Amazon: A River and Its People (Part 1) | The Delta

Nourished, irrigated and spanned by the most powerful river of the planet, Amazonia remains the symbol of the equatorial forest, thick and impenetrable. Even though the Portuguese were present from the very beginning of the 17th century, Amazonia was for a long time a mysterious universe, whose natural riches were accessible only to the Indians. Now, four centuries after the beginning of colonization, the Amazon river is still the natural route of communication and penetration of Brazil. The gaiolas, the traditional wooden boats, continue to transport goods and passengers into the most remote corners of the country. In spite of the successive waves of immigration, spurred by the rubber boom at the end of the 19th century and more recently the building of the Trans-Amazonian Highway, the Brazilian Amazon still remains quite sparsely populated, 10 million inhabitants on close to 42% of the country's total land surface. Except for the two large cities of Manaus and Belém, the population is spread out all along the river in little communities, where the new immigrants live side by side with the mixed breeds of white and Indian, known as the Caboclos. With the massive extermination of the Indian tribes, the Caboclos have now become the guardians of a part of the age-old store of knowledge of the people of the Amazon. With its source in the Cordillera of the Andes, the nearly 6,000 kilometers of the Amazon river spans South America. Fed by more than a thousand tributaries all along its length, the Amazon carries almost a billion tons of sediment per year and has a flow rate of 200,000 cubic meters per second. It's here, in its delta, where the Matias River on Earth flows into the Atlantic Ocean that our journey will begin, a journey to meet the people of the Amazon. First stop, Belém. Belém, the gateway to Amazonia, is one of Brazil's oldest and most beautiful colonial cities. The market of Vero Peso, literally, see the weight, gets its name from a former customs house built by the Portuguese in 1688. The incredible diversity of the products for sale at the Vero Peso is proof of the geographical particularity of Belém, a unique city drawing its vitality from the forest, the river and the ocean. There's no limit. We can fish as much as we like. It's inexhaustible. And there are lots of boats, about a thousand. Every day we unload about 50 tons of fish here. We ship to all parts of Brazil, and even abroad. We were out at sea for a month. We pulled in loads of fish, pescada amarela, sea bream, povina, which is a kind of octopus, We were fishing with a net in the north of Brazil, near French Guiana. In the Vero Peso market you can find fish from the Atlantic as well as from the Amazon River. Of the some 3,000 species found in the river, the most in demand are the mosqueiro, the arowana, the tambaqui and the tucunare, one of the most widely used in Amazonian cooking. Not to mention the pirarucu, the longest freshwater fish of the world, which can measure up to three meters long. Even though it was discovered around 1500 by the Spanish navigator Vincente Pinzon, the estuary of the Amazon long remained on the sidelines of colonization. At the time it was populated by the Tupi Indians. They lived mainly on the coast of the Para, the great ocean. This is what they call the Amazon River, which is very wide at this point. Faced with repeated attacks from the French and Dutch, the Portuguese, who had settled only on the coast, decided to found Belém in order to control both the river and the ocean at the same time. At the beginning the town developed in the area occupied by the Tupinamba tribe. They used to live where North Street is today. That street corresponds to the original path that led from the Portuguese fort to the Indian village. The site of Belém was chosen for defensive reasons, military reasons related to the sea. The spot chosen had to ensure that the Portuguese ships wouldn't be attacked, especially by the Dutch, who were already present in the region near the Rio Chingu in the lower Amazon. Heavily fortified and with the advantage of its strategic position, Belém repelled the attacks of the other colonial powers, and in particular those of the Dutch fleet. The town grew in size and beauty, graced by a number of mansions and churches, particularly in the 18th century thanks to the talent of the Italian architect Antonio Landi. The contrary winds and currents hindered navigation, and the sailing ships back then took less time to go from Belém to Portugal than from Belém to Bahia. So until 1775 the north of Brazil formed a separate entity from the rest of the empire. But that didn't mean the Indians would fare any better. The Jesuits came to protect the Tupi tribes from the massacres carried out by the colonists, but like everywhere else in Brazil, this protection had a price. The Indians were forced to abandon their ancestral culture in favor of almighty Christianity. Certain tribes chose to retreat into the forest, up the small tributaries of the Amazon. The ones that stayed, if they weren't massacred or decimated by the epidemics, ended up by adopting the religion of their new masters, at least outwardly. To preserve their culture, the African slaves would rechristen the Catholic saints with the names of their own gods. In the same way, the Indians, with the collaboration of the priests, continued to venerate the natural life forces of the Amazon. Thus they worshipped certain statues, not because of the saint that they represent, but because they're sculpted in red cedar, the sacred wood of the Indians. Apart from the big island of Marajó, the Amazon Delta has many islands. Most of them are inhabited by the Caboclos, a blend of Indian and white. During the colonial period, the colonists needed the Indians to procure the drogas do sertão, spices. Only they knew where to find cocoa, vanilla and cinnamon. Today, it's the Caboclos who have inherited this knowledge. The term Caboclo, which means coppery, first appeared in the 17th century. But at that time, it designated Indians without a tribe, Indians who had lost their roots. Up until the 19th century, the Caboclos were nomads and lived by capturing wild animals and gathering medicinal plants. Now that they have become sedentary, they live along the river in houses raised upon piles. But their knowledge of their natural environment is still just as remarkable. What do you live off? We grow açaí, bananas, cupuaçu, Brazil nuts, bacaba palms, and there's a bit of tourism. How are these Caboclo houses built? Caboclo houses are made all of wood. Some people still live in straw houses, like in the old days. But the bigger houses are made of wood, with tile roofs. Nowadays, you're starting to see more permanent structures. My grandfather was from Galicia. Already my mother, she fell in love with a Caboclo, an Indian Caboclo. Well, he was the son of an Indian. And then there you go. We were born. We were all born. Most of the people from here are mixed bloods, Portuguese and Caboclo. It's really very mixed. From my Indian side, I've inherited the knowledge of medicinal plants. Yes. You could say I've kept that. We've returned to Belém. Like every year, the town is getting ready to celebrate the arrival of summer. Dozens of folklore groups from all over the region challenge each other in an amazing dance competition. In these dances, with all their extravagant colors, you can see the Indian influence of the processions of the rural Maracatu, and, with the rigor of their choreography, traces of the old Portuguese quadrilles, another blend that only Brazil knows how to do. Here in the Vero Peso Market, with its cast iron pavilion, which was built in England and now has become the symbol of the city, you can find not only all the fish, but also the whole range of fruits of the Amazon, from the most well-known to the most unusual. The cupuaçu, the Brazil nut, the acai, the guarana, and so many others known only to the Indians. Every morning, the Caboclos arrive by boat from their distant island. Their sacks contain veritable treasures, medicinal plants gathered in the secret depths of the forest. Flora is a vendor at Vero Peso, and in spite of her dramatics and the inevitable bargaining, she knows exactly how much the merchandise is worth. How many do you have here? Thirty-five. Florentina, Flora for her friends, has done even better than the heroine of Jorge Amado's novel, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. She's been widowed four times, but that doesn't stop her from believing in the powers of the talismans she sells in her shop. I grew up in Pará. I was raised by my grandparents. They were Indians, so was my father. It was they who taught me about plants. We belonged to the Gaiapo tribe, and my grandmother was the local doctor. She would cure people with her herbs. That's how it was. With her, we learned how to heal, how to mix the preparations, which plants to choose. I learned it all. I came to Belém when I was nine. For three years, I sold fruit on the Vero Peso market. But I wanted to sell herbs, because I know them so well. So, little by little, the customers came, and now I work here. This is arruda. I use it for headaches. I mix it with cachaca, and I put it on your head. It's good for sinusitis. I use chama, too. Chama is good for attracting customers. We call this one bunch of money. You crush it in water, and you mix it with cachaca, and then you sprinkle the shop with it to attract customers. Everything that I sell, I use myself. The remedies for my grandchildren, my children, they all come from here. We go to the doctor only as a last resort. Patchouli is good when you have problems breathing, or to make your hair grow. I also have it as a shampoo. I never use anything else. We use these local products for all sorts of things. If you have a crush on a girl and she doesn't like you, you bring me her name on a slip of paper, and I'll tie it in a bundle so that she'll be yours. And here, this little beast. Look here. We call him the pacifier. It really calms everything down. If you tie someone's photo to it, they become all sweet and gentle. It's not only the gullible and naive that buy the talismans and medicinal plants from Flora and the other vendors of Vero Peso. A large number of Brazilians, whatever their level of education, prefer natural products to the pills sold in the modern drugstores. In Vero Peso, the customers that buy the plants have to mix the remedies themselves. There is, however, a cottage industry of labs that sell the same preparations, ready-made and packaged for sale. São Lucas is one of the best known. This laboratory is more than 150 years old. As for me, I've been working here for 44 years. So we've had the time to develop contacts with a number of people who know about medicinal plants, and not just in the Brazilian Amazon, but in other regions as well, and even other countries. People think of guaraná as an aphrodisiac, but for us, guaraná is a stimulant. It's often used in hospitals and clinics, and even in maternity wards to help patients during convalescence. Apart from guaraná, whose juice is Brazil's most popular drink, São Lucas uses many other extracts in their remedies, many of which are made especially for the city's hospitals. Jatoba for anemia, Xixua for rheumatism, and Carapanuba to fight malaria and the different fevers of the forest. A large number of these remedies, which were for a long time ignored, and even condemned by modern medicine, have now gained a little more respect. At the beginning, conventional medicine was resistant. Doctors just didn't see any use in prescribing herbal remedies. But today, in Brazil, like in the rest of the world, the medical use of plants has at last become widespread. This small botanical garden in the heart of the modern city is home to the Gold Museum. The naturalist Ferreira Pena founded this institution in 1866 to study the Amazonian flora and fauna. At that time, Belém was a small city of 30,000 inhabitants still surrounded by unspoiled forest. Now, a century and a half later, with Belém a metropolis of 2 million inhabitants, the center has had to move 450 kilometers to find the natural environment needed for its research. And yet it was a native Amazonian plant, the hevea or rubber tree, that was responsible for this spectacular development. The activity of the port intensified during a period called the rubber boom. At the time, from 1890 to 1910, between 30 and 40 ships were put into Belém every month. This was because rubber was so important for Europe. The boats would arrive loaded with all sorts of new articles, and then they would leave with a cargo of rubber, but also with the traditional colonial products, like cocoa beans and other typical products of the Amazon. The rubber boom stimulated the growth of the city, and in 1910 the population surpassed 100,000. The atmosphere of this peaceful colonial town began to take on aspects of European modernism. The telephone and electricity made their appearance, as well as a tramway that criss-crossed the business district. The streets underwent a transformation. Certain immigrants who became wealthy went ahead and built splendid mansions with facades that recall their native countries. Every time there was a new arrival of these European novelties, the town was stirred up into a frenzy. The stores were taken by storm by the curiosity-seeking immigrants as well as the nouveau riche. For Belém at the turn of the century, nothing was too fine, too big, nothing too extravagant. Unbridled ambition, the dream of building a Paris in the tropics took hold. Thus, when the biggest store in town was built, with the evocative name of Paris en Amérique, it was modeled after the French department store, Les Galeries Lafayette. This new economic activity attracted a lot of Europeans of the middle class and adventurers who were hoping to get rich in this trade. A good number of them, French, Portuguese, Italians, English, did in fact become rubber traders and made their fortune. They were called the rubber barons. As they were somewhat homesick for their old country and the European lifestyle, they gradually introduced their architecture and their way of life. During what was called the rubber boom, which historically lasted from 1870 to 1910, Belém was graced with many public buildings. The finest example is the neoclassical Théâtre d'Apas opera house, inaugurated in 1878. The production of latex, which began in Belém, reached its peak in Manaus, while first Dunlop, then Michelin, made improvements on vulcanization, the invention of Goodyear. With the advent of the automobile, the worldwide demand for rubber skyrocketed, and it's here, from the port of Belém, that the ships laden with this precious cargo weighed anchor for Europe and the United States. Making the most of the situation, adventurers known as the rubber barons made huge fortunes and built incredible mansions. One can imagine the envy that these sumptuous dwellings inspired in the migrants that came by tens of thousands to seek fortune in the Amazon, the wild west of the tropics. There was a lot of eccentricity, a lot of extravagance, to the point where some of these rubber barons would, for example, send their dirty laundry to Paris, or they would buy Cuban cigars, which were very expensive here. To flaunt their wealth, they'd light their cigarettes with banknotes. Others would take baths in Perrier water, imported from France. By filling their bathtubs with this water that cost a fortune, they could show that they were swimming in money. We're leaving Belém on board a rapid ferry and heading for Marajó, the largest island of all South America, as vast as Denmark or Switzerland. Marajó is situated right in the center of the Amazon River Delta, whence its name in the Tupi-Guarani language, Imbarayó, which means barrier of the sea. Marajó, populated by the Arawá Indians, also known as the Arawaks, was an obstacle to the conquest of the Amazon. So, in the middle of the 17th century, the Portuguese undertook the pacification of the island by attacking these Indians, who were then allies of their heretic enemies, that is to say, the Protestant Dutch. The Arawás put up a fierce resistance. They even went so far as to attack the Portuguese ships that sailed into the delta. After a migration down the valley of the Amazon that took several centuries, the Arawás settled in the Antilles. They were driven out by the Karaib Indians and retreated to the island of Marajó. Were they wiped out by the Portuguese? Did they set out on a new migration? No one knows why or how, but the Arawás suddenly vanished from Marajó. There are no texts that give us any idea of what became of them. The only evidence of their presence on the island is a large and splendid production of pottery. This mystery has fascinated Giovanni Gallo, the director of the Marajó Museum. The link between past and present on this island has been broken. The people just don't know anymore, because the last Marajó Indians disappeared in 1800 and something. So, we don't have a single community, a single family of Indians that could transmit the legacy. Giovanni has collected all the artifacts and information in his museum, making a sort of natural and cultural inventory of the heritage of Marajó. But his pride and joy is this collection of Arawá pottery that he found in his many archaeological digs across the island. I've been trying to make the young islanders that help me on the digs aware that the Marajó pottery is very precious. The shrewd foreigners would come and buy large vases and other pieces dirt cheap and take them back to their own countries. Some of the figurative pieces exposed in the museum remind one of Inca sculpture. Most likely a vestige of the Arawá's originals stay in the Andes, where the Amazon has its source. The river is very prominent in Marajó pottery, because the most common designs resemble a meandering river. Our Indians don't live on the land like in the rest of Brazil. They've always lived on the river banks, and that's a very important point. What I say, it's not the president of Brazil who lays down the law, it's the water. The water governs everything. Here the seasons are with or without water. You could say that there's the muddy season, the watery season and the dry season. It's water that rules the life of society. In the village of Salvatera, the fishermen are waiting for high tide, the only thing that will bring their beached boats back to life. Hardly any cars, a few bicycles, some carts. Life in Suré, the capital of Marajó, goes on at a leisurely pace. There's one surprise and a big one. The Buffalo Brigade police force. Apart from their curiosity value, these well-groomed animals are proof of the importance of cattle raising in the island's economy. They raise cattle on the fazendas, cattle ranches located in the middle of vast grazing lands. It's the end of the rainy season, and the only way to get to the fazendas is by boat. Sailing up the small river branches, what the Indians called igarapé, roads of water, we head for the fazenda do campo. Water buffalo. They feed on water plants and they can float, perfectly adapted to the island's swampy terrain. According to the legend, they arrived here when a French ship, on its way to French Guiana from India, foundered on the shore of Marajó with its cargo of buffalo. Today, there are an estimated one million head of cattle in Marajó. The herds roam freely over vast grazing lands and are tendered by the vaqueros, the island's cowboys. The vaqueros, who live with their families, are almost completely self-sufficient. They have meat, milk, fish from the igarapé and ponds, and fruit picked in the forest, all available to them. This fazenda is about 6,500 hectares big, which is an average size for the Amazon. Just to give you an idea, my neighbor has a spread of 30,000 hectares, which is five times as big as mine. That may seem big, but to raise cattle in this region, you need a lot of room, from two and a half to almost three hectares per animal per year. On this fazenda, we have about 2,500 or 2,700 head of zebu. They originally came from India. And about 200 buffalo, from India as well. The water buffalo is by far the most highly-valued animal in Marajó, not only because of its large size and the quality of its milk, but especially because it carries out a natural diet, a natural drainage of the small rivers and fields in winter, when the rains turn the island into one huge lake. The vaqueros sometimes ride for days across the plains to herd the cattle back to the corral to be counted. Come on, let's go! In Marajó, the vaquero is really treated like a member of the family. It moves me just to talk about them, because I really admire these simple people's outlook. They're humble, they have a sense of friendship. Juvencio, who's 88, is nearly blind, but he's still a vaquero in his bones, and he cherishes the memories of the years he spent riding on the plains. We would work from ranch to ranch. They liked me a lot, because I was a really good vaquero, thank God. We'd go out on the horses. The herds were far away, over on the other side. I'd shout, and we'd keep riding on. Then the herd would start to move and bellow. I'd be there, shouting. Then the animals would start to herd together and head for the corral. The vaqueros of all the fazendas would meet at the corral. And to get the steers out of the corral, it was the same thing. Again, we'd yell. First one, then a second. And then another one would answer back. And when we'd finish counting them, we'd head off to another corral and we'd start all over again. Back then, we had oil lamps. Have you ever seen an oil lamp? We'd burn crocodile grease in them. We danced all night by the light of those lamps. In those days, we didn't have any flutes, just violins, violas, cavaquinhos, a kind of guitar. Sometimes we'd even take a pair of spoons and we'd play them like this. We'd just dance, on and on. Around midnight, the women would change dresses to dance the lundu. We'd dance with them until the break of day. GULAMI In the port of Belem, the ships come and go, to and from the furthest corners of the Amazon. This is where they unload the fruit. A little further on, passengers are waiting for the departure. The Amazon is a highway that crosses the country. The travelers bound for Santarém and Manaus come very early in the day to get a good spot to hang their hammock. It's a long trip, four, five, even eight days. It's best to be comfortable. Not all the gaiolas on the river do the long hauls. Some of them just ferry the people of Belém out to the beaches on the delta. On our way back, we can feel the pull of the ocean. It's low tide, and in the Amazon long stretches of sand emerge from the receding waters. Open spaces that are also many invitations to play for footballers and all sorts of sports lovers. The Amazon River, this leisure space for all the inhabitants of Belém and the surrounding region, is also a road to hope and dreams for all those who undertake the voyage for Santarém, Manaus or Boavista, and a new life on the other side of Amazonia. Go! You! Go!