Columbus Cannibal Rousseau Hobbes Amazons primitive Homer Green Hell Garden of Eden Savage El Dorado Léry archaic Dog-snouted warriors stone- age Hobbes.

ColumbusCannibal

Rousseau

Hobbes

Amazons

primitive

Homer

Green HellGarden of EdenSavage

El Dorado

Léryarchaic

Dog-snouted warriors

stone-age

Hobbes

Images of Amerindians

Orientalism

• Edward Said (1979): the “Orient” as European invention, holding a special place of exotic-ness in Western imagination – the distinction of West and East

• Academic: “Oriental” area studies• Style of thought: the nature of Asian peoples,

their ways of thought, customs, and destiny• Discourse: the west on top (positional

superiority), more “progressive” and advanced

Tropicality

• That unique variant of “Orientalism” that creates the tropics as primitive exotic

• Aristotle felt the tropics were uninhabitable

• Tropical forest peoples as “nature folk”

• State of nature: Hobbes and Rousseau

• John Locke: “in the beginning all was America”

Yanomamo, 1960s and 70s, Portrayed as “The Fierce People” in the

Best selling ethnography

Fallen from grace, the one contrast in indigenous culture is corrupted by

Western society

Early contact with Xavante, central BrazilSaturday Evening Post, March 15, 1947

(first published: March 19, 1945 in Life Magazine)

“Uncontacted Tribe of the Amazon(May 2008)

Envira river region, Acré, Brazil (border with Peru)

“People who bought The Emerald Forest [on Amazon.com] also bought:Quest for Fire, Clan of the Cave Bear, The Mosquito Coast, Hell in the Pacific”

All the usual suspects:Bows

FeathersNakednessSavagery

Kaiapo medicine man, Brazil. Photo: Sue Wren

From www.mongabay.com/.../pictures/wren-shaman-1.html

(3/28/06) Warriors from the upper Xingú region of Brazil participating in the Quarup ceremony.

From Conservation International'sWilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places

© Russell Mittermeier

“Brazil Opens the West”

“Battling dense jungles, defying hostile Indians and angry insects, these few modern frontiersmen are breaking a path that will bring civilization to a wilderness empire that encompasses 2,000,000 square miles”

– The Saturday Evening Post, March 15, 1947

From “Lost Cities of the Amazon” in series “Digging for the Truth,History Channel, 4/24/06

• For 500 years, explorers have been searching the Amazon for traces of its fabled lost cities...now host Josh Bernstein searches for the most famous of them all. Following in the footsteps of explorer Colonel Percy Heath Fawcett, Josh treks through thick overgrown regions of the Amazon rainforest on the trail of the legendary "Lost City of Z". Along the way, he braves piranha-infested rivers, hacks through virgin jungle, and comes to terms with massive regions of deforestation. Finally, he joins up with the Kuikuro tribe. This warrior people will take him to investigate the archaeological remains of a huge forgotten city. Could it be the "Lost City of Z"? They'll teach him the ancient hunting, fishing, and horticultural techniques that allowed them to flourish long before European contact...and which may be the key to the rainforest's future.

“In the beginning all the World was America”

John Locke, 1690

O cacique Paulinho Paiakan, da reserva etica das matas tropicais, estupra uma estudante e permanece livre (1992)

Assassinato do lider seringueiro Chico Mendes em Xapuri, no Acre, provoca revolta no mundo inteiro (1989)

“THE SAVAGE,” and the Innocent

Eles marcaram a décadaVeja, 30 Anos, 1989-1998

http://veja.abril.com.br/30anos/p_084.html

“A Challenge to Conservationists” (Mac Chapin, 2004)

Images of the Rainforest

• Amity Doolittle (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies):

“Without deep reflection on the images and rhetoric that surround the rain forest, how can we really know what it is we are trying to ‘save’?” Is it the jungles of our imaginations teeming with exotic flora and fauna that must be protected? Or, is it the gardens, orchards, and forests of resident peoples that need our attention. And what are we trying to save it for? Is it to safeguard the vast repository of undiscovered pharmaceuticals, minerals, and oils? Or is it to comfort ourselves that the ‘lungs of the world’ are continuing to compensate for our extravagant lifestyles? More than just an entertaining exercise in deconstruction, probing what lies behind the iconic and simplified representations associated with rain forest preservation has significant consequences for its inhabitants and the resources it contains.”

(Review of Candice Slater’s “Searching for the Rainforest,” 2003, American Anthropologist)

“A Challenge to Conservationists” (Mac Chapin, WorldWatch2004)

“A Challenge to Conservationists” (Mac Chapin, 2004)

Cartoon: Khalil Bendib, from “Conservation at All Costs: How Industry-Backed Environmentalism

Creates Violent Conflict Among Indigenous Peoples”

By Shefa Siegel, Special Report to CorpWatchDecember 22nd, 2003

The Illusion of the Ethnographic Present

• Due to the ill effects of European contact many Amazonian peoples were destroyed or dramatically reduced in size

• Traditionally, anthropologists assumed that these ethnographic societies were accurate examples of prehistoric Amazonians