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Anthropologist on Living With a Remote Amazon Tribe |
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By Tom Foreman Inside Base Camp |
| May 21, 2003 |
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For centuries, the indigenous peoples of the Amazon have been saddled with two opposing stereotypes. One view is that they're violent savages in need of a civilizing influence. The other is that they're noble and pure people uncorrupted by the decadence of modern society. Whichever view is true, this is certain: The modern world is closing in fast on these unusual people and Flora Lu Holt is watching. Holt is an ecological anthropologist who has spent more than ten years studying an ancient and remote tribe in Ecuador called the Huaoranis. The men in this Amazon tribe still hunt for food with blow guns and poison-tipped darts. Even as late as 1994, they were known to spear adversaries to death. Yet, Holt has found a way to live with and help them during a time of tremendous change. And that is how she came to be sleeping in their midst when the Huaorani came into conflict with another, even more remote tribe. Flora Lu Holt: And some of the Huaorani that I was with said, "Well, we don't know what they're going to do. At night, they have these spearing attacks and who knows, maybe they'll spear these huts." Tom Foreman: What is a spear attack like? Flora Lu Holt: Their mode of attack is to wait for a moonless evening and a group of men with spears that they've made from the wood of a chonta palm—they're very, very sharp on both ends—will go in the middle of the night and just attack. Tom Foreman: While people are sleeping? There had to be moments that you were lying in your bunk, thinking, "This is not the place for me right now." Flora Lu Holt: I certainly felt lonely and I felt a little isolated. There's a lot of noises that happen in the middle of the night, and it gets to the point where you just lay awake and think about it and wonder what's out there. But at some point you've just gotta cross your fingers and fall asleep. Tom Foreman: What exactly are you studying with the Huaorani? Flora Lu Holt: I want to understand how their use of the forest is changing and how their social organization is changing as a result of contact [with outsiders] and the market economy. I think it's a fallacy to think that they were this static, untouched people in isolation. They've always been changing, because culture is a dynamic thing. What I'm interested in is at the rate of change. You have oil companies going in, you've got researchers going in, you've got people concerned about Amazonian conservation with really good intentions that are having a great impact on these people. Tom Foreman: And this has changed dramatically, even in the past 10, 20 years? Flora Lu Holt: The Huaorani were first peacefully contacted in 1958. So if you think about it, within your lifetime, they've gone from a point where all outsiders were to be feared and killed on sight, practically to the entrance into [trading] goods and a settlement pattern that has become very sedentary. The practices of warfare and fratricide have ceased. I mean, sometimes you still get spearing raids. But it's really cut back. Tom Foreman: And why is that? Flora Lu Holt: Because of the missionary contact. Protestant missionaries came and said, "God tells you that you should not kill." And the Huaorani are very aware that the outside world sees them as savages, and they're uncomfortable with that. Especially the young people. Tom Foreman: How do they see themselves? Flora Lu Holt: They see themselves as people that, that have a lot of value. They really are proud of who they are. They have a connection with the land and they still see that. But they also see that there are things that they want, that they don't know how to get—Western things, or different types of technologies. Tom Foreman: So are you there to just objectively observe them or are you trying to help? Flora Lu Holt: That's a critical question, because just by quote "helping" I think that that can be really paternalistic. I'm trying to bridge between the Huaorani and our society. But right now, with the oil companies coming in quickly, they don't have a lot of time. In the next few years, [their] whole area can just be carved by roads and with oil companies and colonists. Tom Foreman: Will the Huaorani as you know them today be around in 10 - 15 years? Flora Lu Holt: It's a very difficult question. Once they devastate the land base, what's gonna happen is that the Huaorani will not have the means to support themselves. They will no longer be able to hunt. Tom Foreman: Then they'll have to assimilate. Flora Lu Holt: Then they'll have to. But I think that the Huaorani are capable of making good decisions. I think that they can adopt certain things from Western culture, or you know, choose not to. What's important is that they have that choice. Inside Base Camp's Tom Foreman on Work, Guests Presidents and prisoners; scientists and soldiers; the heroic and the hated—all have sat down with National Geographic Channel Senior Anchor Tom Foreman as he has traveled the globe for the past 25 years. Starting out in small town radio in Alabama, he progressed through local television to join ABC Network News when he was 30. For a decade he covered virtually every major news story for World News Tonight, Nightline, 20/20 and Good Morning America. Now, as host and managing editor of the Emmy Award-winning Inside Base Camp with Tom Foreman, he brings his years of experience—and dozens of riveting guests—to the National Geographic Channel at 12:30 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. As the show's name implies, Foreman asks the intimate, revealing questions that cut to core of the passions that drive his guests. Read an interview with Tom Foreman>> Recent Inside Base Camp interviews: Actor Danny Glover on Africa Activism For Reporter Laura Blumenfeld, Revenge Is Family Affair in Middle East Aliens "Absolutely" Exist, SETI Astronomer Seth Shostak Believes U.S. Unprepared for Bioterrorism, Expert Laurie Garrett Says "Superhero" Peter Knights Swoops in to Stop Poachers Q&A: Extreme Environmentalist on "Radical Change" Rocker Ted Nugent: Hunters Are Conservationists Photographer-Firefighter on Attacking Wildfires Climber Heidi Howkins on "Obsession" With Deadly K2 |
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