Amazonian Warfare

1
Amazonian Warfare
Laura Zanotti May 1, 2008
2
(No Transcript)
3
(No Transcript)
4
Amazon as a warscape

• Is there any connection between current
  conservation practices and past histories of
  warfare?
• What does the Amazonian landscape today tell us
  about its history of warfare?

5
Cultural Parkland Perspective

• The biodiversity in the Amazon region until very
  recently was attributed to low population
  densities of human inhabitants and the unique
  ecology of the area.
• New figures demonstrate that warfare, ethnocide,
  and disease (biowarfare) severely depopulated the
  region
• The Amazon was more densely settled than we at
  first thought and biodiversity in the Amazon is
  in a part result of human modification
• Uncovering new data about Amazonian settlement
  patterns has shed light on old warscapes

6

• What Happened?
• How did it Happen?
• What evidence do we use?

7
What Happened?

• Colonization of the Americas by European
  powers (France, Spain, Portugal, UK)
• Severe decimation and ethnocide of indigenous
  populations

8
Reasons for Colonization

• Curiosity - Part of the European Renaissance
  culture to experience and observe as much as
  possible
• Religion - Connects to the 12th and 13th century
  crusades. Desire to save souls.
• Economic/Resources -Attracted to luxury items
  (e.g. spices) from the East
• Political - Naval technologies were advancing and
  desire for conquest and empire building

9
(No Transcript)
10
Brazilian Example

• Coastal and groups living along the Amazon were
  impacted first enslaved or engaged in warfare
  with colonizers
• Other groups fled inland to avoid battles and
  launched skirmishes/attacks from afar
• Some groups migrated and attempted to avoid
  contact
• For others, colonization intensified intergroup
  warfare

11
Amazon as a Warscape

• Depopulation figures

12
Amazon as a Warscape
Indigenous Populations 40 Million
13
How did it happen?
14
Decimation and ethnocide

• Physical
• Biological
• Cultural

15

• Physical
• Massacre and mutilation
• Deprivation of livelihood (starvation, force
  migration)
• Slavery/exposure to death
• Exposure to disease

16

• Biological
• Separation of families
• Sterilization
• Miscegenation

17

• Cultural
• Desecration and destruction of cultural symbols
  (objects of art, religious relics, etc.)
• Looting
• Destruction of cultural leadership
• Destruction of cultural centers
• Prohibition of cultural activities or codes of
  behavior
• demoralization

18
Depopulation Figures

• Today the estimated indigenous population of
  Amazon is around 1,283,379

19

• What is the evidence?

20
What is the evidence?

• Ethnographic
• Interviews and Life stories
• Contemporary indigenous populations narratives,
  stories, and histories about the contact period
• Myths and Histories
• Ethnographic and Eye-witness accounts

21
Davi Kopenawa, Yanomamo

• In my time, today, the Yanomami are no longer
  fighting with one another. In my time there is no
  more war among the Yanomami. In the past, it
  existed among us, just as it exists among you.
  Right now there is a war in Arabia, so you can
  see that it is not only the Indian who is
  dangerous. The white man is more dangerous than
  the Indian. The Yanomami do not have bombs like
  the whites, they do not mistreat and kill
  everybody when they make war. Our way of war is
  different. We don't have warplanes, we don't drop
  bombs.
• There was still warfare when I was in my mother's
  belly, but today it no longer exists. Today we
  are all friends. Disputes are rare, and when
  someone is killed, it does not lead to fighting
  year after year. The whites are saying this
  against us because they don't want to make our
  reserve, they are afraid of you ie. foreign
  supporters, they are afraid of us too, the
  whites who speak this way are afraid that they
  might lose. They think the Yanomami are like
  them. On the contrary we want our reserve for
  the Yanomami to live in. It was they who cut up
  our country into little pieces, without ever
  telling us what they were doing or why.

22
Davi Kopenawa, Yanomami

• Because we have so little land, my Yanomami
  people today are very weak, also because of
  malaria. The whites speak this way about the
  Yanomami because they want to use the minerals
  of our land, to work the gold, the cassiterite of
  our reserve. They are not just talking, they are
  doing it they. . . cut our land up into little
  pieces, one for each community, so they could
  enter our country and work its resources, so they
  could finish off our people. They have done much
  violence against us Indians in order to kill us
  off. So I am here fighting to keep my kinfolk
  from being wiped out.

23
What is the evidence?

• Archeological
• Past settlement patterns
• Marajo Island (400 BC-1300 AD)
• Xinguano Villages (1200-1600 AD)

24
Heckenberger et al. Science 19 September 2003.
Page 1711
25
What is the evidence?

• Tree Patterns
• Soils

26
Fruit and Nut Trees

• Most species in the Amazon are highly endemic and
  dispersed across the landscape
• At least 11 fruit and nut trees found in the
  Amazon region dominate the forest cover and are
  considered to be a result of human modification
  since they are not dispersed
• For example, Brazil Nuts and Acai fruit, two
  major nutritional sources for Amazonian
  communities grow in clusters, around current and
  previous human settlements

27
Indian Black Earth

• In the Amazon region soils are nutrient poor
• BUT archaeologists have found extensive
  agricultural soils (i.e. fertile soils) that are
  anthropogenic
• Formed when soils are altered by human garbage
  rich in decayed vegetal and faunal matter,
  shells, bones, finely divided charcoal, and human
  excrement

28
(No Transcript)
29
Conclusions
30
Conservation Movement and Memories of war

• Conservation movement has been behind
  international interest in the biological wealth
  of the Amazon
• At some level the conservation narrative has
  hidden past war histories by expertly promoting a
  picture of the Amazon as wild, and vacant
  landscape
• The conservation movement argue that this
  pristine landscape needs protection from human
  impacts

31
Conservation Movement and War Stories

• Conservation movement along with indigenous
  rights movement has linked biological and
  cultural diversity
• Many human rights abuses that were not addressed
  over the past 400 years are gaining ground
  because of the interest in preserving the
  cultural and ecological wealth of the region

32
(No Transcript)
33
Final thoughts. . .

• What and how we define a warscape
• How to read a landscape for past features of war
• The role of memory and forgetting in war and how
  these narratives can be replaced by new causes
  (i.e. conservation)

34
(No Transcript)