Endnotes / Credits

01 The Irrational Genome Design Contest #2: 150-152, among others. 1 In The Implied Spider: Politics & Theology in Myth, Wendy Doniger cites Pablo 12 Boris Grois, “Lenin i Linkoln – obrazy sovremennoy smerti,” in Utopii a i Picasso: “Art is a lie that tells the truth.” Arshia Sattar substitutes ‘myth’ for obmen (Moskva: Izd-vo “Znak”, 1993), 353-356. ‘art’. 13 Walter Benjamin, “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,” in References: Illuminations, 1st ed. (New York,: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), 217-253. http://partsregistry.org/ 14 Benjamin, “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,” 224-225. http://2010.igem.org/ 15 Boris Grois, “Lenin i Linkoln – obrazy sovremennoy smerti,” 353-356. http://www.openwetware.org/wiki/CAGEN 16 Leah Dickerman, “Lenin in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In http://genocon.org/ Disturbing Remains: Memory, History, and Crisis in the Twentieth Century, ed. Michael S. Roth and Charles G. Salas (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, http://www.riken.go.jp/engn/r-world/info/info/2010/100524/index.html 2001), 77-110. http://www.biofab.org/ 17 Lopukhin, Bolezn’, smert’i bal’zamirovanie V.I. Lenina, 112. This article owes much to James King, Yashas Shetty and the ArtScienceBangalore iGEM team 2010. http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/DesignWorkshop2010 03 An Architecture of Humors

02 Shaping Eternity: the Preservation of Lenin’s Body Copyright all pictures (3D) 1 This text was written in the course of Prof. Marek Bartelik’s seminar on R&Sie(n) / le Laboratoire / (name of the partner according to the production) An architecture des Humeurs Constructivism at MIT in the Spring of 2009. I would like to thank Prof. Bartelik R&Sie(n) / Le Laboratoire / 2010 as well as my classmates, in particular, Ana Maria Leon and Nicola Pezolet, Scenario, design, production: R&Sie(n) for their interest and useful feedback. I am also thankful to Caroline Jones, Associated to: Rebecca Uchill, Marilyn Levine, and Igor Demchenko for their commentaries and suggestions. François Jouve / Mathematical Process Marc Fornes & Winston Hampel, Natanael Elfassy / Computations 2 Lenin’s letter to M. Gorky, 13 or 14th September 1913. Quoted in: K. Marx, F. Stephan Henrich / Process and Robotic Design Engels, V. I. Lenin. O religii. Moscow: Politizdat, 1983, 242. Gaëtan Robillard, Frédéric Mauclere, Jonathan Derrough / Design & Process of 3 IU. M. (Iuri Mikhailovich) Lopukhin, Bolezn, smert i balzamirovanie V.I. Lenina: physiological collect pravda i mify (Moskva: Respublika, 1997), 63. Berdaguer et Péjus / Nano-réceptors scénario 4 Il’ich – Lenin’s patronymic. When used instead of a first name in Russian, the Mark Kendall / Microneedles patronimic usually conveys a greater degree of familiarity. Delphine Chevrot / Takako Sato / “The Lift” Candice Poitrey / Physiological Interview 5 IU. M. (Iuri Mikhailovich) Steklov, Mogila vozhdia., 2nd ed. (Leningrad: Gos. Chris Younes / Text Natural Machine izd-vo, 1924), 14-15. Jiang Bin, architect 6 Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich, Vospominania o Lenine, 2nd ed. Laura Bellamy (Moskva: Nauka, 1969), 465-466. Rosalie Laurin 7 In a recent television interview, Melnikov’s son affirmed that this effect was intentional. 04 Illusions of Control 8 Lopukhin, Bolezn’, smert’i bal’zamirovanie V.I. Lenina, 115-116. Radical Engineers and Reactionary Artists 9 This was not the first change of dressing style in Lenin’s life: in 1917, 1 Synthetic Biology, “Synthetic Biology: FAQ,” http://syntheticbiology.org/FAQ. having triumphantly returned to Russia from the emigration, he abandoned his bourgeois hat for a democratic kepi. As Velikanova testifies, although 3 html. April 1917 Lenin arrived to Petrograd in a hat, in the official iconography he 2 H. G. Wells, “The limits of individual plasticity,” in H.G Wells: Early Writing was always depicted wearing the kepi. Moreover, later even the depictions of in Science and Science Fiction, ed. Robert Philmus and David Y. Hughes, earlier periods of his life had to feature the kepi. (Olga Velikanova, The Public (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 36. Perception of the Cult of Lenin Based on Archival Materials [In Russian]. 3 Jacques Loeb, “On the Nature of the Process of Fertilization and the Artificial Queenston, Ontario, Canada, 2001: 231-232). Production of Normal Larvae (Plutei) from the Unfertilized Eggs of the Sea 10 Lopukhin, Bolezn’, smert’i bal’zamirovanie V.I. Lenina, 107. Urchin,” American Journal of Physiology 3 (1899): 135-138; reprinted in Studies 11 See: “Kak balzamirovali telo Lenina (How Lenin’s Body was Embalmed),” in General Physiology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1905), 539-543. Kharkovsky Kommunist (Kharkov’s Communist), 12 August 1924, # 183; V. V. 4 Jacques Loeb to Ernst Mach, 28 December 1899, EM; on the myth of the Lauer, “O Sposobakh, Prmenennykh pri Balzamirovanii Tela Lenina (About the hero in late nineteenth-century German science see Frank J. Sulloway, Freud, Methods Used during the Embalming of Lenin’s Body), Kubansky Nauchno- Biologist of the Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 445-495. Quoted in Scott F. Meditsinsky Vestnik (Kuban’ Scientific-Medical Newsletter), vol. 4, 1924; N. Gilbert, Developmental Biology, (New York: University Press, 2000), 93-117. Melnikov-Razvedenkov, “Pro Naukovi Sposobi Permanentnogo Zberezhenia 5 Philip J. Pauly, Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering Ideal in Tila Lenina (“On the Scientific Methods of the Permanent Preservation of Biology (Oxford University Press: 1987), 47. Lenin’s Body”), Ukrainsky Meditsinsky Archiv (Ukranian Medical Archive), 6 Ibid. vol. 5, 1930, #2: 148-50 (in Ukrainian); N. Melnikov-Raswedenkov, “Über die wissenschaftlichen Verfahren zur permanenten Erhaltung der Leiche von W. I. 7 Eduard Uhlenhuth wrote in 1916: “Through the discovery of tissue culture Lenin,” Ukrainsky Meditsinsky Archiv (Ukranian Medical Archive), vol. 5, 1930, we have, so to speak, created a new type of body on which to grow the cell.”

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“Changes in pigment epithelium cells and iris pigment cells of Rana pipiens 6 Ibid., p. 163 induced by changes in environmental conditions,” Journal of Experimental 7 Hickey, op. cit. p. 19 Medicine 24 (1916): 690. 8 Bring and Wayembergh, op. cit. p. 180 8 David M Friedman, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, 9 Benjamin, op. cit. p. 533 and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 39. 10 (Full Swing Golf website) 9 Alexis Carrel, Man, the Unknown (New York: Harper & Bros, 1935). 10 Ibid., 299. 11 Eugene Thacker, “The Thickness of Tissue Engineering,” in Life Science: 09 ISLAND PHANTASMAGORIA - Exploring the Political/ Ars Electronica 99, ed. Gerfried Stocker and Christine Schopf (New York: Philosophical Underpinnings of Fictional Islands and Imagining a Springer, 1999), 183. Future of Plastic-Pirate-Island- 12 Andrew Pollack, “Custom-Made Microbes, at Your Service,” The New York 1 John Collins Rudolf, “The Warming of Greenland,” New York Times, Times, January 17, 2006, Science section, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/ Jan 16 2007, Environment Section, Online Edition. http://www.nytimes. science/17synt.html?emc=eta1. com/2007/01/16/science/earth/16gree.html?pagewanted=print 13 Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, “Why are there so many Engineers 2 From wikipedia.org: “Despite a popular image of modernity, artificial islands among Islamic Radicals?,” European Journal of Sociology 50 (2009): 201-230. actually have a long history in many parts of the world, dating back to the 14 Ibid. crannogs of prehistoric Scotland and Ireland, the ceremonial centers of Nan 15 Emmanuel Sivan, “Why are so Many Would-Be Terrorists Engineers?,” Madol in Micronesia and the still extant floating islands of Lake Titicaca. The Haaretz, February 12, 2010, Opinion section, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/ city of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec predecessor of Mexico City that was home to spages/1149370.html 12/02/2010. 250,000 people when the Spaniards arrived, stood on a small natural island in 16 SymbioticA – Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, http://www.symbiotica. Lake Texcoco that was surrounded by countless artificial chinamitl islands.” uwa.edu.au. 3 Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, (New York, NY: Monacelli Press, 1994). 4 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 05 Design for Decline: The Bank of Savings and Futures 1993) 32. 5 J.K.Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, (London, Bloomsbury, 1 Howard T. and Elizabeth C. Odum, The Prosperous Way Down. (Boulder, 1999) 19. University Press of Colorado, 2001): 7. 6 Dominic Hughes, “Dutch Float ‘Migrant Prison’ Scheme”, BBC News, Online 2 Mark Jarzombek, “Architecture: A Failed Discipline.” Volume 19 (2009): Edition. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7096186.stm 42-46. 7 Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2434. 06 What Do We Do With This Future? An Examination of 8 Anselm Franke and Eyal Weizman, Territories, The Frontiers of and Tempelhof Airport Other Facts on the Ground. (Verlag der Buchhandlung, Walther Konig, 2004). 9 Strangemaps http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/. 1 Jonathan Glancey, “Board Now, Gate Closing,” The Guardian, July 26, 2004. 10 From wikipedia.org: is said to have been a free communalist 2 Nicholas Kulish, “Berlin’s Airport: Shining Beacon or Waste of Money.” The colony forged by pirates under the leadership of Captain Olivier Misson in the New York Times, March 8, 2010. late 1600s. Whether or not Libertatia actually existed is disputed. It is described 3 Gavriel Rosenfeld, “Munich and Memory: Architecture, Monuments, and in the book A General History of the Pyrates by Captain , an the Legacy of the Third Reich.” Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism, otherwise unknown individual who may have been a pseudonym of Daniel Volume 22 (2000): Defoe. Much of the book is a mixture of fact and fiction, and it is possible the The research for this paper was completed with Max Zuckerman and Frithjof account of Libertatia is entirely fabricated. Woddarg and was supported by a fellowship from Humanity In Action. 11 From Wilson’s on Sale: “Salé... dates back at least to Carthaginian times (around 7th century BC). The Romans called the place Sala 08 From here to infinity: Make-Believe and Virtuality On the Colonia, part of their province of Mauritania Tingitane. Pliny the Elder mentions it (as a desert town infested with elephants!). The Vandals captured the area in Japanese Driving Range the 5th century AD and left behind a number of blonde, blue-eyed Berbers. The 1 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland & Kevin Arabs (7th century) kept the old name and believed it derived from “Sala” (sic., Mc Laughlin (TheBelknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. his name is actually Salah), son of Ham, son of Noah; they said that Salé was and London, England 1999), p. 546 the first city ever built by the Berbers” Sale, became a Pirate Republic in 17th 2 Teiji Ito, The Japanese Garden (The Yale University Press, New Haven and century - a type of micronation with its own seaport argot known as “Franco”. London 1972) p. 146 Like some other pirate states, it even used to pass treaties from time to time with some European countries, agreeing not to attack their fleets. 3 Dave Hickey, “Folie Blanche: The Quest for the Perfect Lie” in Art Issues, November/December 1992 #23, p. 19 12 Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey), Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes (Brooklyn, New York, Autonomedia,1995) 4 Mitchell Bring & Josse Wayembergh, Japanese Gardens, Design and Meaning (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, Tokyo, 1981) p. 180 13 T.A.Z. is also inspired by Situationist ideology. From wikipedia.org: The Situationist International (SI) was a restricted group of international 5 Ito, op. cit p. 149-150 revolutionaries founded in 1957 with their ideas rooted in Marxism and the 20th

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_x_00185 by guest on 30 September 2021 Century European artistic avant-gardes, they advocated experiences of life rights in the commercial value of human tissue.” UCLA Law Rev. Oct; 34(1) being alternative to those admitted by the capitalist order, for the fulfillment (1986): 207-64. of human primitive desires and the pursuing of a superior passional quality. 16 http://maps.google.ca/help/maps/streetview/. For this purpose they suggested and experimented with the construction of 17 Brenda Dietrich. “Resource planning for business services.“ Commun. situations, namely the setting up of environments favorable for the fulfillment ACM 49, 7 (2006): 62-64. of such desires. Using methods drawn from the arts, they developed a series of experimental fields of study for the construction of such situations, like unitary 18 http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/lmd/campain/svalbard-global-seed- urbanism and psychogeography. vault.html. 14 The loose working definition of islands I’ve used thus far in this paper: 19 Joseph Kirschvink. “Earthquake Prediction by Animals: Evolution and an island is an area of “suitable” habitation surrounded by an expanse of Sensory Perception,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 90, 2, “unsuitable” habitation. In this case, the “suitable” habitation or utopic (2000): 312–323. “islands” are the grounds for Burning Man, where one can freely express. It is an “island” because it is surrounded by an otherwise hostile and politically 12 The Domestication of the Prison or the Demonization of the restrictive environment. House 15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading. 1 Writer’s notes in the parenthesis. 16 Alexis Madrigal, “Peter Thiel Makes Downpayment on Libertarian Ocean 2 Sanford Kwinter, Architectures of Time: Toward a Theory of the Event in Colonies”, Wired Magazine, 2008 http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/ Modernist Culture. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001): 19. news/2008/05/seasteading. 3 See the analysis of South-African gated communities by Derek Hook, and 17 Ibid. Michele Vrdoljak, “Gated communities, and a “rights” 18 From wikipedia.org: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as of privilege: a ‘heterotopology’ of the South African security-park”. Geoforum. the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific 33 (2) (2002): 195. Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N. Although the 4 Franz Kafka, The Burrow. (New York: Knopf., 1954). affected area is certainly large, its actual size has not been established with any certainty in the scientific literature. Media claims that the patch is larger 5 Branden Hookway. “Computational Environment of the 20th Century: than the size of Texas are conjectural. Architecture, Interface and the Science of design” (Phd diss. abstract, Princeton Univeristy) Available at: http://soa.princeton.edu/05prog/prog_ frame.html (accessed July 7, 2010). 10 Towards Diversity in Data Culture 6 Deriving from the work of artist H.R. Giger, the designer of the Alien 1 Marc Böhlen, Hans Frei. “MicroPublicPlaces.” The situated technologies character. pamplet series on Architecture and New Media. The Architectural League of 7 “At the centre of my ironic faith, my blasphemy, is the image of the cyborg.” New York, 2010. D. Haraway, “Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist 2 Noah Fierer et al. “Forensic identification using skin bacterial communities” Feminism in the 1980s.” Socialist Review 80 (1985): 65–108. PNAS 2010 : 1000162107v1-201000162, 2010. 8 Michel Foucault and James D. Faubion, Power. (New York: New Press, 3 Michael K. Buckland. “Information as thing.” Journal of the American 2000): 283. Society for Information Science. 42(5) (1991): 351-360. 4 Christian Fuchs. “Towards a critical theory of information.” tripleC 7(2) 15 Turning the Black Box into a Great Gizmo (2009): 243-292. 1 Reyner Banham, “A Black Box: The Secret Profession of Architecture.” In A 5 Suicide Machine, http://suicidemachine.org/, accessed 11th Feb 2010. Critic Writes: Essays by Reyner Banham (Berkeley: University 6 David Talbot. “Security in the Ether.” Technology Review (Feb. 2010): 36-42. of California Press, 1996), 293. st 7 Mark Weiser. The Computer for the 21 Century, 1991. 2 Ibid., 295. 8 James Fallows. Cyberwarriors, The Atlantic Monthy, March:59-63. 3 Ibid., 296. 9 http://wikileaks.org/. 4 Ibid. 10 Chaos Computer Club, 2010. Der Datenbrief, http://www.ccc.de/datenbrief, 5 See Mark Linder, “TRANSdisciplinarity.” Hunch 9 (2005): 12-15. Linder also accessed Feb 11 2010. assesses Banham’s depiction of the Black Box. 11 Detlef Borchers. Ich wissen was ihr wisst, FAZ.NET (March 5 2010). 6 Reyner Banham, “The Great Gizmo.” In A Critic Writes: Essays by Reyner 12 Saadi Lahlou, François Jegou. “European Disappearing Computer Privacy Banham (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 109-118. Design Guidelines V1.1” [EDC-PG 2004]. Ambient Agoras IST-DC, www.rufae. 7 Ibid., 110. net/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=11, and http://www.ambient-agoras.smart- future.net/downloads/D15%5B1%5D.4_-_Privacy_Design_Guidelines.pdf (2003 version). 16 Fight the Google-Jugend! 13 Paul Dourish, Johanna Brewer, Genevieve Bell. “Information as a cultural 1 Based on Darwin’s account of meeting the natives of Tierra del Fuego. category.” Interactions (12, 4 2005): 31-33. Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (London, Penguin Classics, 1989). 14 Lars-Erik Janlert. Available information – preparatory note for a theory of 2 Listen to Joe Kane: “Spear killings remain a central fact of how the Huaorani information space, tripleC 4(2) (2006): 172-177. see themselves. Many adults carry, and proudly display, spear scars from the 15 Roy Hardiman. “Toward the right of commerciality: recognizing property battles of their youth, and the old people still chant killing songs.” Gangsta!

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Segment based on a Waorani spearing song as given by Joe Kane, Savages and saying their favourite word in as many intonations as possible, they would (London, Pan Books, 1997). then use it in a neuter sense, and vacantly repeat ‘yammerschooner’.” Charles 3 Manuel Cordova-Rios, F. Bruce Lamb, Wizard of the Upper Amazon. (New Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (London, Penguin Classics, 1989). York, Atheneum, 1971). 15 The power of begging, listen to Patrick Tierney: “In 1800, they [the 4 Lines from a Machiguenga poem transcribed by father Joaquin Barriales and Yanomami], too, seemed destined for extinction. The Yanomami’s subsequent given by Mario Vargas Llosa, The Storyteller (London, Faber and Faber, 1990). territorial and demographic success underscored one of the principles of coalition theory: weakness can be strength, and strength can be weakness. 5 Jerome Rothenberg, Technicians of the Sacred (University of California If the Yanomami had been a highly organized, well-armed, military group led Press, 1985). by a charismatic chief, they would have provoked immediate opposition and 6 Found object garden magic, quote from Michael F. Brown, Tsewa’s Dream: destruction. The last charismatic Amerindian chief in the area, Ajuricaba, Magic and Meaning in an Amazonian Society. (University of Alabama Press, proclaimed himself the king of Gran Manoa in 1720. The Portuguese promptly 2006). sent an army that crushed his coalition and carried Ajuricabe off in chains. By 7 Listen to S. Alexandrian: “Andre Breton organized group walks to look for contrast, the Yanomami expanded in all directions without a central authority. stones, sometimes on the banks of the Seine; he saw in the mineral kingdom Everywhere they went, they asked for food, steel goods, medicine, clothes. Two ‘the domain of signs and indications’. The interpretation of the stones which airstrips in Yanomami territory, one at Boca Mavaca, Venezuala, and one near one finds is considered to satisfy and develop the poetic sense, which needs Surucucu, in Brazil, were nicknamed ‘Give me.’ The Indians’ habit of endlessly to be educated in man. In La Langue des Pierres, Breton stated the method of asking for steel and food annoyed outsiders, but is also disarmed them. These the cult: ‘Stones – particular hard stones – go on talking to those who wish to tiny, technologically poor people multiplied eightfold while expanding their hear them. The speak to each listener according to his capabilities; through territory tenfold. Father Luis Coco half jokingly spoke about ‘the Yanomami what each listener knows, they instruct him in what he aspires to know.’ The Empire’”. Patrick Tierney, Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and discovery of a bed of stones on a drizzly day in the country gave Breton ‘the Journalists Devastated the Amazon (New York, W.W. Norton and Company, perfect illusion of treading the ground of the Earthly Paradise’. The divinatory 2000). nature of stones, and the ‘second state’ they induce in the connoisseur, are 16 Listen to Norman Lewis: “Difficulties arose from the fact that, as in the found only when the stones have been discovered as the result of a special majority of Indian languages, there are no equivalents in Panare for many expedition. Breton said that an unusual stone found by chance is of less value words held as basic to the concepts of the Christian religion. There is non, for than one which has been sought for and longed.” S. Alexandrian, Surrealist Art. example, for sin, guilt, punishment and redemption. There are many other (London, Thames and Hudson, 1970). pitfalls. The concept of a universal God runs contrary to all processes of 8 Excerpt from Daniel Everett, Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes, Life and Panare thought, and in any case he cannot be thanked, but only congratulated. Language in the Amazonian Jungle. (London, Profile Books, 2008). ‘God is love’ may be translated ‘the great spirit is not angry’. The Panare 9 Listen to Neil L. Whitehead. “Kanaimà is a form of Amazonian dark mentality and character were established in a relatively protected forest shamanism and involves the killing of individuals through a violent mutilation environment over thousands of years. In this famines were impossible, plagues of, in particular, the mouth and anus, into which are inserted various objects. are not recorded, and the wars that shaped our history were reduced here The killers are then enjoined to return to the dead body of the victim in order at most to a ceremonial skirmish. Consequently the Indians can only grope to drink the juices of putrefaction. The victim will first become aware of an after the meanings of words coined in a more stressful society. The biblical impending attack when the Kanaimàs approach his house by night, or on dramas become hardly more than shadow plays. How can the walls of Jericho lonely forest trails [asanda], making a characteristic whistling noise... a direct fall down for a man who has never seen a brick? How can a Indian, who has physical attack might come at any point, even years thereafter, for during never known dearth, be urged to store up in heaven? What point can this period of stalking the victim is assessed as to their likely resistance and the parable of the talents of have to a Panare whose language has no their suitability as ‘food’. In some attacks the victims may have minor bones word for profit? Most of the biblical animals are missing in the rain forest, so broken, especially fingers, and joints dislocated, especially the shoulder, ‘The Good Shepherd’ may have to be translated as ‘the foodsharer who looks while the neck may also be manipulated to induce spinal injury and back pain. after the pigs’. (To some the image seemed inappropriate, so elsewhere small This kind of attack is generally considered to be a preliminary to actual death numbers of sheep were imported and raised in an unfavourable environment, and mutilation;... fatal attack will certainly follow but, informants stress, so that this could be put right.) Redemption is explained as a trading bargain many months, or even a year or two, later.” Gothic! Neil L. Whitehead, Dark after the arduous rigmarole of cash payments, debts and credits have finally Shamans: Kanaimà and the Poetics of Violent Death (Londres, Duke University been made clear. Adam and Eve and the fall of Man are omitted from Panare Press, 2002). translations owing to their horror of incest... The translators may have decided that the best way of tackling this was by re-editing the scriptures in such a way 10 Jacques Lizot. Tales of the Yanomami: daily life in the Venezuelan forest as to implicate the Panare in Christ’s death”. Norman Lewis, The Missionaries (Cambridge University Press, 1991). God Against the Indians. (London, Picador, 1988). 11 Inspired by Marc de Civrieux, Watunna: an Orinoco creation cycle 17 Listen to Marc van Roosmalen “Most of what I have learned about survival (University of Texas Press, 1997). in a neo-tropical rainforest I have learned from the red-faced spider monkeys 12 Listen to William Burroughs “He is a native to the place when the place can’t from Surinam. I also learned a lot from other animals. From mammals, exist without him.” William S. Burroughs. My Education: A Book of Dreams. reptiles and birds who, like me, live on the ground. Agouties, agouties and (London, Picador, 1996). peccaries led me to those seeds and seedlings you can eat without risk, and 13 Based on the story of Hans Staden (1525-79). to others that are poisonous enough to kill you by touch alone if you happen to 14 Listen to Charles Darwin: “It was as easy to please as it was difficult have a scratch or small wound. Tapirs and deer taught me which seeds and to satisfy these savages. Young and old, men and children, never ceased seedlings to avoid. They also taught me which green leaves from which trees I repeating the word ‘yammerschooner,’ which means “give me.” After pointing could eat with relish. By studying the food habits of a wide variety of animals, by to almost every object, one after the other, even to the buttons on our coats, observing what foods they are looking for, what foods they eat, and from which

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/thld_x_00185 by guest on 30 September 2021 foods they sometimes accidentally die, I soon started to feel comfortable in Landscapes, and the Future of the Amazon. (Science 321, 2008). my new daily surroundings. More and more I started to look like a native of 24 David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. the forest“. My translation. Marc G.M. Van Roosmalen, Blootsvoet door de (New York, Vintage Books, 2010). Amazone, De Evolutie op het Spoor. (Amsterdam, Bert Bakker, 2008). 25 Clark L. Erickson, The Domesticated Landscape of the Bolivian Amazon. 18 Listen to Mark Plotkin: “’Look at that garden,’ Kamainja whispered. ‘I’ve In Balée and Erickson (ed.), Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology. New seen better-looking agriculture inside a leafcutter ant’s nest!’ To my untrained York, Columbia University press. 2006. eye, the peasant garden did not look at all different from Indian agriculture. 26 Martti Pärssinen, Denise Schaan & Alceu Ranzi, Pre-Columbian geometric Once Kamainja stopped laughing, I asked him to explain. ‘Look at that manioc! earthworks in the upper Purus: a complex society in western Amazonia. It is planted too far apart. You saw how we put ours together; the leaves form (Antiquity, 2009). a canopy like the forest’s, which keeps the sun and rain from directly hitting the soil. And they have only one kind, whereas in our garden we have more 27 Viti-Vití, subtitled ‘The Origin of the Ditches’, is Kuikúro myth explaining the than twenty. That plantation is an invitation for the bugs to move in.’ Kamainja earthworks now known as the cities of Z/the garden cities of Xingu. Orlando was right. Since the manioc plants were all of one variety, insects that feed Villas Boas, Claudio Villas Boas, Xingu, The Indians, Their Myths. (London, on that one variety might undergo a population explosion. I began to see what Souvenir Press, 1974). looked ‘primitive’ to the two Indians. ‘Look at the weeds!’ Shafee chimed in. 28 It is as Yeh Shieh wrote in 17th century China: “When I write something ’I don’t see any.’ I said. ‘Exactly! In our gardens we always leave some behind different from former masters, I may be filling in something missing from it binds the soil in the rainy season. The peasant’s garden is probably cleaner their work. Or is it possible that the former masters are filling in something than his house!’ ‘And another thing,’ said Kamainja. ‘You look at the plantation that is missing in my work.” Deforestation is playing out a subtle palimpsestic and you know the man doesn’t understand the forest. A well-planned garden game with the landscape of Western Amazonia. Modern day clearings, villages should look like a hole in the forest opened up when a giant ku-mah-kah tree and roads are mixing and aggregating, contrasting and accentuating with falls over. Small openings in the forest are filled in by fast growing weedy squares and circles, parallelograms and plazas, mounds and ditches, fishing plants that attract game animals. When you cut down too much forest, the weirs and glyphs dripped across clear-cut lands like a glass of red wine little plants can’t seed in from the surrounding jungle and you don’t have any spilled over an expensive white tablecloth. The present is haunted by the past, birds or peccaries coming in that you can hunt.’” Mark J. Plotkin, Tales of a the vanished civilizations of yesteryear have cartoon ghost transparency but Shaman’s Apprentice. (London, Penguin Books, 1993). they point to something that used to be anathema to greens and industrialists 19 Listen to Darrel A. Posey: “Although ‘settled’ for several decades now, alike. The West has built her societies at the cost of the forest, the pre- the Kayapó have not deserted their semi-nomadic habits entirely. They spend conquest civilizations of the Amazon did not just sustain the forest as their several months each year in the Brazil nut groves living in communal houses; numbers grew, they improved it. Improvements that are with us today. It is go on frequent collecting and hunting trips; and before major festivals make as Ezra Pound wrote: “An age old intelligence does not go away in an era of two- or three-week treks to acquire ceremonial game and feathers. The speed.” That is all. Kayapó have never left everything on their journeys to chance, however, but have developed an interesting ‘nomadic agriculture’, which they continue to use today. While routinely scavenging about the forest, the Indians gather dozens of plants, carry them back to the forest campsites or trails, and replant them in natural forest clearings. The plants include several types of wild manioc, three varieties of wild yams, a type of bush bean, and three or more wild varieties of kupa. These forest fields are always located near streams, which generally guarantee a stand of trees. Even in the savanna, where patches of forest are often few and far between, there are areas where collected plants have been replanted to form food depots. The Kayapó once maintained an extensive system of interlacing trails linking all their vast territory. Most of these ancient trails are now abandoned, but not all, and the Kayapó are still masters of the forest and savanna and travel considerable distances. I once travelled for five days with four Kayapó man on long- abandoned trails to an ancient village site. Although the trails were overgrown and difficult to follow, they had been used so much that in some places they were etched six inches into the hard earth. Each night we would stop at a stream in some spot flattened and hardened by years of use. The men would slip off into the forest and soon return with a variety of roots, tubers, stalks and fruits. Foods were readily acquired even on parts of the trail known to have been abandoned 40 years before.“ Darrel A. Posey, Kayapo Indians: experts in synergy. (ILEIA Newsletter 7(4), 1991). 20 See: Charles C. Mann. 1491 New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. (New York, Vintage Books, 2006). 21 Based on the opening lines of H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds. 22 Anna Roosevelt, The Rise and Fall of the Amazon Chiefdoms. (L’Homme, 1993). 23 M.J. Heckenberger et al. Pre-Columbian Urbanism, Anthropogenic

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