Resistance

Of course I like seeing the photos of the “Uncontacted Tribe.” Their paints are beautiful. They trigger my imagination. They change my world definitions. But the whole situation makes me uneasy. This type of voyeurism –  whole world  watching and consuming — is exactly what they are resisting against. Will this story just disappear back into the jungle? Will we be able to resit our temptations?

I mentioned that I’ve been reading a lot about birds. I ran across a passage about eagles when we first took to the skies. When we first took to their domain. Seeing the warriors take aim at the plane with bows and arrows makes me think of this excerpt from Roy Bedicheck’s Adventures with a Texas Naturalist.

Freak Action of a Crazy Bird

An eagle-hunter reported that early in his career in the big-Bend, an enormous eagle crash-dived his plane before he could shoot, tore through the window, ripped off several feet of the fuselage and showered him with shattered glass. This incident may be dismissed as accidental, as the freak action of a crazy bird, as mere panic, or anyway you like. But at that, it curiously confirms reports of the reactions of the golden eagle to the first appearances of airplanes in the skies of France. The French authorities, on reports by aviators of eagle encounters, seriously considered training eagles to attack enemy planes, and a French aeronatical journal proclaimed boldly that no airplane could withstand such an avian offensive. The British Air Ministry issued official instructions to airmen on proper tactics to pursue when assailed by eagles. J. Wentworth Day reports a concerted attack by two eagles on a three-motored, all-steel passenger plane near Allahbad. “The first eagle,” he says, “flew straight into the middle engine, while the second dived from ten thousand feet, and went through the steel wing like a stone, ripping a great hole.”

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Golden Feathers

I don’t want to always talk about gold – there are so many other riches that this trip has to offer.

I’m trying to wrap my head around camping in the Amazon and all research keeps leading me back to birds. To the never-ending cacophony of birds in the jungle. To the flocks of birds.

But just saying “flock” is not enough. For these are not flocks like we are accustomed to. Peruvian flocks are defined as a mixed cohesion of birds, composed of as many as 70 different species, that can be seen swooping through Peru’s rain forests. Each species is represented by a pair of birds, and maybe a young or two, moving through the forest, each one with a specific role. Sentinels in the flocks keep one eye out for the approach of predatory birds such as forest falcons or hawks. The guard birds also watch for large insects, which the flock sends scampering for cover. Other birds hunt insects as they scurry from niches in the rain forest canopy. Biologists believe the advantage birds gain by foraging in a mixed flock is primarily one of protection against predators. Also, since only one pair of each species is allowed to join the flock and each species is a niche forager, competition is kept to a minimum. The flocks themselves are territorial. When two mixed flocks cross paths, bird-watchers are witnesses to elaborate, complex screaming matches between like species in each flock.

Besides for these birder’s fantasy flocks, I keep reading about the Amazon clay licks for parrots. Now this is amazing. Apparently, swarms of parrots descend on these cliffs to supplement their daily diets with thumb-sized bites of earth. The clay helps them to detoxify the jungle seeds they eat.

As it turns out, Peru is home to more than 1,800 bird species, 120 of which are found nowhere else in the world. This helps shed light onto why so many artifacts and artworks have bird themes. Art imitates life.

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Chimú, Who?

Most Inca gold forging techniques are credited to the Chimú Empire of northern Peru. This culture flourished for over 400 years before finally being absorbed into the Inca Empire just 50 years before the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors. Their capital city, Chan Chan, is listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ruins are amazing and while most tourists talk about Machu Picchu, Chan Chan should not be missed.

Here is how the Chimú and Chan Chan relate to this site and our gold hunting quest:

The total population of the city may well have been as large as 50,000 or more, although strong seasonal fluctuation is suspected. Judging by the city’s tax records, the colonial looters must have found formidable quantities of precious metal in Chan Chan. Although large scale production of ceramics, textiles and woodworking as well as maize-beer preparation are all in evidence, the Chimu appear to have concentrated their craft production around metallurgy. The Inca forcibly transferred to their capital in Cusco the highly skilled metalworkers of Chan Chan.

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Virtual Pre-Columbian Gold Museum

I just found a site that collects images from various museums of the gold, silver, copper and related alloyed artifacts from Pre-Columbian cultures. Their pages dedicated to Peru are amazing. I’ve attached a few of my favorite pictures here but please click the links for a more comprehensive look.

Peru’s Native Gold Cultures are broken into 15 sections including the Chimú, the Inca, and the Pukará. I will share history and legends on each of these cultures in later posts.

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Is the world big or small?

How many times to you say “Oh, what a small world?” when you cross paths with an old friend at an unexpected place. I was once on the Las Vegas strip with an Ethiopian friend when a cab sped by, stopped and started reversing towards us. The driver hopped out and embraced my friend with tears of joy. Turns out they were childhood best friends who had not seen each other in over 15 years. These things seem to happen all the time — even more so now that we are all seamlessly connected and digitized. The world really does seem small.

But think about this – just try to imagine that you all you knew was your immediate surroundings. What if you had never seen a computer. Or a webcast. Or a cell phone. Or a history book. What if your communal past was still passed down orally. How big or small would the world be then? Imagine how overwhelmingly huge the world would seem if you accidentally ended up in New York. Imagine if you had no contact with the outside world at all.

More than 100 uncontacted tribes remain worldwide, and about half live in the remote reaches of the Amazonian rainforest in Peru or Brazil according to Survival International, a nonprofit group that advocates for the rights of indigenous people. New photos of an “Uncontacted tribe” in the Peruvian Amazon have just been published. It makes you wonder what happens when big and small worlds collide…

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The Gold Museum of Peru

What country has a museum dedicated to gold?

This is our first stop in Lima before we head off into the jungle.

Look at this.

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The Sweat of the Sun

I know that the basis of this adventure sounds crazy but history supports the theory. The more research I do, the clearer it all becomes. Gold was an integral part of the Inca society. They did not mine the gold – it was taken from the rivers over the centuries. The Spanish initially took over 11 tons of gold back to Spain. Either these facts start to add up or I’ve been watching too many India Jones/ National Treasure movies.

Either way, here are some historical points for the day:

• To Incas, gold was “the sweat of the sun ,” and it reflected the glory of their Sun God who, they believed, had entrusted them with its safekeeping. Gold took on value only when crafted into ceremonial articles – vessels, jewelry, figurines – or adornments for tombs and temples. By law, all gold and silver of the realm belonged to the emperor, who used it to bedeck his palace, beautify temples, and reward loyalty. Most gold – in the form of nuggets and flakes – came from mountain rivers; Incas smelted the ore with charcoal and bellows. They learned much of the craft from artisans of the Chimu Kingdom, who created countless vessels and ornaments. Spaniards reduced such works of art into ingots, easy to transport and exchange.

Here is more on the Spanish treasure reduction and the wealth of the Inca Empire in general. ( For a full history of the Spanish Empire’s expansion into the New World, please read click here:)

• After Pizarro captured the Inca King Atahualpa, he demanded a “king’s ransom” in the form of a room measuring 22 feet by 18 feet and about 15 feet high to be filled, within two months, to half its height in gold.
• The gold came from palaces and temples all over the Inca empire and were brought to Pizarro on caravans of llamas
• In March of 1533, Pizarro gave orders for the hoard of precious metals to be melted down. Nine furnaces were kept at work for three months straight. More than eleven tons of gold and twice as much silver, were melted for easy transport.

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Off the beaten path

Deep in the Amazon. Need I say more. Something about a picture being worth a thousand words…..

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Finding El Dorado

Is this real?

Is there really a gold hunting expedition about to take place in the Amazon?????

Am I really part of organizing this?

Look – I’m not even exactly sure how this all came about. One night I was eating with my friend’s family and her dad started telling stories about how he and his brothers used to hunt for gold in the Amazon. His eyes got real wide when he told me about their 6 day boat ride, about the piranhas, about the jungle, and then about finding riverbanks mixed with sand and sparkling gold dust for as far as their eyes could see.

A month later, he handed me a flyer to proofread. It described this very tour. When I asked him if I could help, he laughed and said: “Help, you’re the translator.” And that was that.

And like all great stories, things just get better the more you share them. And that’s how we end up here. Let this blog be a direct link for all you armchair travelers and hopefully, maybe we’ll see some of you on the next tour.

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