it in another way, that which is dearest to us can also be our greatest vulnerability. </span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">As someone who always maintained both his body and mind in top condition through rigorous</span> exercise and constant intellectual challenges, it was a sad irony that he was ultimately felled by the excessive vigor of his immune system, rather than by any weakness of it. My youngest son, who shares the same birthday with Jay, also coincidentally suffered from a mysterious and <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/02/three-cheers-for-periwinkle-ethnobotany.html" target="_blank">exceedingly rare immune system disease</a> as a child.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YGzpH12I3o/YajtSiBDmBI/AAAAAAAALG4/E2unimH_MAQlsWJxeoLEfusEP-wkBfTrQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1152/JayLucasGuitar2002_0706.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1152" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YGzpH12I3o/YajtSiBDmBI/AAAAAAAALG4/E2unimH_MAQlsWJxeoLEfusEP-wkBfTrQCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/JayLucasGuitar2002_0706.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>Jay with my eldest son in 2002.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Another favorite Uyghur saying of Jay's was, "If you have teeth, eat meat!", an exhortation to live and enjoy life to one's fullest capacity. There is no question that Jay lived up to that motto. Though he spent his grad-school days subsisting on a minimalist diet based on the principal of time efficiency, his life with Lyn and Ethan inspired him to become a creative, and of course studious and prolific chef. </span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">During his last few years, and inspired by his adopted son Ethan, Jay got turned on to mycology. L</span>ike everything else in his life, Jay did not take to this new hobby casually. He enrolled in mushroom workshops with the famous Santa Cruz-based mycologist, <a href="https://vimeo.com/24319613" target="_blank">David Arora</a>. He made frequent mushroom hunting expeditions in the woods near his house and throughout the Santa Cruz mountains, occasionally sending me scale photos of his latest finds. He studied, learned and obsessively documented the full suite of fungi in the region, and discovered dozens of secret, reliable spots to gather favorite species to cook for his family. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8vUKDqHMSPU/Yajx2WWkIKI/AAAAAAAALHk/l7hRCga4YoIkg8ErodtmLYO4EJePx2KKACNcBGAsYHQ/s2679/Jay%2BMushroom%2BSeries.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="2679" height="280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8vUKDqHMSPU/Yajx2WWkIKI/AAAAAAAALHk/l7hRCga4YoIkg8ErodtmLYO4EJePx2KKACNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h280/Jay%2BMushroom%2BSeries.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">The last jar of porcini: September, 2018.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Though we talked occasionally on Skype, I hadn't seen Jay in person since 2008. We both suffered <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/160518-manu-park-peru-matsigenka-tribe-death-jaguar" target="_blank">life-threatening illness episodes</a> in 2015-2016, and decided it was time to see each other again soon. The last time we spoke, around May of 2018, I had finalized my plans </span>to attend the upcoming American Anthropological Association meetings in nearby San José that November. We eagerly plotted out a busy itinerary of music, hiking, rock climbing, bonfires on the beach, a Thanksgiving mushroom extravaganza, and otherwise enjoying the scenery, the coffee shops and one another's company.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead I found myself in Santa Cruz in mid-September, stunned and in shock alongside family, co-workers, and friends both old and new, attending an inspiring and poignant memorial service, a month after his death and just two months before his 55th birthday. That night, Lyn and a few friends and I made <i>risotto al funghi</i> out of the last remnants of a jar of dried porcini mushrooms he had gathered the previous Spring. </div><div><br /></div><div>There is nothing quite like the bittersweet experience of cooking, savoring and consuming the fragrant harvest of a beloved friend who has departed the world so recently, and so prematurely. Grok?</div><div><br /></div><div>In memory of his contribution to this web log from its very inception, ten years ago, and to his inimitable genius and our years of friendship, sadly cut short, I dedicate this posting to Jay, on what would have been his 58th birthday. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">"Hallelujah, done my duty, put on my travelin' shoes"</span></i></b></td></tr></tbody></table></b></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-n2VHSBeck/YZ-jgIxZDpI/AAAAAAAAK_Q/PiAXpV7gCXUZfUs82oa-ozgG5hPS959NQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1920/Jay%2Bout.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1504" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-n2VHSBeck/YZ-jgIxZDpI/AAAAAAAAK_Q/PiAXpV7gCXUZfUs82oa-ozgG5hPS959NQCLcBGAsYHQ/w314-h400/Jay%2Bout.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Jay Todd Dautcher: November 19, 1963 - August 4, 2018.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></b></div><div><div><b><i> -----</i></b></div></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">Jay's family created a </span><a href="https://lynjeffery.wixsite.com/dautcher" style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;" target="_blank">website of memories and stories</a><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"> for those who wish to learn or share more about his remarkable life.<br /></span></i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><i><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">Jay's friend and fellow Xinjiang expert </span><a href="https://hls.indiana.edu/faculty/bovingdon-gardner.html" style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;" target="_blank">Gardner Bovington</a><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"> receives donations for the </span><a href="https://lynjeffery.wixsite.com/dautcher/post/jay-dautcher-memorial-fund" style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;" target="_blank">Jay Dautcher Memorial Fund</a><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"> supporting young scholars in the field of Uyghur studies at Indiana University.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></b></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></div></div></div></div></div>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-37846032551519067242021-06-21T17:05:00.010-04:002021-06-22T10:15:56.583-04:00 A wildcat doesn’t change its spots: Gold mining on Indigenous lands in Bolsonaro’s Brazil<p>A shootout on May 10 between Yanomami Indigenous people and heavily armed illegal miners in Roraima state, Brazil, left three miners and <a href="https://ssb.org.br/noticias/duas-criancas-yanomami-aparecem-mortas-depois-de-ataque-de-garimpeiros/" target="_blank">two Yanomami children</a> dead. Since then, invaders have returned by boatloads, firing on community members and even <a href="https://g1.globo.com/rr/roraima/noticia/2021/05/13/exercito-deixa-regiao-de-conflito-e-garimpeiros-atiram-mais-uma-vez-contra-comunidade-na-terra-yanomami.ghtml" target="_blank">Federal Police agents</a>. Emboldened by Jair Bolsonaro’s election to the Brazilian presidency in 2018, wildcat gold miners have invaded federally protected Indigenous lands with impunity, knowing that the president has their back. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pW9dG30g4Js/YNDxRX0RXrI/AAAAAAAAK4o/cOk5Q1vjShQkPiHreMPX-T35fe3HwkdgACLcBGAsYHQ/s1300/Gold%2BMining%2BYanomami.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="1300" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pW9dG30g4Js/YNDxRX0RXrI/AAAAAAAAK4o/cOk5Q1vjShQkPiHreMPX-T35fe3HwkdgACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h240/Gold%2BMining%2BYanomami.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;">Illegal mining on Yanomami lands has altered the course of rivers: photo <a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br/noticias-socioambientais/audios-de-garimpeiros-apontam-para-faccao-armada-e-risco-de-massacre-na-terra-yanomami" target="_blank">Instituto Socioambiental</a></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Bolsonaro has always had a soft spot for gold miners. During his presidential campaign in 2018, Bolsonaro bragged about driving around with a kit of sieves in the trunk of his car so he could stop whenever he wanted to pan for gold. <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/11/05/passado-garimpeiro-bolsonaro/" target="_blank">“Mining is addictive, it runs in the blood,”</a> he stated, referring to his father, Percy Geraldo Bolsonaro, who joined over 100,000 wildcat miners in the notorious gold rush at Serra Pelada in the Amazonian state of Pará in the 1980s. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K6Geh1Axbfo/YNHpC0gXQkI/AAAAAAAAK5Q/JPPbzHzK7w8iYKljbKai3-T7JCo7BtwJwCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/serra%2Bpelada%2Bsebastiao%2Bsalgado.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K6Geh1Axbfo/YNHpC0gXQkI/AAAAAAAAK5Q/JPPbzHzK7w8iYKljbKai3-T7JCo7BtwJwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h268/serra%2Bpelada%2Bsebastiao%2Bsalgado.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;">Bolsonaro's father participated in the <a href="https://theincubator.live/2016/11/29/sebastiao-salgado-the-hell-of-serra-pelada/" target="_blank">"Hellish" devastation</a> at Serra Pelada in the 1980s: photo by Sebastião Salgado</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p>A year after winning the election, Bolsonaro invited miners from Serra Pelada to the presidential palace, reminiscing about “happier” times for miners during Brazil’s two-decade-long military dictatorship and making the widely criticized and <a href="https://debatecarajas.com.br/bolsonaro-recebe-garimpeiros-e-ouve-pedido-de-apoio-militar/" target="_blank">crude remark</a>, “Interest in the Amazon isn’t about the Indians or the f***ing trees. It’s about mining."</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yl288h4aOvE/YNDy7cctu_I/AAAAAAAAK4w/Wkez_5S6R54MT6b4yvhdNo_EAYyS0vWWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s540/bolsonaro-garimpeiros.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="304" data-original-width="540" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yl288h4aOvE/YNDy7cctu_I/AAAAAAAAK4w/Wkez_5S6R54MT6b4yvhdNo_EAYyS0vWWQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/bolsonaro-garimpeiros.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><a href="https://debatecarajas.com.br/bolsonaro-recebe-garimpeiros-e-ouve-pedido-de-apoio-militar/" target="_blank">"It's about mining"</a></b></span> </td></tr></tbody></table><p>Bolsonaro’s frequent derogatory comments about Indigenous land titling, his systematic rollback of environmental policing and his promises of a <a href="https://noticias.uol.com.br/politica/ultimas-noticias/2019/10/03/bolsonaro-promete-carta-branca-a-garimpeiros-e-cita-roubo-de-ouro-em-sp.htm" target="_blank">“blank check”</a> for miners fueled a massive surge in illegal mining on Indigenous lands throughout Brazil, even as the <a href="https://www.bnamericas.com/en/features/rise-in-illegal-mining-ups-pressure-on-brazils-environmental-policy" target="_blank">coronavirus pandemic</a> threatened vulnerable Indigenous populations. The invasion of the Yanomami Indigenous Lands by tens of thousands of illegal miners helped spread the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed over <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/29/illegal-goldminers-brazil-indigenous-communities-garimpeiros-aoe" target="_blank">20 Yanomami people</a> (out of a total population of 20,000) while increasing deforestation by <a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/en/noticias-socioambientais/scars-in-the-forest-illegal-gold-mining-advanced-30-in-the-yanomami-indigenous-land-in-2020" target="_blank">30% in just one year.</a> </p><p>Health studies among the Munduruku people of Pará state showed that 60% exhibited <a href="https://portal.fiocruz.br/noticia/estudo-analisa-contaminacao-por-mercurio-entre-o-povo-indigena-munduruku" target="_blank">unsafe levels of mercury</a> that has been introduced to the food chain by illegal miners. Nonetheless, Bolsonaro’s pro-business environmental minister Ernesto Salles has intervened <a href="https://g1.globo.com/natureza/noticia/2020/08/06/defesa-suspende-acoes-de-combate-aos-garimpos-ilegais-em-terra-indigena-apos-visita-de-salles.ghtml" target="_blank">in support of illegal mining</a> operations in the region. More recently, Minister Salles has become implicated in an international investigation over <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazilian-minister-in-charge-of-protecting-amazon-is-investigatedfor-illegal-lumber-exports-11621444926" target="_blank">illegal lumber exports </a>from Brazil to Europe and the US.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fqbit6VFORk/YNDzoy1-uzI/AAAAAAAAK44/VbQAyeUmE2gopNMYvpYM0g91PCS5wwM9wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1191/Munduruku-mining.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1191" height="224" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fqbit6VFORk/YNDzoy1-uzI/AAAAAAAAK44/VbQAyeUmE2gopNMYvpYM0g91PCS5wwM9wCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h224/Munduruku-mining.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>Mining in Munduruku lands has fueled an epidemic of <a href="https://brazilian.report/environment/2021/05/25/malaria-mercury-miners-munduruku-indigenous/" target="_blank">mercury contamination.</a></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 does not forbid mining on Indigenous lands. Rather, it stipulates that mining will only be permitted after the passage of <a href="https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/Brazilian_Constitution" target="_blank">regulatory legislation </a>by Congress, which would include congressional hearings with affected Indigenous communities and the formalization of agreements on benefit sharing. </p><p>Even before Bolsonaro’s time, Indigenous communities in different regions had considered the possibility of sustainable mining projects. However, experiences with informal mining prior to Indigenous land demarcation highlighted <a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br/noticias-socioambientais/foirn-promove-debate-sobre-condicoes-de-mineracao-nas-terras-indigenas-na-regiao-do-rio-negro-am" target="_blank">numerous risks,</a> while calling into question the ability of governmental agencies to carry out proper oversight. There are currently over 4,000 requests for mining concessions that would affect nearly <a href="https://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,mineracao-pode-atingir-13-das-areas-indigenas-do-pais,70002954990" target="_blank">a third of Brazil’s Indigenous lands</a> if such legislation were to be passed.</p><p>As soon as Bolsonaro consolidated majority control over both of Brazil’s congressional houses in February of 2021, his government announced a list of <a href="https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/brazils-bolsonaro-renews-push-to-allow-mining-on-indigenous-lands" target="_blank">legislative priorities</a> that included the legalization of mining on Indigenous lands. Bolsonaro has met personally with minority <a href="https://observatoriodamineracao.com.br/bolsonaro-and-funai-pressure-indigenous-leaders-for-mining/" target="_blank">pro-mining voices</a> among some Indigenous communities in order to move this agenda forward.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2oMTo_LLjOc/YND0kJ95P3I/AAAAAAAAK5A/HrwQis5W9R0sJM8QcNn-P46MvDRjYwGsACLcBGAsYHQ/s1280/Kayapo%2BBolsonaro.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="1280" height="193" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2oMTo_LLjOc/YND0kJ95P3I/AAAAAAAAK5A/HrwQis5W9R0sJM8QcNn-P46MvDRjYwGsACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h193/Kayapo%2BBolsonaro.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>Bolsonaro has met with <a href="https://brasilamazoniaagora.com.br/em-reuniao-fora-agenda-jair-bolsonaro-incentiva-liderancas-pressionar-por-mineracao-em-terra-indigena/" target="_blank">Indigenous leaders</a> to promote mining as an economic alternative</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Even though Bolsonaro touts himself as a crusader for Indigenous peoples’ rights to benefit from the development of mineral and other resources on their lands, a recent <a href="https://www.escolhas.org/wp-content/uploads/Relatório-Qual-o-real-impacto-socioeconomico-da-exploração-de-ouro-e-diamantes-na-Amazonia-.pdf" target="_blank">comparative study</a> of data from municipal authorities throughout Brazil has concluded that gold and diamond mining operations do not bring about lasting improvements to socioeconomic indicators, but rather “leave the region poor, sick and lacking in education”.</p><p>Growing criticisms of Bolsonaro’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 500,000 Brazilians, has weakened his political position. An open admirer of former U.S. president Trump, Bolsonaro is also facing pushback from the Biden administration for his <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/541154-biden-brazil-and-the-amazon" target="_blank">lax attitude towards deforestation</a> and forest fires in the Amazon. </p><p>Just before the Global Climate Summit in April, Bolsonaro wrote president Biden promising to end deforestation in the Amazon, apparently eager to cinch a billion dollar aid deal. Brazilian indigenous leaders <a href="https://www.cartacapital.com.br/sustentabilidade/nao-confie-em-bolsonaro-diz-campanha-da-apib-direcionada-a-joe-biden/]" target="_blank">warned Biden</a> not to trust such disingenuous overtures. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lp5keYyOe0M/YND2xYPSvUI/AAAAAAAAK5I/14E01ZEcYL4yw7ISIgEn4VFz-r3Wh3-iQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1086/Bolsonaro%2BSalles.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="1086" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lp5keYyOe0M/YND2xYPSvUI/AAAAAAAAK5I/14E01ZEcYL4yw7ISIgEn4VFz-r3Wh3-iQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h240/Bolsonaro%2BSalles.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><a href="https://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/ao-lado-de-bolsonaro-ministro-anuncia-novo-modelo-para-acompanhar-desmatamento-23848054">Bolsonaro and Salles</a> announce measures to monitor deforestation</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The economic devastation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil as well as Bolsonaro’s falling popularity in 2022 election polls put the Biden administration in a strong position to seek major concessions for any cash-for-conservation deal. High on that list should be reining in illegal incursions and withdrawing the legislative bid to legalize mining on indigenous lands.</p><p>After over a month of inaction from federal authorities, the Brazilian Supreme Court has finally mandated the immediate <a href="https://apiboficial.org/2021/06/21/por-unanimidade-stf-determina-imediata-protecao-para-povo-munduruku-e-yanomami/" target="_blank">removal of illegal miners</a> from Yanomami and other indigenous lands. It remains to be seen whether this judicial victory will bring about meaningful enforcement, or whether it will only further embolden president Bolsonaro and the wildcat miners he has so vociferously supported.</p><p style="text-align: center;">-----</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>This text is the full and updated version of my letter in </i>Nature Correspondence<i>, first published in abbreviated form on </i><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01522-w" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">June 8</a><i>. </i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div><br /></div>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-91500950870150160142021-04-27T10:21:00.007-04:002021-04-27T10:47:55.977-04:00Unlikely Blessings: A poem on hope, despair and periwinkle<p> <i>This poem, written fifteen years ago as my youngest son began (thankfully successful) chemotherapy for a rare immune system disease, was recently published for the first time by </i><a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/unlikely-blessings-glenn-h-shepard-jr/" target="_blank">Sapiens</a><i>.</i></p><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HHNYvlKqpso/YIgMStYHmmI/AAAAAAAAK1g/--IUyYUP5JIoZMZBL7lId8-op0qN-B6FgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1152/Vinca%2B2006%2BDSC05997%2Badj.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1152" height="291" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HHNYvlKqpso/YIgMStYHmmI/AAAAAAAAK1g/--IUyYUP5JIoZMZBL7lId8-op0qN-B6FgCLcBGAsYHQ/w388-h291/Vinca%2B2006%2BDSC05997%2Badj.jpg" width="388" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b>"Salvation can be danger thinly veiled"</b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><div><b><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /></span></b></div><div><b>
<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Unlikely Blessings</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Peace can be a sky-blue hospice with daffodils</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>a grave green lawn for innocents</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>bald and serene as Buddhist monks</div><div><br /></div><div>Happiness can be written in Chinese</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>on a decal clinging to a jade bar of soap</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>at the visitors’ sink</div><div><br /></div><div>Beauty can be simple and fragile as children laughing</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>the play of skin and shadow</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>under the unknowing sun</div><div><br /></div><div>Fate can be exactly the size and shape of an olive</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>diagnosis or misdiagnosis</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>a surgeon squinting over a slide</div><div><br /></div><div>Salvation can be danger thinly veiled</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>caustic milk of the periwinkle</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>halfway from malignant to benign</div><div><br /></div><div>Faith can be a near empty chapel</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>waiting for you to get desperate enough</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>to sing with the others Ha-ha-hallelujah</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div><div>Hope can be the worst kind of houseguest</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>hanging between the quick and the damned</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>counting unlikely blessings</div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">-----</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><i>Listen to my reading of the poem at </i><a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/unlikely-blessings-glenn-h-shepard-jr/" target="_blank">Soundcloud</a>.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><i>Learn more about the composition of this poem, and how it was inspired by the work of Paul Celan, at </i><a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/unlikely-blessings-glenn-h-shepard-jr/" target="_blank">Sapiens</a><i>.</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><i>See my previous blog post about my son's chemotherapy with vinblastine, a cancer-treating drug derived from traditional medicine: <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/02/three-cheers-for-periwinkle-ethnobotany.html" target="_blank">"</a></i><i><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/02/three-cheers-for-periwinkle-ethnobotany.html" target="_blank">Three Cheers for Periwinkle!"</a></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><i>Read the prize-winning poem "<a href="https://www.sapiens.org/language/world-poetry-day-fish-trap/" target="_blank">The Fish Trap"</a> featured last year by </i>Sapiens<i> for <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/language/anthropological-poems/" target="_blank">World Poetry Day</a>.</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;"><b><i>Read my coronavirus haiku, "<a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/03/yellow-jessamine-coronavirus-haiku.html" target="_blank">Yellow Jessamine."</a> </i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><br />Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-90215664521011834962020-07-27T22:44:00.004-04:002023-09-14T09:06:38.056-04:00"The Camera is our Weapon": Kayapó video warriors featured in new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">The Kayapó (Mebengôkrê) people of Brazil are living proof of the resistance and adaptability of Indigenous cultures. </span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">A <a href="https://archaeology.columbia.edu/kayapovideowarriors/" target="_blank">new exhibit</a> at the</span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span>American Museum of Natural History<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> </span></span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">in New York highlights the dynamism and creativity of this warrior tribe, and their historical struggle to preserve their lands and culture. </span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Originally inhabiting the dry savannahs of central Brazil, the Kayapó were pushed farther north and west by Portuguese invaders, ultimately moving into the Amazon basin hundreds of miles from their ancestral homelands. In order to survive in this new environment, the </span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Kayapó had to conquer, capture and appropriate new lands, technologies and knowledge from their enemies and retool them for their own ends. The Kayapó people maintain this warrior heritage through the present day, as they have seized on <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/04/miss-kayapo-filming-through-mebengokre.html" target="_blank">video cameras</a>, <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/01/indigenous-engagement-with-digital-and.html" target="_blank">international media</a> visibility and even "<a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/06/kaya-pop-brave-new-world-of-indigenous.html" target="_blank">Kaya-pop music</a>" to broadcast their voices and defend their culture.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Self-portrait of video warrior <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bepunumebengokre/" target="_blank">Bepunu Kayapó</a>, July 2020.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">The exhibit is centered on a striking self-portrait of Kayapó warrior Bepunu in full ritual regalia gazing back at the spectator armed with a video camera. This image creates a dialog with an existing exhibit case in the American Museum's Hall of South American Indians that contains a mannequin depicting a Kayapó warrior brandishing a traditional war club. During the course of creating the exhibit, I was able to locate Kubei, a Kayapó activist who had visited the American Museum in 1990 in the company of anthropologist Terence Turner. Kayapó film maker Pat-I recorded an <a href="https://vimeo.com/418771145" target="_blank">interview with Kubei</a> in March of 2020, especially for this exhibit, in which he reflects on his visit to New York 30 years ago, describes his reaction to meeting his Kayapó "friend" (his name for the mannequin) and</span><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> responds to how Kayapó culture was displayed at the museum. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Above: Kayapó activists Kubei and Tapiet visited the American Museum in 1990 and gifted their Kayapó "friend" with a feather headdress and other body ornaments that remain in the exhibit case to this day (photo: American Museum library). Below: the Kayapó warrior mannequin at the American Museum (photo: David Harvey). </b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">The exhibit was designed by a group of graduate students at Columbia University's <a href="https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/ma-museum-anthropology" target="_blank">Museum Anthropology program</a> in collaboration with American Museum curator Laurel Kendall, exhibit designer David Harvey and other American Museum staff as part of an annual practical course that invites outside specialists like myself to help develop a new exhibit case every Spring. Because of the COVID pandemic, installation of the physical case was postponed, and instead we prepared an <a href="https://archaeology.columbia.edu/kayapovideowarriors/" target="_blank">online version</a> that includes a <a href="https://skfb.ly/6SuvW" target="_blank">3D virtual reality visualization</a> of the actual exhibit case containing various Kayapó cultural objects. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Virtual reality <a href="https://archaeology.columbia.edu/kayapovideowarriors/" target="_blank">3D visualization</a> of the exhibit case</b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">The online exhibit includes a series of </span><a href="https://vimeo.com/gshepardjr" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;" target="_blank">short films</a><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> made by Kayapó film makers, an </span><a href="https://archaeology.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/58/2020/06/Meet-the-Kayapo-2.pdf" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;" target="_blank">activity booklet</a><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> for children as well as information and donation links regarding the impacts of the </span><a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/mebengokrekayapo-peoples-covid19-emergency-fund" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;" target="_blank">COVID-19 pandemic on the Kayapó</a><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"> and </span><a href="https://www.salsa-tipiti.org/salsa-public-issues-and-actions-committee/salsa-covid-19-taskforce/" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;" target="_blank">other indigenous peoples</a> <span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">of the Amazon. Playable audio files present the pronunciation of key Kayapó language terms and provide an example of the lively rhythms of <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/06/kaya-pop-brave-new-world-of-indigenous.html" target="_blank">"Kaya-pop"</a> music. The exhibit also features images by photojournalist </span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7a0a661c-558b-11e9-91f9-b6515a54c5b1" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;" target="_blank">Dado Galdieri</a><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">. A Portuguese translation of the exhibit website was prepared in a co-launch with the <a href="https://www.museu-goeldi.br/noticias/exposicao-digital-conta-a-historia-de-luta-dos-kayapo" target="_blank">Goeldi Museum</a> in Brazil:</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><i><b><a href="https://archaeology.columbia.edu/kayapovideowarriors/" target="_blank">The Camera is Our Weapon: Kayapó Video Warriors in the Amazon</a></b></i></span></div>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><i><b><a href="https://archaeology.columbia.edu/video-guerreiros-kayapo/" target="_blank">A Câmera é nossa Arma: Video-Guerreiros Kayapó na Amazônia</a></b></i></span></div>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Read our recent paper on Kayapó film-making in <i><b><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/714080" target="_blank">Current Anthropology</a></b></i> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Related stories from this blog: </span></div>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><i><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2011/07/might-at-museum-indigenous-groups.html" target="_blank">Might at the Museum: Indigenous groups revisit their heritage at the Goeldi Museum</a></i></span></div>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/10/between-cross-and-pleiades-missionaries.html" target="_blank"><i>Between the Cross and the Pleaides: Missionaries, museums and a Baniwa shaman's heritage</i></a></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;"><b>Special thanks to Laura Zanotti, Janet Chernela, Pat-I Kayapó and Bepunu Kayapó for their invaluable contributions to this exhibit. </b></span></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-8920628347404619332020-06-04T19:54:00.002-04:002020-06-05T08:53:22.925-04:00Fifty Shades of Green: Reflecting back on the Oscar-nominated film Embrace of the Serpent in the age of coronavirus [excerpt]<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>The tragic death from coronavirus of indigenous actor Antonio Bolivar, star of the Oscar-nominated film </i>Embrace of the Serpent<i>, has made me reflect back on all the facts the film got wrong and the truths it got right: </i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Excerpted from </i><a href="https://chacruna.net/fifty-shades-of-green/" target="_blank">Chacruna.net</a><i> </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As the lights in the cinema went down and the opening scene of Ciro Guerra’s 2015 film <i>The Embrace of the Serpent</i> began to flicker on the screen, I was primed to be blown away. The film, based loosely on the field experiences of legendary Amazon explorers <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/10/between-cross-and-pleiades-missionaries.html#more" target="_blank">Theodor Koch-Grünberg</a> and Richard Schultes, and shot on location in the Colombian Amazon with indigenous actors, was being hailed as visionary. Within the first few seconds my already high expectations of ethnographic authenticity were already surpassed. In the opening sequence, the protagonist Karamakate, whose youthful self is played by Cubeo indigenous actor Nibio Torres, brandishes a long, slender spear that buzzes like a rattle snake when shaken. As a researcher and museum curator who has worked in adjacent regions of the northwest Brazilian Amazon, I have seen identical ceremonial rattle-spears in ethnographic collections and heard them deployed in rituals. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Antonio Bolivar, the Ocaina</b></span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </b><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">indigenous </b><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">actor who played the elder version of solitary shaman Karamakate in the film, died at the end of May from coronavirus in the jungle town of Leticia, Colombia.</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cinematic representations of the Amazon have a long and dismal history of exoticism, sensationalism and pure fantasy, from <i>The Emerald Forest</i> to <i>Medicine Man</i> to <i>Anaconda</i>. At last, a popular feature film that represents Amazonian peoples accurately! And yet instants later these admittedly high hopes were dashed. When the canoe containing the German explorer “Theo” (Koch-Grünberg’s pseudonym in the movie) gets closer to the bank, Karamakate pops off the spear’s rattle-tip to reveal a blowgun which he aims menacingly at the intruder. Though indigenous peoples of the Vaupes region indeed use blowguns with curare-tipped darts for hunting, I am not aware of any culture that combines these two pieces of material into a single, interchangeable multi-purpose weapon. “Sssssss”, began the hissing sound, not of a serpent but of my rapidly deflating enchantment...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Continue reading the full article at </i><a href="https://chacruna.net/fifty-shades-of-green/">Chacruna.net</a></span></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-68899065586407585482020-05-21T18:24:00.000-04:002020-05-22T11:52:10.829-04:00Catching up with Glenn Shepard: Interview to launch benefit photography sale with Linda Matney Gallery<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>This interview launches a new partnership with <a href="https://www.lindamatneygallery.com/news/2020/5/16/catching-up-with-glenn-shepard" target="_blank">Linda Matney Gallery</a>. Proceeds from the <a href="https://www.artsy.net/linda-matney/artist/glenn-shepard" target="_blank">sale of selected photographs</a> will directly support vital health services including emergency Covid-19 prevention aid for the indigenous peoples of Manu National Park.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>1. What is your connection with the Linda Matney Gallery and John Lee Matney?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have known “Lee” since second grade and we have been friends ever since. Lee was always an avid photographer and had his own darkroom in the basement of his house. He taught me how to shoot, develop and print black and white film when I was about twelve years old. Lee’s first photos were artistic closeups of everyday objects, which his father referred to jokingly as “doorknobs.” His instinct of using the camera to look at the world in new ways was an influence on me since the very beginning.We both worked on the school newspaper and I remember he took dramatic photographs of the remarkably professional theater productions at our school’s drama department. Lee’s mother Linda was a kind and generous woman, she always had a smile on her face and a meal on her table. She had excellent taste in art and antiques, and she and my mother were dear friends. We both lost our mothers in their prime, and that has been another bond in our friendship over the years. I was happy when he opened his own gallery and named it after his mother. We went our separate ways after college, but always stayed in touch. And when Lee moved back to the Tidewater area after living many years in Athens, we renewed our friendship whenever I was home visiting my parents. We have collaborated on several creative projects over the years, including <a href="https://www.lindamatneygallery.com/news/2011/9/22/alternate-realities-exhibition-opens-october-8th.html" target="_blank">gallery exhibits</a> of my photographs and collection of ethnographic objects from the Amazon, <a href="https://veermag.com/2017/11/matney-gallery-brings-amazon-to-williamsburg/" target="_blank">fund-raising events</a> for indigenous causes and a prize-winning <a href="https://vimeo.com/21410100" target="_blank">avant-garde film</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knbzI8WBWhE/Xsb7MmT3ISI/AAAAAAAAKew/S_4-aBE5XL08exkilQLZDjWOGV6Z3qApwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/1992_Bow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1001" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knbzI8WBWhE/Xsb7MmT3ISI/AAAAAAAAKew/S_4-aBE5XL08exkilQLZDjWOGV6Z3qApwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/1992_Bow.jpg" width="436" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2011/10/hunter-in-rye-ergot-and-hunting-magic.html" target="_blank">Taking aim</a>. Manu National Park, 1992. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.artsy.net/linda-matney/artist/glenn-shepard" target="_blank"><i>Purchase the fine art print.</i></a></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>2. Give us some background about your use of photography in your work</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I am an <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">anthropologist and ethnobotanist</a>, and I have traveled and carried out fieldwork with different indigenous peoples throughout the world, including Bedouin tribes in Jordan, hill tribes of northern Thailand, Mayan peoples of southern Mexico and numerous indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. Though I have always used photography to document the scientific aspects of my work, from indigenous healing ceremonies to medicinal plants, I always saw photography as a way to express aspects of my experiences in different cultures that don’t come across in dry, scientific studies. I especially enjoy taking portraits of people that I know. A photographic subject whom you have known for years looks at the camera in a very different way than someone who is encountering a journalistic photographer for the first time. I appreciate it when this sense of trust and familiarity comes across in my photos, such that their subjects appear first and foremost as friends, companions, fellow humans who share their experiences with a knowing glance.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_3MXdYNpp0E/UwqgYj-awzI/AAAAAAAAB1o/wPG8lEYlSskAw4q2bffmY5ybONYLGKTngCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/ShanevaCushmaLowRes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="947" data-original-width="621" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_3MXdYNpp0E/UwqgYj-awzI/AAAAAAAAB1o/wPG8lEYlSskAw4q2bffmY5ybONYLGKTngCPcBGAYYCw/s640/ShanevaCushmaLowRes.jpg" width="418" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Elena. Manu National Park, 1992.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>3. Comment on how art intersects with your work and your life in Brazil and Peru.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Before the days of digital photography, I would always travel to the field with equal numbers of rolls of color and black and white film. Of course, surrounded by the lush colors of the tropical rainforest I would usually shoot up all my color film first, and then be left with only black and white for the second half of my trip. As frustrating as it was to run out of color film hundreds of miles and months away from the nearest film store, I always appreciated this forcing of black and white film upon myself when returning to develop the photos. As beautiful as the colors of the tropical rainforest are, and as useful are the chrome slides I used to present my work in the days before PowerPoint, I always found the black and white photos to have a more abstract and timeless feel to them, pushing aside all the distractions of color to get at the true essence of form, composition and <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/02/gift-of-spider-woman-spinning-weaving.html" target="_blank">human connection</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CWgphxutAe0/Xsb7nNb6z9I/AAAAAAAAKe4/hLWcAhRvNOEVWWEAnZJy_4NMZkS2zVd4wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/1992_Ayahuasca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1001" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CWgphxutAe0/Xsb7nNb6z9I/AAAAAAAAKe4/hLWcAhRvNOEVWWEAnZJy_4NMZkS2zVd4wCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/1992_Ayahuasca.jpg" width="436" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2017/09/agony-and-ecstasy-in-amazon-excerpt.html" target="_blank">Ayahuasca vine</a>. Manu National Park, 1992. </b></span><br />
<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.artsy.net/linda-matney/artist/glenn-shepard" target="_blank"><i>Purchase the fine art print.</i></a></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>4. Comment on your piece in the <i><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2015/08/09/lost-tribes-tierra-fuego/" target="_blank">New York Review of Books</a></i> about Martin Gusinde's photography in the book <i><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/08/surreal-specters-martin-gusinde-and.html" target="_blank">The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego</a></i>. What are your personal feelings about Gusinde's photographs? How does that work inspire you?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I was delighted when the <i>New York Review</i> approached me about reviewing a collection of Martin Gusinde’s ethnographic photographs published by <a href="https://thamesandhudson.com/catalog/product/view/id/3271/s/lost-tribes-of-tierra-del-fuego-9780500544464/category/2/" target="_blank">Thames & Hudson</a>. Many professional photographers don’t understand the first thing about anthropology, and most anthropologists are even worse at photography than photographers are at anthropology. Gusinde is that rare talent who was able to capture the surrealistic quality of the ritual life of native peoples of Tierra del Fuego in high-quality artistic images, while also conducting meticulous documentation of the last vestiges of their ceremonies before the people succumbed to disease and acculturation. His photographs speak to that unique dynamic of truly anthropological photography which is to capture our fundamental shared humanity while also respecting the deep and beautiful cultural differences that make human life so diverse and fascinating. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hsQGx_X-FUQ/XrIBCj9crrI/AAAAAAAAKaU/IkgDGOSZBEUfUdMRhyYruItj74_HyICrgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/YanomamiArrow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="497" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hsQGx_X-FUQ/XrIBCj9crrI/AAAAAAAAKaU/IkgDGOSZBEUfUdMRhyYruItj74_HyICrgCPcBGAYYCw/s640/YanomamiArrow.jpg" width="424" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Yanomami headman making an arrow point. <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/03/an-ax-to-grind-napoleon-chagnon.html" target="_blank">Marari River</a>, Brazil, 2004.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>You also reviewed Davi Kopenawa's book <i><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/08/surreal-specters-martin-gusinde-and.html" target="_blank"><span id="goog_242095828"></span>The Falling Sky<span id="goog_242095829"></span></a></i> for the <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/06/davi-kopenawa-voice-shaman/" target="_blank"><i>New York Review</i>.</a> Tell us about that book.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The autobiography of Yanomami shaman and philosopher Davi Kopenawa, <i>The Falling Sky</i>, is one of the great works of anthropology of the 21st century. Rather than using academic jargon, anthropologist/translator Bruce Albert takes advantage of his deep understanding of the Yanomami language and his long friendship with Davi to craft an elegant, direct, first-person narrative told in Davi’s own voice, as selected and edited from over 100 hours of audiotape that Albert had recorded over many years. The book provides a vivid account of Davi’s shamanic visions while also presenting his philosophical reflections on his own people’s world view. It also presents a passionate appeal for indigenous rights and a condemnation of the damage brought by <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/10/between-cross-and-pleiades-missionaries.html" target="_blank">missionaries</a> and <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-lessons-from-yanomami-new-york.html" target="_blank">gold miners</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>5. Comment on your own photography as art and the new works we are presenting</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I was a slow convert to digital photography, precisely because I enjoyed the luminosity of color chromes as well as the abstract quality of black and white. I was always a big fan of the alchemical magic of darkroom work, and the ability to control every square inch of the print. I didn’t buy my first digital camera until 2007 when I got back from the field and literally spent three months tracking down a lab to develop my film. But once I began to get used to the new technology, I appreciated the way digital photography takes away so many constraints imposed by film photography, from rationing your film stock to missing photos in low light settings. So I am especially excited over this new collaboration with <a href="https://www.lindamatneygallery.com/" target="_blank">Linda Matney Gallery</a> to go back to my old black and white negatives while also reworking some of my more recent digital images in monochrome.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SBDd65rVMY4/Xsb80zjeXCI/AAAAAAAAKfI/Lrp72kbX_0wLGam9tdyHPz4sbOoV9LvjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/2007Doll.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1494" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SBDd65rVMY4/Xsb80zjeXCI/AAAAAAAAKfI/Lrp72kbX_0wLGam9tdyHPz4sbOoV9LvjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/2007Doll.jpg" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Baby doll. Manu National Park, 2007.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>6. Comment on your poetry and other fiction</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">From a young age I always wanted to be a writer. I saw a career in anthropology as a way of gathering tales and adventures to write about when I get too old to travel. But even in my academic writing I try to make use of my story-telling skills to share the experience of cultural difference in a direct way that hopefully anyone could read and appreciate. I have always tried to avoid using theoretical jargon in my writing, and won a number of anthropology writing awards for this more accessible and evocative style of writing. In 2011, I became so frustrated with the straight jacket of academic jargon that I created my blog, Notes from the Ethnoground. I had submitted an article to an anthropological journal, with the explicit intention of relating indigenous concepts through stories without using abstract jargon. The article was sent back requesting precisely the kind of theoretical discussion I was hoping to avoid, so I gave up on trying to <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2011/03/chronicle-of-death-foreclosed.html" target="_blank">rework the text</a> and <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/sacred-flutes-redux-cultural-revival.html" target="_blank">began writing short posts</a> about my experiences in the field using accessible language and plenty of photos as well. In 2014, my first “ethno-fictional” short story, about a villager who <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-eye-of-needle-ethno-fictional-tale.html" target="_blank">turned into a jaguar</a>, won a prize from the Society for Anthropology and Humanism. I hope to continue writing fiction that is firmly grounded in actual cultural experiences. I also wrote lots of poetry when I was younger, and occasionally produce new poems usually based on my experiences in indigenous cultures. Recently, my poem <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-fish-trap-winning-poem-featured-by.html" target="_blank">The Fish Trap</a> was recognized by <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/language/world-poetry-day-fish-trap/" target="_blank">Sapiens.org</a> to honor World Poetry Day.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FHrnENpWypw/Xsb9FeNjwWI/AAAAAAAAKfQ/V59OTKN_G4AtlrPxDgydygUIRbXGP9HpgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/1995ForestView.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1001" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FHrnENpWypw/Xsb9FeNjwWI/AAAAAAAAKfQ/V59OTKN_G4AtlrPxDgydygUIRbXGP9HpgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/1995ForestView.jpg" width="436" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Forest overlook. Manu National Park, Peru, 1995.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>7. Tell me about how you have used your anthropological knowledge and photographic skills to help the indigenous communities where you have worked.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have always felt a deep responsibility to provide practical assistance to the indigenous communities that have been so generous and patient with me through the years. When the Discovery Channel film that I worked on, <i><a href="https://vimeo.com/11116095" target="_blank">Spirits of the Rainforest</a></i>, won two Emmys in 1993, I worked through Peruvian and New York based NGOs to hold a fund raising event that benefited the community political organizations and health post. More recently I have worked with the non-profit organization <a href="http://rainforestflow.org/" target="_blank">Rainforest Flow</a> to bring sustainable clean water, sanitation and hygiene projects to these remote communities, <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-awakening-of-waters-clean-water.html" target="_blank">transforming their health status</a>. Curiously, Nancy Santullo, director and founder of Rainforest Flow, was formerly a successful commercial photographer. For the past fifteen years, we have used our photography to document and spread the word about the project and draw attention to the health needs in these communities. We appreciate the support of Linda Matney Gallery over the years in hosting various <a href="https://veermag.com/2017/11/matney-gallery-brings-amazon-to-williamsburg/" target="_blank">fund-raising initiatives</a> for this project. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Because of this long term work in these communities, and the established relationship of trust and collaboration, Rainforest Flow is in a unique position to help prevent the <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/05/covid-19-lessons-from-yanomami-new-york.html" target="_blank">deadly Covid-19 virus</a> from entering Manu Park. I helped Rainforest Flow mobilize early communications between communities and park authorities to institute an <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/04/voluntary-isolation-in-age-of.html" target="_blank">immediate lockdown</a> even before the Peruvian government took preventative action. There are currently no Covid-19 infections in any of the native communities where we work. However indigenous high school students studying outside the reserve have been stranded far from their home villages and need food, protective equipment, medicine, information, support and transportation to a safe place to carry out their quarantine. Rainforest Flow is creating an emergency Covid-19 relief fund to continue this vital work with native communities and Manu Park authorities to maintain the quarantine and develop safe protocols for the delivery of badly needed equipment and assistance. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Safe water. Manu National Park, 2015.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Proceeds from <a href="https://www.artsy.net/linda-matney/artist/glenn-shepard" target="_blank">selected photographs sold</a> will benefit a <a href="http://rainforestflow.org/" target="_blank">community health and hygiene project</a>, including vital Covid-19 prevention, in the same native communities where these photos were taken. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>---Visit the benefit photography sale on <a href="https://www.artsy.net/linda-matney/artist/glenn-shepard" target="_blank">Artsy</a>---</b></span></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-71528253722783152502020-05-05T20:31:00.001-04:002020-05-06T13:32:46.847-04:00Covid-19: Lessons from the Yanomami [New York Times Op-Ed]<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 14.2px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>This essay, which I translated and edited from an original draft written in French by anthropologist Bruce Albert, was first published by the </i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/opinion/yanomami-covid-brazil.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a><i> on April 27.</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/pt/2020/04/27/opinion/international/covid-19-as-licoes-dos-yanomami.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>--Versão em </i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Português--</i></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Yanomami people are no strangers to fatal epidemics, and yet on April 9, many around the world were shocked to learn that Covid-19 had taken its first victim among this relatively isolated Indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest along the Brazil-Venezuela border.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Alvaney Xirixana was a 15-year-old boy from the Helepe community of the Rio Uraricoera river basin in the Brazilian state of Roraima, a region afflicted by a huge invasion of illegal gold miners. Malnourished and anemic from successive bouts of malaria, the teenager began showing characteristic respiratory symptoms in mid-March.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Illegal miners are penetrating the most remote parts of Yanomami territory, threatening villages with isolated and highly vulnerable indigenous populations. <br />Photo: <a href="https://epoca.globo.com/brasil/em-meio-covid-19-garimpo-avanca-se-aproxima-de-indios-isolados-em-roraima-24361472" target="_blank">FUNAI</a> </b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For 21 days he was admitted four times to a <span style="color: #011993;"><a href="https://amazoniareal.com.br/antes-de-testar-para-coronavirus-jovem-yanomami-recebeu-alta" target="_blank">local health care facility</a></span>, three times receiving treatment for other diseases and the fourth time being discharged. He was finally given a coronavirus test on April 3, when he was hospitalized yet again, this time in critical condition. He died six days later. A victim of the absurd negligence of local health services, he probably infected numerous other members of his community as well as health care workers during those three wasted weeks before he was tested. This appalling episode has raised the specter of a major new health disaster among the Yanomami people. And it is a warning for other Indigenous people of the Amazon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Today, we are all frightened about Covid-19. What we’re feeling is perhaps not unlike what the Yanomami have historically experienced when faced with the mysterious and lethal epidemics that our world has inflicted on them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Since their initial contacts with outsiders beginning in the 1940s, the Yanomami have lived through wave after wave of deadly viral epidemics, notably the measles and flu.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Many Yanomami still lead a semi-nomadic lifestyle, trekking through the forest to hunt, visit distant villages or relocate to areas with more abundant game. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Photo <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/03/an-ax-to-grind-napoleon-chagnon.html" target="_blank">G.H. Shepard Jr.</a> </b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The expansion of the internal colonization frontier intensified in the 1970s when Brazil’s military dictatorship opened the Perimetral Norte highway in Yanomami territory. Since the late 1980s, Yanomami lands have suffered from regular invasions by illegal gold miners, who have unleashed epidemics of malaria, flu, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #011993;"><a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br/noticias-socioambientais/pandemia-da-c" target="_blank">Over 20,000 garimperos</a></span>, or illegal miners, are currently devastating Yanomami lands. These invaders, who are nearly as numerous as the Yanomami themselves (current population 26,780),<i> </i>are most likely responsible for introducing the coronavirus to the region. Even amid the pandemic, <span style="color: #011993;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-52225713" target="_blank">illegal mining operations</a></span> have continued to expand. More generally, rainforest destruction throughout the Brazilian Amazon <span style="color: #011993;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-amazon-indigenous.html" target="_blank">has accelerated</a></span>, with deforestation alerts for the first three months of 2020 <span style="color: #011993;"><a href="https://g1.globo.com/natureza/noticia/2020/04/13/alertas-de-desmatamento-na-amazonia-crescem-5145percent-no-primeiro-trimestre-mostram-dados-do-inpe.ghtml" target="_blank">increasing 51 percent</a></span> over the same period last year.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Yanomami territories in Brazil have suffered from a massive influx of illegal miners. Photo: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/world/americas/amazon-illegal-mining.html" target="_blank">Rogerio Assis</a>.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In this context of increasing lawlessness and invasion, Indigenous people throughout Brazil face an intensified risk of infection. So far, over 80 Indigenous people in Brazil have been found to have Covid-19, and seven have died — Mr. Xirixana, three other members of different ethnic groups in the Amazon interior, as well as three residents of the city of Manaus, including an <a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br/noticias-socioambientais/uma-estrela-baniwa-a-brilhar-no-ceu" target="_blank">Indigenous health care worker</a>. Yet given the precarious state of Indigenous health care, there are most likely many more cases.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8PQ6qPch53U/XrIQJZzJ9BI/AAAAAAAAKao/rHoG0ba60UgCAAfAo9STntGeZH9l41BfACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Yanomami_GoldMining.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1051" data-original-width="1600" height="262" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8PQ6qPch53U/XrIQJZzJ9BI/AAAAAAAAKao/rHoG0ba60UgCAAfAo9STntGeZH9l41BfACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Yanomami_GoldMining.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Yanomami ethno-environmental agent inspects illegal gold mining operation. <br />Photo: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/pt/2020/04/27/opinion/international/covid-19-as-licoes-dos-yanomami.html" target="_blank">Bruno Kelly</a>.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The disease appears to be spreading quickly in poor Indigenous ghettos on the outskirts of large Amazonian cities like Manaus and Belém, which were already overburdened by an influx of Venezuelan Indigenous refugees. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on such urban Indigenous people <span style="color: #011993;"><a href="https://amazoniareal.com.br/coronavirus-amazonas-e-para-registram-quatro-casos-em-indigenas-venezuelanos-um-homem-warao-morreu/" target="_blank">has been overlooked</a></span> in the general flood of data.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The roughly <a href="https://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/P%C3%A1gina_principal" target="_blank">900,000 Indigenous people</a> are among the most vulnerable to this epidemic in Brazil. Abandoned by weak, underfunded national institutions, some Indigenous communities have taken it upon themselves to close off their villages or isolate themselves in town as best they can, suspending social and political activities and distributing prevention materials in their native languages.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Yanomami, one of the largest and most well-known Indigenous communities of the Amazon, continue to suffer from inadequate health care and a persistent climate of indifference, negligence and lawlessness concerning the invasion of their lands by miners.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9yRjzQERQPs/XrIDC9OU1uI/AAAAAAAAKac/eJ1u-2vPt6khIkZ_Ri-IBO-7aPSHnOotgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Bruce-Albert-e-Davi-Yanomamicred-Beto-Ricardo-ISA-in-Boa-Vista.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="1086" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9yRjzQERQPs/XrIDC9OU1uI/AAAAAAAAKac/eJ1u-2vPt6khIkZ_Ri-IBO-7aPSHnOotgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Bruce-Albert-e-Davi-Yanomamicred-Beto-Ricardo-ISA-in-Boa-Vista.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anthropologist Bruce Albert and Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa, co-authors of the book <i><a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-kopenawa-galaxy-review-of-falling.html" target="_blank">The Falling Sky</a></i>. Photo: Beto Ricardo/Instituto Socioambiental.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The press, the global scientific community and Indigenous peoples themselves must continue to expose such negligence and denounce violations of constitutionally guaranteed rights. And yet given the chaotic response of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to the pandemic throughout Brazil, on top of its open hostility to science, Indigenous peoples and the environment, there seems little hope of significant policy change in the short term.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But something fundamental has changed: We are all united by a tragedy that is unfolding around the world.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yanomami woman preparing for <i>Wayamo</i> <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/03/an-ax-to-grind-napoleon-chagnon.html" target="_blank">visitation ceremony</a>.<br />Photo: G.H. Shepard Jr.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We still know little about this disease. We do know that the origins of the new virus appear related to habitat destruction and the commercialization of wild animals. But we don’t yet have immunity, drugs or vaccines to stop it. We are reduced to confining ourselves at home with our families in the hope of evading infection. In some way it reminds me of the stories the Yanomami elders have told me about times when they fled to the forest in small groups to hide from the cannibalistic “Epidemic Spirit,” Xawarari.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However this time, we have become our own victims by loosing on ourselves the epidemiological consequences of this predatory hubris, just as Indigenous leaders like Yanomami shaman and philosopher <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-kopenawa-galaxy-review-of-falling.html" target="_blank">Davi Kopenawa</a> have been warning us for decades. In today’s hyper-connected industrial world, ecological imbalances or disease vectors that might once have affected only one corner of the planet now threaten us all. And perhaps now, as we are all exposed to an invisible new enemy for which we have no defenses, this harrowing experience of our <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/04/voluntary-isolation-in-age-of.html" target="_blank">shared fragility</a> may stir global society to rethink its current course.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Photo <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/03/an-ax-to-grind-napoleon-chagnon.html" target="_blank">G.H. Shepard Jr.</a></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Special thanks to Boris Muñoz for editorial input and support.</i></span><br />
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-43478840322217428122020-04-14T16:02:00.000-04:002020-04-18T00:17:31.624-04:00Coronavirus Brings Back Memories: Indigenous priest reflects on the global pandemic [excerpt]<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Justino Sarmento Rezende, a Salesian priest of the Tuyuka indigenous people from the upper Rio Negro in Brazil, reflects on the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of his people’s history. Excerpted from the interview published by <a href="https://chacruna.net/coronavirus-brings-back-memories/" target="_blank">Chacruna.net</a>.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“I was born far from the city, at ‘Jaguar-Creek’.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Whenever my father heard that a dangerous disease was coming, he took us to an even more isolated place. There, we waited until the latest news finally reached us: ‘the disease has passed’.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Justino Sarmento Rezende.<br />Photo: <a href="https://chacruna.net/coronavirus-brings-back-memories/" target="_blank">Luis Miguel Modino</a>.</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“We had no doctors or nurses to take care of us. But we were watched over constantly by our sage grandparents who performed protective ceremonies using white pitch incense to fumigate the environment, the people and their pets.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Every day the sages <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/06/agony-and-ecstasy-in-amazon-excerpt.html" target="_blank">smoked their cigars</a> and talked about what they had <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/10/between-cross-and-pleiades-missionaries.html" target="_blank">seen in their dreams</a>, what protective prayers they had composed in their nighttime meditations...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">..."They protected our lives within rays of sunlight, within the clouds.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-62HX6gR0DgQ/UJGQhE2TowI/AAAAAAAAB8M/kNygVTrstZYzmZr2mebZhzSZ3kaWMxK9ACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/CrystalsLR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-62HX6gR0DgQ/UJGQhE2TowI/AAAAAAAAB8M/kNygVTrstZYzmZr2mebZhzSZ3kaWMxK9ACPcBGAYYCw/s400/CrystalsLR.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"They protected our lives within rays of sunlight..."<br />Photo: <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/10/between-cross-and-pleiades-missionaries.html" target="_blank">G.H. Shepard Jr.</a></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“This current time with its <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/04/voluntary-isolation-in-age-of.html" target="_blank">current viruses</a>, with their own proper names, it takes me back to the past and reminds me of the wisdom of my grandparents who helped to defend life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“It reminds me of our defensive technique: <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/01/close-encounters-of-mashco-kind-fatal.html" target="_blank">fleeing from the enemy</a>, not exposing oneself, retreating to a safe place until the disease passes.”</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Interview conducted by Luis Miguel Modino for <a href="http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/78-noticias/597365-coronavirus-me-faz-lembrar" target="_blank">Instituto Humanitas Unisinos</a>, translated to the English by Glenn H. Shepard Jr. and excerpted for "Notes from the Ethnoground." Read the full interview at <a href="https://chacruna.net/coronavirus-brings-back-memories/" target="_blank">Chacruna.net</a>.</span></i></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-51148673010415122202020-04-07T21:49:00.000-04:002020-04-14T16:03:26.865-04:00Voluntary Isolation in the Age of Coronavirus<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As governments around the world decide on public health measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, indigenous peoples across the Amazon, from the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FENAMAD/posts/3224316040935409" target="_blank">Madre de Dios</a> region in Peru to the <a href="https://amazoniareal.com.br/povos-do-parque-nacional-do-xingu-decidem-ficar-em-quarentena-como-prevencao-ao-coronavirus/" target="_blank">Xingu Indigenous Park</a> in Brazil, have taken the lead by declaring self-imposed states of quarantine to avoid the introduction of this virulent new disease to their communities. While such drastic measures of social distancing are novel and challenging in our hyper-connected contemporary world, indigenous peoples have long used the strategy of <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2016/05/ceci-nest-pas-un-contacte-fetishization.html" target="_blank">“voluntary isolation”</a> to protect themselves from the immunological and existential threats of European colonization. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>The <a href="https://upperamazon.org/oil-and-gas-exploration-in-the-yurua-threatens-voluntarily-isolated-tribes/" target="_blank">Chitonahua people</a> spent decades fleeing from intruders until they were forcefully contacted by Peruvian loggers in the late 1990s, losing about half their population to new diseases. Photo: G.H. Shepard Jr. (1997).</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Indigenous peoples of lowland South America have contributed to global health with important <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/source-our-cures-new-pharmaceutical-company-wants-provide" target="_blank">biomedical compounds</a> derived from plant medicines such as quinine, curare, ipecac and pilocarpine, as well as shamanic preparations like ayahuasca, sananga, and kambô that have attracted the attention of psychonauts and pharmaceutical researchers alike. And yet, tragically, the indigenous people of South America were also highly susceptible to introduced Old World diseases like smallpox, measles, whooping cough, and influenza that, in conjunction with violence and territorial invasion, killed some <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/diseases-columbus-brought-to-americas-2015-10" target="_blank">90-95% </a>of the original population. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LZipXb7Sez8/Wd5XsT0-qDI/AAAAAAAACuQ/GCQTmq71OwsRnWgaOP6jvB9akCEBkkZWwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Mashco_Piro_Nomole_Crop4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="1600" height="252" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LZipXb7Sez8/Wd5XsT0-qDI/AAAAAAAACuQ/GCQTmq71OwsRnWgaOP6jvB9akCEBkkZWwCPcBGAYYCw/s400/Mashco_Piro_Nomole_Crop4.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Mashco-Piro people were probably village-dwelling farmers until they were massacred by <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/01/close-encounters-of-mashco-kind-fatal.html" target="_blank">rubber tappers</a> at the turn of the 20th century. They became fully nomadic hunter-gatherers and have only entered into tentative contact with indigenous neighbors and Peruvian Health Ministry agents in the past few years. Photo: G.H. Shepard Jr. (2015).</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Especially during the so-called “Rubber Boom” at the turn of the twentieth century, rubber tappers seeking to profit from the high price of natural latex on international markets penetrated the deepest reaches of the Amazon, co-opting or enslaving indigenous people and spreading deadly diseases. To survive, some indigenous populations fled to remote regions and cut off all contact with outsiders, even their indigenous neighbors. In some cases, indigenous communities have been forced to abandon settled village life and agriculture altogether, adopting a fully <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/08/an-isolated-tribe-emerges-from-the-rain-forest" target="_blank">nomadic lifestyle</a> in the forest. Previous, at times misleading, descriptions of such groups as “uncontacted,” “Stone Age” or “hunter-gatherer” peoples implied that they were passive victims of some accident of geography or history — human societies left behind in the backwaters of human evolution. Today, scholars and indigenous protection agents have come to understand their isolation not as a natural condition, but rather, a conscious choice of <a href="https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1224&context=tipiti" target="_blank">survival and self-determination</a>. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2ss3Za_Nk0/Wd5I2N2-gSI/AAAAAAAACuA/vWstRcCWCQANgn8QMeyxg_HHzz5jhA7jgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/uncontacted_tribes_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="700" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2ss3Za_Nk0/Wd5I2N2-gSI/AAAAAAAACuA/vWstRcCWCQANgn8QMeyxg_HHzz5jhA7jgCPcBGAYYCw/s400/uncontacted_tribes_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Isolated indigenous peoples of the Amazon are increasingly threatened by the expansion of road networks, mining and oil concessions, illegal loggers and drug traffickers. Map graphic by <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/maps-reveal-how-amazon-development-closing-isolated-tribes" target="_blank">J. You / Science Magazine</a> using data from Antenor Vaz and RAISG.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The spike in burning, destruction, and invasion of the Amazon rainforest over the past few years, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/07/brazil-bolsonaro-tribes-genocide-expert-warning" target="_blank">especially in Brazil</a>, threatens all indigenous people, and <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-decade-of-contact-isolated.html" target="_blank">isolated peoples in particular</a>. The global outbreak of this highly contagious, virulent new disease poses a special danger to such immunologically vulnerable peoples. So, as people around the world hunker down in self-quarantine and follow the latest worrisome news, we are all getting a small taste of the kind of mortal panic that has motivated different indigenous peoples to isolate themselves from outsiders, in some cases, <a href="https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol16/iss1/" target="_blank">through the present</a>. We all hope, as they have, that such radical measures will save us from this deadly epidemic. Perhaps we will come through this experience with a heightened appreciation of our shared fragility. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>First published March 24, 2020, by <a href="https://chacruna.net/voluntary-isolation-in-the-age-of-coronavirus/">Chacruna.net</a></i></span></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-65345530059499846402020-03-23T14:39:00.000-04:002020-06-14T10:46:01.486-04:00Yellow Jessamine: A coronavirus haiku<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yellow jessamine</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">infects a premature Spring:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fragrant and lethal.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-BSxKWxQ90/XtabFAnDBWI/AAAAAAAAKgc/QaMStz5KbDAnDzPmAnIXy4BhieJTGe7WwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Caroline_Jessamine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-BSxKWxQ90/XtabFAnDBWI/AAAAAAAAKgc/QaMStz5KbDAnDzPmAnIXy4BhieJTGe7WwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Caroline_Jessamine.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Gelsemium sempervirens</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">, known as yellow jessamine or Carolina<br />jasmine, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">is a </span><a href="https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/home_garden/article_c9f41932-d37c-5b1d-a15f-05e848bb5b04.html" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;" target="_blank">toxic plant</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;"> with </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">alkaloids</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;"> </span><a href="https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/Gelsemine" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;" target="_blank">related to strychnine</a> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">that </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">figures </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">i</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">n </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">the plot of an </span><a href="https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/The_Yellow_Jasmine_Mystery" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: left;" target="_blank">Agatha Christie</a> </b><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">mystery and an episode of <a href="https://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/05/house-of-cards-spoilers-claire-underwood-what-poison-drug-tom-yates/" target="_blank">House of Cards</a>. </span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>March 23, 2020</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Williamsburg, Virginia</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>#CoronaHaiku at the suggestion of <a href="https://twitter.com/DAMendelsohnNYC/status/1242121921833185284" target="_blank">Daniel Mendelsohn</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>See also <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-fish-trap-winning-poem-featured-by.html" target="_blank"><b>"The Fish Trap,"</b></a> winner of <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/language/anthropological-poems/" target="_blank">Sapiens.org</a> anthropological poetry prize</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-78557066351327273522020-03-20T17:56:00.000-04:002020-06-14T10:43:20.901-04:00The Fish Trap: Winning poem featured by Sapiens.org for World Poetry Day<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><u><b>The fish trap</b></u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The fish trap is sun bleached dry half</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">buried in squeaking white</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">sand under an equatorial</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">moon that wants to walk across the black</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">mirror but instead is twice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">swallowed by river and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">clouds</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It is both an elegant and obsolete</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">thing this hybrid carcass of palm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">staves lashed with sinewy vines an incongruous</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">coil of copper wire binding some</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ancient fracture burnished</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">golden by the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">sand</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He dismembers it like some beast on a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">skewer its ribs and sinews yielding to dark</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">vegetable hands function</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">not lost but transformed as he starts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">a fire and the flattened</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">helix glows among the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ashes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The fish lie on the bank by the haul</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">net sucking at the futile night</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">air through pumping gills still</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">they watch him stunned through</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">glazing water as red</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">halos ebb behind open</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">eyes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And he feeds the last</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">of the trap to the</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">flames under a gnarled</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">pot on the beach flickering between</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">an empty village and the black</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">river under the smothered </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">moon</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Poem chosen as a winner in the 2020 <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/language/anthropological-poems/">anthropological poetry prize</a> by Sapiens.org</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Read my <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/language/world-poetry-day-fish-trap/">introduction to the poem</a> for #WorldPoetryDay</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Hear me read <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-205907545/the-fish-trap">"The Fish Trap"</a> on SoundCloud</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Thanks to Christine Weeber, Eshe Lewis, Kim Herbst and Daniel Salas for editorial input, graphic design, artwork and web design on behalf of <a href="http://sapiens.org/">Sapiens.org</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">See also <a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2020/03/yellow-jessamine-coronavirus-haiku.html" target="_blank"><b>"Yellow Jessamine,"</b> </a>a haiku for a toxic coronavirus Spring</span></div>
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<br />Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-60350131006803165052019-11-07T19:57:00.000-05:002020-04-10T21:26:50.200-04:00Amazon under Fire: A letter of protest by Brazilian scientists published by the New York Review of Books<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro stood before the United Nations in September of 2019 downplaying media reports of increasing forest fires under his administration and denouncing world-renowned indigenous leaders such as Raoni Mektuktire and Sonia Guajajara, who he claimed were being manipulated by foreign interests, the Brazilian Amazon continued to burn. Enormous fires have broken out in different parts of it as deforestation has reached levels not seen for over a decade, with an area of forest the size of Hong Kong cut down in the month of August alone. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>During the first dry season after Bolsonaro's inauguration, forest fires in the Amazon were up 80% over the previous year. Photo: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-thought-the-world-was-ending-whats-fueling-the-amazon-rainforest-fires-11567224081" target="_blank">Dado Galdieri / <i>Wall Street Journal</i></a> (2019)</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Since taking office in January of 2019, President Bolsonaro has used his powers to undermine the cultural, territorial, and human rights of indigenous peoples that are guaranteed in the Brazilian Constitution. His public statements have contributed to a climate of lawlessness and impunity, and to a tacit understanding that legislation protecting indigenous territories and other areas will not be enforced. Over the past year, indigenous lands in Brazil have seen a surge in invasion by illegal loggers, gold miners, and land speculators, and there has been an alarming increase in aggression against indigenous peoples. In early September, 2019, Maxciel Pereira dos Santos, a contractor for FUNAI, Brazil’s federal Indian agency, who had over a decade of experience protecting isolated indigenous peoples of the Javari Valley, was murdered execution-style on a busy street in the town of Tabatinga. A little over a week later, men associated with illegal loggers and hunters staged an armed attack on a FUNAI guard post in the region. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Photo: <a href="https://www.agenciajovendenoticias.org/destinazionenews-ambiente?l=en&post=16995" target="_blank">Agencia Jovem de Notícias</a> (2018)</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Scientists such as ourselves have documented how the traditional knowledge and management strategies of Amazonian indigenous peoples have contributed to safeguarding global biodiversity and climate stability. To an outsider, these territories may seem “uninhabited” or “unused,” but in fact the vast expanses of intact forests that constitute indigenous lands are essential to their sustenance. Indigenous peoples occupy and use their land in ways that take advantage of hundreds of species of plants and animals while preserving the place of other organisms in the ecosystem; in many cases, landscapes have been enriched with useful plants and groves of fruit and nut trees such as the Brazil nut and the açai palm. Villages and communities are surrounded by gardens that produce staple foods, old gardens in various stages of regeneration, and rivers, forests, and mountains, all of which provide a rich and dispersed base of resources—such as fish, game, fruits, garden lands, and the raw materials for adornments, canoes, houses, and so on—that have sustained indigenous peoples’ way of life for centuries or millenia, dating back to pre-colonial times when indigenous populations were much larger. These lands may also constitute sacred spaces, places of mythical origin, or sites of ancestral history.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Since 1988, the Brazilian Constitution has recognized the central importance of indigenous lands for these peoples’ continuing existence and has guaranteed a legal process for demarcating them for indigenous peoples to inhabit and use. Once they are demarcated and signed into law, indigenous lands become inalienable assets of the Brazilian state. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A recent unanimous Supreme Court decision in Brazil overturned the administration’s attempt to remove the legal responsibility for indigenous land demarcation from FUNAI and give to the Agriculture Ministry, which is controlled by the ranching lobby. Despite this victory, the ongoing and wide-ranging initiatives to weaken environmental, indigenous, and scientific institutions remain deeply troubling. Moreover, expressions of hatred and aggression, widely disseminated in the media, have further encouraged illegal invasions as well as violent actions against indigenous peoples in different parts of our country, including the Wajãpi of Amapá state, the Awá-Guajá of Maranhão, the Kayapó, Munduruku and Apyterewa-Parakanã of Pará, the Karipuna and Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau of Rondônia, and the Yanomami of Roraima and Amazonas states. The current administration’s ongoing actions of dismantling and defunding FUNAI, Brazil’s federal indigenous protection agency, only increase the risk of further violence to these people.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ekv_7HqaGzQ/XpEAvdC2jPI/AAAAAAAAKT8/Lv3U6wj6jY07GghwL7cJ4YUIzVvUD5SCQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Mining_Ourilandia_IMG-20190720%2BCROP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="556" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ekv_7HqaGzQ/XpEAvdC2jPI/AAAAAAAAKT8/Lv3U6wj6jY07GghwL7cJ4YUIzVvUD5SCQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Mining_Ourilandia_IMG-20190720%2BCROP.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Illegal gold miners have <span id="goog_258018118"></span>expanded their activities with impunity <span id="goog_258018119"></span>in indigenous territories such as the <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/05/welcome-of-tears-farewell-Mroo.html">Kayapo Indigenous Lands</a> in southern Pará state. See more reporting by Jon Lee Anderson in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/11/blood-gold-in-the-brazilian-rain-forest">The New Yorker</a>. Photo: G.H. Shepard Jr. (2019).</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ranching and mining lobbies have spread a false dichotomy between indigenous peoples’ rights and economic growth. There are currently large areas of abandoned farm- and pastureland that could be put to productive use without having to cut down a single acre of indigenous lands. Furthermore, the destruction of forest cover to serve the agricultural industry is short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating, since well-established scientific evidence points to the necessity of the Amazon rainforest in creating an “aerial river” that delivers rainfall to the rich agricultural lands of southern Brazil. Scientists fear that deforestation in the Amazon could soon upset rain patterns throughout Brazil and further destabilize the global climate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bolsonaro insists that development in the Amazon is a question of Brazilian sovereignty, and that foreign interests should not intervene. Yet Brazilian indigenous representatives and environmentalists are calling for nothing more nor less than the enforcement of existing laws and the protection of indigenous rights as enshrined in the Constitution and in multiple international agreements to which Brazil is a signatory. International treaties and economic accords should include provisions to guarantee these constitutional, human, cultural and territorial rights of indigenous peoples.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Kayapó warriors rehearse battle maneuvers in a war dance to protest the administration's hostile policies. Photo: G.H. Shepard Jr. (2019). See additional reporting by Andres Schipani and photos by Dado Galdieri in <i><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7a0a661c-558b-11e9-91f9-b6515a54c5b1" target="_blank">The Financial Times</a></i>.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The struggle for land remains a perennial source of political mobilization for indigenous peoples, as backlogs of land demarcation claims remain unresolved, and many other issues related to their rights remain unfulfilled. Anthropologists, cultural heritage professionals, and other researchers have been crucial allies of indigenous peoples in these struggles. Moreover, indigenous leaders and intellectuals today increasingly speak in their own names, defend their own interests, elect their own political leaders, and have an ever-greater role in protecting their cultural and territorial heritage. While there are a plurality of indigenous voices in contemporary Brazil, including a small number who favor the opening up of indigenous lands to mining and other outside interests, to date all of the historically recognized, broadly representative indigenous organizations who have expressed their views on the current administration have condemned its assaults on indigenous territories and rights. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As scientists working in Brazilian research institutions and universities, we are deeply concerned about these grave threats to indigenous peoples’ territory, heritage, and well-being, which are inextricably connected to the well-being of Amazonia, global biodiversity, and climate stability.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>This letter, signed by 65 Brazilian scientists in protest of president Jair Bolsonaro's attacks on indigenous peoples, was first published by the editors of the </i><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/11/07/crisis-in-the-amazon/" target="_blank">New York Review of Books</a><i> on November 7, 2019. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Signatories: </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Adriana Queiroz Testa, anthropologist </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Alexandre Clistenes, biologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Aline da Cruz, linguist </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ana Rosa Guimarães Bastos Proença, tourism researcher</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ana Vilacy Galúcio, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bruna Franchetto, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Caio Ferrari de Castro Melo, lawyer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Camila Loureiro Dias, historian</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Carmen Lúcia Reis Rodrigues, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Carlos Fausto, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Carlos Zimpel, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Claide de Paulo Moraes, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Claudia Lopez, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cristiane Barreto, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cristina Adams, human ecologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Décio Guzmán, historian</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Denny Moore, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Edithe Pereira, archeoloigst</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Eduardo S. Brondizio, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Eduardo Góes Neves, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Eduardo Nunes, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Eduardo Ribeiro, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Fabíola Andréa Silva, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Felipe Milanez, political ecologist </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Gabriel Soares, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Gabriela Prestes Carneiro, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Geraldo Andrello, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Gessiane Picanço, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Glenn H. Shepard Jr., anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hein van der Voort, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Helena Pinto Lima, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ian Packer, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ima Guimarães Vieira, botanist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Isabela Galarda Varassin, botanist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Julia Otero, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Juliano Franco Moraes, ecologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Kristine Stenzel, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lucila de Jesus Mello Gonçalves, psychologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lucia Hussak van Velthem, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lúcia Sá, Professor of Brazilian Studies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Márcio Meira, anthropologist and former FUNAI president</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marcos Magalhães, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marcos Vital, biologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Maria Candida Barros, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Maria Carolina Loureiro Fernandes, social scientist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marília Fernanda Pereira de Freitas, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marinus Hoogmoed, zoologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Mark Harris, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marta Amoroso, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Myrtle Shock, archeologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nelson Sanjad, historian</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Orlando Calheiros, anthropologist and photographer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nicole Soares-Pinto, social scientist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Regina Oliveira, biologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Renato Sztutman, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ricardo Ventura Santos, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Rita Natalio, artist, anthropologist and member of the Indigenous Forum of Lisbon </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Roberto Araujo, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Roberto Ventura Santos, geologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ruth Monserrat, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sidney da Silva Facundes, linguist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sylvia Caiuby Novaes, anthropologist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Teresa Avila Pires, zoologist </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Tiago Gomes dos Santos, zoologist</span><br />
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-69155676526025009872019-09-27T18:39:00.000-04:002020-05-14T21:50:11.691-04:00Toé (Brugmansia suaveolens): The Path of Day and Night [excerpt]<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Path of Day</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Henchi, a young man from a remote Matsigenka native community in Peru's Manu National Park, left home one morning to go hunting in the vast and preserved Amazon rainforest around his village. It rained, and towards the end of the day when he had not returned, his relatives got worried and went out to look for him. They found Henchi, half-conscious, bruised and cut by palm thorns, sprawled at the base of a large <i>Pouteria</i> tree, a favorite fruit of monkeys. He had climbed into the treetops to recover a monkey, fatally shot with an arrow, that had gotten stuck in the branches. But he slipped on the wet bark and fell more than fifty feet to the ground. Henchi's spine was broken in several places, he couldn’t move and was in great pain, oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness, between life and death. Everyone, including Henchi himself, thought he wasn't going to survive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">His relatives carried him back to the village, rolled up in a mat. The village's most respected shaman prepared a potent infusion made by boiling the stem-pith of a specimen of <i>Brugmansia</i> suaveolens from his garden. A <i>Datura</i> relative known in English as white angel’s trumpet, the plant is called <i>toé</i> or <i>floripondio</i> in the Peruvian Amazon. In the Matsigenka dialect of the Urubamba river it is known as <i>saaro</i>, while in the dialect spoken in Manu and Alto Madre de Dios the name is <i>hayapa</i> or <i>jayapa</i>, a word that seems to be a loan from the unrelated Huachipaeri language. On many occasions, especially when they are near an actual toé plant in their house patio, the Matsigekna may call it merely <i>kepigari</i>, which means “poison, intoxicating.” As is the case for other shamanic plants like ayahuasca, the Matsigenka refrain from using the plant's proper name when in close proximity to it as a way of showing respect for its spirit owner. The shaman offered Henchi a small gourd with a few ounces of the toé decoction, and he entered a week-long trance of induced coma. Henchi remembers almost nothing that happened during that first dose of toé: he was “dead” (in the Matsigenka language, death and loss of consciousness are synonymous) for a week. </span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"The 'mother' of the plant appeared..."<br /><i>La India de los Floripondios</i>: Alfredo Ramos Martinez, 1932.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When he woke up, the shaman asked if he was still in pain. Henchi said yes, and so the shaman made another dose of about the same size, and he spent another week in trance. This time, Henchi said that a group of small, happy people appeared, the invisible forest spirits that the Matsigenka call <i>Saankariite</i>, the “Invisible” or “Pure Ones.” They approached him singing and playing musical instruments. The "mother" of the plant appeared, a smiling woman dressed in a <i>cushma</i>, a native cotton tunic with geometric paintings. She blew tobacco smoke onto his body, sucked on his body in several places to extract palm thorns that were still inside, causing pain, and then flew with him to a distant city. There, doctors, nurses and mechanics in white uniforms took care of him, giving him medicines, healing his injuries and "welding" his spine with metalworking tools. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When he awoke again a week later, the shaman asked if he was still in pain. Henchi said he was better, but still felt pain. The shaman made another bowl of toé tea for him, and Henchi went into a trance again and spent another week unconscious, visiting the fantastic world of the spirits and receiving their miraculous healing powers. After three doses of toé, and three weeks of psychedelic coma, Henchi was no longer in much pain, and could move a little. Over the months, he gradually regained her strength, and in less than a year had returned to his normal activities. With his spine broken and "soldered" in several places, he remains hunchbacked, but he lives a mostly normal life, taking care of his garden, hunting and fishing, raising his children and drinking his <i>masato</i> (manioc beer). He acknowledges that toé, with its powerful "mother" spirit, saved his life. Considering the great distance of this remote village to the nearest hospital, and the limited medical resources at the local health post, Henchi's story is truly a miracle of traditional medicine.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EUnIgBislNw/XrXWvE_vvMI/AAAAAAAAKck/Sx3XWOj-zSA4v2-jNrzpfjz-7nn3dSuMACEwYBhgL/s1600/Photo2_Henchi_Back_GHS_5622LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1001" data-original-width="1500" height="425" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EUnIgBislNw/XrXWvE_vvMI/AAAAAAAAKck/Sx3XWOj-zSA4v2-jNrzpfjz-7nn3dSuMACEwYBhgL/s640/Photo2_Henchi_Back_GHS_5622LR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>“With his spine broken and ‘soldered’ in several places, he remains hunchbacked, but he lives a mostly normal life… Henchi's story is truly a miracle of traditional medicine.” </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Path of Night</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Simón was one of the most talented students in his village. He had big plans to study nursing in the regional capital, Puerto Maldonado, and then return home to work in the local health post in his own community. But the course of study was difficult and highly competitive, and his family couldn’t afford to maintain him in the city, where everything has a price. He eventually returned to his community, disappointed and frustrated. Like many indigenous youth people who leave their villages during their formative years to study or work in urban centers, Simón found himself in a cultural Catch-22: lacking the appropriate academic and professional background to compete in the university setting or the urban labor market, but also no longer accustomed to the pace of village life. Simón, who was not only intelligent but also handsome and charming, married and separated several times, and had affairs and children with several women.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Feeling confused, Simón decided to prepare toé for himself. The Matsigenka use toé to resolve multiple kinds of problems in their lives, whether health disorders, social or spiritual maladjustments, or even, in some cases, to locate lost or stolen belongings. Simón's grandfather was the same shaman who cured Henchi with toé, so Simon knew how to prepare the plant. He took the medicine and spent a few days walking in trance through the forest. But instead of absorbing the plant’s lessons and solving the problems in his life, Simón became "addicted" to toé, according to family members. While Matsigenka value toé as a powerful medicine for resolving various types of health and personal problems, they show great respect for the plant and are careful to avoid overindulgence. The Matsigenka say that toé has a treacherous side, that the plant’s mother is seductive, and may take a frequent user down the dark path, tempting them with the forbidden teachings of witchcraft.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so it was with Simón. He began taking toé frequently, alone or in combination with ayahuasca. During manioc beer drinking parties, he would rip off a toé stalk (almost every Matsigenka house has a toé plant in the backyard in case of emergencies) and chew on it until he got “crazy.” One day, his newest wife had a fit of jealousy when she heard rumors that he was seeing one of his ex-wives. They argued, and Simón fled the house saying, "I'll take ‘the poison’ [i.e., toé] until I can't see anymore." He made a strong dose of toe and disappeared into the woods. Three days passed, and his body was found in an abandoned field a few miles downstream. Witnesses say the body had a strange green color, which they attribute to his toé intoxication. Some say it was suicide, others say the toé tricked him in a dangerous game of seduction…</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">...A painted textile of the Shipibo people of the Ucayali basin in Peru shows the toé plant growing along the bodies of two snakes, one red and one black, connected by a rainbow. The title of the painting is “The Path of Day and Night,” highlighting the widespread perception of toé in indigenous Amazonia as a plant with astonishing but ambiguous powers, often associated with witchcraft and sorcery.... </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RDFHNS5ApaU/XrXWWIndeaI/AAAAAAAAKcY/4y3Y8vg-dL00xoGz5pahSh7a2OelWMXzwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Photo1_Shipibo_Close_IMG_7014_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RDFHNS5ApaU/XrXWWIndeaI/AAAAAAAAKcY/4y3Y8vg-dL00xoGz5pahSh7a2OelWMXzwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Photo1_Shipibo_Close_IMG_7014_LR.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>“A painted textile of the Shipibo people of the Ucayali basin in Peru shows the <i>toé</i> plant growing along the bodies of two snakes, one red and one black, connected by a rainbow.”</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Hayapa: The Highest Authority</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">...<i>Brugmansia</i> is considered the strongest and most toxic (kepigari) of all the plants in the Matsigenka pharmacopoeia (Shepard, 1998, 2005a). Unlike ayahuasca, which is taken frequently, usually in groups including the healer and / or patient, Brugmansia is taken rarely, usually alone and only by the patient. Frequent use of Brugmansia is considered very dangerous, leading to death or madness. <i>Brugmansia</i> is the last resort, the highest medical authority reserved for the most drastic cases. The shaman, healer or a respected family member prepares the potion and is responsible for watching over the person during the course of intoxication. The potion is prepared with great care, attention and respect. A branch of the plant is broken by hand (it should not be cut with a metal tool, which would offend the spirit of the plant) and a few inches of the pith is scraped out. The scraped material is boiled in water for fifteen minutes or more, or steamed at high temperatures in a banana or other plant leaf. The potion is brewed away from the household to avoid contamination or impurities that could kill the patient. Doses are measured very carefully in drops or small gourds, as even a small dose can last from one night to three days. An overdose can make you hallucinate for weeks or months, go crazy for the rest of your life, or die.</span>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The effects of <i>Brugmansia</i> and other psychoactive Solanaceae are very different from those of other shamanic preparations like ayahuasca, <i>Psilocybe</i> mushrooms, or peyote. The different tropane alkaloids present, which vary in their relative concentrations depending on the species or variety, plant part, and form of preparation, combine to create a unique visionary state…</span>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jLR7APyTmGg/XrXXQCC-QcI/AAAAAAAAKcw/eVJsBoR58Lc_Oa2VpW4KKrc3_w5Ni5BuACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Photo3_B_suaveolens_Manu_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1042" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jLR7APyTmGg/XrXXQCC-QcI/AAAAAAAAKcw/eVJsBoR58Lc_Oa2VpW4KKrc3_w5Ni5BuACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Photo3_B_suaveolens_Manu_LR.jpg" width="416" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>“Doses are measured very carefully in drops or small gourds, as even a small dose can last from one night to three days. An overdose can make you hallucinate for weeks or months, go crazy for the rest of your life, or die.”</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The person under the influence of <i>Brugmansia</i> looks like a somnambulist, walking and dreaming with their eyes open, unable to distinguish between the material world around them and the juxtaposed visions of the spirit world. They wander through the dark forest at night with ease, their vision illuminated by the eternal sun in the realm of spirits. The person often feels thirsty and hot, removing their clothes and leaving them strewn in the bush. A patient with a chronic or apparently incurable disease may disappear for several days, walking away to the realm of the invisible Saankariite villages. There, shamans, healers, or “Madre Toé” herself, treat the patient by massaging and sucking the body to remove intrusive objects or revealing the sorcerer or evil spirits responsible for the illness. Sometimes the patient reports being taken by car or plane to distant cities where they treated by “white” doctors and nurses who use modern tools and machinery.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Saankariite and especially the Mother of Toé are powerful, but they are also mischievous, and sometimes treacherous. Small, “child-sized,” these beings may reveal profound knowledge, but they can also play games with the patient, tricking the person into drinking sand like water, or eating leaves like food. Wide paths through the forest open and then close in a tangle of vegetation. Great vistas illuminate and vanish. Wise, other-worldly characters appear, speak profound and mysterious words, then suddenly disappear with a sad gaze into a handful of bones, dry branches and leaves, taking the cosmic revelations back to oblivion. Jaguars, monsters, evil giants and witches block the way, threaten, chase. The Saankariite have a lot to offer, but may also ask for concessions in return. With overuse, the toé plant’s spirit “owner” may tempt the person with dangerous sorcery teachings, or deceive them with false promises or deadly challenges.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When the effect passes and one returns to the material world, very little is remembered of the fantastical experiences of the spirit world: it all seems like a vague dream…</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-embOW_67lXU/XrXYICk_apI/AAAAAAAAKc4/-8GFp0aKup8aebkv--31OwLE6z0YGuC6gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Photo4_%2BShipibo_wide_IMG_7012LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="1500" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-embOW_67lXU/XrXYICk_apI/AAAAAAAAKc4/-8GFp0aKup8aebkv--31OwLE6z0YGuC6gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Photo4_%2BShipibo_wide_IMG_7012LR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“The title of the painting is ‘The Path of Day and Night,’ highlighting the widespread perception of <i>toé</i> in indigenous Amazonia as a plant with astonishing but ambiguous powers, often associated with witchcraft and sorcery”</span></b></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Excerpted and translated from chapter 6 in: </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com.br/uso-Plantas-Psicoativas-nas-Am%C3%A9ricas/dp/8559686029" target="_blank"><i>B. Labate and S. Goulart (Eds.) </i>O uso de plantas psicoativas nas Américas.</a><i> </i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Rio de Janeiro: Gramma/NEIP, 2019. 372 pgs.</span></i><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mEB4NZ4jvzA/Xr30r68aPkI/AAAAAAAAKeA/78N2ar-OhmcIRQUC6U3i_GwKdpLdUPAzwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/LabatePlantsPsicoativasCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="318" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mEB4NZ4jvzA/Xr30r68aPkI/AAAAAAAAKeA/78N2ar-OhmcIRQUC6U3i_GwKdpLdUPAzwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/LabatePlantsPsicoativasCover.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>This excerpt was first published by </i><a href="https://www.tea-assembly.com/issues/2019/9/29/to-brugmansia-suaveolens" target="_blank">The Ethnobotanical Assembly</a><i>, September 2019.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Download <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39275949/To%C3%A9_Brugmansia_Suaveolens_O_Caminho_do_Dia_e_o_Caminho_da_Noite_excerto_com_fotografias_ilustrativas_e_resumo_dos_conte%C3%BAdos_" target="_blank">Portuguese</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/42983779/To%C3%A9_Brugmansia_suaveolens_The_Path_of_Day_and_Night_Excerpted_and_translated_from_the_Portuguese_" target="_blank">English</a> excerpts at Academia.edu</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>See also the 2004 documentary film </i><a href="https://vimeo.com/4775918">A F</a></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/4775918">igueira do Inferno</a><i><a href="https://vimeo.com/4775918"> ("The Fig from Hell"</a>) about the use of this plant by indigenous and Afro-Brazilian healers in northeast Brazil</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cite as:</i> <span style="text-indent: -24pt;">Shepard, Glenn H. Jr. (2017) <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39275949/To%C3%A9_Brugmansia_Suaveolens_O_Caminho_do_Dia_e_o_Caminho_da_Noite_excerto_com_fotografias_ilustrativas_e_resumo_dos_conte%C3%BAdos_" target="_blank">“Toé (<i>Brugmansia</i> <i>suaveolens</i>): o caminho do dia e o caminho da noite.”</a> In:</span><span style="text-indent: -24pt;"> </span><i style="text-indent: -24pt;">O Uso de Plantas Psicoativas Nas Américas</i><span style="text-indent: -24pt;">, edited by Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Sandra Lucia Goulart. São Paulo: Compania das Letras</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="text-indent: -32px;">, 121–136</span><span style="text-indent: -24pt;">.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Full Chapter Bibliography:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">BAER, Gerhard (1984) Die Religion der Matsigenka, Ost Peru. Basel: Wepf & Co. AG Verlag.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">_____ (1992) “The one intoxicated by tobacco: Matsigenka shamanism,” in: MATTESON-LANGDON, Jean & BAER, Gerhard (Eds.). Portals of Power: Shamanism in South America. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, pp. 79-100.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">BENNETT, Beverly Y. (1991) “Illness and Order: Cultural Transformation among the Machiguenga and Huachipaeri.” PhD Thesis. Ithaca, NY: Dept. Anthropology, Cornell University. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">BROWN, Michael F. (1978) “From Hero’s Bones: Three Aguaruna Hallucinogens and their Uses”, in: FORD, Richard I. (Ed.). The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany. Anthropological Papers, vol. 67. Ann Arbor: Anthropology Museum, University of Michigan, pp. 119-136.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">CAMINO, Alejandro (1977). “Trueque, correrías e intercambio entre los Quechas Andinos y los Piros y Machiguenga de la montaña peruana”. Amazonia Peruana, 1(2), pp. 123-140. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">_____ (2005b) “Psychoactive botanicals in ritual, religion and shamanism.” Chapter 18 in: ELISABETSKY, E & N. Etkin (Eds.), Ethnopharmacology. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Theme 6.79. Oxford, UK: UNESCO/Eolss Publishers (http://www.eolss.net).</span></span></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-24208833261143251462018-01-31T17:08:00.000-05:002018-02-10T09:19:52.731-05:00The Awakening of the Waters: Clean water, health and village sanitation in the Peruvian Amazon<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>So it was<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, l</span>ong ago, people had no clean water to drink.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>Instead, they drank from muddy swamps and stagnant puddles of algae and slime.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>One day, Shigentiri, the Dragonfly, watched a man hauling gourds of filthy water. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br />"Wouldn't you prefer to have clean water to drink?" asked Dragonfly.<br /> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Yes!" answered the man.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>"All we have to drink is this muck." </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br />"So be it," said Dragonfly,<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>"I will awaken the waters. Follow me."<br /><br />The man followed Dragonfly through the forest and soon they came upon a new spring, gurgling and splashing on the rocks. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Don't fill your gourds yet," said Dragonfly.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>"Wait 'til tomorrow, and never again will you have to drink swamp water."<br /><br />The man obeyed Dragonfly's words, and when he awoke he saw that the spring had filled the stream basin.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>People have had fresh, clear water to drink ever since.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>And so it was. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This m<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">yth was told to me by a Matsigenka elder named <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Tito</span> in the mixed Matsigenka/<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Huachi<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">paeri</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">community of Santa Rosa de Huacaria <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">on the fringes of Manu Biosphere Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span>In the first place</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">,<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the story makes a<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> specific as<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">sociat</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ion between dragonflies and</span> clean water sources.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> As is the case for <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">other</span> Matsigenka <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tales, such <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">m<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ythical <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">references</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">often <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">emerge from </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">accurate</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> ecological</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">observa<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tions</span>. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">D</span>ragonflies, <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">aquatic species <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">that spend much of their life cycle underwater, <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">are indeed considered</span> by scientists <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">to be </span>important <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">indicator<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> species</span> of environmental health<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">,</span> especially <a href="http://www.earthtimes.org/nature/dragonflies-indicator-species-environmental-health/2033/" target="_blank">water quality</a>. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The</span></span></span></span></span> story<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> also <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">highlights</span> a number of important</span> traditional <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">concepts about<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> water use and purity. </span></span></span>W</span>ater that is stagnant <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">or</span> muddy is <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">unpleasant and <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">unhealthy</span></span> to drink, while spring water that is clear, running and free of sediment (<i>sanaari</i> in Matsigenka) is <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">consider<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ed</span></span> pure<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, safe</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and</span> drinkable.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>The story also makes clear the importance of restraint and respect in peoples’ relationship with natural resources: by obeying <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">D</span>ragonfly’s warning and resisting greedy thirst through the night, the man allows clean water to flow eternally. Indigenous mythology is replete with such lessons in restraint and balance in the use of natural resources. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I gathered this story during anthropological fieldwork in Huacaria as<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> a consultant for the non-profit organization <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/" target="_blank">Rainforest Flo</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/" target="_blank">w</a>, in preparation for <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">a water and sanitation project <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">that was</span> implem<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ented <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ini<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tially in</span></span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Huacaria</span>, and <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">expanded more recen<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tly</span></span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">to</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2016/05/water-in-yomibato-guest-post-by.html" target="_blank">remote <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">native</span> commu</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2016/05/water-in-yomibato-guest-post-by.html" target="_blank">nities</a> in<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> the heart of Manu Biosphere Reserve.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-53BbCRKU6Rc/WnNQjv7MCNI/AAAAAAAACxI/3c_DNSzEfQ0r2TcNkqmqAmoZz354k4eNQCLcBGAs/s1600/WaterWaterHuacariaLR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-53BbCRKU6Rc/WnNQjv7MCNI/AAAAAAAACxI/3c_DNSzEfQ0r2TcNkqmqAmoZz354k4eNQCLcBGAs/s400/WaterWaterHuacariaLR.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Despite appearances, even limpid tributary streams in the Amazon can have significant levels of bacterial contamination </span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Y<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ou might ask, "But w</span>hat do anthropologists know about<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> sanita<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tion </span></span></span>engineering?" And to be honest, I'd have to ans<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">wer, "Not much." But anthropologists can <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">apply</span> their <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">cultural insights, observat<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ion<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">al</span> habits and </span>research skills<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> in <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">order</span> to help<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> community development</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> project<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">s<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>understand the local social <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">context,<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> translate complex concepts <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">between languages and cultu<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">res</span></span>, and</span></span></span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">avoid (or at least minim<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ize) </span>gaffes<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, misunderstandings and <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">general</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">gringo cluelessness</span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You might also ask, "But I thought the Amazon was the largest body of fresh water in the world. Why do indig<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">enous <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">people living</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">in</span> a huge, pristine rainforest park </span></span>at the headwaters of t<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">he Amazon need <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tap</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> water<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">?<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">" </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span> That, in fact, was the first qu<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">estion I posed to Rainforest Flow director <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/nancy-santullo-founder.html" target="_blank">Na</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/nancy-santullo-founder.html" target="_blank">ncy Santullo</a> when she <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">approached</span> me <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">about</span> being part of the project: "<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Isn't their stream water good enough? </span>Prove to me they actually need a <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">new water<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> sys<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tem<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">!</span>"</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P6W2UR2TurE/WnNfifxvP7I/AAAAAAAACx4/NXlRwuFcaJEzF51dmHTodtGfmazATsd3wCEwYBhgL/s1600/GHS_Huacaria%2BInterview%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="720" height="216" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P6W2UR2TurE/WnNfifxvP7I/AAAAAAAACx4/NXlRwuFcaJEzF51dmHTodtGfmazATsd3wCEwYBhgL/s320/GHS_Huacaria%2BInterview%2B1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YUqJiX8pOVU/WnNfIgDFHkI/AAAAAAAACxw/lB2j_hqUWzUiQPUek_XATv-18bL_RhvAwCEwYBhgL/s1600/GlennHuacariaH20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1055" data-original-width="1600" height="211" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YUqJiX8pOVU/WnNfIgDFHkI/AAAAAAAACxw/lB2j_hqUWzUiQPUek_XATv-18bL_RhvAwCEwYBhgL/s320/GlennHuacariaH20.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Conducting fieldwork in Huacaria</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So o</span>n m<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">y first <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">trip to Huacaria with Rainforest Flow, <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">among my</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">top <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">priorit<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ies was carrying out <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">laboratory</span> testing of <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the drinking water sources <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">av<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ai<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">lable</span></span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">to</span> the village. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>The results were shocking<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> even to me.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All dri<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">nking water<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> sources in the <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">community had moderate to extreme levels of </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">contamination </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">with fecal</span>
bacteria. Some households in the community already had a
government-installed tap water system, which fed <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">raw</span> stream water to<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> cement</span> tap<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> stands near the houses. <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> analysis revealed that the</span></span> tap water in Huacaria was a<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ctua<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">lly <i>more</i> contaminated, on average, than water from <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">fresh</span> streams t<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">hat some households used(<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">!)</span>. Furthermore, the <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">existing tap stands had no drainage system, deposit<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ing</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> waste water directly onto the g<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">round around ho<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">use<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">s, generating even more contamination. <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">H<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ouse-to-h<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ouse health interviews revealed that</span></span> 83% of c</span>hildren <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">under five <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">in <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Huacaria </span>had </span>experienced </span>at least one</span> episode of diarrhea <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">during the prior month.</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Frequent<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> diarr<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">hea episodes in the early years of <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">life</span>
can have a lasting impact o<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n</span> a child's <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">h<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ealth</span></span>, and hence it was no
wonder that 39% percent of children in Huacaria showed some degree of
malnutrition according to <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">W<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">orld Health <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Org<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">anization</span></span></span> </span>standards. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oIPA4NIJm_M/WnNVWwcxriI/AAAAAAAACxU/ezc-acdmrlkd3rYAfxWpyA-SrT1SThX2QCLcBGAs/s1600/HuacariaOldTaps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="891" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oIPA4NIJm_M/WnNVWwcxriI/AAAAAAAACxU/ezc-acdmrlkd3rYAfxWpyA-SrT1SThX2QCLcBGAs/s320/HuacariaOldTaps.jpg" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The previous tap water system in Huacaria brought contaminated water to households and had no drainage system</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In addition to <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">measuring</span> water <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">qual<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">it<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">y and observ<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ing</span> water use patterns, <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I also </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">anal<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">yzed</span></span></span></span> health <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">data<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> being gathered by <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the project team and </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>con<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ducted </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">interviews with community members about</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">their</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">views</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">o<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n </span></span>water<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">,</span> health<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> and sanitation</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Matsigenka concept of well-being is summarized in the verb <i><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12472359/The_Matsigenka_Encyclopedia_of_Medical_Anthropology_-_Health_and_Illness_in_the_World_s_Cultures">shinetagantsi</a></i>, which means to be happy, productive, and well-fed as well as free of illness. Concepts antithetical to well-being include illness (<i>mantsigarentsi</i>), suffering (<i>tsipereagantsi</i>), "skinniness" or weight loss (<i>matsatagantsi</i>), sorrow or worry (<i>kenkisureagantsi</i>), anger (<i>kisatsi</i>), and soul loss (<i>gasuretagantsi</i>). Health and well-being and, conversely, illness and malaise, embrace physical, emotional, and spiritual states as well as harmony (or lack thereof) in productive, social, and environmental interactions. </span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;">Their classification of illness categories and their <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12472359/The_Matsigenka_Encyclopedia_of_Medical_Anthropology_-_Health_and_Illness_in_the_World_s_Cultures">theories about illness etiology</a> and treatment reflect these complex notions.</span><span style="font-family: "\22 trebuchet ms\22 " , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the Matsigenka cosmos-as-ecosystem, illness, misfortune, and death are often interpreted through the ecological metaphor of predation: just as humans hunt for sustenance, so do demons, illnesses, dangerous animal spirits—and more recently, human sorcerers—look on human beings as game animals to be killed and eaten.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nClh7EA_U2k/TWXcv8NPK0I/AAAAAAAAAE4/XH_1HHZdVRUdKEwf6JtukIrh5iS9tr0ewCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/waspsting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="200" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nClh7EA_U2k/TWXcv8NPK0I/AAAAAAAAAE4/XH_1HHZdVRUdKEwf6JtukIrh5iS9tr0ewCPcBGAYYCw/s400/waspsting.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Juan <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">C</span>oshante once gave</span> me a very effective treatment for an excruciating caterpillar sting: The pain stopped instantly</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Matsigenka are respected by neighboring indigenous groups for their detailed knowledge of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12472359/The_Matsigenka_Encyclopedia_of_Medical_Anthropology_-_Health_and_Illness_in_the_World_s_Cultures">medicinal plants</a> addressing a wide range of ailments. In the past, and in some communities through the present, shamans have practiced a special variety of spiritual and cosmological healing that depends on esoteric connections with forest spirits and the celestial realm. Through today in many communities, traditional medicine is still practiced in various forms and by various specialists and non-specialists. Matsigenka theories of illness are highly cosmopolitan and dynamic, often combining empirical, social and spiritual understandings of illness, and treatments likewise can combine herbal, shamanistic, Andean and biomedical treatment methods.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Amazon rainforest peoples such as the Matsigenka and </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Huachi<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">paeri</span></span></span></span></span> lived traditionally in widely dispersed, semi-nomadic settlements composed of a few related families. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">thro<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ughout </span></span>the 20th century,<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>attracted by missionary </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">outposts and government schools and health clinics, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">m<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">any <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">indigenous families <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">now live in </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">permanent</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, ce<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ntralized</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> communitie</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">s.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ncreas</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ing</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> population density and more sedentary lifestyles </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">have</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
generated a number of problems including decreas</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ing <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">stocks</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> of fish and
game near communit</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ies</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12470701/Revenge_envy_and_sorcery_in_an_Amazonian_society" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif;" target="_blank">social conflicts between families</a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, fecal contamination of the water supply</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> and <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">high <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">incidence </span>o<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">f intestinal parasites and other gastrointestinal disorders. Although the Matsigenka maintain their rich knowledge of medicinal plants for treating a wide range of traditionally reco<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">gnized cond<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">itions</span></span>, their pharmacopeia is insufficient for addressing<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the full range of</span> </span></span>health conditions they face today, especially gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I observed throughout the course of my field study, families in Huacaria who had tap<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> stands used water much more frequently, whether for was<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">hing themselves, their clothes and utensils, or for cooking and drinking<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. Families without <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">taps had to <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">carry water from nearby strea<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ms, <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and thus</span> used it much <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">more</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">sparingly<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n</span></span></span></span> order save water, these fam<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ilies would <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">re<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-us<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">e waste water for </span></span></span></span>hand-</span>washing <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and cleaning utensi<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ls, <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">increasing the chances of contamination</span></span></span>.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Despite the contaminate<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">d <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ta<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">p water, sanitary conditions were better in houses with taps than those without them because of the ease of access. Based on these observa<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tions, <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">a<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n</span> over<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">haul and expansion of the existing tap water system <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">see<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">med warranted</span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EJxsYRhqbfQ/WnNhMMrMA-I/AAAAAAAACyI/oFSIyt3JeR490Yn0S6DAZxIFdR2pzNLJACEwYBhgL/s1600/SlowSandFilter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EJxsYRhqbfQ/WnNhMMrMA-I/AAAAAAAACyI/oFSIyt3JeR490Yn0S6DAZxIFdR2pzNLJACEwYBhgL/s320/SlowSandFilter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-li5MFhtGQAo/WnNhL3LUKUI/AAAAAAAACyE/8xwEAs4z9O8_iHV5UtHv0PM_xT8QDwzKgCEwYBhgL/s1600/RockFilter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="941" data-original-width="1412" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-li5MFhtGQAo/WnNhL3LUKUI/AAAAAAAACyE/8xwEAs4z9O8_iHV5UtHv0PM_xT8QDwzKgCEwYBhgL/s320/RockFilter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HnWQCSVT44I/WnNhL-VA4sI/AAAAAAAACyA/-YsAzAIM8ZgmDBBi_FWMffiedSdffebywCEwYBhgL/s1600/FilterSystem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="1600" height="214" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HnWQCSVT44I/WnNhL-VA4sI/AAAAAAAACyA/-YsAzAIM8ZgmDBBi_FWMffiedSdffebywCEwYBhgL/s320/FilterSystem.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Slow sand filters use locally available rock and sand loaded into portable geomembrane tanks to purify water in remote communities</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="goog_1959671710"></span><span id="goog_1959671711"></span><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Rainforest Flow carried out a complete renovation of Huacaria’s tap water system, using a technology known as <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/safe-drinking-water.html" target="_blank">"slow sand filtration"</a> to purify the water. This simple but effective technology, used worldwide in remote communities and <a href="http://www.bluefuturefilters.com/emergency.html" target="_blank">disaster relief situations</a>, harnesses natural processes, both mechanical and biological, to remove 99.99% of disease-causing microorganisms. L</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ocally-occurring
rock and sand are loaded into portable geomembrane filtration tanks
that purify water <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and make</span> i<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">t</span> safe for consumption. Water<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>is distributed to households from a <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">flexible </span></span>geomembrane storage tank (it looks like a huge waterbe<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">d) </span>through hygienic plastic tubing to durable, practical tap stands that incorporate local materials and design <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">concepts</span>. By taking advantage of the hilly terrain
in the Andean foothills, the water system in Huacaria is entirely
gravity-fed, requiring no external power sources (pumps, engines, solar
panels) to distribute or treat the water. Portable geomembrane
filtration and storage tanks greatly reduce the need for cement, rebar and other
construction materials that are difficult to transport to remote
communities. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zlXzREu2hyA/WnNo3fjl9yI/AAAAAAAACys/T5m2ifRXxHYrJr9nyv1qCNBb9wDAELY2QCLcBGAs/s1600/BuildingTap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zlXzREu2hyA/WnNo3fjl9yI/AAAAAAAACys/T5m2ifRXxHYrJr9nyv1qCNBb9wDAELY2QCLcBGAs/s320/BuildingTap.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hpJopTj16y4/WnNo3V7PpgI/AAAAAAAACyo/8yuNOWBtOvsbL0Ptdtyh6CMFCjzl8uQNACEwYBhgL/s1600/TapstandNewModel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1075" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hpJopTj16y4/WnNo3V7PpgI/AAAAAAAACyo/8yuNOWBtOvsbL0Ptdtyh6CMFCjzl8uQNACEwYBhgL/s320/TapstandNewModel.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NaWBKbg3og0/WnNo3YPjBfI/AAAAAAAACyw/ko5L5ww95NUoIWRcUlB0s35XGON0ZhafwCEwYBhgL/s1600/DrinkingWaterTap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="891" data-original-width="1304" height="218" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NaWBKbg3og0/WnNo3YPjBfI/AAAAAAAACyw/ko5L5ww95NUoIWRcUlB0s35XGON0ZhafwCEwYBhgL/s320/DrinkingWaterTap.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Community members participate in all stages of construction and maintenance of the water system to guarantee sustainability. A special stand-alone tap design using local river stones was developed after studying community needs and use patterns.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">fter<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">this</span> <a href="https://www.academia.edu/35817610/Huacaria_Hygienic_Center_Summary_of_goals_and_results_of_field_research_carried_out_in_June_2003" target="_blank">baseline <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">research</span></a>, I carried <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">out a</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/35814676/Rainforest_Flow_House_of_the_Children_s_Project_Huacaria_Five-Year_Evaluation_2002-2007_of_Social_and_Health_Impacts_of_an_Integrated_Water_Purification_Health_Education_Project" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">five</span>-year <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">follow-up <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">study</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> of the project impacts in Huacaria (2002-2007)<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. More</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> re<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">centl<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">y, I have</span></span></span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">evaluat<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ed</span> the initial phase of the</span></span> <a href="https://www.academia.edu/35814751/Rainforest_Flows_Manu_Expansion_Project_Preliminary_Evaluation_of_Social_and_Health_Impacts_of_an_Integrated_Water_Purification_Health_Education_Project_in_the_Native_Communities_of_Tayakome_and_Yomibato_in_Manu_National_Park_Peru" target="_blank">project's expansion</a> (20<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">07-2014) </span>to the communities of <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/projects.html" target="_blank">Tayakome and Yomibato</a> in Manu National Park<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ongoing
biomedical monitoring in collaboration with the Peruvian health
ministry suggests a significant impact of the water purification system
on child and overall community health. The prevalence of
diarrhea among children saw a 45% reduction over a three year period after the water system was renovated (see <a href="https://www.academia.edu/35814676/Rainforest_Flow_House_of_the_Children_s_Project_Huacaria_Five-Year_Evaluation_2002-2007_of_Social_and_Health_Impacts_of_an_Integrated_Water_Purification_Health_Education_Project" target="_blank">report for complete health data</a>). Prior to the water system renovation, over half (54%) of Huacaria’s children and youths suffered from multiple parasite infections (two or more parasite species simultaneously)<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. A</span>fter three years of access to purified water, only 20% had multiple infestations, while 23% of children were parasite-free, up from only 9% parasite-free prior to the water system renovation, a nearly threefold improvement. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Height and weight measurements suggest a trend in improving nutritional status for Huacaria's children during just the three initial years of the project. <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">T</span>he percentage of children considered of "normal" weight (</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">a</span>ccording to <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">WHO</span> standards<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">) </span></span></span>increased from 83% to 90%, while the percentage of children considered to have normal stature doubled from 35% to 70%. A concomitant trend is noted <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">in</span> decreasing numbers of children considered malnourished because of being underweight (from 17% to 10%) and undersized (from 39% to 30%) for their age. Though it is difficult to assign causality for such a small population, the drastic reduction in episodes of infant and child diarrhea, and the notable reduction in intestinal parasites certainly appear to be relevant in <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">reducing malnutritio<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n</span></span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">rates</span>.<br /><br /> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0bwxEHd3Uf8/WnNioGEYj5I/AAAAAAAACyc/jQld-rSyIPInW9n0FNj1xrLPGwAz1GoyQCLcBGAs/s1600/FiltrationResultsLab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0bwxEHd3Uf8/WnNioGEYj5I/AAAAAAAACyc/jQld-rSyIPInW9n0FNj1xrLPGwAz1GoyQCLcBGAs/s400/FiltrationResultsLab.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Microbiological analysis shows the progressive reduction of fecal bacteria<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">l colonies (red-b<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">rown</span> dots<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">)</span></span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">in</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> samples <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">taken at different stages of purification,</span> from</span> stream source water (left), to the output of the gravel pre-filter (top), <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">to</span> the safe drinking water emerging from the slow sand filter and taps (right). No chlorine or other treatments were added.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After witnessing the health improvements in Huacaria, observing the community empowerment generated by Rainforest Flow's programs and attesting to <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the organization's</span> socially and environmentally sustainable practices, I suggested to Nancy Santullo that she expand the project to include the much more remote communities of Tayakome and Yomibato within the core zone of Manu National Park, where <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-cheerful-pessimist-shamans-farewell.html" target="_blank">I have worked for almost thirty years</a>. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She accepted the challenge and now, after</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">arduous</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">years of even more</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">dif<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ficult</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">work, both communities have sturdy tap stands delivering clean, safe water to every household where it is technically possible. The schools in Tayakome and Yomibato also have utility sinks and hygienic, well-ventilated bathrooms with a sealed, composting septic system. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NHsxKNuO23U/WnQ56hTiRsI/AAAAAAAACzs/KuMQOT6zjqEX2gLwYI5BVpY07LT-coakwCLcBGAs/s1600/GettingThere2014Yomy_IMGP7844_LR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="1600" height="267" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NHsxKNuO23U/WnQ56hTiRsI/AAAAAAAACzs/KuMQOT6zjqEX2gLwYI5BVpY07LT-coakwCLcBGAs/s400/GettingThere2014Yomy_IMGP7844_LR.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Getting to Yomibato is an extreme sport: the narrow stream is an obstacle course of fallen trees, submerged trunks, shallow rapids and sandbars. </b></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YGg3VmmH3Nc/WnN7zzUrEBI/AAAAAAAACzU/zZ9_uCQF19s5BXkmaOqVxMJqwROoKhN5ACLcBGAs/s1600/Bathroom1_GHS_6203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YGg3VmmH3Nc/WnN7zzUrEBI/AAAAAAAACzU/zZ9_uCQF19s5BXkmaOqVxMJqwROoKhN5ACLcBGAs/s400/Bathroom1_GHS_6203.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3haByWUTYno/WnN7GKziJ6I/AAAAAAAACzI/Y3s2RiD9OlwVsldawpWDx2hdUqQH4d4twCLcBGAs/s1600/FamilyBathroom_GHS_6608.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3haByWUTYno/WnN7GKziJ6I/AAAAAAAACzI/Y3s2RiD9OlwVsldawpWDx2hdUqQH4d4twCLcBGAs/s320/FamilyBathroom_GHS_6608.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Spacious, well-ventilated, eco-friendly bathrooms at the community schools in Tayakome and Yomibato</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The water systems and sanitary installations brought by Rainforest Flow have delivered far superior results to those found in communities of the adjacent Camisea region, outside Manu Biosphere Reserve, where a gas pipeline has caused <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/02/roadless-and-fishless-in-camisea_16.html" target="_blank">serious social and environmental impacts</a>, while generating over one billion dollars in royalties that have been invested in mostly <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/11/shipwrecked-sorry-state-of-development.html" target="_blank">failed community development projects</a>, with particularly dismal results in the areas of <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-vampire-pipeline-unhealth-and.html" target="_blank">health and community sanitation</a>, at least so far. Rainforest Flow's project design and results have been shared with indigenous associations and government representatives in the Camisea region in the hope that better use will be made with gas royalties and other community investments in the future. </span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vDzba4aoDOo/VzUojVTjl8I/AAAAAAAACbE/9CgoO3D3uS4nfdzWX_ItS-wbSTOXJFkowCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/YomibatoWaterSmile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vDzba4aoDOo/VzUojVTjl8I/AAAAAAAACbE/9CgoO3D3uS4nfdzWX_ItS-wbSTOXJFkowCPcBGAYYCw/s400/YomibatoWaterSmile.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To learn more about Rainforest Flow's projects, programs, and mission, visit <b><a href="http://rainforestflow.org/">rainforestflow.org</a></b></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Proceeds from the sale of selected artworks at <b><a href="http://lindamatneygallery.com/exhibitions/2017/10/2/ancient-traditions-modern-lives-amazonian-indigenous-peoples-in-the-21st-century" target="_blank">Linda Matney Gallery</a></b> in Williamsburg, Virginia, support Rainforest Flow and other community projects in the Amazon</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The following reports and publications on water projects, health status and ethnomedical practices in native communities of Manu Biosphere Reserve and the Camisea region are available for download:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12472359/The_Matsigenka_Encyclopedia_of_Medical_Anthropology_-_Health_and_Illness_in_the_World_s_Cultures" target="_blank">Matsigenka</a></b>: Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology (2003)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/35817610/Huacaria_Hygienic_Center_Summary_of_goals_and_results_of_field_research_carried_out_in_June_2003" target="_blank">Huacaria Hygienic Center</a></b>: Summary of goals and results of field research carried out in June, 2003 (2003).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/35814676/Rainforest_Flow_House_of_the_Children_s_Project_Huacaria_Five-Year_Evaluation_2002-2007_of_Social_and_Health_Impacts_of_an_Integrated_Water_Purification_Health_Education_Project" target="_blank"><b>Rainforest Flow/House of the Children’s “Project Huacaria”</b></a>: Five-Year Evaluation (2002-2007) of Social and Health Impacts of an Integrated Water Purification/Health Education Project (2008)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.academia.edu/12470701/Revenge_envy_and_sorcery_in_an_Amazonian_society" target="_blank">Revenge, Envy and Sorcery in an Amazonian Society</a></b>: Revenge in the Cultures of South America (2008). </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/35814751/Rainforest_Flows_Manu_Expansion_Project_Preliminary_Evaluation_of_Social_and_Health_Impacts_of_an_Integrated_Water_Purification_Health_Education_Project_in_the_Native_Communities_of_Tayakome_and_Yomibato_in_Manu_National_Park_Peru" target="_blank"><b>Rainforest Flow’s “Manu Expansion Project”</b></a>: Preliminary Evaluation of Social and Health Impacts of an Integrated Water Purification/Health Education Project in the Native Communities of Tayakome and Yomibato in Manu National Park, Peru (2014).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.southperupanel.org/files/reports/2013/gshepard_social1_health_fish.pdf" target="_blank"><b>Social and Environmental Evaluations in the Lower Urubamba</b></a>: Health Status and Fisheries (2014).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-vampire-pipeline-unhealth-and.html" target="_blank"><b>The Vampire Pipeline</b></a>: Unhealth and undevelopment in the lower Urubamba (2014). </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-54506689115461358822017-10-11T13:07:00.000-04:002018-10-02T15:42:00.210-04:00The Decade of Contact: Isolated indigneous people in the 21st century [excerpt]<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://pagina20.net/v2/os-mashco-nas-cabeceiras-do-rio-madre-de-dios-no-peru/" target="_blank">José Carlos Meirelles</a>, a retired field agent from Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, FUNAI, refers to the current moment for isolated indigenous people of the Amazon as “The Decade of Contact." After numerous tragic experiences in initiating contact with isolated indigenous peoples in the second half of the twentieth century, almost always resulting in their decimation, the official policy of FUNAI’s Department of Isolated Indians since 1989 has been to identify, protect and patrol the territories of isolated indigenous peoples without unnecessarily initiating the process of "contact." In extraordinary cases, as was the case of <a href="https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/korubo/1992" target="_blank">Korubo people</a> on the Javari in 1996 and the <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/encounter-in-acre-indigenous-group.html" target="_blank">Txapanawa</a> of the Río Envira in 2014, FUNAI has initiated contact with isolated groups, taking special medical, logistical and cultural precautions in order to avoid <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">imminent</span> threats. Indigenous organizations and government agencies in neighboring countries have been inspired by FUNAI's example, incorporating the principle of "no-contact" into their policies for isolated peoples.<br /><br />But the paving of the Inter-Oceanic Highway (formerly known as the ”Trans-Amazon Highway”) between Peru and Brazil, the continued expansion of the agricultural frontier, the growing demand for oil and gas exploration, and the activities of loggers, gold miners, drug traffickers and other outside agents are increasingly <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/maps-reveal-how-amazon-development-closing-isolated-tribes">penetrating remote regions of the Amazon</a> that once served as refuges for isolated peoples. Because of these external pressures, but perhaps also owing to their own internal dynamics, isolated indigenous peoples from the border region between Peru and Brazil — almost never seen in previous decades — have become <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2014/09/mashco-piros-on-verge-missionaries.html#more" target="_blank">increasingly visible and even aggressive</a> in their interactions with neighboring populations.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LZipXb7Sez8/Wd5XsT0-qDI/AAAAAAAACuM/gNxShA1EGYgsUl2AYqd-jEEuotVBAgWKgCLcBGAs/s1600/Mashco_Piro_Nomole_Crop4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="1600" height="253" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LZipXb7Sez8/Wd5XsT0-qDI/AAAAAAAACuM/gNxShA1EGYgsUl2AYqd-jEEuotVBAgWKgCLcBGAs/s400/Mashco_Piro_Nomole_Crop4.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One
group of Mashco-Piro on the upper Madre de Dios maintains regular
contact with a team from the Department of Isolated and Recently
Contacted Peoples of Peru's Culture Ministry. In this photo, several
Mashco-Piro have climbed aboard the Culture Ministry's boat (November,
2015).</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 2011, a Mashco-Piro <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">archer</span> in the Madre de Dios region of Peru <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2012/01/close-encounters-of-mashco-kind-fatal.html" target="_blank">killed Nicolas "Shaco"</a> Flores, a Matsigenka indigenous man from a neighboring community who had engaged in tenuous exchanges and dialogue with the group for many years. In 2014, the isolated Txapanawa or “Xinane” people from the Envira river in Brazil took it upon themselves to approach FUNAI agents and neighboring indigenous communities and initiate contact, apparently out of desperation after being <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/quiet-war-in-amazon-uncontacted-tribes.html" target="_blank">attacked by loggers and drug traffickers</a>. In 2015, the settled Matis people of the Javari region in Brazil began a process of <a href="https://www.cartacapital.com.br/sociedade/a-funai-e-a-farsa-da-politica-dos-indios-isolados" target="_blank">violent and uncontrolled contact</a> with isolated Korubo people, leading to deaths on both sides, contagion of diseases to the Korubo, and a crisis in the Department of Isolated Indians in FUNAI. [More recently, another isolated people of the Javari was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/sep/12/brazil-investigates-reports-of-massacre-among-amazon-tribe-javari-valley" target="_blank">attacked by illegal gold miners</a>].<br /><br />And so began the <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2016/05/ceci-nest-pas-un-contacte-fetishization.html" target="_blank">Decade of Contact</a></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2ss3Za_Nk0/Wd5I2N2-gSI/AAAAAAAACto/tJX_SdeOlMkMTSrEf4kueKidGXZwqNj1ACLcBGAs/s1600/uncontacted_tribes_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="700" height="192" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2ss3Za_Nk0/Wd5I2N2-gSI/AAAAAAAACto/tJX_SdeOlMkMTSrEf4kueKidGXZwqNj1ACLcBGAs/s320/uncontacted_tribes_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Roads, oil and gas concessions, logging and mining interests are edging in on the territory of isolated indigenous peoples (Image: <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/maps-reveal-how-amazon-development-closing-isolated-tribes"><i>Science Magazine</i></a>).</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span> A growing wave of international media outlets have published sensational texts and photos about isolated indigenous peoples <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151013-uncontacted-tribes-mashco-nomole-peru-amazon/" target="_blank">"emerging from the forest."</a> In this context American anthropologists Robert Walker and Kim Hill suggested that contact was inevitable, and that the remaining isolated peoples should be subject to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2015/jul/07/scientists-worlds-most-isolated-tribes-decisions" target="_blank">"controlled contact"</a> for their own protection. The article generated tremendous controversy in the media and in academic circles, polarizing debates around policies for protecting isolated indigenous peoples and reducing the complexity of the subject to a false dichotomy between <a href="https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11257" target="_blank">"forced contact"</a> and the principle of no-contact: the so-called <a href="http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/communicationCommunicationCommunication/Caa.pdf" target="_blank">“Leave them alone"</a> policy</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span> National governments play a key role in guaranteeing the territories, rights, health and cultural integrity of isolated indigenous peoples. But the current scenario of road-building, major infrastructure projects and expansion of the agricultural, logging and mining frontier takes outside agents ever closer to isolated peoples while contributing to an increased curiosity among isolated peoples themselves. This situation demands new policies, concepts and protocols to deal with situations of <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">imminent</span> contact. The Decade of Contact has arrived. A naive "no contact" policy — "Leave them alone!" — has become not only a contradiction, but an act of neglect.</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Excerpted and translated from “A década do contato," in: B. Rica<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">rdo & F. Ricardo (E<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ds.)</span> </span></span></i><a href="https://loja.socioambiental.org/povos-indigenas-no-brasil-2011-2016.html"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Povos Indígenas <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">n</span>o Brasil 2011/2016</span></a><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. São Paulo: Instituto Socioambiental, 556-559 (2017).</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Read the full article (in Portuguese) at </span></i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/34255587/A_d%C3%A9cada_do_contato_The_decade_of_contact_">Academia.edu</a></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><i>A revised version of this work was presented at the seminar on <a href="http://www.ppgasmn-ufrj.com/uploads/1/1/6/8/116889285/isolamento_volunt%C3%A1rio._programa%C3%A7ao.pdf">"Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation: Anthropological perspectives"</a> in Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 24-25, 2018</i></span></b></span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kiGIlfa7qEI/Wd5NBbh-hdI/AAAAAAAACtw/AQJg7Qu8NJQ9e07o_TA-Ay4DFw4MOO3SwCLcBGAs/s1600/PIB%2B2016%2BISA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="478" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kiGIlfa7qEI/Wd5NBbh-hdI/AAAAAAAACtw/AQJg7Qu8NJQ9e07o_TA-Ay4DFw4MOO3SwCLcBGAs/s320/PIB%2B2016%2BISA.jpeg" width="232" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uwtxrqrcogg/Wd5OgKlAOwI/AAAAAAAACt8/JkoDO-lroEs9t9GV2cMTKKAhHXcsMwTJgCLcBGAs/s1600/DecadaContato2017.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1093" data-original-width="1600" height="435" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uwtxrqrcogg/Wd5OgKlAOwI/AAAAAAAACt8/JkoDO-lroEs9t9GV2cMTKKAhHXcsMwTJgCLcBGAs/s640/DecadaContato2017.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-74615283115663157192017-09-19T20:20:00.002-04:002017-09-20T22:57:38.626-04:00The hummingbird shamans of Peru: Excerpt from "Agony and Ecstasy in the Amazon"<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Abanti blew the tobacco with fast furious puffs. The snuff entered my nostrils as a sequence of chartreuse explosions that expanded in chain reaction and spread backwards and upwards, illuminating my brain as if from the inside. I gasped at the roaring wildfire that penetrated my sinuses and seared the trigeminal nerves throughout my face. It was more than pain: it was suffering. He was punishing me, there was no doubt, but the pain he inflicted, though intentional, was not cruel or gratuitous. It was an initiation, a right of passage: he was teaching me a lesson. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KQY-oAZUczk/VYhnzKFc5qI/AAAAAAAACQE/L-HzhZA_yrY8AtuACXqh9tk5GNU36zjRACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/TobaccoPainLowRes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="1600" height="217" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KQY-oAZUczk/VYhnzKFc5qI/AAAAAAAACQE/L-HzhZA_yrY8AtuACXqh9tk5GNU36zjRACPcBGAYYCw/s400/TobaccoPainLowRes.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"It was more than pain. It was suffering."</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first dose was done and Abanti was already scraping up another. There was no question of refusal. As he rang the bone against the shell, it occurred to me that he was summoning someone, or something. The jets of powdery tobacco entered me once again. A bright green cloud of excruciating vapor expanded inside my mind’s eye and then turned in on itself, swirling both outward and inward into iridescent fractals that filled me with their luminescence while folding both us within an evolving pattern. There was no way to look at it, since it was everywhere: a million unblinking eyes, a peacock’s fanning tail, a rainbow of undulating woven patterns, the shimmering plumage of a hummingbird. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FJJZCNjP0Q4/VYh176111xI/AAAAAAAACQk/R3FQfxkk4EsKmPtSS-RY1Q9jGFomgqiEwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Seri%2BCU%2BCROP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="914" data-original-width="1600" height="227" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FJJZCNjP0Q4/VYh176111xI/AAAAAAAACQk/R3FQfxkk4EsKmPtSS-RY1Q9jGFomgqiEwCPcBGAYYCw/s400/Seri%2BCU%2BCROP.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"As he rang the bone against the shell, it occurred to me that he was summoning someone, or something"</b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ltlp17mui9M/WcMnnzDkjaI/AAAAAAAACsQ/cuCzjXH_RBI9YhoiiTXsfMwbKft0gl-aQCEwYBhgL/s1600/FractalHummingbird_TitiavanBeugen.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ltlp17mui9M/WcMnnzDkjaI/AAAAAAAACsQ/cuCzjXH_RBI9YhoiiTXsfMwbKft0gl-aQCEwYBhgL/s320/FractalHummingbird_TitiavanBeugen.JPG" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"A bright green cloud of excruciating vapor expanded inside my mind's eye and then turned in on itself, swirling both outward and inward into iridescent fractals" </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>(art: <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/427560558343956979/" target="_blank">Titia van Beugen</a>)</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The two of us were in some secret and enveloping holy place: a cave, a sacred grove. What he was transmitting to me through that bone tube was no longer a physical substance, it was knowledge, a living power: a sacrament. Some part of Abanti was entering me. Not Abanti exactly, but rather a silent twin, a shamanic dopplegänger that had been transmitted to him by some other master. It was both part of him and yet also more than him. It was ancient and eternal, but needed a human host. It could confer practical insights and mystical powers, but was also capricious and probably had its own agenda. This invasive alien force was melding with my spirit through a portal opened up by tobacco. The sensation was both euphoric and frightening.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"A capricious hummingbird seemed to be playing hide and seek with me" <br />(art: <a href="http://www.clancycavnar.com/html/art/2_04/humm.html" target="_blank">Clancy Cavnar</a>)</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I don’t know how many doses he gave me. At some point I whimpered, “Intaga,” and Abanti stopped. Tears streamed down my face. My breath came in sobs. My hands trembled, my face went slack and numb. Thick, dark mucus began to flow out of swollen sinuses onto my lips, neck and chest. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An eerie buzzing sound surrounded me, sometimes near, sometimes far, sometimes in front or behind, on one side or the other. I could never locate it, much less identify its source. A capricious hummingbird seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with me. There was something unbearable about that sound, not so much menacing as utterly incomprehensible and disorienting. I was confused, with no sense of space or time, and the euphoria had drained out of me and in its place came the nausea, rising like a sickening tide that rolled and spun me to that dizzy, unsettling hum. There are times when one can hold firm and fight off ayahuasca nausea through force of will. This was not one of those times.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Jiromanka,” I called out: ‘The pot.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Read the full article at <a href="https://medium.com/@susanncokal/from-our-pages-agony-and-ecstasy-in-the-amazon-by-glenn-h-shepard-jr-80f00d6f085b" target="_blank">Medium</a>.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Excerpted from <a href="http://broadstreetonline.org/2017/09/from-our-pages-agony-and-ecstasy-in-the-amazon-by-glenn-h-shepard-jr/" target="_blank">"Agony and Ecstasy in the Amazon: Tobacco, pain and the hummingbird shamans of Peru" </a></i>Broad Street<i> 2: 5-20 (2015).</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Read another excerpt from "<a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/06/agony-and-ecstasy-in-amazon-excerpt.html" target="_blank">Agony and Ecstasy"</a> on this blog.</b></i></span></div>
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-81252567783395573482017-02-15T13:48:00.000-05:002017-02-18T17:04:57.754-05:00Lessons from the Catwoman: Extinction and resilience of Amazonian fauna [exerpt from SAPIENS]<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Francisco Evangelista, a Paumari Indian who grew up along the Piranha River within the Purus River basin in the Brazilian Amazon, tells a tale from his boyhood about a pelt hunter who went mad from his own excess. Speaking in backwoods Portuguese, Evangelista—who was raised by a rubber tapper whom he called patrão (“boss”)—recalls the day he and the patrão came upon this commercial hunter in distress.<br /><br />“My boss found [the pelt hunter] on the river bank by a whole herd he had just killed, must have been 12 or 15 peccaries skinned and left to rot,” Evangelista recounts. “We had seen two more herds he had slaughtered a little farther up the river. He was crazy, scared, shaking, screaming about how the jaguars and peccaries were coming to get him because he had killed so many. We took him in our boat but he kept screaming and going crazier and crazier till finally he died, right in front of my eyes,” Evangelista says. “Our people know you can’t just go killing animals like that. It’s perverse. And the forest has its guardians.”<br /><br />Hunting by local forest-dwelling people in the Amazon for subsistence and commercial purposes has long been considered by many conservationists to be a major threat to biodiversity conservation. In the 1990s, conservationists warned that unbridled hunting could result in “empty forests”—places where trees remain but large animals are eerily absent, hunted out by local people... But a recent study published in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5061472/" target="_blank"><i>Science Advances</i></a> analyzing historical data on commercial hunting throughout the 20th century tells a different story, showing that many terrestrial Amazonian species have proven more resilient than most experts expected... </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"The jaguar-fur suit worn by <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Catwoman_(Lee_Meriwether)" target="_blank">Catwoman</a> in the 1966 film <i>Batman: The Movie</i> helped drive the trend..."</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The international trade in Amazonian animal hides gradually increased after the collapse of the "Rubber Boom" in 1912, then experienced its first peak during World War II when the U.S. again sought wild rubber from the Brazilian Amazon after the capture of Malaysian rubber plantations by the Japanese. The influx of tens of thousands of rubber tappers meant more hunters in the forest taking advantage of a secondary income stream. The 1960s saw a second peak of Amazonian animal hide exports as exotic furs came into fashion in Europe and the United States. The jaguar-fur suit worn by Catwoman in the 1966 film <i>Batman: The Movie</i> helped drive the trend...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At least 23 million wild animals were killed for their pelts and skins in the Amazon during the heydey of commercial hunting in the 20th century.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But apart from the white-lipped peccary, terrestrial animal populations were surprisingly resilient in the face of all that hunting. In contrast, aquatic species like the giant river otter, black caiman, and manatee showed rapidly dwindling export numbers during the age of commercial hunting, despite steadily rising prices—proof that their population had collapsed under hunting pressure. The result was local extinction in aquatic and semiaquatic habitats—an “empty river” scenario… [but not] the “empty forest” scenario that some experts predicted.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Continue reading the full article <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">i</span>n </span></i><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.sapiens.org/culture/amazon-hunting-conservation/" target="_blank">SAPIENS</a></span></b><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> by Glenn Shepard and Emma Marris</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Based on the paper <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5061472/" target="_blank">"Empty forest or empty rivers? A century of commercial hunting in the Amazon,"</a> published in </span></i><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Science Advances</span></b><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> 2(10). </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-75087867380277954332016-09-03T15:42:00.001-04:002017-02-18T17:11:52.949-05:00This is your brain on Li-Lo: Ayahuasca in the Twenty-First Century<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The genie is out of the bottle, tweeting about the next shamanic bodywork leadership seminar, and the bottle; well, check and see if it isn’t in the back of your fridge by the vegan TV dinner. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"The genie is out of the bottle" [Photo: <a href="https://br.pinterest.com/pin/524317581600502777/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a>]</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Who would have ever imagined that <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-of-secret-shaman.html" target="_blank"><i>ayahuasca</i></a>, the enigmatic jungle potion William S. Burroughs once referred to as “the secret”<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]</span></span></span> and whose very botanical identity was a matter of debate through the mid-twentieth century</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[2]</span></span></span></span> would, within a matter decades, become a household (or at least, yoga-mat) word; the subject of hundreds of scientific, anthropological, and medical studies; a magnet for international tourism; the motor behind a global religious diaspora, and the victorious plaintiff <i>in absentia</i> of an historic <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bia-labate/the-inauguration-of-the-u_b_9788494.html" target="_blank">Supreme Court case</a>?</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UKBkXBacNiM/V8h-vbJT_FI/AAAAAAAACgs/TiYuxyU5rTMO04eQKKZcUZr9IupQ7HkwwCEw/s1600/Yage%2BLetters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UKBkXBacNiM/V8h-vbJT_FI/AAAAAAAACgs/TiYuxyU5rTMO04eQKKZcUZr9IupQ7HkwwCEw/s320/Yage%2BLetters.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />The rhyme “herbal brew”/“bamboo” in Paul Simon’s 1990 ayahuasca-inspired song “Spirit Voices” already rings of kitsch, but there is still something, if not fresh, then at least compelling about Sting </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">in his biography <i>Broken Music</i>,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[3]</span></span></span></span> </span> revealing that “ayahuasca has brought me close to something, something fearful and profound and deadly serious.” But by the time <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/fashion/ayahuasca-a-strong-cup-of-tea.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Lindsay Lohan</a> confides to a reality TV host in April of 2015 that ayahuasca helped her “let go of past things… it was intense,”</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[4]</span></span></span></span> Burroughs’s “final fix” has finally entered the realm of cliché. <br /><br />How did this happen? What is the special appeal of this bitter Amazonian brew in the post-post-modern global village toolbox of self-realization? How has it fared in the bustling marketplace of New Age spiritual entrepreneurism and on the battleground of the War on Drugs? And what does it all mean for the multiple, religiously and socially diverse communities and individuals who consume ayahuasca, as well as various ayahuasca-like analogs, around the world? <br /><br />We can think of the global ayahuasca expansion of the past two decades as a kind of second wave to the psychedelic revolution, following upon that other, “fantastic universal… inevitable… high and beautiful wave,” Hunter S. Thompson describes as cresting in the mid-1960s only to crash so quickly, and so disappointingly:<br /><br /><i>So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back</i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span></span></span><br /><span id="goog_349374117"></span><span id="goog_349374118"></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/deepdream/comments/3eqvzp/high_resolution_dream_of_wave_of_the_future/" target="_blank">"Wave of the Future"</a></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span></span> Will the “re-traditionalization” of global neo-ayahuasca ceremonies provide adequate social controls and ideological coherence to ensure that this “second wave” psychedelic revolution doesn’t crash and dissipate somewhere between the headwaters of the Amazon and the Great Barrier Reef? Will the contradictions of the modern self and the temptations of capitalism undercut the radical vision of individual and planetary healing that some neo-ayahuasca enthusiasts prophecy? Will ayahuasca become another battlefield casualty in the global War on Drugs, or will legislation evolve to protect ayahuasca as a religious sacrament, as a medicine, as a tool of experiential freedom? We don’t yet have all the answers to these questions, but <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-World-Ayahuasca-Diaspora-Reinventions-and-Controversies/Labate-Cavnar-Gearin/p/book/9781472466631" target="_blank">the authors of this book</a> are on the crest of the wave, and if anyone can see ahead to the far shore, it is they. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ex<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">cerpted from: "</span>Ayahuasca in the Twenty-First Century: Having it Both Ways<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"</span></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">6</span>]<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">,<span style="font-size: small;"> <i>in</i>:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-World-Ayahuasca-Diaspora-Reinventions-and-Controversies/Labate-Cavnar-Gearin/p/book/9781472466631"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Re</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-World-Ayahuasca-Diaspora-Reinventions-and-Controversies/Labate-Cavnar-Gearin/p/book/9781472466631"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>inventions and Contr</b></span></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-World-Ayahuasca-Diaspora-Reinventions-and-Controversies/Labate-Cavnar-Gearin/p/book/9781472466631"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>oversies</b></span></a><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">edited by Beatriz<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Caiuby</span> Labate, Clancy Ca<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">vnar & Alex. K. Gearin</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> Related links from this blog:</span></span></i></span></span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/06/agony-and-ecstasy-in-amazon-excerpt.html">Agony and e<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">cs</span>tasy<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> i</span>n the Amazon</span></a> </span></span></span></span><br />
<a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-of-secret-shaman.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Return of the secret shaman</span></span></span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/09/dream-tobacco-for-apa-mariano.html" target="_blank">Dream <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">tobacco</span></a> </span></span></span></span><br />
<a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-cheerful-pessimist-shamans-farewell.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The cheerful<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> pessimist</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2011/03/chronicle-of-death-foreclosed.html" target="_blank">Chronicle of a death foreclosed</a> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/10/between-cross-and-pleiades-missionaries.html" target="_blank">Between the cross and the P<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">leiades</span></a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;">References:</span></span></b><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span> Burroughs, W. S., & Ginsberg, A. (2006 [1963]). <i>The yage letters: Redux.</i> San Francisco: City Lights Books </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[2] </span>Schultes, R. E. (1957). The identity of the malphigaceous narcotics of South America. <i>Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University</i>, 18, 1–56.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span> Sting. (2005). <i>Broken Music: A Memoir</i>. New York, NY: Dell, p. 18.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span> Morris, B. (2014) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/fashion/ayahuasca-a-strong-cup-of-tea.html">Ayahuasca: A strong cup of tea.</a> <i>The New York Times</i>, June 13, p. ST1. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[5] </span>Thompson, H. S. (1998 [1971]). <i>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</i>. New York, NY: Random House/Vintage Books, p. 68.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[<span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;">6</span>]</span> Shepard, G.H. Jr. (2017). Ayahuasca in the Twenty-First Century: Having it both ways. In: B.C. Labate, C. Cavnar & A.K. Gearin (eds.), <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-World-Ayahuasca-Diaspora-Reinventions-and-Controversies/Labate-Cavnar-Gearin/p/book/9781472466631"><i>The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Reinventions and Controversies</i></a>. New York: Routledge. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana ms" , sans-serif;">
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-54457665577922668652016-05-27T11:29:00.000-04:002016-12-24T08:13:24.226-05:00Ceci N’est Pas un Contact: the Fetishization of Isolated Indigenous People [Excerpt]<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Words matter. Peruvian legislation recognizes two categories of indigenous peoples with little or no interaction with outsiders and the state: “peoples in voluntary isolation” and “peoples in initial contact.” And yet there is no term, process or protocol to describe that moment of transition from one category to another: the process we refer to, for lack of a better term as “contact,” which evokes cinematic images of encounters with alien civilizations.<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></span></span> </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G6GCF4DvCVc/V0g3XsNocoI/AAAAAAAACeM/PK8jp1qAJw8vrBNfPM6XDFpo8ZeZ-B3wwCLcB/s1600/MashcoPiro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G6GCF4DvCVc/V0g3XsNocoI/AAAAAAAACeM/PK8jp1qAJw8vrBNfPM6XDFpo8ZeZ-B3wwCLcB/s400/MashcoPiro.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Throughout 2014, groups of "uncontacted"(?!) Mashco-Piro regularly approached tourism and transport boats along the banks of the upper Madre de Dios river asking for food, clothing and metal implements.</b></span><i><br /></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />I visited Peru in March of 2015 in the company of retired FUNAI agent <a href="http://pagina20.net/v2/os-mashco-nas-cabeceiras-do-rio-madre-de-dios-no-peru/" target="_blank">José Carlos Meirelles</a> and Brazilian physician Douglas Rodrigues, both with decades of experience among such peoples. My visit was an attempt to help the Peruvian Culture Ministry better address the <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com.br/2014/09/mashco-piros-on-verge-missionaries.html" target="_blank">precarious situation of isolated indigenous peoples</a> along the Peru-Brazil border. It took years for the Peruvian government to even recognize the fact that isolated indigenous groups still exist in some parts of the Peruvian Amazon. Once such peoples were officially recognized in Peru about a decade ago, the official state policy, promoted by indigenous federations such as the <a href="http://www.fenamad.org.pe/noticias/fenamad-rechaza-en-forma-categorica-anuncio-de-vmi-de-iniciar-contacto-controlado-a-indigenas-aislados/" target="_blank">Federacion Nativa de Madre de Dios (FENAMAD)</a>, has been “no contact.” Whereas in past years, religious and other organizations have sought to initiate contact with such isolated indigenous peoples, typically resulting in their decimation and cultural assimilation, this more enlightened, recent policy has recognized isolation as a form of cultural self-determination that should be respected and enforced.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lmiOnZPV6WY/V0g6H-_S_UI/AAAAAAAACeg/f_VYYNJHNWEYE_zPGci0ZKzmhGRY0S9kQCLcB/s1600/MashcoPiro_HamiltonJames.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lmiOnZPV6WY/V0g6H-_S_UI/AAAAAAAACeg/f_VYYNJHNWEYE_zPGci0ZKzmhGRY0S9kQCLcB/s400/MashcoPiro_HamiltonJames.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Mashco-Piro women on the banks of the Madre Dios river. Photo: Charlie Hamilton James, <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/06/manu-peru-biodiversity-national-parks" target="_blank"><i>National Geographic</i>, June 2016</a>.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />I first coined the term “voluntary isolation” in an <a href="https://www.academia.edu/13021790/Los_grupos_ind%C3%ADgenas_aislados_del_R%C3%ADo_Piedras" target="_blank">open letter to Mobil Prospecting Peru</a> protesting this company’s seismic exploration in the Rio Piedras known to be inhabited by Mashco-Piro and perhaps other poorly known indigenous groups, referred to at that time with inaccurate and pejorative terms such as “uncontacted,” “Stone Age,” “primitive,” “uncivilized,” or “naked.” The point of the term “voluntary isolation” is to recognize this situation, not as an accident of nature or history </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">— </span>a human group lost in the backwaters of human evolution — but rather as a conscious choice of these indigenous peoples to isolate themselves from outsiders, often due to disastrous prior experiences, as a mode of survival and self-determination.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">2</span></span></span> The term seemed to catch on, initially through the activism of FENAMAD and the International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs in Peru, and ultimately spread to neighboring Amazonian countries like Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay.<br /><br />What do we do when a group of isolated people, such as the Mashco-Piro along the upper Madre de Dios River, who had previously rejected all attempts at “contact” by missionaries, scientists, government agents and nearby indigenous brethren, <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151013-uncontacted-tribes-mashco-nomole-peru-amazon/" target="_blank">have suddenly emerged</a> along river banks, calling to tourist boats and loggers asking for food, clothes, and metal implements? Mashco-Piro bowmen have raided legally recognized native communities to take food and trade goods, sometimes wounding and even <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/01/close-encounters-of-mashco-kind-fatal.html" target="_blank">killing apparently inoffensive indigenous “brethren”</a> with their arrows.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/11/too-close-encounters-mashco-piro-and.html" target="_blank">Faced with such difficult challenges</a>, one Peruvian Culture Ministry representative asked the Brazilian specialists, “Don’t we need a new category to refer to these people? ‘People in sporadic contact’ perhaps?” This person, and others we met during this visit of exchange between Peru and Brazil, seemed to be contorting the language to find ways of respecting the inviolable principle of “no contact.” Meirelles responded in his characteristically sardonic manner: “Can a person be considered ‘sporadically pregnant’? No. Either they are, or they aren’t.” </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O0DdgIHvZDQ/V0g4YvmUEHI/AAAAAAAACeU/QdG1KeQ6D_w7mDGSDKcBlxOmOMFuLmihwCLcB/s1600/MashcoPiro2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O0DdgIHvZDQ/V0g4YvmUEHI/AAAAAAAACeU/QdG1KeQ6D_w7mDGSDKcBlxOmOMFuLmihwCLcB/s400/MashcoPiro2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">An evangelical missionary </span>communicates with a group of Mashco-Piro </b></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>through a local Pir<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">o interpreter</span></b></span>, 2014.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Viewing numerous photographs of Mashco-Piro individuals approaching boats, receiving clothes, metal implements, food, even a Coca Cola bottle, Meirelles commented: “Contact has already happened. You people are in denial.”<br /><br />…<br /><br />The official Peruvian policy of <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/plan-contact-isolated-tribe-peru-stokes-controversy" target="_blank">“no-contact”</a> is reinforced by vehement, idealistic media campaigns by indigenous rights organizations and concerned individuals who post on social media networks </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—</span> <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/798.1" target="_blank">“leave them alone!”</a> While the<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ir</span> intentions are of course noble, such a simplistic view of the complex and quickly changing situation tends to romanticize and fetishize the condition of “isolation” as a pristine, natural, unadulterated state of the last autonomous, free peoples of the planet beyond the clutches of capitalism, organized religion and the state. People forget that the very state of “isolation” is most often a historical product, a <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/01/close-encounters-of-mashco-kind-fatal.html" target="_blank">conscious choice</a> by certain groups of people, in certain moments, to defend themselves from moments of violence and territorial invasion, notably during the Rubber Boom at the turn of the 20th century. For this very reason I have resisted the idea that such peoples should be referred to as <a href="http://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3106-uncontacted-tribes-the-threats" target="_blank">“uncontacted.”</a> </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q4HxwSByRwo/VBr0AiZzihI/AAAAAAAACAk/n7rIJr3MxG8H3w0mZygEZ6uqtOCb2WXbgCKgB/s1600/2MashcoChildren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q4HxwSByRwo/VBr0AiZzihI/AAAAAAAACAk/n7rIJr3MxG8H3w0mZygEZ6uqtOCb2WXbgCKgB/s400/2MashcoChildren.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Mashco-Piro children remove clothing and food from a tourism boat. Photo: Jaime Corisepa/FENAMAD</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…<br /><br />As <a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/7/" target="_blank">Felipe Milanez has written</a>, “Contact is a myth: it is a colonial myth.” It is a <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/08/forget-colonial-myths-xatanawa-contact.html" target="_blank">myth that fetishizes</a> as a primordial condition </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—</span> “uncontacted,” autonomous, free, beyond the state </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—</span> what is in fact a historically contingent response. The response of isolated peoples is evolving, in some cases rapidly, in a rapidly changing world impacted not only by roads, mining, logging, gas pipelines, and colonization, but also by global warming, environmental change, and changing social relationships with neighboring peoples.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">3</span></span></span></span> It is only by looking beyond these myths and the idealistic, sometimes naïve notions they evoke, that scholars and supporters of indigenous rights and the relevant government institutions can develop policies that defend the long-term rights of survival, territory and self-determination of indigenous peoples, rather than blindly defending their own fantasies about them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Excerpt: Full text at </i><a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/8/" target="_blank"><b>Tipiti</b><i> 14(1): 135-137 (article 8)</i></a></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Read more from the special forum on isolated peoples at </span></i><a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Tipiti</b></span></a><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/" target="_blank"> 14(1)</a>, with articles </span></i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>by <a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/7" target="_blank">Felipe Milanez & yrs truly</a>, <a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/9" target="_blank">Lucas Bessire</a>, <a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/10" target="_blank">John Hemming</a>, <a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/11" target="_blank">Minna Opas</a>, and <a href="http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/12" target="_blank">Warren Thompson <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">& </span>Obed Garcia</a></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Read m</span>ore on isolated indigenous peoples from this blog:</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/09/mashco-piros-on-verge-missionaries.html#more" target="_blank">Mashco<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">-Piros on the verge</span></a><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/11/too-close-encounters-mashco-piro-and.html" target="_blank">Too-close encounters</a><i> </i></span><br />
<a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/08/quiet-war-in-amazon-uncontacted-tribes.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Quiet war in the Amazon</span></span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2014/08/forget-colonial-myths-xatanawa-contact.html" target="_blank">Forget colonial m<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">yths</span></a> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">References:</span></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1. </span></span></span></span>Shepard, G.H. 2002. “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/12885516/Los_Pueblos_Ind%C3%ADgenas_en_Aislamiento_Su_lucha_por_la_sobrevivencia_y_la_libertad_Pr%C3%B3logo_" target="_blank">Prólogo</a>.” In: Huertas, B., <i>Los Pueblos Indígenas en Aislamiento: Su lucha por la sobrevivencia y la libertad</i>. Lima: IWGIA, 11-14.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">2.</span> Shepard, G.H. et al. 2010. “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/7122644/Trouble_in_Paradise_Indigenous_Populations_Anthropological_Policies_and_Biodiversity_Conservation_in_Manu_National_Park_Peru" target="_blank">Trouble in Paradise: Indigenous populations, anthropological policies, and biodiversity conservation in Manu National Park, Peru</a>.” <i>Journal of Sustainable Forestry</i> 29(2): 252-301.<br /><br /><span style="color: blue;">3.</span> Walker, R. S., and Hill, K. 2015. “<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26045407" target="_blank">Protecting isolated tribes</a>,” <i>Science</i> 5 June 2015: 1061.</span></span><br /> </span><br />
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Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-54780244811066817802016-05-12T22:59:00.000-04:002020-04-14T19:47:09.546-04:00Water in Yomibato: Guest post by National Geographic writer Emma Marris<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I traveled last November to Manu Park in the Peruvian Amazon with writer <a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/author/emma-marris/" target="_blank">Emma Marris</a> to guide her among the Matsigenka people for a story she published this week in <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/06/manu-peru-biodiversity-national-parks" target="_blank">National Geographic</a>. In this post <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">f<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">r<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">om</span></span></span> the science blog <a href="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2016/05/12/guest-post-water-in-yomibato/" target="_blank">The Last Word on Nothing</a> (reproduced with permission<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">),</span> Emma describes her visit to the water purification system recently inaugurated in this remote village by the charity organization <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/donations.html" target="_blank">Rainforest Flow</a>.</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Text: Emma Marris</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Photo<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">grap<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">hy</span></span>: Glenn Shepard</i></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vDzba4aoDOo/VzUojVTjl8I/AAAAAAAACa8/m7N9MDbH5h4OyEKu91SigWuqXTHFXMZbwCLcB/s1600/YomibatoWaterSmile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vDzba4aoDOo/VzUojVTjl8I/AAAAAAAACa8/m7N9MDbH5h4OyEKu91SigWuqXTHFXMZbwCLcB/s400/YomibatoWaterSmile.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Durable, <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">hyg<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ienic</span></span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">drinking</span> taps, sinks and<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span>bathrooms were </span>installed near the Yomibato village school by <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/" target="_blank">Rainforest Flow</a>.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Last November, I went to the Peruvian Amazon on assignment for National Geographic. I focused on a group of indigenous people, the Matsigenka, living inside Manu National Park.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />One of these people is Alejo Machipango</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">[1]</span></span></span>, a hunter, farmer, and member of the water committee for the village of Yomibato. Alejo is about 32, but I would have guessed his age at 22. He is married and has several kids. He is a jokester. He likes chewing coca, drinking manioc beer. He takes his arrows with him most places, just in case. I saw him shoot at some birds, but never hit one. And he always laughs when he misses.<br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One day, Alejo takes me to see the spring where <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/yomybato.html" target="_blank">Yomibato gets its water</a>. The water system in the village was installed by a charity called Rainforest Flow between 2012 and 2015.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />A few generations ago, the Matsigenka used to be more dispersed on the landscape. Each family lived apart, and households moved often. The whole community would gather together once a month, on the full moon, and have a big party with manioc beer. But many families decided to move to Yomibato to be near the school and clinic. As the community grew to several hundred, the local river and streams became contaminated with bacteria and waterborne illness became a chronic problem.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The slow sand filtration treatment tanks, with water committee members.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The newly-installed water system itself is a very simple <a href="http://www.bluefuturefilters.com/emergency.html">slow sand filtration</a> setup. Water is piped from a spring away from the main village to a series of three portable geomembrane tanks</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">[2]</span></span></span></span> filled with sand and rocks. Microbes living on the sand gobble up bacteria, viruses, <i>Giardia</i>, <i>Cryptosporidium</i>, and parasites. The water is stored in a 30,000 liter bladder tank that is essentially a big tough geomembrane pillow, then is distributed throughout the village through pipes. The whole system is gravity fed, so there are no pumps, no electricity required, no moving parts. It is also light and easy to transport by canoe. It was designed by hydrological engineer <a href="http://www.slowsandfilter.com/bio.html" target="_blank">Humphrey Blackburn</a>. The water committee clean the filters every couple of months and repair pipe breaks, and that’s about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We cross the river by canoe, stop to look at the filters and reservoir, and then start climbing the foothills of the Andes towards the spring. When we get there, the spring itself looks like nothing. A wet spot in the ground. A pipe with holes in it is buried below the surface, I am told.<br /><br />We sit down to rest in the hollows made by the huge buttressed roots of massive fig trees. Alejo says he knows a tree nearby that is fruiting, and he and his friend Alex disappear, then reappear with their T-shirts filled with brown seed pods, about five inches long. They are called <i>azucar huayo</i> in Spanish; <i>koveni</i> in Matsigenka</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[3</span></span></span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">]</span></span></span>. The water committee hack them open with machetes and begin eating the sweet brown fluffy stuff inside. It is almost too sweet.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Alex w<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ith azucar huayo</span></span>.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I ask Alejo about laying the 16 kilometers of pipe the project required. “Everybody came to work,” he says. “The women came. We all suffered a lot.”<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I ask him if it was worth it. Sometimes, I think, <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2012/11/shipwrecked-sorry-state-of-development.html">development projects</a> are more about what rich people think a community ought to want, rather than what they actually do want. “If we had to do it again, we would.” Alejo says. “One of my children died of diarrhea, and I had it many times.”<br /><br />He says this so matter of factly that I don’t say the kinds of things I would say if someone back home told me their child had died. I suppose that in a place where people have a dozen kids and where childhood mortality is relatively common, it is possible that the etiquette is a bit different. But in truth, I am stunned that this happy-go-lucky guy who looks like a teenager has lost a child. And as a mother, I feel that vaguely sick feeling you get whenever you hear about any child dying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I wonder if he is on the water committee because his child died, or if he just thought he’d make a little money without having to leave the village—which is the way most people make money in Yomibato, if they need some for soap or cooking pots or gasoline. But I don’t know how to ask him any more about this dead child.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Nancy Santullo, founder and director of <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/who-we-are.html" target="_blank">Rainforest Flow</a>.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />The American woman who runs Rainforest Flow, <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/nancy-santullo-founder.html" target="_blank">Nancy Santullo</a>, sees clean water as a basic step on the road towards <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/mission.html" target="_blank">empowering indigenous communities</a> that have historically been victimized by outsiders: paid less than non-natives for their work, denied benefits owed to them as citizens, <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-vampire-pipeline-unhealth-and.html" target="_blank">abused by those sent to help them</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />She is on a spiritual quest to make the Matisgenka strong and confident. Alejo already seems strong and confident, but I don’t know. His smiles may cover a shell thicker than the <i>koveni</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />We walk back along the pipe, and it is a hot day, like every day. When we get to the first house of the village, I stop and take a long cool drink from the tap. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Access to clean, safe water has <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/huacaria.html" target="_blank">transformed health and sanitary conditions</a> in the project communities, benefiting children </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">especially</span></b>.</span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Find out about Rainforest Flow's <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">water </span>projects in indigenous communities of the Peruvian Amazon at</i></span><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i> <a href="http://www.rainforestflow.org/index.html">rainforestflow.org</a></i></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Read <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">more about</span> the Matsigenka people <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and</span> Manu Park in the June 2016 issue of</i><b><i> </i>National Geographic:</b><i> </i></span></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/06/manu-peru-biodiversity-national-parks" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Power of Parks: Nature in its full glory — with hunters</span></a></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">by Emma Marris</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">p</span>hotography by Charlie Hamilton James</span></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/06/editors-note-manu-protecting-parks-peru" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Loss in Eden</span></a></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">by Susan Goldberg</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">p</span>hotography by Glenn Shepard</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Notes: </span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">1.<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">As a young boy, Alejo appear<span style="color: black;">ed</span> in the Discovery channel documentaries <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256405/" target="_blank">Spirits of the Rainforest</a> </i>(w<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">inner of two</span> Emmys) and<i> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1617659/" target="_blank">The Spirit Hunters</a></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, both </span>filmed in Yomibato in 1992. Alejo's grandfather, Mariano Vicente, a storyteller, shaman, and "star" of the films, <a href="http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-cheerful-pessimist-shamans-farewell.html" target="_blank">passed away in 2012</a>. <i>The Spirit Hunters</i> , narrated by James Earl Jones, stream<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">s free online</span> at <a href="http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/6155/The-Spirit-Hunters" target="_blank">Culture Unplugged</a>. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">2.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Slow sand f<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">il<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">t<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ration is a centuries<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">-old technology </span>used by many small towns as well <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">as</span></span></span></span></span></span></span> by the U.S. military <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">on <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">extended combat <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">missions</span> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and</span></span></span> the U.N. in disaster relief efforts. Read more at <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.slowsandfilter.com/albums.html"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">slowsandfilter.com/</span></span></span></span></a>. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">3.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: black;">Azucar huayo (or <i>jatobá</i> in Brazil) is a legume seed pod from the tree <i>Hymenaea courbaril</i> L.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span></span></span> </span></span>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-27509281777962741842015-09-30T12:20:00.000-04:002020-04-14T19:47:31.899-04:00The Vampire Pipeline: Unhealth and undevelopment in the lower Urubamba<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Vilcabamba mountain range, last holdout of the Inca empire in the 16th century, looms in the distance as a man in a cotton tunic and baseball cap scrolls through the photographs on his laptop: dozens of people, adults and children, gravely ill from what was ultimately attributed to a rabies outbreak, but which many Matsigenka people of Camaná in southeastern Peru blame on a leak in the gas pipeline which passes near their village.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Lots of people
died. Children! Fourteen years and below,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">”</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> he said. </span> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“</span></span>They took
them to Lima and they died there. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The doctors came and said ‘It’s not
gas, it’s not gas, it’s the bat-illness that bit them.’ I said, ‘What if
you’re lying?’”</span><br>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UWftF7x_aks/Vg1GY2720EI/AAAAAAAACWE/P-QG--uzIto/s1600/KamanaRabies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UWftF7x_aks/Vg1GY2720EI/AAAAAAAACWE/P-QG--uzIto/s320/KamanaRabies.jpg" width="301"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Young girl from the
community of Camana who died, presumably of rabies, in May 2012. Photo
taken by a community member and used with permission.</b></span></td></tr>
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<br>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>“In 2012 the pipeline broke. They said it didn’t
break, but it just leaked a little. In the month of March, at the
beginning. They said ‘Don’t worry, the water is safe, the contamination
isn’t coming downstream.’ But then it started raining and the floods
bought all that contamination down here close to the community. </span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“</span>Ohohoh!</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">," he shook his head and then continued in the staccato cadences of the Matsigenka language, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“</span>It messed up the river… At first I didn’t notice it, I was eating
armored catfish and they had a strange smell. And then I thought, ‘It
has come down here after all. People are going to get sick. We might
die.’ And then my wife got sick. And the doctors came and said it was
rabies. The bat-illness that bit her. I said ‘No way! It was gas!’ Has a
bat bitten my wife? She was never bitten by a bat. I built my house
carefully. You don’t get rabies so easily.”</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A 600 km pipeline carries natural gas from the Camisea gas fields—</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">among the largest natural gas deposits in all of
South America—from the Urubamba region in the upper Amazon, across the Andes to refineries near Paracas Marine Reserve on the Peruvian coast. The pipeline supplies over 40% of Peru's natural gas, representing a contribution to the Peruvian economy of about 28% of GDP.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span> The Camisea gas fields are located in the heart of the territory of the Matsigenka, an indigenous Amazonian people of about 12,000 who live in the lower Urubamba, Manu and upper Madre de Dios rivers; some Matsigenka in the Camisea region maintain little or no contact with the outside world. And yet because of Peru's subsoil mineral laws, the Matsigenka people have no direct ownership stake in the gas deposits, which are leased by the government to private companies.</span></span></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In March 12, 2012, the pipeline administered by Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TGP) near the Matsigenka Native Community of Camana on the Rio Picha (an affluent of the Lower Urubamba) leaked into a small stream known locally as Tsirompia. According to the people of Camana, not only did fish die and become contaminated with a strange odor, but also large animals such as tapir and peccaries that drank contaminated water also died and were found lying in the forest or along the river. <br><br>Water samples collected on March 13 by a team sent by the Cusco Health Directorate showed unsafe levels of petrochemicals at two of eight collection points, namely, the points closest to the site where the leak was detected. Unsafe levels continued at these two points through March 18, and a final collection on March 22 showed a return to safe levels at one of these points, although no data is given for the second point.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">1</span></span></span> The health team concluded that, by the date of its return on March 23, the water in the region was now safe.<br><br>Yet a number of people fell ill beginning late March through mid-April, and by May 10 five children had died. According to <a href="http://servindi.org/actualidad/64154?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Servindi+%28Servicio+de+Informaci%C3%B3n+Indigena%29" target="_blank">media reports at the time</a>, the people of Camana blamed these illnesses and deaths on contamination from the gas leak.<br><br>A health team sent by the Cusco Health Directorate in May concluded that the deaths did not result from water contamination but rather were probably due to rabies transmitted by vampire bats.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">[2</span></span></span></span></span>] In all, eight suspected cases of rabies were documented of which seven (all children or adolescents 14 years old or less) proved fatal. The only survivor was an adult woman, the wife of the man interviewed above. One of the fatal cases was confirmed as rabies by autopsy, and two additional cases showed indications of rabies by indirect laboratory results. The exact cause of the initial five deaths could not be confirmed due to lack of blood or tissue samples, however the report classified them as “probable” rabies cases.<br><br>However during my visit to the community in April of 2014 as part of <a href="http://www.southperupanel.org/html-us/quienes-somos.php" target="_blank">an independent evaluation</a> of social, economic and environmental impacts of gas development in southern Peru, many community members suspected that some or perhaps all of these illnesses and deaths were not a result of rabies, but rather consequences of the gas leak in March.</span><br>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yIpuwrWXa3A/Vg1a16bNEgI/AAAAAAAACXQ/UkMM1wH5hWU/s1600/CamanaBoyMalnourished.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yIpuwrWXa3A/Vg1a16bNEgI/AAAAAAAACXQ/UkMM1wH5hWU/s320/CamanaBoyMalnourished.jpg" width="320"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“</span>We stopped eating fish
for months. There were even cases of children who became malnourished
because their parents were afraid to feed them fish.” </span></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As one man said, “There has not been one case of rabies for years and years. There’s a gas spill, and suddenly people start dying. It’s not rabies: it’s the gas. It’s been another two years since then and not a single case of rabies: it was the gas!”</span><br>
<a href="https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-vampire-pipeline-unhealth-and.html#more">CONTINUE READING ------></a>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362115269031083756.post-14280057370650155862015-08-11T16:02:00.001-04:002020-05-21T17:05:39.930-04:00Surreal Specters: Martin Gusinde and The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego, reviewed in the New York Review of Books<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <i>The surrealists’ 1929 Map of the World depicts Tierra del Fuego as larger than Australia: Martin Gusinde's photographs show us why.</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Martin Gusinde was ordained as a priest in Germany in 1911, he hoped to travel to New Guinea to work as a missionary among exotic tribes. Instead, his superiors sent him to Chile to teach at the German school in Santiago. Within a few years, however, he found his calling at Chile’s Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology, carrying out expeditions to Tierra del Fuego in the far south of Chile and Argentina</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Photography was an important aspect of Gusinde’s scientific and humanistic endeavor, and <a href="https://thamesandhudson.com/catalog/product/view/id/3271/s/lost-tribes-of-tierra-del-fuego-9780500544464/category/2/" target="_blank"><i>The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego</i></a></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span>is the first book to address this work in its own right</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">… </span></span>His portraits especially reveal a tension between Gusinde’s ethnographic training and his humanistic (and artistic) instincts.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6n7m6S5A9hS7k1Q9Tmn2qS2yq2OJ-9K3Bd0JftfIP7CLIWoKMPO2wbrnFcHzLCFo3m0i45etV38qubOaukYxqvRUakjHr74CFB4Ie9i-UyRRR1pdLpIIWRiPOrZLd65NNsKjf8NDZ1eP/s1600/p115_MartinGusindeLR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6n7m6S5A9hS7k1Q9Tmn2qS2yq2OJ-9K3Bd0JftfIP7CLIWoKMPO2wbrnFcHzLCFo3m0i45etV38qubOaukYxqvRUakjHr74CFB4Ie9i-UyRRR1pdLpIIWRiPOrZLd65NNsKjf8NDZ1eP/s400/p115_MartinGusindeLR.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ulen is a clownlike male spirit, whose role is to entertain the audience of the Selk’nam Hain ceremony (1923) </span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>© Martin Gusinde/Anthropos Institute/Editions Xavier Barral</b></span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Gusinde’s expeditions predate the surrealist movement and the </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://mappingthemarvellous.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/blown-out-of-proportion/">irreverent 1929 map</a></span> showing Tierra del Fuego as disproportionately large; but his first monograph, including 250 images, was not published until 1931. And yet even if only by coincidence, there is something bewitchingly surreal about Gusinde's photographs of the Hain initiation ceremony, in which young Selk’nam men are hazed by a pantheon of spirits that are revealed, in the final moments (forbidden to women), to be kinsmen in elaborate masks. Several photos show naked male figures standing barefoot in the snow, their bodies painted in bold white stripes on dark ochre and wearing eerie, phallic headdresses</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />In 1923 Gusinde photographed the last Hain ritual before the Selk’nam were decimated by a final wave of measles and forced to assimilate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />The last fluent Selk’nam speakers died in the 1980s,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span> and Herminia Vera, who spoke the language as a child, lived until 2014</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">: at ninety-one, she was born the same year Gusinde photographed the final Hain ceremony documented in this book. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But Joubert Yanten, a linguistically talented mestizo man (he goes by the tribal name Keyuk) has sought to encourage a cultural revival</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">…</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In a recent interview with the <i><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/a-loss-for-words">New Yorker</a></i></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[2]</span></span> </span> Keyuk explains the etymology of the group’s name: “The word ‘Selk’nam’ can mean ‘We are equal,’… though it can also mean ‘we are separate.’” Gusinde’s camera captures the essence of this fundamental enigma of the ethnographic encounter.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Read the full review at </i><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/gallery/2015/aug/09/lost-tribes-tierra-fuego/"><b>The New York Review of Books</b></a></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vfz3qnFy6C4/Vcgi2rp3UiI/AAAAAAAACUg/JmSCP87LJ20/s1600/Gusinde_LostTribes_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N-_6kcOvDnE/VcahG6LMFjI/AAAAAAAACTY/7PJ6F_IuFDo/s200/Gusinde_LostTribes_Cover_Thames.HR.jpg" width="158" /><span style="color: white;"> </span><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vfz3qnFy6C4/Vcgi2rp3UiI/AAAAAAAACUg/JmSCP87LJ20/s200/Gusinde_LostTribes_Cover.jpg" width="161" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://thamesandhudson.com/catalog/product/view/id/3271/s/lost-tribes-of-tierra-del-fuego-9780500544464/category/2/" target="_blank">The Lost Tribes of Tierra del Fuego: Selk’nam, Yamana, Kawésqar (2015)</a></span></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">by Martin Gusinde, edited by Christine Barthe and Xavier Barral</span></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">with
text by Marisol Palma Behnke, Anne Chapman and Dominique Legoupil</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">English edition: Thames & Hudson; French and Spanish editions:
Editions Xavier Barral</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Photographs © Martin Gusinde/Anthropos Institute/Editions Xavier Barral</span></i></span></span></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">-----</span></span> </span></i></span> </span></span></i></div>
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> References:</span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"> [1]</span> Rojas-Berscia, Luis Miguel (2014) <a href="https://www.academia.edu/7388599/ROJAS-BERSCIA_Luis_Miguel_2014_A_Heritage_Reference_Grammar_of_Selknam._MA_Thesis._Radboud_Universiteit_Nijmegen">A Heritage Reference Grammar of Selk'nam</a>. MA Thesis, Dept. Linguistics, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;"> [2]</span> Thurman, Judith (2015) <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/a-loss-for-words">“A loss for words: Can a dying language be saved?,”</a> <i>The New Yorker</i>, March 30, 2015. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/a-loss-for-words</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Glenn H. Shepardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18241377494829249336noreply@blogger.com2