Notes from the Jungle: An Anthropologist Views Today's World

By Marcos

The book, NOTES FROM THE JUNGLE, was begun by its author, Marcos (an anthropologist), in the 1990's along the banks of the Amazon River. The author presents his work in the form of a correspondence, a long letter, between himself and his reader. Due to the experiences of travel and study in his life he tries to explain the cultural reasons that often keep humans apart and why values are so influenced by other elements of culture. These values often remain incompatible between cultures leading to misunderstandings, hostility and war. His prognosis for mankinds future, perhaps controversial, is poor. But, he does offer a possible way forward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 13, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462842537

Marcos

Marcos (Mark Como) was born in New York State in 1948 and currently resides there. In his younger years he served in the U.S. Navy in communications in Morocco, North Africa. He completed his university level education at an international school, The University of the Americas, where he received a Bachelor’s and Master’s (in Arts) in the field of Anthropology. There, he also developed a fluency in Spanish. Since that time he has continued with his travels, mostly to South America where his first book, NOTES FROM THE JUNGLE, was begun along the Amazon River.

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Copyright © 2008 by Marcos.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

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recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

Front cover: Yagua hunter with blowgun (cerbatana) along the Amazon River near

Leticia, Colombia (taken by the author, 1992).

Back cover: Photograph of the author taken in The Andes Mountains of

Colombia near San Agustin (property of the author, 1992).

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Contents

PREAMBLE

CHAPTER 1

Leticia, Colombia (The Amazon), 1992

CHAPTER 2

Culture and Values

CHAPTER 3

Cholula, Mexico, 1979

CHAPTER 4

Culture and Change

CHAPTER 5

Kenitra, Morocco, 1970

CHAPTER 6

Civilization: Pro and Con

CHAPTER 7

Wappingers Falls, New York, 1996 and Beyond (Right-wing Crazies, Rev. Al, and the Feminist Mess)

CHAPTER 8

Into Tomorrow: An International Manifesto

REFERENCES

DEDICATION

This book is for Rosa Maria, the girl in Chapter 3. After all these years she still

remembers me at Christmas and my birthdays (muchos recuerdos bonitos).

PREAMBLE

Dear Reader,

Yes, I’m sure that you may find this a strange way to begin a book. I don’t write many of these. In fact, this is the first. So I know it’s far from a traditional start and certainly a long way from what you’ve been accustomed to from other authors. Most would start with some formal statement such as a preface, a foreword, or a set of acknowledgments (which someone will complain about not being here before I’m done). But it’s my book, so let’s go on.

This attempt is really meant to be a lot more personal. It’s meant to be strictly between us, and I want to keep it that way, informal—well, at least as much as possible. We need to talk.

As much as a book, this effort can also be considered as a personal correspondence—a letter if you will. It is addressed to anyone. I hope that someday someone will publish it. If not, I’m sure I’ll do it myself.

It hasn’t been easy to put together. It has cost me many years and many miles of travel, long hard nights of study, and years of living in foreign places and in conditions that most people would never accept. It was doing things that many would only read about or maybe see in some increasingly expensive movie theater. It is especially addressed to those who, like myself, have been plagued by the eternal question of mankind—the question of why.

This is not just a rhetorical point. Why is something that sooner or later and, to a greater or lesser degree, must be asked by every man. Why is the world the way it is? Why is there so much suffering? Why do things happen in the way that they do? Or, simply, Why is the sky blue?

The most important one for our coming discussion is this, Why is there so much division? Our planet is constantly split by hostile and, sometimes, warring camps. One war is finished, and alignments reform—often with former enemies becoming new partners. But the pattern persists. It is a part of our human makeup that leads us to seek the answers. It is also important to remember in that search that there is always an answer to why. That answer explains the reasons for it and is always because. All of these whys have a past and some reason for being. They all have a because.

For a good many years I have chased after numerous becauses to my own personal whys. I am sure that to some extent everyone is doing the same, perhaps in the same subject areas, perhaps in different ones. Nevertheless, this is a search that is important for all of us. Whether it takes place with our buddies in a tavern, on some college campus, or with some native fishermen in the middle of the Amazon River (where some of these actually did), it does give meaning and direction to all of our lives. That certainly includes mine as well.

My particular chase has taken me to different places around the world (some of them pretty nasty and strange). It has driven me through three college campuses and many university courses. It has also led me through the halls of numerous museums and a god-awful amount of libraries and bookstores. Along the way I managed to pick up a BA and an MA from the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico, and learned a second language, Spanish. I’ve seen and done things that most men don’t get to see or do, and I’ve learned some things that may be important. I’m middle-aged now (or so they tell me), and perhaps I’m due, or past due, to make something of a report. I hope, to someone, it will be of some value. Please attend.

A short note: Let’s try to keep this as informal as possible. Many years ago, in Mexico, I started to go by my Spanish name, Marcos. A little Mexican boy in a small town called San Andres began this tradition. His name was Marcos also, and he told all his friends that he and the gringo had the same name. Since then all my close friends, especially in Latin America, where I’ve done considerable traveling, just call me by this name. Please feel free to be informal. It’s easier.

CHAPTER 1

Leticia, Colombia (The Amazon), 1992

On the north, or perhaps the east bank of the Amazon (the river winds very strangely here), and in the southernmost portion of the Republic of Colombia in South America, there sits a charming little town called Leticia. It has a population of nearly twenty thousand people, has rustic to modern hotels, an international airport, and access to some of the great remaining wilderness on Earth. Its economy is based on agriculture, fishing, light industry, tourism, and considerable illicit contraband (especially drug trafficking).

I’m sitting at a table in front of a boardwalk café overlooking the river port area of the town and working on the early notes for this book (hence the name). I’m alone today at my table, but surrounded by many others. There’s never much room on this boardwalk, but it’s one of the few places with ample shade and plenty to drink. And, where I am, space is at a premium for those winding their way through the seated crowd. A lot of pushing and shoving goes on, sometimes with the inevitable remarks brought on by quick tempers influenced by the hot weather and tropical humidity. It is its porch roof that gives protection from the torrid tropical sun. For this reason, the boardwalk attracts a lot of people to this little oasis during the hottest hours of the day. The service is mediocre, but the shade is great—so is the panorama.

Across the very wide expanse of the Amazon River, one can see a large channel island blocking the view to the Peruvian shore on the other side. Most of the big ships heading upriver sail over there and are out of sight. But if you were to walk a few yards down toward the river’s edge where the tour and the fishing boats were tied up, you could see them easily before they near the island and, at the same time, look about a mile downstream to see the docks of Leticia’s sister city, Tabatinga in Brazil. This whole area is the land of, Las Tres Fronteras, the Three Frontiers, as called by the natives. It is where the borders of these three nations meet and where three nationalities and two languages (Spanish and Portuguese) intermingle.

This particular café and boardwalk is usually very crowded during the midday hours. A lot of socializing and business (of whatever kind) is carried on here. This is also the place where the tour guides look for customers, where the fishermen relax, and where the real dregs of the river may come for a coffee, a Coke, or a beer. I’m an anthropologist, and today I’m having a Coke.

Yesterday, however, a Sunday, was different. Then, I was upriver with one of the local guides, a friend of mine. His name was Ildefonso, and he had taken me and another friend, Jaime, to visit some Indian villages on the Colombian side of the river. The boat we used was a small outboard, and Ildefonso had also brought two of his children along for the day’s excursion. In all, we numbered five. And we had done this before. This was not the first trip I had taken with him, just one of the many that we had made during the years of my visits here.

Ildefonso was a native of Leticia and, like me, in his forties. He was married, had several children, and owned his own house (although still under some construction) in town. He worked as a local tour guide, especially with the foreign tourists who pass through here and who want to have a chance at a real-life adventure, not one where the wild animals encountered are made of rubber, plastic, or of some other artificial material. In the last few years, he had joined in the local politics (a dangerous profession anywhere in Latin America) and had gained a seat on the municipal council. While I was visiting on this trip, he had just been reelected to the same post and was quite proud of his achievement. At home, he keeps a six-foot boa constrictor as a pet to impress the tourists. Because of this, I rarely visit him for long.

As said, my companion on this trip was my friend for several years, Jaime, who also happened to be a Colombian National policeman. He was not from the Amazonian region itself but came from the Colombian state of Tolima in the interior of the country. The National Police posted him in this area for his assignment with the local garrison. He says that a part of his family was killed in the great mudslide near Armenia a few years before. In Leticia, he has a wife, and a son, Richard, as well as a brother living nearby. Jaime was my guest on this little expedition. I am the gringo. I pay the freight.

Colombia has a shoreline of about 116 kilometers along the Amazon River (a bit over sixty-five miles). It is broken in some places by cattle ranches and homesteads. Much of the rest remains as deep and impenetrable forest occasionally split apart by a tributary waterway working its way into the larger river. Going up these little side roads is where one can come across the more rustic of the indigenous villages and a lifestyle that varies in differing degrees from our modern age with each one you encounter. Nearest to the Amazon proper, you will find mainly towns with numerous contacts with the modern world whose way of life is being absorbed by them bit by bit. To find the most primitive and the least affected of the tribes, one has to travel much farther inland or up a tributary of the Amazon called the Javari branch that forms part of the border between Brazil and Peru. Special permission from the Brazilian authorities is necessary to do that. Sometimes it’s given; sometimes it’s not.

This trip we were taking was considerably less ambitious, however. This travel upriver was just another of many such journeys that I’d been using to familiarize myself with the area and with the numerous local indigenous groups. Not a lot of literature has been published about this part of the Amazon—its popularity probably hampered by Colombia’s reputation for violence and by a possible overall decline in travelers seeking out the exotic and the remote in the world.

We had planned for three stops along this side of the river. Each would be only for an hour or less and would only allow me to view the villages and their people in a very superficial way. Technically, I’m still out here running around as any other tourist would in the neighborhood. My ultimate purpose was to find a good location for an eventual research project that might be of several years duration. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Mostly, I just like to run around the jungle.

But just in case I did find something, the place I was looking for had to be just right. My particular interest in the field of anthropology was in the area of culture change—the transition from one way of life to another. And a lot of that was going on here. I needed to find some group or groups on these travels who would welcome me to spend some lengthy periods of time with them. Of course this was something that was happening, to one degree or another, all over the Amazon. Ildefonso and Jaime, my friends, were trying to help me.

Our first stop on that day was fairly predictable. About thirty kilometers upriver from Leticia, there is a village of Yagua Indians. I’ve never heard of a name for the place but, like the guides, just referred to it as the Yagua village. Everybody knew where it was anyway. On most packaged tours here, you can’t avoid the stop.

These Indians, the Yaguas, under normal circumstances are known to be inland hunters and gatherers who usually are semi nomadic. They would live in small groups or bands and hunt with the cerbatana, or blowgun. One of their most characteristic and observable traits is represented by their costume. Among the males, it is of grass skirts and long grass headdresses. It makes them look a little like half-naked straw men (or male Hula dancers). I’m told that it helps to keep off mosquitoes and other bothersome insects, but I wouldn’t know firsthand. I’ve never tried it.

This particular group of Yaguas was out of the ordinary, however. Some years back, they settled at this site and, like good entrepreneurs, set up shop for foreign visitors. The guides from Leticia often make stops here so that their clients can get an opportunity to visit an Indian village in something of the state that tourists would expect to find in this part of the world. Usually, such a visit is a part of a more complete package that includes a stop at Monkey Island. This is a wildlife sanctuary (complete with a rustic hotel) in the middle of the river. It is very nearby that the Indians in the Yagua village charge admission, sell handicrafts, and pose for pictures with their guests for a fee. These Yaguas are the tourist Indians.

Some changes had occurred here since my last visit over a year before, and they were very noticeable. A new docking area with a wooden-plank bridge to carry incoming arrivals over the wetter places had appeared. It was about forty to fifty yards long, made of sturdy two-by-four material, and stood some six to ten feet above the ground (or mud, depending on your point of view). This bridge led from the water’s edge to nearly the start of the village proper and was certainly an improvement over the previous mess one had to wade through in the past. The Indians said that they had built the structure themselves with the thought that one day they would be reimbursed by the Colombian government. I heard several of them complain bitterly about that but, as of this visit, not a peso had been received.

They also had constructed a new maloca or communal building. Some members of the tribe took me over a jungle path to see an open-air building with no walls whatsoever and a thatched roof. Manuel, a member of the group who spoke Spanish well, told me that they had just finished the construction and would be using it in their local rituals. I took some pictures of the maloca and of the small stream of Yaguas who followed us there. Of course, they all charged for the photo opportunity (and, of course, I paid).

Yet the rest of the village had remained much as I had remembered it. There was a central unpaved main street of about one hundred yards long. On either side of this central axis and spaced out in two long lines were the huts. These were constructed of wood with thatched or tin roofs and built off the ground on stilts.

This stilting, or building away from the ground, seems to serve three purposes. The first of these is that your living room is protected every time the water rises with the heavy rains (after all, this is the rain forest). Also, it is needless to say that there are no basements to flood. Second, it keeps out snakes. While many Amazonian snakes are climbers, the poisonous ones are not. They are all ground dwellers. Nighttime sleeping is so much more worry free when you can just reach out and pull in the front steps, usually just a simple ladder. Third, this open space under the house helps to act as a low-tech and environmentally sound air conditioner. The flow of air around, above, and below helps to cool the house to a level that is more comfortable than one would normally expect. None of the houses were painted. Most had only one room.

In front of a large number of these dwellings were stands with displays of Yagua handicrafts. Most of the merchandise were made up of little pan flutes, some miniature blowguns, and the always-ubiquitous-seed-and-feather necklaces. As soon as any tourist (in this case, me) would show any interest in some item, someone would pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, to make a deal. Prices were cheap, but the salesmen were aggressive. I never leave there without something. They’re that good.

After passing through the village, we looked over their soccer field (this was a very progressive bunch of Yaguas ) and toured their gardens of fruit trees and manioc at the end of the settlement. A few of the locals posed for more photos—one with a pet anaconda, which, he said, lived in a corner of his house. He came out of his hut with it wrapped around his body and arm and struck a pose for the camera. I took the shot and stepped back. It was still somewhat of a baby, only three to four feet long. They can grow much, much larger. At this point, they eat small animals. Later in life, they eat big animals. I, much like that more famous adventurer from Indiana in the movies, hate snakes and declined to have my picture taken with the cute little green reptile. I do, however, accept that these animals do have their rightful place in the world (mostly for belts and handbags but extinction may also be another good option).

That day did present one small disappointment. Martha, my favorite topless native girl, was nowhere around. Manuel told me that she was off visiting relatives in another village for the day. If she were there, I would have photographed her too. This surely was a significant loss for anthropologists and travelogue readers everywhere. We gathered up Ildefonso and his kids (he was back in the village center, passing out candies to a long line of Yagua children). It was time to push on further upriver to a second, but more remote (and more traditional), Yagua village.

The town of Zaragoza is perhaps another twenty-five to thirty kilometers to the west on the river. As we do on highways in the United States, the Amazon on the Colombian side has road signs. These designate the names of towns, river inlets, and islands. Unlike our roads in the United States, however, there are no speed limits, speed traps, or police hiding with radar guns anywhere. In fact, there is a distinct absence of patrols on the river. The police do have a small outboard boat in town for use when needed, and the Colombian Navy maintains a large gunboat in Leticia with two three-inch guns on board. This year it was the ARC Leticia, named after its city. Two others, the Arauca and the Rio Hacha, also alternate duties here. Only one seems to be present at any time, and I’ve never asked where the other two were patrolling during their long absences. Once here, I’ve rarely seen any of them leave station though. When one does go, it’s a pretty unforgettable sight. In fact, almost everybody stops on what they’re doing to watch the gunboat. Someday, I think there might be a book, perhaps even a novel in those gunboats alone. I’m sure that just the movie rights by themselves would be fantastic. Well, I’m dreaming, I guess.

Anyway, as one follows these jungle river road signs and travels this stretch of the Amazon, the forest begins to take on a more primitive and closed nature. Where once large areas were visibly open to small farms and cattle ranches, the sides of the riverbanks further in begin to show a more unbroken and continuous wall of trees. From time to time, a small homestead and its family can still be seen along the shore, but the population is growing much sparser. This is now becoming the Green Mansions or the Green Hell of literature.

At this point, Leticia, with its banks, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, and international airport, is history and is a long way behind any traveler. The guides will still take tourists this far, usually on an overnight excursion to Lake Tarapoto and the Amacayacu National Park farther on. Monkey Island and the Yagua village are for the majority of visitors who come to Leticia. It’s an easy trip. Beyond these points, however, traveling is something for the more dedicated and seasoned only. In case of emergencies, services are pretty nil. You’re on your own (hopefully you’ll have a guide with friends on the river).

It is up a small creek behind the town of Zaragoza proper where one comes across the village of our next visit. This particular stream was very shallow and weed choked and, in many areas, nearly impassable. Any boat with a draft larger than ours probably couldn’t have made it all the way to the village. Ildefonso was good at his job and managed to navigate us through this mess without a mishap. Fortunately, we were at present enjoying the bounty of the rainy season. At any other time during the year, this boat ride might have been a walk. Judging by the sounds and the motions of the bushes on either side of us that probably wouldn’t have been much fun.

Our arrival at this settlement had no fanfare welcome as at the previous village, where the entrepreneurial Yaguas, anxious for the tourist income, were lined up at the dock to meet us. Here, we were more of a curiosity than a business opportunity. No one presented himself for paid photos, and there was no admission price for entering. Ildefonso had been here before, and the people responded by just being friendly and trusting.

There were some four or five families living in this small community. The houses—all made of wood and on stilts like before—were clustered in a clearing hacked out of the jungle foliage around them. Since we were now much further away from Leticia, we noted that there were fewer implements from the modern world. A few machetes, some metal pots, and some fishing gear were about all that I could see. Store-bought cotton clothing was worn instead of the grass constructions of the more traditional Yaguas (or even the tourist Yaguas who don them for the occasional lucrative photograph). There were, however, some traditional handicrafts and trinkets for sale. Each family kept a small string of necklaces hanging by their front doors. Apparently other tourists do pass this way, and there is always hope for a sale. In this case, though, there was no pressure.

In one of these houses sat a young man with an old soiled towel wrapped around his right leg. After a short discussion, Ildefonso reported to us that some weeks before he had been bitten by una verdosa, a greenish one (possibly a bushmaster, a particularly aggressive and venomous snake). He had been taken to a hospital back in Leticia, and his life had been saved. His leg, however, had lost much of its flesh (perhaps from a tourniquet to contain the poison). It was only now starting to grow back. He needed an antibiotic powder to keep the leg from infection and to heal faster. Ildefonso promised that he would get it and bring the medicine to him on his next run to the village. Until he were completely healed (if even possible), he wouldn’t be able to hunt, work, or participate in any activity to support his family. Walking with anything more than a hobble would, for a long time to come, be out of the question. That’s, of course, if he even survived the ordeal.

Meanwhile, Idefonso’s children had made friends with one of the little Yagua girls who were walking around the site with a miniature monkey on her head. These little pets, common in this part of the Amazon, are real monkeys (pygmy marmosets) of only a few inches long. Well trained and kept on a short leash, they would often ride for hours in their master’s hair. To the uninitiated, these sometimes seem like moving pieces of scalp until you move in for a closer look, or one raises its head to give you a cursory once-over. Ildefonso negotiated with the little girl’s father to buy one of these for his own daughter. After that and the purchase of a couple of the local seed necklaces, we were on our way again—this time, back down river from where we came.

There was one last stop to make before we could call it a day. On the river, there are few places to stop and eat. So far no fast-food restaurants or all-night convenient stores have appeared to serve the many travelers who motor or paddle up and down this part of the Amazon. There are no golden arches anywhere. If you have friends or relatives with a homestead along the shore, you might be in luck; that is, if they have food available. Otherwise, you will have to carry all of your supplies with you (I’ve thought of suggesting a business deal with the Yaguas about just this problem).

There is, however, one place you can stop at which has one house that serves as something like a riverside store for your shopping convenience. Actually, it is simply the home of one affable Colombian with a small refrigerator, a stock of soft drinks, liquor, and some beer. Besides a few other goods such as soap, fishing lines and hooks, and some utensils, he also sells prepared food to his customers. It is a lot like an Amazonian deli.

On this guy’s front porch, you can sit back on benches and exchange news from up and down the river while you eat. But today he was out of food. The refrigerator had broken down and needed to be repaired before he could restock. In essence, the cupboard was empty, and so were we. So, with no luck here, and no other such stores around, we pushed on to town or on to what so very little there was of it. We were all very hungry and looking for anything.

At any rate, this village, the village of Santa Sofia was actually nothing more than a cluster of small huts and buildings with a wharf on the river—our friend’s deli being the central attraction. Its other notable points of interest were a small school, small soccer field, and a national police station. The latter, I’m told, was attacked the following year by supposed guerillas who killed several of the officers and burned their bodies. Jaime reported this to me in a letter. One of the dead was a friend of his. Normally, the Colombian insurgents were not active this far south. However, on this particular trip I just happened to get lucky. They were active in Amazonian areas. The whole Colombian Army garrison at Leticia was on special alert the entire time I was there.

Just beyond Santa Sofia is the smaller secondary village of Ticuna Indians called Nuevo Jardin (pronounced Hardeen) or New Garden. The Ticunas are the dominant