Moving house!

In case anybody is still looking at this blog, you should know that East of the Andes now has a new home at tumblr: eastoftheandes.tumblr.com.

I'll be posting there during my next field trip to the Pastaza River in September-December 2013. In the meantime it has some nice pictures.

A brief history lesson

The Santiago River turns out to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

From Nieva our small expedition travelled by boat for about 4 hours, down the Marañón and up the Santiago to Puerto Galilea (picture). Galilea is an indigenous Huambisa community, capital of the Rio Santiago district. It is directly next to a tiny mestizo settlement named La Poza, which has a couple of hotels and restaurants and is the main commercial centre for the area. From there our contact Leandro Calvo sent his son to bring us by pequepeque up to the village of Chapisa, about 3.5 hours further upriver.

Huambisa communities are found on the banks and tributaries of the Santiago from Galilea north to the border with Ecuador, and across the Cordillera Campanquis on the Morona River. Downriver from Galilea the indigenous communities are all Aguaruna.

Historical records show that the traditional homeland of the Jivaro people was on the upper Santiago River, and they have expanded from there in all directions. The following account describes a voyage made in 1656:

“[Padre Raymundo] Diſpuſo ſus embarcaciones, y navegando el Marañon arriba, llegò à las juntas de el Rio de Santiago, y navegando por èl contra la corriente, dentro de pocos dias diò viſta à la Provincia de los Xibaros...”

"Padre Raymundo embarked on his journey, and travelling up the Marañón, arrived at the mouth of the Santiago, and travelling up that river after a few days he sighted the province of the Xibaros."

A German missionary, von Murr, described a similar situation in 1785:

“Die Wohnsitze der Xibaros erſtrecken ſich durch meiſtens unwegſame Berge und Thäler, mit denen beyderſeits der obere Santyagofluß weit und breit umrungen iſt, und mit welchen ſie die Natur ſelbſt wider alle feindliche Anfälle beſtens verſchanzet hat.”

"The residences of the Xibaros stretch through mostly impenetrable mountains and valleys, with which both banks of the upper Santiago River are surrounded far and wide, and by means of which Nature itself has protected them very well against all enemy attacks."

The "impenetrable mountains and valleys" are still the most strikingly beautiful feature of the Santiago valley.

In 1740 a map appeared placing "Xibaros" on the mid and upper Santiago and "Ahuarunes" on the left bank of the Marañón, just west of the mouth of the Santiago. This was, as far as I know, the first mention of the ethnonym that is now spelled "Aguaruna". Since then they have expanded as far as Bagua to the West, Moyobamba to the South and Loreto to the East.

Almost there!

This is a slightly sad blog post: there's no USB port on this computer so I can't upload beautiful pictures yet. Think of it as a place-filler.
I'm still gradually making my way from Lima to Puerto Galilea, the largest community on the Santiago River. We're currently in the city of Santa María de Nieva, capital of Condorcanqui province. The town is on the Nieva River, right where it flows into the Marañón. The label is misplaced on Google maps but you can see the junction of the rivers if you scroll to the right.



Ver mapa más grande

Tomorrow we will travel by boat down the Marañón and then up the Santiago River to Puerto Galilea. I'll finally be in the Huambisa territory! Exciting.
Meanwhile it's raining and raining and raining so the rivers should be nice and full by tomorrow.

Putting the "field" in "fieldwork" (at last)

I've been in Lima long enough! Tonight I'll take the overnight bus up to Chiclayo, and tomorrow morning a bus to Bagua where I have some people to meet before going out to the communities.

Of course Lima time isn't wasted time! I've met with native Aguaruna and Huambisa speakers and already started getting answers to some nagging grammatical questions. More importantly, I've made the contacts that will allow me to actually visit some indigenous communities. Aguaruna and Huambisa people are very protective of their lands and suspicious of outsiders, and with good reason: the area is rich in valuable timber, oil and gold, and as a result extraction operations (both legal and illegal) are a constant threat to the indigenous people's way of life.

In June 2009 nationwide protests against a series of decrees issued by then President Alan García ended in a violent confrontation between Aguaruna and Huambisa protesters and the police near Bagua (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Peruvian_political_crisis).

Ultimately this has resulted in the repeal of the problem decrees and the passing of a law of prior consultation, but tensions remain and the indigenous communities are still on high alert. The practical outcome for me is that there is absolutely no way I, or any other stranger, can get access to any community without first establishing connections with local authorities. In Lima I visited AIDESEP, the national indigenous organisation, and through friends there I have arranged to get a letter of recommendation from ORPIAN, the local indigenous organisation based in Bagua, which I can present to the chiefs of communities I want to visit.

[The picture is from an article about the effects of law changes on indigenous communities. It was taken in the Aguaruna community of Temashnum, and the family on the right are friends whom I hope to see this coming Sunday. Guess where that T shirt came from...?]

Amazonia on the beaches of Lima

Amazonian crafts for sale in Lima are almost always Shipibo. Teams of Shipibo women and girls patrol the beaches, selling beautiful bracelets, necklaces, keyrings etc. made of traditional seeds and beads. Many spend the whole summer in Lima selling crafts and then go back to their communities when it's winter on the coast. They seem to have found a comfortable niche representing "the Selva" in Lima.

Here's a website showing some more Shipibo art including pottery and textiles:

http://www.pucallpa.com/turismo/artesania.php

We met the woman in the picture on the beach at Chorrillos, and she told us that her husband also does ayahuasca tourism back in their community.

A blog about fieldwork and linguistics.

I’ve started this blog so I can post updates about my 2012 field trip to Amazonas, Peru. The goal of my fieldwork is to learn more about Jivaroan languages, culture and history. Maybe you’d like to learn more about them too! I will be collecting and discussing Aguaruna grammatical data, learning more about traditional stories and the knowledge embodied in them, and collecting information on ethnobotanical knowledge.

My plan is to travel up the Santiago River and visit some Huambisa communities. I will also visit two or three Aguaruna communities in Amazonas and/or San Martín; experience has taught me to keep my itinerary flexible, so I’ll just see what opportunities present themselves.