People of the Amazon

We went and visited two idigenous tribes, both times arriving to their communities by boat.
While we were on our way to the second one, Allan (the guide) told us about some of their traditions. He himself shared some of their blood. Kind of like the Meti of Canada except Native mixed with Portuguese etc.
Their way for getting married is a little more painful than typical methods. When I say painful I mean literally. The man who wants to marry the woman has to stay with lots and lots of ants on one of his hands and arms for a certain amount of time. From what I can recall, Allan said that the cheif decided the time but I can remember hearing the phrase, "normally three hours".
When asked if he had gone through it he replied,
"No, why do you think I'm not married!" George the rotarian from Argentina made a good point; that if a person could withstand the pain of ant bites then they would be better to withstand the pain and toil of their marriage to come. The good times and the bad. The weaker ones would stay single, because seriously, I do believe that embarking in marriage does require some level of tolerancey and you have to be up to it. It's not for the light of heart. So maybe their way of picking who got to get hitched wasn't so crazy after all.
I asked the question if the woman had a say in any of it. What would happen if she didn't like the guy? Could she say no? The answer was that the decision was not up to her. Then again, if the guy went through so much trouble just to get your hand, maybe he would be worth marrying. Or wouldn't he be?
The natives are facing some problems. there are all these different things that are restricted now in the Amazon as people are trying to protect it. The thing is, for example, that the natives need to fish in the river, it's their way of life, their means of survival. Look at it, they aren't really the ones destroying the rainforest, there really isn't that drastic of an impact to support their way of life. They live off the land, live with it. Actually after doing some research I have found that one big impact on the Amazon are the global climate changes caused by the increase in greenhouse gases which would mean that the developed countries who are the largest consumers of fossil fuels are responsible. Brazil uses mainly hydro-electric power.
I was surprised and saddened by the type of assimilation that some of the indigenous people have undergone and because of that, the culture that has been lost.
They do not practice their ancestor's religion anymore, they have converted to becoming Evangelistic. Even the knowledge of their religious beliefs and customs have been lost with the new generations. They even now speak Portuguese as their first language and learn their native tounge in school.
When it comes to the language I found it to be interesting. There didn't seem to be an original written form for it. They used the latin alphabit that English, Portuguese, etc. uses. Except some letters and sounds were removed. For example, I do not believe that "C" exists in their language. The fact that they only use our alphabet lead me to wonder if their language was purely oral. Only passed down between generations by speaking. Maybe they had pictures to represent or portray stories. I do not know for sure, I did not get the opportunity to ask.
I liked seeing how their community functioned. The only system that came to mind that it followed was communism. Except that it works in the way that Karl Marx actually imagined it to. Everyone is equal. When I talked to Kate from Canada about it we decided that there are too many negative things attached to the word communism so we decided to create a new term to describe their way of life; equalism.
A man (I think he worked on the boat) painted some of our faces with orangey-red natural paint that came from a strange looking fruit. It was pretty hard to get off after when I went bathing in the river.
We played soccor and at one point I had a break away and attempted to score. I felt slightly redeemed after having had so many collisions with other people in the last game. I slammed into who I think was one of the captains of the boats a number of times, he was just a little guy too. I am pretty sure Ben from Germany still has the huge bump on his shin from where my knee hit.
Pretty soon it started to rain. Hard, Amazonian rain. Meaning that it stayed really sunny but the down pour was alot. I guess I could compare it to being underneath the waterfalls at Foz do Iguaçu. Okay, well maybe it wasn't quite that hard but it was close.
Everyone still continued playing, sopping wet, strange-fruit painted faces. I looked around at all the people. People who had been brought together from all corners of the earth to a place that really showed mother earth in all her glory. Playing together in sportsmanship in a community where everyone is equal. Showing how the world really needs and could be. With people of all kinds coexisting in harmony. But when they were brought together like that, indigenous person and exchange student alike, any difference that would have seemed to seperate us disappeared. We were only left with one common unity, kicking the rain licked ball from one person to another; the joy and wonder of being alive. All part of this big, magnificent world.

*This is a diary entry transcribed (is that even a word? I seriously don't know anymore) :)