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In Amazonas - 1998
In Amazonas - 1998
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-18 22:36:03
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the drug barons raging on the Columbian border. Although I had all the necessary documents and papers to enter the territories surrounding the upper reaches of the Orinoco river, to visit the Indians who lived there in conditions first described by Humboldt, I was obliged to delay my journey for several days.
Amazonas is partially in Venezuela. There are no borders in the forest, just a tangle of green and a network of intersecting rivers. Puerto Ayacucho is a town of small houses, shops with gloomy interiors, a Catholic mission, several hotels which date back to colonial times, and a centre which is a showpiece for the efforts of the town's administrators. The Orinoco flows past the town's front doors. It is a wide and majestic river even here, but it does not reach its full grandeur until many miles further downstream.
The town's people are the fruit of an incredible mish-mash of races. You often see, however, the mild eyes and soft smiles of the Indians, the native population of this region. They are the ones who have given up the endless struggle for survival they faced when they were in the jungle. Living in the "shapono", large, circular constructions where the Indians' families dwell together, with each family having its own patch of floor.
Padre Jose, a Venetian missionary who has lived in Amazonas for 30 years, told me that the Indians: "live a more difficult life in the town than in the jungle. They have a quick, practical intelligence, but they are incapable af abstract thought. When I still hadn't entered into their way of life I used to ask them : "How many types of Indians do you know?". "None", was the reply. "I don't understand. Don't you know the Piaroa?" "Oh yes". "And the Guajibo? And the Pixaas-teri?" "Oh, yes, yes, but I don't know any Indians", they would conclude, disarmingly.
Padre Jose speaks the dialects of several tribes. He has won their trust and has compiled a Spanish-Yanomami
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