#shuar

[reasonsforhope]

Indigenous Shuar community in Ecuador wins decades-long battle to protect land

An Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained national protections for part of its territory after decades of fighting off deforestation and pollution in its mega-diverse rainforests. Ecuador’s National System of Protected Areas now includes the 5,497-hectare (13,583-acre) ancestral Tiwi Nunka Forest, which the Shuar Indigenous community of El Kiim lives in and relies on […]

“An Indigenous community in Ecuador has finally obtained national protections for part of its territory after decades of fighting off deforestation and pollution in its mega-diverse rainforests.

Ecuador’s National System of Protected Areas now includes the 5,497-hectare (13,583-acre) ancestral Tiwi Nunka Forest, which the Shuar Indigenous community of El Kiim lives in and relies on for sustenance and many cultural practices.

The decision means that the land should be safe from future exploitation, including mining, cattle ranching and agricultural encroachment — activities that have worried the community’s 35 Shuar families for decades. It also means that the community is free to sustainably manage the local natural resources as it sees fit...

“We’re protecting the forest because these are the last trees we have for wood and medicine,” said Washington Tiwi, a resident of El Kiim and former head of the community. “Some species, such as bears, howler monkeys and tapirs, are protected from disappearing. Our children and future generations can see them and know that these species exist and are protected.”” -via Mongabay News, 7/8/22

[folkfashion]

Shuar girls, Ecuador, by Paul Eijkemans

[comicsandstories]

Creation 14: The Primordial Feuds

The Shuar people live in the rainforests and savanna of Ecuador and Peru. One of their religious practices was to preserve the severed heads of their enemies in order to prevent hauntings and control agricultural magic. Shortly after European colonists arrived in the 16th century, Shuar head-harvesting increased to meet Europeans’ demand for grotesque souvenirs.

Edward Gorey made illustrated books for adults from 1953 to 1999. Specific Gorey characters make an appearance in my war panel (#10) above.

[hateyourgovernment]

Amazon land battle pits indigenous villagers against might of Ecuador state

Only a bridge separates the Shuar village of El Tink from threat of military and mining interests in high-profile dispute resulting in death

Watching their struggle makes me feel so useless

[raulfernandopl]

En un taller de comunicación comunitaria de la Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía (CONFENIAE), una joven practica su dicción con un bolígrafo entre los dientes. El objetivo: grabar podcasts con historias de los pueblos záparo, shuar, shiwar, waorani y kichwa de la región. Unión base, Ecuador. Mayo, 2018.

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[mostly-history]

The heyday of Shuar headhunting, in the late 19th century, when head-taking raids were occurring roughly once a month and involved hundreds of people, was driven by a booming international trade in shrunken heads.  Back in the cities of Europe and America, shrunken heads from South America, India and the Pacific Islands could be found in shops and auction houses, in museums and in people's houses.  They always sold well, and gradually supply rose to meet demand.  It was simple: Europeans wanted Shuar shrunken heads and the Shuar wanted European knives and guns.  The shrunken heads in our museums are not the remnants of some untouched, savage way of life as much as they are the product of the economics of colonial expansion and the power of a fantasy about 'savage culture'.  The most famous headhunting cultures, far from being 'stuck in time', were responding to foreign tastes. In the 1880's, as the trade in rubber and cinchona bark, which provides the active ingredient for the anti-malarial drug quinine, spread into Ecuador, more European settler communities came to the area.  The settlers exchanged cloth, machetes, steel lance heads and shotguns with the native Shuar people, in return for local pigs, deer, salt and shrunken heads.  But when the settlers began to keep their own cattle, and so eat their own beef, the demand for Shuar pigs and deer declined, and eventually it was only the shrunken heads, or else the Shuar's own labour, that settlers were interested in.  The Shuar who wanted goods like cloth and machetes could trade with local missionaries who offered these things more cheaply than commercial traders, but the missionaries would never sell guns.  This meant that the only way to get a gun was to sell a head, and so the 'heads for guns' trade became established in South America. When visitors come to see the shrunken heads at the Pitt River Museum, what they are really seeing is a story of the white man's gun.  Guns not only provided an economic incentive for the Shuar raiders, they also proved to be the best means for taking heads in the first place.  Guns and steel knives were far more efficient weapons for head-taking than spears made from wood and stone, and they gave the Shuar a distinct advantage during headhunting raids.  Europeans and Americans bought heads, and they supplied the equipment the Shuar needed to take heads quickly and in greater numbers.  Guns were used to take heads, which were, in turn, exchanged for more guns.  Well into the 20th century it was commonly acknowledged that the price of one shrunken head was one gun.

Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found

[amarudistro]

SHUAR

Resistencia pueblo shuar

[nicolaokinphotography]

Carlos Wilson Tendetza hermano de José Tendetza asesinado hace dos años por ser defensor y activista contra el extractivismo de la empresa minera China Ecsa. Tras la muerte del hermano, Carlos Wilson quedó firme a la visión del hermano asesinado. Comunidad Shuar de Yanua, Amazonía Ecuatoriana. #everydayecuador #everydaylatinoamerica #everydaylatinamerica #ecuador #amazonia #amazonas #shuar #tendentza #josetendetza #ecsa #resistenciaamazonica #yanua #tendetza