Carlos Morales Peña, assistant coordinator of OIPUS, is frustrated. The leader of the Piaroa organization has been trying for three years to get the government of Venezuela’s Amazonas state to respond to its requests for the demarcation of their lands in Autana municipality. The government does not answer. Last week… Continue reading…
The Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (OSV) is continuing its program of outreach into the nation’s schools, but it is evident from a news story last week that their February visit to a Piaroa village has been a highlight of the past year. The orchestra launched its “The OSV at My… Continue reading…
A Venezuelan news story last week suggests the possibility that traditional Piaroa aesthetic values, essential aspects of their peacefulness, may be spread more widely in coming years. The Venezuela Symphony Orchestra, La Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela (OSV), visited a Piaroa village, Caño Grulla, on February 15 and 16 as part… Continue reading…
A news report last Friday indicated that living conditions in some remote, peaceful Piaroa villages visited by a medical team recently are deteriorating. A medical group from the University of Carabobo, in Valencia, Venezuela, visited a couple Piaroa communities in August and found that some of the people had tuberculosis… Continue reading…
A news report last Friday indicated that living conditions in some remote, peaceful Piaroa villages visited by a medical team recently are deteriorating. A medical group from the University of Carabobo, in Valencia, Venezuela, visited a couple Piaroa communities in August and found that some of the people had tuberculosis… Continue reading…
Stanford Zent describes the ethnic boundaries and inter-group relationships of the Piaroa during their pre-colonial, postcolonial, and modern historical periods as generally, though not always, peaceful. His essay, published last year in an edited volume on indigenous mobility and migrations in Amazonia, provides a useful history of Piaroa inter-tribal social… Continue reading…
Stanford Zent describes the ethnic boundaries and inter-group relationships of the Piaroa during their pre-colonial, postcolonial, and modern historical periods as generally, though not always, peaceful. His essay, published last year in an edited volume on indigenous mobility and migrations in Amazonia, provides a useful history of Piaroa inter-tribal social… Continue reading…
Although many South American indigenous societies employ ayahuasca preparations for shamanic and social purposes, a recent journal article describes some unique ways that the Piaroa use the plant mixtures. Robin Rodd, the author, points out that portions of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine are used in combination with other compounds by… Continue reading…
Alexander Mansutti Rodríguez describes some dramatic episodes of shamanistic violence in an article published last year in a book about lowland South America. One episode he describes, for example, concerns a very powerful Piaroa shaman, called a tjujaturuwa (lord of the people), who was preoccupied with defending himself from the… Continue reading…
Why is it that different scholars can analyze a subject as straightforward as the Piaroa food growing systems and arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions? A few months ago, Germán N. Freire wrote an article on the ways the Piaroa living in villages near the city of Puerto Ayacucho, Venezuela, successfully… Continue reading…
