Support native artisans & rainforest in the Amazon

I just returned to Iquitos after a successful four day visit to the Maijuna native community of Nueva Vida in the Napo River region of the northern Peruvian Amazon.  The main purpose of the trip was to meet their artisans and see if they wanted to work with CACE to develop and market several new models of handicrafts.  I also wanted to explore the potential for harvesting copal resin with them and distilling it into fragrant essential oil as a new source of sustainable income for the village.  

My journey began with a speedboat ride at dawn from Iquitos to the Amazon River town of Mazan with my CACE videographer companion Tulio.  After stocking up on supplies, we eventually met up with our Maijuna guides Everest and his father “Shebaco”.  Thanks to an introduction from long-time Maijuna friend (and CACE board member) Michael Gilmore, we had met at a Maijuna federation congress in 2009, and he hosted me last summer in Sucusari when we conducted a quick search for copal trees near his village.  I much appreciate that he gave me the name “Baiyiri” - the Maijuna word for copal.

Our original host for this visit was going to be Walter from Nueva Vida, but on two days’ notice he had flown to Lima with two other Maijuna to meet with the Peruvian President.  This was a critical meeting that marked the final hurdle to winning government approval for a regional protected area that would encompass the four main Maijuna villages in the Napo and Putumayo River region and the forest in between.  This struggle to gain legal recognition for their traditional lands coincided with a multi-year battle against a road project that would go through the heart of it.  I wished Walter well on his mission and was happy to have Shebaco with me again for mine.

Like many native groups, the Maijuna are striving to improve their standard of living and standing in modern Peruvian society and maintain certain aspects of their culture that give them pride and sustenance.  The Maijuna were once called by the derogatory term “orejones” (big ears) because they had the custom of placing increasingly larger disks into their ear lobes.  They gave up this practice a generation ago, but they embraced a program led by linguists from U.C. Berkeley that has reinvigorated the teaching and use of the Maijuna language by all generations.

Half a dozen women from Nueva Vida learned how to make decorative baskets from chambira palm fiber that were similar to ones made by campesino artisans from the Tahuayo River, but their skills languished for several years because the workshop’s sponsors did not provide follow-up support to market any baskets they made.  Since there was a new spark to this enterprise, Michael thought that this would be a propitious time to connect with these budding artisans.

Due to our late start from Mazan, we didn’t get into Nueva Vida in Shebaco’s peque-peque (motor canoe) until well after dark.  After setting up our tents in our host’s main room and a quick supper of tuna fish and crackers, we went to sleep.  My visit began in earnest the next morning by meeting almost the whole community.  I spoke no Maijuna beyond my nickname, but showing and discussing a video of our handicraft project with other artisans quickly established a common language dealing with chambira palm fiber and other plants used in making woven crafts.  There was no doubt they could make the kind of baskets we wanted, but it took a patient dialogue to sort through which dye plants they had available to make certain colors and which colors we should avoid using in our initial designs unless we wanted to provide artificial dyes from the city.  Our discussion about pricing for the baskets was uncomfortable for a time because their scale was different than other villages we have bought similar products from.

While the Maijuna were all familiar with the basic uses of copal resin – burning it for light or boiling it to caulk their canoes, they were fascinated to see and hear the stories about the intimate relationships that copal resin exuding from the trees has with various weevils, flies, ants and bees.  For two days I accompanied Shebaco and rotating four-man teams from Nueva Vida to search for copal.  We had most luck finding large fresh lumps on trees on or near the tops of little hills and spent the other half of our time slogging through swampy low lying areas.  Harvesting a lump was sometimes as simple as cutting it off with a machete at chest height.  A team member lashed his machete to a pole and thrust the blade under lumps that were attached to the trunk ten to twenty feet from the ground.  In a few cases, a spry Maijuna wrangled his way up a nearby small tree or vine to get at some lumps that were twice as high.  Two men tried to catch the dislodged lumps below (in Tulio’s long-sleeve shirt the first day and an old cassava carrying bag on the second) while trying to keep dry resin bits from falling in their eyes.

The teams quickly adopted our protocol of not harvesting small fresh resin lumps so the weevils inside them could mature and stimulate more resin lumps in the future.  They also understood that while they could take old black lumps back to their homes to stoke cooking fires, the dry odorless lumps were not worth distilling because they had lost most of their essential oil.  We collected GPS points at all of the trees to aid in finding these trees again in five or six years and combine them with satellite landscape data to help identify other good sites for finding copal trees in more distant Maijuna forest areas. 

Other highlights of my time in Nueva Vida included fishing with Shebaco and Everest and meeting Elena, an artisan who had woven a beautiful river dolphin as a sample keychain.  After Tulio talked with her, I commissioned her on the spot to make fifteen more as Christmas tree ornaments.  I was impressed that Tulio was able to sincerely engage with people who are understandably often very shy in this situation to become comfortable enough to share something about their craft making and other aspects of their lives.  In the final hours of light, I was very happy to reach an agreement with the president of the artisan association about making an initial batch of baskets for us. 

Our Nueva Vida hosts were accepting if circumspect in sharing their evaluation of our visit with us.  Every community in this region has had multiple experiences with visitors from various groups coming in to pitch one project or another – many of which lack follow-up or don’t go well for other reasons so I understand why they temper their enthusiasm for a new venture until it proves worthwhile.  I already felt a bond with Shebaco, but I was encouraged that several people from Nueva Vida asked me one and only one simple question: “When are you coming back?”  So the dance has begun.  I hope to see thirty beautiful baskets in three weeks as the next step.

Back in Iquitos, our project manager Yully set herself to the task right away of distilling the resin collected at Nueva Vida.  It was great to learn that it shared the highest yield of essential oil we have produced so far from any region.  Analyzing a sample of it will help determine its composition and commercial potential.  If these aspects prove positive as well, the next step will be to formulate a management plan to guide the development of this local enterprise in the years to come.

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The idea for creating Christmas tree ornaments with our artisan partners along the Ampiyacu River came by observing that some made a knick-knack holder by weaving chambira palm fiber around a grapefruit-sized calabash tree pod – locally called a “tutuma.”  They made the first ornaments by adapting the technique to an egg-shaped pod and attaching a chord to it.  Other artisans had etched figures of wildlife and geometric patterns onto walnut-colored tutuma maracas so ornaments could be made on smaller pods without a handle.  Both types could double as hand rattles by adding achira seeds to cleaned pods before sealing them.   

We encouraged both Bora and Huitoto artisans in Puca Urquillo to try making ornaments in 2011 as a new line of crafts distinct from woven items being made by our original partners in Brillo Nuevo.  After one Christmas season, the results were clear.  We had quickly sold all of the tutuma rattle ornaments etched with jaguars, toucans, and other jungle critters.  The woven chambira ornaments were well made, but would not add as interesting a touch to a holiday tree.

When I next met with the women artisans in Puca Urquillo, I expected they would be happy to hear that one of our first products was very successful and that we wanted to order a lot more etched tutuma ornaments for the following Christmas.  I was not prepared for a prolonged awkward silence.  Elsa finally spoke up – “we know how to weave, but only a few men know how to carve the tutumas.  My husband made all of the ones you got from me last year.” 

Over the next year, about eight Huitoto women tried to make the more popular tutuma ornaments.  When I returned to their village, they gathered in a circle in the group leader’s home with a pile of their first efforts in front of them.  I sat in the center and inspected every ornament from every artisan in turn.  A few tutumas were good, but many had a crudely etched figure of a bird with the background scraped away.  Some made great hand rattles, but many contained too few seeds inside to make a good sound when shaked.  I praised all of the artisans for their efforts, bought the best ones, asked them to fix ones that could be improved, and explained why some were not good enough to sell.

Giving this honest feedback can be agonizing.  Some artisans got discouraged and gave up right away.  Fortunately others kept trying and made better and better looking critters.  There is no doubt, though, that the Bora artisan Rider Velasquez is still the master tutuma maker.  Each one of his tutumas portrays a realistic or creative vision of rainforest life – a jaguar stalking a paca, a hummingbird poking its bill into  a tubular flower, or a giant paiche fish against a stylized sunset.  Our challenge is figuring out how to facilitate him sharing some of his artistry with the other artisans.       

In the past few years, we have also worked with artisans in other communities in northern Peru to design their own ornaments.  Dora and her family from Jenaro Herrera on the Ucayali River wove multi-colored chambira fiber into miniature plates, pots, stars, dragonflies, butterflies and bees.  Lesli from the Maijuna village of Sucusari wove a beautiful rainbow colored snail. Yermeth from the campesino village of Chino on the Tahuayo River wove frog ornaments whose huayruru seed eyes imbued each one with personality.  These frogs became so popular that a dozen other artisans from her cooperative are now making them as well.  

Sharing the success of these novel ornaments with the Ampiyacu artisans has inspired them to come up with their own clever designs.  Cherly from Pucu Urquillo wove an armadillo, squirrel and monkey.  Deusebio from Santa Lucia de Pro wove a black caiman and pink river dolphin. Lucia and her ten-year old son José have carved balsa wood into agoutis and pacas (two medium-size Amazon rodents) and used a fire-heated wire to add expressive facial features and stripes.  They carved turtle and armadillo bodies from balsa wood and attached shells made from small curved pieces of calabash pod.  Teenager Kiary carved and painted balsa wood into parrot, anteater and tapir figures.  This past summer, we commissioned this young carver to make prototypes of basset hound ornaments for a small business in State College, PA that sells puppies of this friendly breed.  Not surprisingly, his parents Lucio and Ania are also talented artisans.  Lucio makes great etched tutumas and wove contrasting babaca and bonbojaje around a balsa core to make a miniature rainstick.  Ania told us, “I am very happy that our family can make more money selling handicrafts to CACE.  We can now pay for Kiary to go a better school, and he is learning a good skill to earn income for himself.”

In the past two years, we have sold just over 400 ornaments – mostly at craft fairs and one local Christmas tree farm that displays our ornaments in their gift shop.  We are on pace to sell several hundred more this year with one new Christmas tree seller alone buying 98 ornaments for his shop.  It seems very fitting that more people are buying ornaments made by native families from the Amazon that truly reflect the spirit of the holiday.  We would welcome receiving any ideas or contacts you have that could help us expand this market.

Thank you very much for your support for our project with best wishes for your holiday and the New Year.

Campbell Plowden

Executive Director and Project Leader

Links:

• CACE website
• CACE Blog: Campbell's Amazon Journal
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