Clik here to view.
Sacred Flutes Redux: Cultural revival among the Baniwa of the Upper Rio Negro
Laureano, dignified with a parrot-feather crown and thick horn-rimmed glasses, paddles from the bow of the canoe while his skinny younger brother Oliver, in sweat pants and a baseball cap, rows aft....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chronicle of a Death Foreclosed: Mysterious disappearance of an Amazonian...
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Return of the Secret Shaman: An Amazonian healer resists persecution
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "TrebuchetMS"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Mark and Olly Follies: Reality TV series misrepresents tribal people
Reality TV reached new depths of irresponsibility in Mark & Olly: Living with the Machigenga [sic]. Aired on the Travel Channel in 2009 and on BBC in 2010, the show features Mark Anstice and Oliver...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Might at the Museum: Indigenous groups revisit their heritage at the Goeldi...
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }span.MsoEndnoteReference {...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Challenge of Life Hill: Magical landmark in the Brazilian Amazon metes...
For two hours we watched storm clouds gather as our speedboat cut through coffee-colored waves on the Içana River. We beached at the base of a sandy cliff called Paitsidzapani in the Baniwa language,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Hunter in the Rye: Ergot, Sedges and Hunting Magic in the Peruvian Amazon
Abanti draws the string of a palm wood bow all the way to his ear, aiming the razor-sharp bamboo tip of an arrow straight up into the rain forest canopy. Eighty feet above, a large spider monkey eats...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wizard of the Upper Silicon: The Steve Jobs legacy in Amazonia
Moises da Silva, a Baniwa film maker, reviews the day's footage on his MacBook;Aiary River, Upper Rio Negro, October 2010.Whatever your opinion about his business model, labor policies, or global media...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Ant, the Shaman and the Scientist: Shamanic lore spurs scientific...
When he pointed to the tree trunk and said the scars were from fires set by invisible forest spirits, I had no idea this supernatural observation would lead to a new discovery for natural science....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bittersweet: An excerpt from the forthcoming book "Sorcery of the Senses"
Every time I eat watermelon I remember that day. It was the dry season, when the rust-red floodwaters of Quebrada Fierro or “Iron Creek” subside to a lazy trickle, exposing wide, meandering beaches...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Close Encounters of the Mashco Kind: Fatal attack by an isolated indigenous...
The look on Casiano’s face was beginning to worry me. He had been helping me and Harvard ecologist Douglas Yu hack trails, scale trees and collect specimens in a thorny thicket of bamboo two miles...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Roadless (and Fishless) in Camisea: Insidious impacts of a gas pipeline in Peru
The road to Camisea, so the saying goes, may be paved with good intentions. In a recent news feature in Nature magazine[1], Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior of the United States and a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
"Astronaut of the Human Soul": In Memoriam - Steven Rubenstein
Anthropology is a special vocation; you and I did not select the ordinary job or anything close to it. We are astronauts of the human soul, half scientist and half explorer, part poet and part...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dark Shamans, Goth and Kittens: Remembering Neil Whitehead
Neil Lancelot Whitehead1956 - 2012Amazonian anthropology has lost another innovative voice, cherished friend and "astronaut of the human soul" this month. Neil L. Whitehead was best known for his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Miss Kayapó: Filming through Mebengokre Cameras
In a make-shift editing room in Belém, Brazil, seven aspiring Kayapó filmmakers hunch over laptops viewing footage shot during the prior year. These young men, representing three Mebengokre-Kayapó...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Camisea Hostage Crisis: Matsigenka natives locate Peruvian commandos ambushed...
It took a pair of Matsigenka natives, armed only with machetes and jungle savvy, to retrieve the fallen commando after the Peruvian military, using helicopter gunships and hundreds of troops, failed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monkey-Frog at the Racetrack: Horse dope from the Amazon (Phyllomedusa frog...
Monkey-frog horse race? It sounds like some cross-species monster competition dreamed up by Dr. Moreau or Monsanto. More than thirty racehorses in Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brazil's Original Sin: New film declares war on Belo Monte dam
Brazilian film maker André D'Elia has declared war on the controversial hydroelectric dam along the Xingu river in the new film "Belo Monte: Anúncio de uma Guerra."The 104 minute film premiered at a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rainforest Crunch: Origins of the Brazil nut in ancient Amazonia...
If you still miss "Rainforest Crunch" ice cream, you can finally rest assured that Amazonian Indians really were behind all those Brazil nuts in the recipe, only not in quite the way that Ben &...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Putting the Reich back in Reichel-Dolmatoff: Nazi past of legendary Colombian...
While delving into Colombia's rich indigenous heritage, the acclaimed Austrian-born anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff may also have been hiding his own Nazi past. A tireless fieldworker and...
View Article