PIPER Project
From CFI
letoletot PIPER Project Concept
The Potential Indigenous Peopleâs Exchange and Research Project
The P.I.P.E.R. Project
Pumpuentsa
Pastaza Province, Ecuador
The Achuar village of Pumpuentsa lays just to the south of the Pastaza River in the Province of Moreno Santiago near the Southeast border with Peru. Pumpuentsa was chosen because one of its leaders studies English in San Francisco and I have had several opportunities to talk with him about my desire to live and learn with the Achuar. Pumpuentsa has a school with 60 students and about 200 permanent residents with as many as 5000 meters between the two most separated houses.
Because of its location near the border with Peru the Ecuadorian Military uses Pumpuentsa as a jump off spot. The 300 meter airstrip can accommodate some larger planes and there is a barracks building for the soldiers. From there they enter the rainforest and patrol the border with Peru. For communication the village is equipped with a loud speaker, radio/CD player, short wave radio and generator. The loudspeaker broadcasts music and village news from the radio/CD player that is located at one of the barracks. Radio Achuar begins it broadcasts at 3:30 am for tribal news, information, schedules and music. There is an afternoon broadcast at 6:00 pm and runs through the evening meal time. A short wave radio is located in a room at the end of the barracks and is the radio link between villages, their federation office in Puyo and Areotsentsak the Achuar supply and transport service. The Achuar Federation FINAE has been supplied with two small single engine planes that flies supplies to and from the villages. Areotsentsak also transports the sick, village leaders to and from assemblies, meetings and fulfills other transportation needs. The villages, Areotsentsak, FINAE and other groups such as hospitals and service groups listen to the village signals between 7 and 9 in the morning and between 4 and 6 in the afternoon. It is during these hours that general news, messages and announcements are relayed between the people. Many of the hospitals leave their radios on all day for medical emergencies. Some of these hospitals have their own planes or work with different missionary groups to fly out the sick for treatment at their hospital. Village life has changed because of the airstrip and the Achuar are becoming increasingly dependent upon outside supplies and transportation.
Pumpuentsa is considered a large community by Achuar standards, at approximately 200 people. They do not keep a exact census and no birth records (unless the child is born in a hospital) and precise numbers of Achuar, or their communities, would be very difficult to obtain. Currently it is believed there are somewhere between 5 and 6 thousand people that inhabit 2.5 to 3 million acres of the Ecuador and Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Achuar communities are very disperse with plenty of forest screen between homes. Not all Achuar communities want contact with the modern world and refuse to have airstrips built in their villages. Other villages recognize that in order to survive the industrial onslaught a certain number of them must learn English and have contact with âthe Westâ. There is a desire to learn about the rest of the world among the Achuar and specifically the desire to learn to speak English. Villages, like Pumpuentsa are working hard to learn and provide the leaders necessary to lead their people and protect their rainforest home.
The Village is built around the airstrip and in the village center (roughly) is the main meeting building, community cooking area, the volleyball courts and the childrenâs soccer field. Across the airstrip and before the row of school buildings lays the soccer fields for the older boys and men. There are homes spread around the area in a haphazard fashion with no more than a narrow path indicating its direction.
The Achuar wake up around 3:30 am and prepare a large pot of Wayusa Tea, Achuar radio begins and the loud speaker blasts across the village. Each morning is started by purging the stomach in order to be clean and fresh for the new day. The families gather to drink a larger quantity of the Wayusa tea very quickly which makes them vomit. They say they are getting rid of that which doesnât serve them and yesterdayâs food is one of these things. After purging they drink the Chicha or manioc beer and eat a small amount of food. The men will not eat at this time but will drink several bowls of Chicha. The Chicha consumed at this time is called sweet Chicha and has only fermented for a day, or two. Stronger Chicha that has fermented longer is drunk at the mid-day meal, in the evenings and at special gatherings. Chicha that has fermented for 7 days can be quite intoxicating. Chicha is a major part of the Achuar diet and an adult male may drink 3 gallons or more per day. Many adult males do not eat a meal until the evening choosing instead to forage while working and drinking chicha. Women tend to eat while foraging, or cooking and drink much less chicha. Drinking chicha after the morning purge is said to make one healthy and strong, ready to work hard during the day.
The family remains together during the hours before dawn and share their dreams and learning stories. The Achuar are historically an oral tradition and only recently have developed a written language. The dreams are interpreted to ascertain the course of action of the day. In this way the Achuar are a dream based society and live active lives in direct contact with the supernatural worlds. For the most part the dreams are interpreted on a personal level but the village leaders are always watching for prophetic dreams that bring news to the village. The leaders will get together to discuss the dreams and how they relate to village life. Information that led to the Achuar making contact with the outside world came from this kind of dream.
When it is light enough to work the family separates and goes their individual way. Much of the work is done before the heat of the day. The woman and girl children go into the garden or out into the forest to forage for food and the men go out to hunt, join in one of the village workgroups, gather firewood or tend to the livestock. At mid-day the family gathers again at the home to eat. The afternoons are spent resting and avoiding the mid-day heat. Some return to the forest to continue to work while many of the younger men gather at the main meeting building to play volleyball or soccer. The women will spend time in the home preparing the evening meal, teaching the young girls or doing craft work. There may be a short burst of work just before dark if something is very important but usually the late afternoon and evening is for games, talking and making music.
Many of the Achuar now own cattle and rainforest is being cut to have pasture space. The cattle are considered a savings account and are butchered when the family needs money. The impact of cattle on the standing forest and the soil is devastating. Trails that are used by the cattle can have mud too deep to walk through and stream banks are beaten down by the hoofs of the large animals. Cattle in the Amazon are a high maintenance endeavor and they must be tied to keep them from wandering off. They must be moved every day and have a high rate of sickness and insect infection. The return per hour for raising the cattle is pennies while the burden on the forest is high. There are three main trails leaving Pumpuentsa, each to a neighboring community. Access to hunting areas and the cattle pastures are also accessed with these trails. A few of the families have a horse or two. These animals are short, more a pony, but are surefooted and strong. Travel between the villages or the Macoomba River is much quicker on horseback and they are capable of carrying a heavy load. Horses and cattle are tied out in the pastures near the village with dogs and chickens the only other domesticated animals that live in Pumpuentsa. Some Achuar communities have cats to help control rats in the village but there were no cats in Pumpuentsa.
The day after I arrived in Pumpuentsa the men of the village got together and repaired an unused structure, which ended up being a chicken coop, to be my home. It was small with all of the living space I needed. Having been unoccupied for a year the insects and other critters has settled in for long term occupancy. I had a fire in the beginning so the smoke would repel the insects but the home was so small the heat was unbearable and I let it go out. It was a constant battle for territory with the previous occupants and they felt fine about eating my clothes, books and whatever part of my body that happened to be exposed. I slept on the traditional bamboo platform under a mosquito net protected from the tiny flying bugs and the bat droppings falling from the roof above. In time I acquired a hammock and suspended it from the main supports of my home. Even though the mosquito net did not fit the hammock I was able to make it work and my bug problems were diminished. They still ate everything and mildew grew on what they left. In time I grew to enjoy all of the night sounds and nocturnal coming and going of my housemates.
The evening is when the rainforest wakes up. Just as the sun is setting the night birds, bats, crickets, frogs and many other forest inhabitants begin their nightly song looking for food or a mate. My little house provided me with a close and intimate connection with the forest. It was built near the edge of the forest where the land drops off to the little stream below.There were many mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds living in the riparian habitat surrounding the stream. This stream supplied the village with water and bubbled to the surface a short walk from my home. I had the pleasure of going to sleep to a symphony each night and the concert made waking in the middle of the night pleasant and not a problem. I became comfortable with the nocturnal coming and going of the bats that lived in my roof. There were many nights that I went out to stare at a night sky void of clouds and light pollution and marveled at the heavens of the Southern Hemisphere.
Pumpuentsa has built an education program that is very impressive given their isolation and lack of financial resources. The grades are broken by learning level more than age so the classes are diverse with ages. The program is K-12 in concept although some classes are combined, as with the 4-5 grades. The children begin by learning their own language which has only had a written form for about a decade. They also begin learning Castellan Spanish which is their second language. The program included mathematics, geography, social science, history of the world and more. I was there to teach English, help with village projects and have a cultural exchange with the community. While I was teaching their school was tri-lingual. I was hoping to establish a student exchange program with the school and looked forward to meeting the students and learning about them and their way of life.
The PIPER Project is working to establish a student exchange with indigenous groups such as the Achuar and the village of Pumpuentsa. Issues important to the long term survival to groups such as the Achuar are education, cultural preservation and sustainable economic development. Pressure to sell their oil and timber resources to meet their growing economic needs is very strong and villages struggle to maintain their lifestyles and culture. Feeding a rising population, increasing education, and medical expenses (including air transportation) are driving their economic problems. Indigenous communities such as Pumpuentsa are striving to create alternative economic sources and preserve their rainforest home. As pressure to sell the oil and timber rights increase along with the economic needs of the indigenous communities it becomes harder for these people to live in their ancestral
way. Young people are not learning the collected knowledge of their ancestors and cultural information is being lost at an alarming rate. The preservation of cultural knowledge, rainforest biodiversity, sustainable economic development and keeping the worldâs large governments and corporations from destroying their homes are the main issues of the Achuar. The destruction to their lives and homes is driven by consumer capitalism, greed and short sighted politics. Our habits and lifestyles here in the north make it profitable for companies to go to the rainforest to exploit its abundance in order to supply us with cheap stir sticks, ha rdwood floors, tin roofs and petroleum. Without a change in the lifestyles of the industrialized nations the lives of people who have existed for thousands of years will be lost along with their rainforest homes. There is no technological fix for this situation. The sickness that drives world destruction is a spiritual one and kept in place by our disconnection with the Natural world. We will not change until we realize we are a part of Nature and not separate from it.
Vincent E Brown- vince@bullhornrag.com, erthwarrior@yahoo.com
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