I’ve been sitting on some pictures we got at the national museum. It was an exhibition of carved indigenous benches from the Amazon jungles.
The Niemeyer style, unmistakable in Brasilia.
The exhibition is kind of weird, just benches carved from single pieces of wood. And naturally because they are from tribes in the jungle they are full of symbolism and ritual and spirituality with which I have no connection whatsoever. And there were some decorative accents like headdresses.
But the emphasis was on carved benches, and they were certainly pieces of art.
There wasn’t much in the way of explanation but apparently indigenous tribes use them for initiation ceremonies for youngsters. Basically they haze young teenagers, boys, and make them suffer a bit before they can be declared to be men. They also use stools for village events apparently. 
The mapped the region covered by the exhibits was interesting to us. I superimposed our route in red and I should note not very many Brazilians visit the far north. We have seen more of the Amazon than most Brazilians oddly enough. 
Life in the Amazon isn’t quite as comfortable as I might like but the indigenous tribes would be delighted to be left alone. Modern farming wrecks the soil so larger areas are cleared to find fertile land once farmed land is worked out and logging produces valuable tropical woods while mining is a huge illegal burden on the forest.
The more roads they build the less these people are left alone.
In the midst of all our other calamities like to see these people left alone.
And ironically I’ve driven through their backyard. Life gets complicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment