Yanomami Memories

I have many boxes of slides for all travels prior to 2004, and I'm trying to scan them all before the colors fade. I expect this job to take several months. Meanwhile, I do post the images, combined with writing, at virtualtourist.com. One of the recent posts completed is for a Puerto Ayacucho, and I was remined in writing this entry of the ongoing concern for the indigenous inhabitants of the Upper Orinoco and it's tributaries. Even as we speak, malaria, the common cold, flu, and measles are taking their toll on the Yanomami and other tribal hunter and gathers of the rainforest. I recall the beauty of the sunsets outside Puerto Ayacucho, but can't forget the invasion civilization must have on these people. On the virtualtourist website, I provide advice for how to purchase authentic handicrafts, as distinguished from the hastily crafted tourist souvenir imitations. I am concerned that the weaponry, for example will depart from the carefully crafted bone and natural twine wrapped arrowheads to those made with a fragment of metal wrapped with nylon string. Note the image showing these below.The other photo shows the difference between a carefully tied aerodynamic set of feathers, which will make the arrow spin as it flies, versus the hastily tied feathers, which serve only to decorate the end of the arrow. The beauty of handcrafted work is never as regular as what machines can produce, which actually serves to inhance the beauty of the work to me. In these Yanomami baskets, for example the colors are basic black line, and the shape is basic and simple. I also note the functional orientation in simple tools that Yanomami women used to pulp manioc roots. Note the different between the large curved rallo and the flat one. The flat rallo is essentially made from a piece of milled lumber while the larger rallo is carved from a single piece of wood by hand.