Amazon Reading Matter
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CHASQUI 1 AMAZON READING MATTER The extensive bibliography on the Amazon jungle is appealing, bearing in mind the spectacular biodiversity of the region, its cultural wealth, its social and economic potential and the fact that it covers 736 thousand km2 of Peruvian territory, i.e. nearly 60% of the entire country. Public interest is ever-increasing in view of the recent strategic alliance between Peru and Brazil, aimed at facing the challenges posed by development and the protection of this area, which is so vital to the planet. mong the publications century, covering the period since A quickly selected, it is the opening of the Amazon river worth highlighting the to international navigation until encyclopaedic monograph the Peace Agreement signed with written by a Spanish Augustinian Ecuador. The list could continue monk, Father Avencio Villarejo with a valuable book on the (1910 – 2000), entitled Así es la kingdom of Chachapoyas or an selva (Such is the jungle), the fifth original study of the Huni Kuin edited, corrected and extended (2). It would also be worth version of which has just been mentioning Amazon writers, or published by the Centre of the region itself as a literary topic. Theological Studies on the However, for the time being it is Amazon Jungle. The same enough to mention that the vast author was responsible for the production includes other noteworthy Monumenta expressions such as La serpiente de Amazonica (the main historical agua (The water serpent) (3), an sources of information on the exhibition on native cultures held Amazon basin covering the in the Railway Station of Desam- period between the XVI and XX parados in Lima. centuries, which are in the process of being published). However, whilst Villarejo (1) Los pueblos indígenas en aislamiento provides an overall view, the (Native people in isolation). International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs. Lima, impeccable volume on the 2002. [email protected] Bahuaja/Sonene and Madidi na- (2) Chachapoyas. El reino perdido tural reserves by U. S. citizen Kim (Chachapoyas. The lost kingdom). Elena MacQuarrie, contains a Gonzales and Rafo Leon. AFP Integra, Lima, 2002. See also Pensar el otro entre meticulous study of this southern los Huni Kuin de la Amazonía Peruana ( region, which is protected by a Thinking about others among the Huni Kuin bilateral effort shared by Peru and of the Peruvian Amazon Jungle). P. Deshayes and B. Keifenheim. French Institute of Bolivia. Bärtschi André Andean Studies / Amazon Centre of A recent study by Beatriz Anthropology and Practical Application. Huertas (1) tracks down isolated Lima, 2003. www.ifeanet.org y www. native populations and includes a their protection. Also essential is nero and Federica Barclay on the caaap.org.pe number of recommendations for the work of Fernando Santos Gra- economy of Loreto during the past (3) See www.ojoverde.perucultural.org.pe BIODIVERSITY, RAINFOREST, REFUGES, AND THE FUTURE n 1997, due to the worldwide a few calculations, Calvin realized that indigenous rainforest people posses a tupertines, varnishes, lubricants, inks, I gasoline crisis, a North American a mere acre (0.4 hectares) of one reservoir of rapidly disappearing flavoring and scenting compounds, me- chemist named Melvin Calvin followed hundred, oil producing Copaiba trees knowledge that has taken thousands dicines, bamboo, barks, polishes, some Brazilian Indians into the jungle (Copaifera langsdorfii) could produce of years to accumulate. insecticides, cosmetics, clothing, thatch in search of a very peculiar oil. Before a 1, 500 gallons (6, 000 liters) of diesel The «fuel trees», it turns out, are insulation, packing materials, rattan, giant canopy tree, Calvin – a Noble fuel per year. And, unlike oil pumped just one of thousands of valuable or flowers, soaps, dyes, tanning agents, fish, laurate – watched curiosly as the from the ground, the fuel-tree oil would potentially valuable products generated animal skins, meat, honey, decorative indians took a plug from the base of the be endlessly renewable-created simply by tropical rainforests worldwide, with plants, fodder, wood, pulp, paper, jute, tree where months earlier they had by the interaction of the trees with the new ones being discovered each year. and countless other products whose list drilled a small hole. Soon, an oil– like sun, soil, and rain. In this most diverse of Earth’s biomes, only continues to grow with each sap began to run out, quart after quarts, Within a few years of Calvin’s the self-perpetuating rainforests of the advance in our understanding. The some 25 quarts (24 liters) in all. The discovery, the gasoline crisis has abated world daily convert the unwanted litter potential market value worldwide for indians used the oil they told Calvin, as and worldwide oil prices once again of the rainforest floor into literally millions such products already runs annually into skin softener. After running some declined. Research into the miraculous of animal, plants, and their produce. hundreds of billions of dollars. chemical tests on it, however, Calvin nature of the Copaiba tree stopped. The That cornucopia of produce is not was shocked to discover that the tree’s story, however, serves to point out two only free of charge, but it’s also the most Kim MacQuarrie. Where the Andes meet oily sap contained nearly pure basic rainforest facts: one, that tropical diverse and abundant on the planet, the Amazon Perú and Bolivia’s Bahuaja- hydrocarbons. Amazingly, the tree’s oil rainforests contain a vast amount of including fruits, seeds, berries, nuts, teas, Sonene and Madidi National Parks. Photographs by André Bärtschi. Francis O. could be poured directly into a diesel largely untapped potential due to their perhaps 80, 000 edible plants, fuels, Pathey & Sons/ Jordi Blassi, Barcelona, engine, easily powering a truck. After staggering of species; and, two, that latexes, rubber, oil, spices, gums, resins, 2001. 336pp. CHASQUI 2 owards the end of the XIX ASHANINKA CHIEF VENANCIO explorer found him sailing T century, a powerful Asha- downstream, leading a convoy of ninka leader by the name of canoes full of native women and Venancio Amaringo Campa was AMARINGO CAMPA young boys whom La Combe the governor of a native village suspected had been captured by known by the exotic name of Was- Venancio in the Sepahua area. hington, situated at the mouth of Some time later he found out the Unini river, a tributary of the through two of his slaves that Ucayali river. In 1893, Venancio Venancio, together with other accompanied Carlos Fermin rubber extractors in the area, had Fitzcarrald – the rubber tycoon spread the news among the local who had taken control of the native population that the rubber extraction activity in the Peruvian authorities were arriving Manu river – in the search for and in a battleship to steal their discovery of the Mishagua dry women. La Combe suggests that dock Venancio was still working Venancio’s intention was to for Fitzcarrald when Father frighten the enslaved natives to Gabriel Sala met him in 1897. Sala prevent them from going to the describes how Venancio, leading authorities to obtain their an expedition consisting of four freedom. large canoes and 25 men armed According to Father Alemani, with rifles, intercepted his group by 1904 Venancio had abandoned in order to capture a small Chinese Washington, his centre of merchant travelling with him who operations. Enquiring about his owed Fitzcarrald some money. Bärtschi André whereabouts, Alemani discovered According to Sala, Venancio, who had a population of 500 people, but had become an important rubber that he and more than one hundred could speak Ashaninka, Quechua during the dry season between June extractor and merchant, men had gone to extract rubber in and Spanish, wore a hat, a scarf and November, Venancio would take controlling twelve rubber stations the Manu or the Madre de Dios around his neck and carried a most of the people to the Sepahua, in the Purus river area and a total of rivers. This suggests that by that black parasol, as symbols of his Cujar or Purus river basins to collect 2,000 civilized and native workers. time, Venancio had become an privileged position in the world of rubber for different local employers. A year later La Combe, independent rubber extractor. In whites. During those months, only 50 or 60 commissioned by the Government fact, Gow confirms that this was In 1900, during a downstream men remained in Washington to to explore the Ucayali river, made a one of those exceptional cases in journey on the Ucayali, coronel Pe- guard and defend the settlement, brief stop in Washington on his which a native chief became a dro Portillo, Prefect of Ayacucho, presumably from attacks by other journey upstream. Venancio was rubber tycoon. In any case, came across Venancio and his native chiefs, either of the same or considered such an important evidently Venancio’s independence entourage. Portillo reports that the other ethnic groups. When Portillo contact in the area at the time, that was short-lived. In 1910, Maurtua native chief was taking his people asked Venancio to provide 50 of his La Combe brought along a letter of reported that the manpower hired to the Cujar river, a tributary of the men to accompany him introduction written by Colonel by the rubber tycoons in the Purus river Purus, to collect rubber for downstream, he replied that he could Portillo, who had recently been river consisted of local natives and Delfín Fitzcarrald, a brother of Car- not do without them because he had appointed Prefect of Loreto. the «tribes who currently obey old los Fermin, who had died by that committed himself to collecting Venancio referred to himself as Venancio, the chief of the Campas time. On that occasion, Venancio’s rubber for Fitcarrald’s brother.