Thoughts of “indigenous communities of Amazonia” often, with the help of inaccurate media portrayals and misunderstandings of native development, conjure mental images of remote and uncivilized tribes who speak solely in their native tongue and wear little clothing. An excursion to Sucusari to visit and learn about the Maijuna peoples revealed this as an imperfect rendering. Although their unique culture is intact, this is due to deliberate initiatives and thoughtful interactions with outsiders.
The Maijuna are one of Peru’s most vulnerable ethnic groups, according to Nature and Culture International, numbering fewer than 500 people. A Maijuna chief, Romero Rios, proposed for the establishment of a conservation area in 2008 that would protect the four remaining villages of their ancestral homeland in the Amazon. This resulted in the development of the Maijuna-Kichwa Regional Conservation Area in Peru’s northern Amazon. The reserve is larger than California’s Yosemite National park and protects close to one million acres of rainforest.
“This conservation success happened because of the vision of the government, our assistance and support over many years, and because these indigenous communities held firmly to the unbreakable bond between their ancient culture and their natural environment – and acted to preserve both,” Nature and Culture International stated on their website. “This reserve now protects a vast area of Amazon rainforest for the benefit of local people and all of its extraordinary biological diversity, including tapirs, jaguars and giant river otters.”
Their way of life certainly provides a stark contrast to the American and modern lifestyles. The Maijuna village I visited with students of the School for Field Studies proved to be ingenious caretakers of their environment, making use of their resources on land and the freedom of movement offered by river. The Maijuna community align with an attitude of openness, providing outsiders a chance to gain an accurate grasp of their traditions and lifestyle.
Background of indigenous Amazonians
The debate of indigenous rights is centered around opposing narratatives—that of locals, outsiders, and the natives themselves. Throughout history, outsiders have entered the Amazon to practice activities that escalated deforestation including mining, logging, and the building of roads.
The Rubber Boom enriched various parts of Amazonia and brought in wealth before the collapse led to the disappearance of that prosperity. The natives were heavily affected by the boom and bust cycle of this period. It resulted in expansion of the market and left indigenous peoples with few options. Some assimilated and others fled to remote areas to live in voluntary isolation.
Some Peruvians benefited from modernization, including those who enjoyed the expansion of the market and the affluence it provided. However, the indigenous cultures were left without rights and plundered by outside forces.
Throughout history, rivers were the main form of communication for the native people of Amazonia. Increasingly, roads are taking over as the primary source of connectivity, communication and economic development. They provide access to resources and opportunities for social integration. The very avenues that bring wealth are also a source of migrants, as well as loggers and individuals of other industries who convert lands into agricultural fields and pastures. Road construction, including that of the Trans-Amazonian Highway in Brazil, has occurred at the expense of natives because the roads cut through the lands of indigenous populations living in voluntary isolation. For this reason, indigenous groups including the Maijuna community have resisted the construction of roads near them.
Currently there is a debate regarding whether a road should run from within Amazonia to outside of it. Conservationists argue that this road would bring in more people who would exploit the environment that once belonged solely to natives.
Iquitos, Peru is the largest city in the world only reachable by boat or airplane, as it is surrounded by jungle. For this reason, "Tuk Tuks" and motorcycles are found in abundance here. This may change if a road is built leading to outside of the rainforest.
Alternatives exist including waterways and railways. Waterways, however, produce environmental damage to river ecosystems and fish species. Conservationists prefer the proposal for railways, but due to higher costs, none yet exist in Amazonia.
We came by river
Rivers are essential to the Maijuna peoples and other indigenous communities, and therefore became an essential component to our arrival to Sucusari where this group resides. We departed from Iquitos, Peru by boat and quickly hit the Amazon River. During a three-hour boat ride, we traveled along the Napo River, one of the major tributaries of the Amazon River. Then we took a turn down the Sucusari River which brought us to our destination, which was a 10-minute boat ride away from the Maijuna community.
Sucusari river bank.
Not only did these boat rides bring us to the Maijuna community each day, but they also provided us with chances to visually survey the region. Native people peered down on us at various locations along the river’s bank and often children slid down the mud into the water for a swim. Boating on the river provided us with ample opportunities to observe wildlife including a proliferation of exotic birds and the occasional river otter by day. Nighttime boat rides provided sights of sloths hanging from the trees along the river’s edge. On one of these occasions, we stopped at the mouth of the Napo and sat in silence, in awe of the night sky which had few spaces untouched by stars.
We came by river—a vital element of the Maijuna lifestyle. Rather than visiting the Maijuna village, we spent our first day in Sucusari studying the vertical structure of the jungle along a 10-story high canopy walkway followed by a recreational boat ride. For this reason, we came to know the rivers more intimately before meeting the community whose way of life is centered around these rivers.
Our first day meeting the Maijuna peoples began with introductions of the leaders of the community. They were surprisingly friendly and warm, despite expectations of hostility toward outsiders. Although it is rare for indigenous communities to be in total isolation in the present day, the openness of this Maijuna village was unique.
SFS instructor Dr. Mark Bowler, an expert in wildlife surveying and community conservation, has done research among this group. They showed him hunting trails and allowed his research team to track their gun usage to measure the impacts of hunting on wildlife. Welcoming both conservation initiatives and educational opportunities, the Maijuna people have a museum located at their village providing information on their lifestyle and indigenous protection projects.
Participatory mapping—an exercise that takes advantage of local community knowledge to draw out maps for research purposes— was a successful bonding experience between our group and the Maijuna peoples. It also revealed the extent of their dependence on the river system. Hand gestures, sketches and various levels of Spanish comprehension provided avenues of communication to construct a map. The main river along which the community is located cut through the center of the map and smaller rivers branched from it. Our new Maijuna friends explained the location of hunting trails and where certain animals are often sited in relation to the rivers.
Participatory mapping.
During the duration of our trip, they often shuffled between speaking Spanish and speaking in their native tongue. Knowledge of Spanish is essential to this group’s connectedness to outsiders. However, some younger members of the village expressed lack of interest in learning their native language. This potentially threatens its survival. Clothing is another factor that is skewed in the media’s representation of natives. Documentaries show indigenous Amazonians naked or using small cloths for sparse coverage. While this is true of few tribes, the Maijuna peoples wore t-shirts, jeans, skirts and dresses like those seen outside of the jungle or in Iquitos.
The land provides
Indigenous Amazonians, in contrast to some portrayals of them as uncivilized or savage, are resourceful regarding their use of nature while often being the best caretakers of the environment. Interacting with the Maijuna peoples revealed the numerous ways the forest provides for their various needs.
They gave us a tour of their “chacra,” which is Spanish for farmland. This is where they grew cacao, a tropical evergreen tree cultivated for its seeds which are a source of chocolate. Cacao is one of two major cash crops grown in Amazonia, the other being coffee which is more profitable. They cracked open the fruit and let us taste the sweet, gummy, white substance that surrounded the inner seeds.
Cacao.
Later, they showed us how to harvest the fruit from a pijuayo tree using a long stick to disconnect the bundle without needing to take the entire tree down. They allowed one of the SFS students to harvest some as well and later prepared the pijuayo as a gift for us to eat together.
SFS student Socrates Bassuk learns how to harvest pijuayo from a tall tree with the help of a Maijuna member.
Later that day, myself and a few other students met with a Maijuna family. We spoke with Nicolas who lives in a small home with his wife and two children. He took us on a walk while one of his daughters trailed behind him to show us where he makes jewelry.
Nicolas and his family enter their home.
On the way, he plucked a seed pod from an achiote tree and opened it to reveal the rich red substance inside. He explained that this is used to paint designs or masks on the face for celebrations, which is why the achiote tree is sometimes called the “lipstick tree.”
Nicolas holds seed pods of the achiote tree, used to paint on the skin.
The following day, we visited the community again for a chambira workshop. Chambira is a large palm they strip and boil to make bracelets, necklaces, earrings, bags, baskets and other crafts. We also walked through their medicine garden where they grow medicinal plants to cure various remedies, including headaches or “dolor de cabeza,” as it is said in Spanish.
Maijuna women demonstrate how to use the chambira palm for crafting.
Medicine men
Indigenous peoples take a unique approach to healing practices. Shamans are the medicine men of Amazonian tribes and we had the privilege of meeting two shamans from separate tribes while in Sucusari.
They showed us plants, fruits and bark and explained the curative purposes of these products. They treat respiratory problems, intestinal parasites, fungus on the skin, snake bites, and alleviate tribulations specific to the jungle. For example, certain forest products can be burned so that the smoke wards off mosquitoes and bats. They demonstrated how to use tobacco nicotine to kill mosquito larvae on the skin. Another product that serves the same purpose is “sangre de dragón” or “dragon’s blood.” This is sap from a tree, but it has the same deep red color of blood.
Dragon’s blood also lessens the urge to itch from mosquito bites and chiggers—mites that burrow into the skin in search of optimal feeding areas and insert their mouth parts. The shamans asked if we would like to try some, and because every student in our group had been experiencing the relentless irritation from chiggers and countless mosquito bites, we lifted our pants immediately and they applied the remedy to our skin.
A shaman treats an SFS student's chiggers with dragon's blood.
The shamans passed around cat’s claw, a plant named after its hook-like thorns. This product can be found in pulverized forms in the Belen Market in Iquitos, Peru and elsewhere. Cat’s claw is an anti-inflammatory and prevents cancer. The shamans, with the help of biologists, recently discovered that the leaves can be picked rather than extracting the entire plant and still maintain the same curative properties.
Shamans of Amazonia are most renowned for their ayahuasca ceremonies. Foreigners travel from other parts of the world to Iquitos solely to experience this hallucinogenic drug made from the vine of this plant. There are two forms named for the types of reactions they elicit—“Cielo,” meaning sky and “trueno,” meaning thunder. Referred to as the “soul vine,” ayahuasca serves an important and often spiritual purpose for tribes. According to the shamans we met, they have mixed feelings about the popular demand for the ayahuasca experience. They are glad people are coming to know the plant and to learn from it, but disappointed by the tendency to abuse it, use it irresponsibly, and use it for profit.
Before we left, the shamans performed a blessing over our group. We sat in front of one of the shamans with our eyes closed while he sung in his native tongue, shook a plant above our heads with tobacco on it to produce smoke and then rubbed oil on our palms for protection from spirits.
These are only a small sample of natives living in a single part of this immense jungle. However, close interactions provide insight into their way of life. This insight often differs from the understandings developed by outsiders who hyper-focus on extreme cases of untouched tribes. The Maijuna peoples and other natives of Sucusari are an example of indigenous groups who are open to forming positive relationships with outsiders who are willing to respect their culture.