7/28/2019 Jungles 1

1/18

1

JUNGLES

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

2/18

JUNGLES

1

Darting into the Canopy

Te Matis, Brazil

Outsmarting Hornets

Dai People. Te Yunnan, China

Te Death-Defying Sweet ooth

BaAka Honey Collectors, Te Congo

Harnessing Te Elephant

Te Oozie, Burma Rainorests

4 - 52 - 3

7 - 96

12 -

13

10 -

11

No Forrest, No People

Every Rainorest

Eating the Unthinkable

Te Piaroa, Venzuela

Canopy Living

Korowai ribe, West Papua, Indonesia

14 -

15

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

3/18

THE TOUGH PLANTS

1

ropical rainforests display nature at its most vigorous and diverse.

Year-round heat and light from the overhead sun create near-perfect

conditions for life, and as a result, more species are found in thisterrestrial habitat than in all the others put together. With this un-

paralleled abundance of animals and plants, rainforests would seem

to be the ideal environment for people. Indeed, all species of great

ape originated in rainforests (and live in them still), and the hu-

man lineage almost certainly began there, too. Yet, though rainfor-

ests may be out ancestral home, they are no garden of eden. Great

civilizations have arisen within them, but ultimately they have all

collapsed and been reclaimed by the jungle. Life in the rainforest is

intensely complex and competitive, and humans can only prosper

here though a deep understanding of how to live alongside nature.

It takes the special mix o consistent heat and moisture

ound at the equator to create tropical rainorests - the

most ecologically diverse habitats on the planet. All o

our closest ape relatives still inhabit such orests, yet ew

humans thrive in them. Once the rst hominids had

adapted to a grassland existence and become bipedal,

they lost the ability to live a largely arboreal existence.

By comparison, the bonobo - our closest relative - can

walk on two legs i it needs to but has muscular ore-limbs perectly adapted to lie in the trees

Te earliest evidence o modern humans living around

tropical rainorests comes rom Sarawak on the island o

Borneo and dates back to the middle o a warm period

some 45,000 years ago. Tese people lived in caves close

to the sea. Tey shed, but their tools suggest they also

hunted and oraged in the orest, eeding on the vast

range o animals and edible plants such as yams, taro

and sago that many rainorest people still eat today.

Ten, some 3500 years ago a sophisticated rainorest-based civilization began to ourish in Central America.

Rainorests have surprisingly poor soil or agriculture.

What enabled people to populate the Amazon was the

creation o a sustainably ertile -soil called terra preta,

made with charcoal. erra preta enabled crops to be

grown and the development o large towns and a system

o linked villages in the Amazon basin, long beore Eu-

ropeans arrived in the teenth and sixteenth centuries.

As happened in the Andes, when Ihe European invaders

arrived, they brought with them smallpox, mumps, mea-sles and inuenza, to which the Amazonians had little or

no resistance. Within a hundred years o the Europeans

settling, some estimate that the Amerindian population

was reduced by up to 90 per cent. Te survivors were

either pushed into the orest interior or had already been

isolated there. oday, the only true rainorest-dwellers

are relatively small tribal groups, many o them nomadic

or semi-nomadic.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

4/18

2

JUNGLES

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

5/18

EATING THE UNTHINKABLE

3

ropical rainorests are among the most productive

ecosystems on Earth, hut the majority o animal lie is

ound in the treetops. Te orest oor we humans inhab-

it is more a place o death and decay than growth. While

the dank conditions are perect or ungi and bacteria,

with little light penetrating through the blanket o trees,

relatively ew plants ourish on the ground, and there-

ore surprisingly ew animals live here. Nutritious ood is

scarce in this underworld, and people cant aord to be

picky about what they eat.

Like most rainorest people, the Piaroa, who live along

the banks o Venezuelas Orinoco River and its tributar-

ies, have to be creative at securing sustenance on the

orest oor. Teyve learnt how to identiy a wide variety

o edible leaves, roots and tubers, but most remarkable

is the taste theyve developed or a particular ground-

dwelling animal - the goliath bird-eating tarantula. With

a leg-span o up lo 30cm (12 inches) and weighing as

much as 150g (50 ounces), this is the worlds largest

spider. For many people, these oversize arachnids repre-

sent a nightmare o nature, but or the Piaroa, they are

simply a valuable and an easy-to-nd source o protein.

It is oten the small children who are given the task o

searching or the supersized spiders. Having grown up

in the jungle, they have no ear o it and can navigate

through dense vegetation with remarkable ease. Teorest is their playground and the plants and animals

their toys. From as young as three, the children are able

to detect the telltale signs o a tarantula: a rodent-sized

hole in the ground surrounded by ne webbing. Once

a burrow is ound, the spider now has to be shed out.

Te child will careully poke a slick down the hole in

an attempt to stimulate the spiders predatory response.

Mistaking the slick or ood, ic spider seizes it with

angs and ront legs, and can then he gently pulled rom

its hole.arantulas are oten mistakenly thought o as highly

venomous, and though they are known to kill animals

as large as birds, this is more due lo their size than their

potency; their venom is rarely more painul than a bee

sting, and with the right handling, the risk o being

bitten is slim. A more realistic hazard is the irritating

barbed hairs that the tarantula vigorously kicks rom its

abdomen towards any attacker, which can cause any-

thing rom a mild rash lo a burning inammation. Te

worst symptoms occur when the hairs arc inhaled or get

in the eyes, leaving people with persistent respiratory

problems and. in some cases, permanently blind. Yet

even this does little to put the Piaroa children o, and

they have no hesitancy in catching the dinner-plate-sized

spiders and wrapping them up in lea parcels to carry

them back home or cooking.

Te recipe or barbecued tarantula is simple: build a re,

skewer the spiders and then lightly toast them - rather

like marshmallows. I desired, they can he seasoned with

salt and chilli. Te most prized piece o meat is the large

eshy abdomen, which tastes a little like crabmeat, but

almost the entire spider is eaten, including the hairy,

crunchy legs. And i any bits get stuck in the teeth, the

long angs make ideal toothpicks.

Tough the Piaroa happily dine on tarantulas and even

believe that their consumption helps ward o death,

there are plenty o other things they would rather eat.

Te problem is that many o these ood sources are

ound in the canopy, and getting at them can be ex-

tremely dicult and energetically expensive. Physically,

humans are poorly adapted to lie in the treetops and

so have had to invent other ways to access the riches.

One o the most common solutions is a blowpipe, and

a number o rainorest cultures still use blowpipes or

hunting animals in the trees. Perhaps the most skilulo all blowpipe hunters are those o the Maris tribe o

western Brazil.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

6/18

4

JUNGLES

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

7/18

DARTING INTO THE CANOPY

5

Te blowpipe-hunting prowess o the Maris has been

honed over centuries, and their weapons are a testament

to their ability to make use o what they nd around

them. Te 3 metre long (11.5 oot) barrel is created

rom seven pieces o palm trunk hollowed out andbound together with twine and resin. It has to be made

as straight as possible to give the accuracy needed to

hit a target 30 metres (100 eet) up in the canopy. Te

mouthpiece is hardwood, and a capybara tooth stuck

to the other end o the pipe acts as a sight. Te Matis

take great pride in their blowpipe-making abilities and

elaborately decorate them using pieces o eggshell inlaid

into the barrel.

Te darts are ashioned rom sharpened palm spikes.

Tese are dipped in poison, which is collected rom

the curare liana by scraping it with a slick studded with

monkeys teeth and then healed to reduce the liquid

and intensiy its potency. Te back-ends the darts are

wrapped in clay and kapok-tree bre, which creates an

airtight seal in the blowpipe and acts as a stabilizer in

ight. Finally, the Matis score each dart with a piranha

tooth so poisoned head will break o inside the preys

body i the dart is dislodged.

Te Matis use their blowpipes exclusively or hunting

in the canopy, as they are too long and unwielding to

shoot at anything more that 20 degrees rom the verti-

cal. On occasion theyll dart birds and mammals such as

sloths, but they mainly use blowpipes to hunt monkeys.

Working in teams o up to six, they rapidly cover large

distances on the trail o a troop o monkeys, using subtle

cues such as scents, debris and monkey calls to locale

their prey. Tey encircle the troop rom the ground and

begin driving them together by calling and banging on

trees. Once the troop is concentrated, they re rapid

volleys o darts. I a monkey is hit, it may take severalminutes or the poison to take eect, and the monkey

has to be tracked as it tries to escape through the trees.

On a successul hunt, the Matis can come hack with ve

or more monkeys. Tough shotguns are becoming the

weapon o choice, the Matis still preer to use blowpipes

to hunt monkeys. Te blowpipes arc nearly silent, allow-

ing them to pick o several monkeys beore the troop

ees, whereas the sound o just one gunshot will scatter

them.

From ood, medicinal plants, poisons and insect repel-lents to building materials, the rainorest can provide

all we need, but identiying how the bewildering array

o species can be best used lakes hundreds o years. Te

rainorest is a web o symbiotic, parasitic and predatory

interactions, and its essential to understand how these

intricate relationships work. Its through our powers oobservation and extrapolation that we have developed

the ability to interpret these relationships and to exploit

the knowledge.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

8/18

6

JUNGLES

In Yunnan, China, the Dai people have learned to apply

their awareness o rainorest systems to the way they

cultivate. Understanding that rainorest plants have

evolved to grow alongside- each other, they plant a mix

o crops in their kitchen gardens, using ruit trees to

create a canopy or shade-loving vegetables and shrubs.

One o the most productive crops is bananas, and

it isnt just the ruit that the Dai exploit. Tey know

that hornets like to eed on the nectar o banana owers,

and despite the aggressive nature and agonizing stings

o hornets, they are happy to attract them. Bui it is the

hornet larvae they are ater, considering them a delicacy,

and the best way lo locate them is to rst nd the adults.

Once a hornet has been spotted eeding rom a banana

ower, a cricket is tied to a long stick and slowly raised

up beside the hornet. Tough hornets love nectar,

theyre even more partial to animal esh to eed their

young. Te hornet quickly turns its attention to the

cricket and becomes so engrossed in chopping it into

portable pieces that it doesnt notice when a ne thread

loop with a small white eather attached is slid over its

abdomen. Once the rst consignment o cricket esh is

ready, the hornet ies o towards its nest. Te leather

slows its progress and acts as a ag so it can be ollowed,

though chasing the hornet usually involves crashing

through undergrowth.Once the nest has been located, usually up in a tree, the

next hurdle is to get at the grubs without being attacked

by an angry hornet deence orce. A long sapling is cut,

and a cotton rag doused in petrol is tied to one end, lit

and raised to the hanging nest. When the hornets have

been subdued with the smoke and ames, the hunters

either climb the tree to retrieve the papier-mch nest

or whack it down, much like a piata. Te nest is then

cracked open and the grubs plucked rom their cells to

be eagerly consumed alive.Living in the rainorest oten results in a deep under-

standing o nature, and it also has a proound inuence

on the customs and belies o orest-dwelling societies.

Animals and plants eed not only their bodies but also

their minds. And nowhere is this more evident than

among the orest tribes o the island o New Guinea.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

9/18

OUTSMARTING HORNETS / THE DEATH-DEFYING SWEET TOOTH

7

Naturally occurring sweet oods are hard to come by

in the rainorest. Tere are abundant wild ruits, but

many arent edible, and most arent nearly as nutritious

or sweet as their domestic varieties. Honey is one o the

only reliable sources o sugar, and it is much sought alter

as a delicacy by orest people. For the pygmies o equa-

torial Arica, the quest or honey is an obsession that

theyre prepared to risk their lives or.

Te BaAka tribes that inhabit the rainorests o the

Central Arican Republic and the Congo are constantly

on the lookout or honey, but as orest bees oten build

their hives inside hollow branches in the canopy, its

hard to nd. A hones-collector such as Mongonj, rom

the village o Yandombe in the Congo, is amazingly

adept at detecting signs o hive activity. He will listen

or aint humming sounds, search or dead bees on the

orest oor and can even spot bees living around high up

in the canopy. But locating a hive is just the start. Mon-

gonj then has to retrieve the honey, which he does with

an astonishing display o agility, bravery, and knowledge

o orest-plant uses.

Hives in small trees pose no problem: Mongonj will

shimmy up thin trunks or simply chop them down.

Even a large tree can pose ew problems i there are

enough climbable lianas hanging rom it or smaller trees

growing alongside. Yet the biggest hives can be ound atup to 40 metres (130 eet) in giant emergent trees whose

trunks are too wide to get enough purchase on. In these

cases, a more specialized approach is called or, and only

skilled honey-collectors such as Mongonj will take on

the challenge.

Te process begins by tying a particularly strong species

o liana in a large loop that encircles both the base o

the tree and his waist, allowing him to lean hack against

the liana and ree his hands while maintaining his grip.

With this improvised harness in place, Mongonj beginsto chop notched ootholds into the hunk with a hand-

made axe. Once he has ascended a little way, he shufes

the looping liana arther up the trunk and repeats the

process, methodically ascending the tree. Great strength

is required both to chop into a hardwood tree and haul

himsel up in the tropical heat, and it can take hours or

him to reach the point where the trunk begins dividing

into branches.

Now the most physically demanding work is over, but

the danger is about to increase. Mongonj has to leavethe relative security o his harness and negotiate the trees

limbs to access the outer branches. Each tree requires a

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

10/18

8

JUNGLES

dierent approach. Sometimes Mongonj will use lianas

to create a ladder to bridge the gaps between branches;

other times he may acrobatically swing between them.

Once on the limb where the hive is, Mongonj simply

walks out along the branch. One slip could result indeath, but he is so experienced that he shows no sign o

vertigo. Approaching the hive, Mongonj now has to

deal with a swarm o angry bees that sense their colony

is under attack, and Arican bees deend their queen

with great vigour. One or two stings are manageable, but

the pheromones released by the bees rapidly calls more

attackers, and so Mongonj has to act ast. He lets down

a long coil o vine to his assistant t on the ground,

who attaches a bundle o leaves and burning embers and

sends it back up.

Blowing on the leaves. Mongonj creates a cloud o

smoke that rapidly subdues the bees. Now he uses his

axe to chip away at the entrance hole to the hive so he

can plunge his hand in, pull out the rst block o honey-

comb and gauge whether hes struck gold or ound only

a small amount o poor-quality comb.

I they honey is good, Mongonj sends his vine back

down to t, whos been ashioning a bark basket lined

with leaves. Te makeshit container is hauled up and

then piled high with honeycomb. By now the news

that honey has been ound is likely to have spread, and

an expectant crowd will be awaiting the bounty rom

above. It is the climbers privilege, though, to take the

rst mouthuls o the sweet honey, and alter hours o

hard work, the energy it provides is much needed.

On a good day many baskets ull o honey can he col-

lected rom a single hive, and this goes a long was to

satisying the cravings o the community. Te collector

may, however, descend to nd the rest o the honey has

already been shared out. But honey is highly valued in

BaAki culture, and though those able to collect it maynot always get the biggest share. Tey earn respect and

admiration. A woman will only marry a man who can

bring her honey, and wives constantly badger their hus-

bands to collect more. Yet this drive to gather honey can

kill. Momentary loss o concentration, weak branches

and sometimes overwhelming attacks rom bees can all

lead to atalities, and every tribe can retail a number o

people who have allen to their death in pursuit o this

liquid gold.

Tat something we simply pluck rom the shel in thesupermarket could, in another culture, be worth risking

death or is a vivid illustration o just how dierent die

challenges o lie in the orest are rom our own. Many

o the natural resources rainorest people depend on

have little application or value in the modern world. Yet

there are some rainorest products that are in huge de-

mand around the globe, and the pursuit o these has led

to massive exploitation. Substantial prots can be made

rom the rainorest, whether rom poached hush-meat

or the extraction o medicinal plant compounds, but the

most coveted resources o all are the trees themselves.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

11/18

THE DEATH-DEFYING SWEET TOOTH

9

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

12/18

10

JUNGLES

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

13/18

HARNESSING THE ELEPHANT

11

ropical hardwood extraction is big business, resulting

in massive deorestation. Te area o the planet covered

by tropical rainorest has shrunk to about a third o what

it was just a century ago, and the destruction continues

at a rate o about ten ootball elds every minute. Many

attempts to regulate the logging industry have been

made, but the promise o prot usually outweighs am

desire to protect the environment.

Tere are, however, ways to extract rainorest timber

without clearelling, which is the most destructive or-

estry o all. One o the best ways to log selectively also

happens to be one o the oldest, harnessing the might o

the orests largest animals.

Asian elephants have been used as beasts o burden or

many millennia, and even today, elephant logging oc-

curs in a number o places, in particular the rainorests

o Burma (Myanmar). Te Burmese jungles are rich in

teak trees, which are the countrys second-largest export,

and ever since commercial elephant-logging techniques

were introduced by the British about 200 years ago, it

has been the preerred method to harvest timber. oday,

about 4500 elephants are employed.

Inwards the end o the monsoon, truckloads o el-

ephants arc taken to the various logging concessions.

Here the elephant drivers, known as oozies, and their

amilies set up camp or the season, with up to 200working elephants each. Extraction sites are deep in the

orest, where selected teak trees are marked and then

elled by chainsaw. Te oozies and their elephants then

begin the task o hauling the huge logs through the or-

est to the rivers or roads, where they can be oated or

driven down to the sawmills.

Elephants are adapted to rainorest lie and so make

ideal logging machines. Tey have the strength to lit

and drag timber weighing 2 tons, and yet theyre nimble

enough to manoeuvre through thick vegetation. Bycomparison, getting heavy machinery to individual trees

necessitates clearing vast tracts o orest. Also, while

elephants can negotiate rivers and mountain slopes to

get to timber, convoluted road routes arc needed to

gel machinery in. Te more roads there are, the more

poaching and slash-and-burn arming penetrates the

rainorest. Elephants are also more practical because the

only uel they require is orest vegetation and they dont

need spare parts.

But working with elephants is not without its problems.

Tey rarely breed in captivity, and so young ones have

lo be captured rom the wild and then trained, hiking a

young elephant rom its herd stems cruel enough, but

breaking in an elephant - conquering its will so the oozie

has total control - can last months and, at worst, is noth-

ing short o torture.

Te oozie has to teach it how lo react to dierent com-

mands and. most importantly, orge a bond o trust - i

an elephant decides lo him on him, it could easily kill

him. Te Sometimes tender, sometimes brutal relation-

ship between man and elephant is one o the most

remarkable partnerships between man and animal.

In many ways the elephants are well cared or, and they

are even allowed to eed ree in the orests al night, but

it is undeniable that they suer. Yet, in Burma, logging

with elephants in preerence to machinery has not only

helped sustain the largest tracts o rainorest let in Asia

but has also protected the habitat o the only remain-

ing healthy population o wild Asian elephants. Now,

though, new international logging operators are moving

into Burma, wanting quick prots and destroying the

orests at an alarming rate. It may not be long beore

Burmas elephant-logging industry disappears and, along

with it, the largest remaining population o wild Asianelephants.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

14/18

12

JUNGLES

No orest no people

Devastation is happening in all rainorest regions,

whether through timber extraction or clearance or

agriculture. Once trees arc removed, the ecosystem rap-

idly deteriorates. Its a lesson learnt throughout history:

civilizations that havent respected this have eventually

ailed. Te causes or the demise o the Khmer empire

o Southeast Asia and the Mayan civilization o Central

America arc still debated, but overexploitation o the

orest and attempts to dominate nature are believed to

be at the centre o both downalls.

Te spectacular Angkor Wat, a Prohm and other

Khmer temples in Cambodia are remnants o what is

considered the worlds largest pre-industrial city, home

to more than a million people and the centre o the

Khmer empire. Te metropolis o Angkor ourished

or about 500 years, but excessive stripping o vegeta-

tion and re-engineering to the landscape to sustain the

burgeoning population eventually caused its collapse.

Te existence o the Khmer and Mayan empires proves

dial its possible or humans lo carve civilization-nut

o the jungle, but they also remind us that rainorest

environments arc nch balanced - even the removal o a

single species can provoke unpredictable and ar-reach-

ing consequences. But whereas in the past such destruc-

tion happened at a relatively local level, today it is on aglobal scale. Te continued loss o rainorest could be

catastrophic or humanity. Tey create about a third o

the oxygen we need to breathe and absorb carbon rom

our excessive emissions. Tey are also ull o undescribed

species, some o which could change the course o hu-

man history, whether through medicine or technology.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

15/18

NO FOREST, NO PEOPLE

13

Te Curse of No Contact

It isnt just new species that remain undiscovered in the

rainorests. Incredibly, in the largest remaining rainor-

est areas, there are still isolated tribes whose cultures

we know little or nothing about. In West Papua there

are believed to be as many as -H, and in the Brazilian

Amazon about 67. Its not correct to reer to them as

uncontacted, as through history these people arc likely

lo have had interactions with neighbouring communities

and colonizing cultures. But or a variety o reasons, they

have chosen to avoid interacting with the outside world.

Tis situation is rapidly changing, though, as loggers,

miners, poachers, ranchers and armers penetrate ever

deeper into the orests.

When contact is made, the results are rarely positive. O-

ten treated as sub- humans with no rights and no powers

to protest, they are at the mercy o the attacks o people

who want to orce them rom the land so that it can

he cleared. Once exposed to western culture, they are

vulnerable to prostitution and drug addiction. But per-

haps the biggest threat these tribes ace is disease: having

spent so much time in isolation, their immune systems

arc poorly adapted lo cope with outside diseases. Almost

all recent contacted tribes have thus suered huge popu-

lation losses - even a simple cold can prove atal.

Te plight o the Awa-Guaja tribe o eastern Brazil

highlights the problems aced in tribes that have recently

been orced to adapt lo the modern world. Tey once

lived in permanent settlements, but waves o European

invaders in the nineteenth century orced the Awa-Guaja

to ee back to the orest and adopt a nomadic hunter-

gatherer liestyle. Tey lived in this way or about 150

years until about 50 years ago, when logging, mining

and the construction o a railway orced them back into

contact with outsiders. Many were massacred by loggers

and ranchers, and even more died during epidemics o

u and malaria. In an attempt to manage the situation,

the Brazilian government tried to settle the tribe and

assimilate the people into modern culture.

Tough about 60 Awa-Guaja have managed to remain

living as orest nomads, most have been settled in vil-

lages. All are scarred by persecution and are still strug-

gling to come to terms with a dierent way o lie. Yet

their culture remains entwined with the orest, a legacy

o the time when they depended on it or everything

they needed.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

16/18

14

JUNGLES

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

17/18

CANOPY LIVING

15

Te more isolated clans o the Korowai tribe o West

Papua live as close to a true hunter-gatherer existence as

any people today. Tey are one o very ew societies that

have retained the know ledge o how to get everything

they need rom the natural world. Tey are best known,

though, or having taken human adaptation to the orest

to new heights.

Te Korowai and the neighbouring tribe, the Kombai,

are the only cultures known to inhabit treehouses. Tese

are built around large trees as much as 35 metres (115

eet) o the ground and are constructed with skill and

the involvement o the whole community. All the build-

ing materials come rom the orest, and dierent plants

are selected or each stage o the construction.

Te rst stage is to clear an area around the chosen tree

or trees (oten iron trees, which are incredibly strong).

Tough some Korowai have acquired metal axe-heads,

much o this work is done with stone axes. Long, thin

sapling-are then bound together with rattan twine to

create a ladder up the tree. At approximately 10-metres

(32-oot) intervals, wooden platorms are constructed

onto which more wood and other materials are hauled

up using strong vine as ropes. Once in the crown o the

trees, the people begin to build the house itsel, which

can vary in size rom a shed to a bungalow. Te Ko-

rowai build a rame, thatch the roo with palm leavesand make the walls out o rolls o bark stripped rom

large tree trunks. At one end o the house, they build a

balcony where people can relax, have a smoke, enjoy the

view and survey their territory.

Tese houses are remarkable eats o natural engineering,

rendered all the more impressive by being constructed

at such dizzying heights. Tere are practical reasons

or these high-rise dwellings: the lowland rainorest is

swampy and can get waterlogged ater heavy rain, height

can give relie rom mosquitoes and other biting insects,and living in trees gives them protection rom attack by

neighbouring tribes. Te Korowai also believe witches

haunt the orest oor. But perhaps the main reason is

that treehouses express the tribes status and prowess.

Te Korowai place great value on territory and like to

display the act that they can build dwellings in the ar

reaches o their land, both horizontally and vertically.

Much like skyscrapers in cities, treehouses are symbolic

o the tribes dominance over their environment, and the

larger the house and the higher it is, the more accom-

plished its builders have to be.

A treehouse usually takes between two weeks and a

month to complete. Clay re-pits or cooking are

moulded, and then the rst re is lit as a house-warming

ceremony. When an extended amily moves in, so do

their pigs, dogs and cassowaries, which quickly be-

come accustomed to lie 30 metres (100 eet) above the

ground. Even more extraordinary is the condence with

which children charge around their high-rise homes.

oddlers are given minimal supervision and oten play

precariously close to the edge o the balcony, but when

lie is reliant on being at home in the trees, the lessons

have to start early.

Te Korowai are no more evolved to arboreal lie than

we are, but they demonstrate how ingenuity and resolve

enable us to adapt to almost any environment. Te need

to survive has orced the Korowai and other hunter-

gatherer cultures to learn to live as an integral part o the

rainorest. But it is this specialization that also renders

them so vulnerable in an increasingly global society.

As the rainorests are degraded or destroyed, they lose

their only means o survival. It is remarkable that even

among the homogeneity o humanity in the twenty-rst

century, there arc still some people who have managedto remain living so intimately with nature, but unless

the global community realizes the true value o tropical

rainorests, this will not he the case or much longer.

7/28/2019 Jungles 1

18/18

JUNGLES