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No biologist, for example, would suggest that 50 percent of all species are moribund. Yet this, the most apocalyptic scenario in the realm of biological diversity, scarcely approaches what we know to be the most optimistic scenario in the realm of cultural diversity.
There is a time every year when the trade winds reverse, and sailors are free to sail east, knowing full well that if they become lost, they need only await the returning easterlies to carry them home.
The Waorani, incidentally, did not spear only outsiders, all of whom they considered to be cowade, or cannibals. They speared one another. Fully 54 percent of their mortality over eight generations resulted from intratribal spearing raids.
Using 'spear' as a verb is weirdly hilarious.
jaguar and bushmaster skins.
Boo! Not cool!
Contrary to popular lore in the West, the shaman of the Barasana never uses or manipulates medicinal plants.
Like all food it has ambivalent potential. It gives life but may also bring disease and misfortune.
To kill without permission is to risk death by a spirit guardian, be it in the form of a jaguar, anaconda, tapir, or harpy eagle.
Tapir? Death by tapir? WTF?
TIL tapir are aggressive & have sharp teeth.
https://www.bioexpedition.com/tapir/
To create the brilliant yellow plumes they had plucked the feathers of living birds and applied a paste of frog venom and toxic berries to the breasts of the parrots, causing the new plumage, normally deep red, to emerge the colour of the sun.
Whoa.
Status accrues to the man of wisdom, not the warrior.
Similar to the necklaces and armbands of the Trobriand Kula exchange.
The essences of the leaves still contribute to the flavour of one of the world’s most popular drinks: coca makes Coca-Cola “the real thing.” The soft drink company in turn provides the pharmaceutical industry with all the legal cocaine employed today by the medical profession.
Coca-Cola is a cartel.
The plant had a small amount of the alkaloid, roughly 0.5 to 1 percent dry weight, a modest concentration that was benignly absorbed through the mucous membrane of the cheek. But it also contained a considerable range of vitamins, and more calcium than any plant ever studied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which made it ideal for a diet that traditionally lacked a dairy product. It was also suggested that the leaves produced enzymes that enhanced the body’s ability to digest carbohydrates at high elevation, ideal for the potato-based diet of the Andes.
I am approx. 3% Peruvian.
I am fat. I also love potatoes & don't like dairy.
Obviously, I need to include more coca leaves in my diet.
8 metres
That's about 26 feet long for us Imperialists.
I am 5'3". I am afraid of saltwater crocs because some of them have 5 - 6' long heads. I would fit in their mouth.
billabong,
Beware the bunyip!
The acquisition of initiatory knowledge among the Warlpiri, to cite but one example, involved the cutting and transformation of the male sexual organ, a vertical incision that ultimately left the penis fully splayed.
Non-consensual genital mutilation should no longer be normalized or accepted because of religious or cultural reasons. Ban non-consensual genital mutilation.
They believe that the people with greatest claim to ownership of the valley are the generations as yet unborn.
And what a world they'll inherit.
What world?
many following the pattern of places like Lagos, capital of Nigeria, which in 1955 had a population of 470,000 and by 2015 is projected to be home to over 16 million.
2020 estimated pop 21 million
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
13% of this book is appendices.
