Similarities And Differences Between The Kayapo And Rubber Trappers And The Seringal Bom Futuro Area Exhibit Similarities

When one thinks about the Amazon rainforest often our minds flip to monkeys, toucans, and lots of trees. We think of the peacefulness and serenity of untouched land and the balance that nature has to offer. What we don’t think of is primitive tribes, mass killings, deadly snakes, ferocious jaguars, and satanic activity. This is the Amazon that Michael Dawson and his family were accustomed to. This was Yanomamo.

Deforestation poses an alarming threat to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, and it has been a serious concern for over 40 years. For thousands of years, the abundant, valuable resources in the Amazon were familiar only to the indigenous people of the region. In the 1500’s, before European colonization of Brazil, there were an estimated six to nine million individuals part of different cultures that made up a rich Amazonian society (“History”). Surrounded by the luxuriant rainforest and its natural resources, these indigenous tribes were able to thrive by utilizing the resources without destroying their habitat. After European emigration, the government of Brazil exploited the value of the Amazon’s resources in the twentieth century. In the 1970’s, the Brazilian government discovered the “untapped source of boundless potential” hiding in the Amazon and began using incentives to persuade settlers to develop its resources (Casey). Once economists realized the importance of the resources found within the rainforest, European pioneers set out to transform the Amazon into their home. By endorsing colonization, the government could not only boost the country’s economy, but also gain control over Brazil’s vast territory. The government supported migration to the rainforest and campaigned for the construction of infrastructure (“History”). In concurrence, the development of roads such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway, a 2,000 mile road built in 1972, granted people and machinery entrance to

Aboriginal groups are losing what they need to survive. Fish is a primary food source for the Kamayura tribe of the Amazon, and has been for many, many years. It is part of their culture and has been the root of tradition. But now that fish are becoming scarce due to climate change, their way of life is changing as well. This specific nation is losing something

This paper is written almost exclusively with information taken directly from the book Families of the Forest by Alan Johnson about the lifestyle of the Matsigenka Amazonian Natives. Information regarding the Matsigenka is almost solely derived from the work of Johnson unless noted otherwise. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Matsigenka people, their needs as a community and finally pose a development project that meets the needs described. Realistically this is only one possible solution posed by an inexperienced undergraduate student. The author is student who has never set

Today we live in a globalized world, the world is interlinked on so many social, political, and economic levels that everyone’s culture has somewhat bled into each other’s. So it is extremely rare for anthropologist to find tribes like the Yanomami. “The Yanomami are a tribe of roughly twenty thousand Amazonian Indians living in 200 to 250 villages along the border between Venezuela and Brazil.” (Borofsky, R., & Albert, B. 2005). The Yanomami have been studied by anthropologist since the 1950’s and are said to be important to anthropologist because of the unique lifestyle they live mostly unpolluted by the western world (Tiffany,S., Adams, K., 2002). When people are as isolated as the Yanomami, it gives anthropologist an amazing opportunity to study the unique development of a society. A product of society is social construction, a social construct is basically a set of rules that a society establishes for themselves over time, the members of that society may follow those rules but the rules aren’t inherent. The world that we know and the most rules that we follow are socially constructed. One of the biggest social constructions is gender, gender is a social construct that can seep into every area of life, this paper will explore the Yanomamis childrearing, politics and religion through the lens of gender. While the Yanomami live very unique lives that we can and should learn so much from, today the Yanomamis way of life is under threat.

Located in the Amazon Basin of Southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil, the Yanomamo are an indigenous group numbering close to 23,000. They utilize slash and burn horticulture, hunting and gathering to survive within their ecosystem. Napoleon Chagnon termed the group, “fierce people”, citing their numerous disputes within non-allied villages. Aside from their periodic warfare, they have managed to build and sustain their unique culture through adaptations to their environment for generations.

Indigenous rights in Brazil have been very vague throughout the years and were difficult to obtain since many indigenous tribes were seen as an inferior class. There are around 900,000 indigenous people with a total of 240 tribes in Brazil in contrast to the 11 million indigenous people that lived there before the European colonist arrived. It was predicted that 90% died in the first years from diseases that they were not exposed to, such as the flu and smallpox, and the rest who survived the diseases were enslaved. Brazil has one third of the world’s rainforest and half of the amazon forest, but with the expansion of neoliberal policies deforestation has become a serious problem. According to Brazilian authorities, the rubber and cattle industries are responsible for 80% of the deforestation (COHA). This has evidently affected many indigenous communities that lived in the Amazon forest, displacing them from their lands and exploiting them for hard labor. By the 1950s, many predicted that the indigenous population in Brazil would disappear, but they have been able to recover by becoming active in the movement against neoliberal policies and their rights as human.

Therefore, the history of the Xinguano is traced back to the starting point of the diaspora of the southern Amazonia, when specifically Arawakan languages was present among early speakers. This spread across the Amazon and contiguous areas, and established fundamental Xinguano culture patterns, “in terms of economy, technology, spatial organization, and regional distributions.” (Heckenberger, PG 324). Heckenberger makes it clear that despite the diversity of the Xinguanos due to their permeable spatial boundaries, there is a distinct connection that links to the Arawak groups through the regional cultures (Heckenberger, PG 49). The Arawak diaspora ultimately began in the Xingu basin, and as it spread outwards, it culturally shaped the Xinguanos.

Paul Gelles, Water and Power in Highland Peru: The Cultural Politics of Irrigation and Development is an interesting take on the structure of the indigenous culture surrounding irrigation water in the lower Colca valley in southwestern Peru. Gelles explores the influence of several seemingly clashing cultural influences, from the Inka to the Peruvian state on this small, rural community. This ethnography maps how traditional systems of irrigation coexist along modern, state-sanctioned models. Much of the focus is on how “competing structures of power and meaning are conceptually mapped onto the communities’ irrigation system over the course of its annual agricultural cycle” (Gelles, 2). It is fascinating to read how, despite pressure and disproportionate

"Sharing what you know, that's how we make peace." These are the words of Maria Teresa, a Mapuche woman from the Nalche region in Chile. The words are deceptively positive in the light of the situation faced by the people Maria Teresa represents. They face a frightening loop of poverty controlled by government and business forces. It is a chain that appears unbreakable from an external perspective. Indeed, the community faces challenges on a number of divergent scales, including the political and social arenas. The needs of the Mapuche communities in this region are not met by any political arena representative, whether on the municipal, regional, municipal, or state scale. In addition to political marginalization and exclusion, the Mapuche also faces social issues that relate to the poverty created by their lack of arable land and potable water.

Many people are for the economic development of their countries, but for the Kichwa villagers if the economic development meant giving up their territory in the Amazon rainforest then they were against it. The Kichwa villagers wanted to protect the rainforest from the Ecuadorean army and one of the biggest companies in South America. The land covers 70,000 hectares of pristine rainforest. The villagers were told by the Petro Amazonas a state-backed oil company that they would begin prospecting on January 15, 2013. The community members began a legal battle to stop the state-run firm assisted by a British businesswoman, who was married to a village shaman and was appointed to run an Eco Lodge. Not only was the economic development of the Amazon

Dr. Diego Soares da Silveira is a social anthropologist who did some field work in contemporary Brazil. His research is based off of the translation of science and different indigenous knowledge about biodiversity. He expresses the use of translation and exchange of knowledge among different cultures. His speech was based off his book he wrote in 2011, called Multisided Ethnography. During his speech he discussed some of his fieldwork that he has done in the Northwest Amazonas of Brazil. He began his field work by creating a council called, the Genetic Heritage Management Council. He works among a very diverse society that comes from many different cultures and ethnic groups. Through this diverse society, many different languages are spoken.

In 1974, the Yanomamo Indians of Venezuela and Brazil, presently have 15,000 people scattered in villages in the Tropical forest. The past 100 years they expanded in all directions and it is still going on today, continuing process of micro-political evolution. This led to “linguistic demographic and organizational differences” in the large chunks of villages that contain the entire tribe. The Shamatory population block is typical in the South West. Their original villages grew to 150 people and phisioned to produce two new villages that entered into wars with each other, moving further and further apart, penetrating new lands. They grew, phisioned and entered into wars among themselves and their neighbors. In 1974 there were

“In the Eastern part of Ecuador stretches el Oriente, the jungle. Between the Napo and Curaray Rivers are 600,000 hectares of land that is the home of the Huaorani, feared warriors of the Amazon Rainforest. This territory includes Yasuni National Park, one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet. Unfortunate for the Huaorani, it also includes hundreds of kilometers of oil pipes and several oil company stations that are having a devastating effect on this fragile tropical ecosystem” (Cuna, 2007, para. 1). Due to encroachment on their territory by outsiders, there are fewer than 2,000 Huaoranis left today. In this paper, I will provide an overview, as well as analyze and evaluate how the

“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”- Franklin D. Roosevelt, this is a problem happening in the Amazon Rainforest,I will show the point of view of the rubber tappers and how I believe they deserve a right to the amazon rainforest and to be heard, we will talk about their history in the rainforest, how they use the rainforest and the benefits of them being there for everyone, and what they want to happen in the amazon rainforest to preserve their way of living.