Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

This is the region where the English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh believed he would discover the untold riches of El Dorado - he launched two expeditions up the Orinoco in 1595 and 1616. (I'll be covering the search for El Dorado and the true story behind the myth in a later series of posts.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In the mid-1970s, garimpeiros (small independent gold-diggers) started to enter the Yanomami country. Where these garimpeiros settled, they killed members of the Yanomami tribe in conflict over land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In addition, mining techniques by the garimpeiros led to environmental degradation.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

By 1990, more than 40,000 garimpeiros had entered the Yanomami land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The Yanomami population has consequently been severely decimated from malaria, mercury poisoning, malnourishment, and violence.

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

“ The miners threaten the Indians, they destroy nature and they are still bringing diseases to our people… We are fighting for our people, our land and our forest.”

Davi Kopenawa, spokesman of the Yanomami people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In 1987, FUNAI President Romero Jucá denied that the sharp increase in Yanomami deaths were due to garimpeiros invasions, and then-Brazilian President Sarney also supported the economic venture of the garimpeiros over the land rights of the Yanomami.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Anthropologists working closely with the Yanomami such as Alcida Ramos cite this three year period as a genocide allowed by the Brazilian government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In 1992 Christina Haverkamp crossed the Atlantic ocean on a self-made bamboo raft in order to draw attention to the continuing oppression of the Yanomami people.

 

Christina Haverkamp with Davi Kopenawa

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Yanomami-Hilfe e.V. is a non-profit organization. Founded by Christina Haverkamp in 2006 to support the indigenous peoples of South America, especially the Yanomami Indians in Brazil and Venezuela.

 

http://www.yanomami-hilfe.de/en/campaigns-and-projects/hutukara/

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The Haximu Massacre (or Yanomami Massacre) was an armed conflict in 1993, just outside Haximu, Brazil, close to the border with Venezuela. A group of garimpeiros killed approximately 16 Yanomami. In turn, Yanomami warriors killed at least two garimpeiros and wounded two more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In January 2009, gold miners shot dead a Yekuana Indian leader and injured his son, after they refused to take them into the Yanomami territory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In July 2012 the government of Venezuela investigated another alleged massacre. According to the Yanomami, a village of eighty people was attacked by a helicopter and the only known survivors of the village are three men who happened to be out hunting while the attack occurred.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The Brazilian-based Yanomami formed their own indigenous organization Hutukara Associação Yanomami, and website.

 

http://www.hutukara.org/

 

Yanomami and Yekuana Indians of northern Brazil held a protest recently to denounce the illegal invasion of Yanomami land by goldminers and to demand that the authorities take action to remove them. The Indians, decorated with body paint, danced and made their demands through loudspeakers.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The protest follows many warnings issued by Hutukara.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

It has sent numerous letters to the Brazilian government about the miners, and its representatives have attended meetings with officials from a range of government departments.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

However, the authorities have failed to evict the miners whose numbers are increasing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

"Anthropology has changed in the last 30 years.It is now very difficult to do fieldwork among the Venezuelan Yanomami. They no longer want researchers who do pure academic work - work that is of no direct benefit to them. If you want to work with indigenous people you need to explain to them what you want to achieve and then ask if they agree.

 

"Anthropologists are realising that research should be achieved through a dialogue with a community, on the basis of equals.

 

Anthropologists in the past came, studied the people and went away again. They went back to their countries and presented the Yanomami as noble savages, or as our contemporary ancestors.

 

"But the fact that they live a long way away does not mean that they are backward. And as for them being "fierce", I feel more threatened in downtown Caracas than I do in the upper Orinoco."

Hortensia Caballero Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research

 

 

 

Next: Love Story

 

Edited February 2, 2014 by Flex Mentallo

[Pat Calhoun]

Michael’s brilliant essay on ripoff charities that are supposedly helping indigenous people prompted me to send him the following PM, which he urged me to post- but after his next essay on the Amazonians…

 

“Recent posts remind me of the famous ‘Crazy taliban blowing up Buddha statues’ story. The way I heard it, folks came in with money to fix the statues. The taliban said, “but we have so many villagers starving in this area; can’t some go to them?” it was the intransigent refusal to help the people that eventually frustrated the taliban into blowing up the statues…”

 

And his story of Brazil’s blood gold, like the blood diamonds and the blood ivory and even the blood sugar Hawaii used to yield made my blood boil.

 

At some stages Michael looks at the other side of the coin: how all the colonial plundering only resulted in a ‘civilization’ devoid of most of the wonderful tribal qualities we see in his essays and elsewhere. I’d like to make two points. Firstly I know that even here, among the ‘heaps of broken images’ (TSE – The Waste Land) if you approach the earth honestly it will nurture you.

 

Secondly, there are those, and we are talking about people of vast wealth, power, and influence, who aim to preside over a global feudalism, staffed by pliant serfs, the number of which they raise or lower as they choose. Thus they seek to undermine community and family.

 

This is Pat. I grew up in the ‘60s but really I grew up before I was born: in the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s where I spend most of my life which I have tried to lead by golden age principles- truth and justice, if you must.

 

And so I offer the spirit of resistance. Rilke once said, “I didn’t want to be remembered for my oppositions, but in the Europe of my time there was so much that needed to be opposed". Bravo Ranier and Michael!

 

 

Edited February 3, 2014 by pcalhoun

[Pat Calhoun]

what the hey, in for a penny, in for a pound. but the indigs did mention 'our' skyscrapers...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2014 by pcalhoun