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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
PBS Nova had a documentary last night about an indigenous visual artist in Lima Peru who went seeking his roots with the Unitoto people, and the White Heron Clan in particular. Then he visits his own parents in the country, who are both artists, and his much younger siblings who are artists in training. His folks send him on a river journey to visit members of the Unitoto who live in the old way deep in the jungle. He is an honored guest and is received with celebration. The subtitles translate their joyous song, which centers around "The new tobacco has arrived" as a refrain. I immediately thought, "Forums!" There are quite a few verses, but it always gets back to the tobacco. Apparently the actual smoking of the tobacco is too sacred to film, but it was obviously the center of the party. The title of this film is "The Journey of the Butterflies." It does have some grim accounts of the brutalization of the indigenous people by the rubber plantation foremen, burnings alive and beheadings. But the tobacco ceremony was a definite bright spot.
 

telescopes

Pipe Dreamer and Star Gazer
PBS Nova had a documentary last night about an indigenous visual artist in Lima Peru who went seeking his roots with the Unitoto people, and the White Heron Clan in particular. Then he visits his own parents in the country, who are both artists, and his much younger siblings who are artists in training. His folks send him on a river journey to visit members of the Unitoto who live in the old way deep in the jungle. He is an honored guest and is received with celebration. The subtitles translate their joyous song, which centers around "The new tobacco has arrived" as a refrain. I immediately thought, "Forums!" There are quite a few verses, but it always gets back to the tobacco. Apparently the actual smoking of the tobacco is too sacred to film, but it was obviously the center of the party. The title of this film is "The Journey of the Butterflies." It does have some grim accounts of the brutalization of the indigenous people by the rubber plantation foremen, burnings alive and beheadings. But the tobacco ceremony was a definite bright spot.
Interesting. I see if I can find the show in the next few days. Did they show how they might be smoking the tobacco? For example, any pictures of pipes?
 
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unadoptedlamp

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 19, 2014
742
1,368
A friend of mine in Brazil is indigenous and we get to visit each other often when I'm there, where our pipes come out around the fire. Tobacco use among indigenous in Brazil is a very different thing than simply smoking some cigarettes or puffing on a pipe.

It is a spiritual event for him, which requires a good deal of preparation and then, during the act of smoking, a heightened observance of where the smoke is going, how it is taken in and how it is put back out into the world. With every puff of the pipe. It is very deliberate.

When I'm smoking my own pipe around him, I just puff away as I usually would and we chat as usual. But when handed the pipe from my friend, I take care to replicate his movements and methods, because that's just what you do with those kinds of pipes.

One time, he invited me to a village of his friends (Tupi-Guarani) and we had a big event in the mud brick community centre in the jungle where they danced, played music and smoked pipes. Everyone smoked a pipe. Even very small kids of about 9 years old or even younger. It was fairly casual smoking at that place though.

At the end of all of the wonderful music, dancing and speeches, they said "Great, and now we have a presentation from our guest!" Hell if I knew about that one was coming! It was just taken as a giving that I would naturally entertain them after I myself had enjoyed their entertainment for the past hour or more. All eyes turned to me and I had to think quick.

I shuffled around and sang as best I could, which was a hell of a show for them, as they all roared with laughter at me. It was fun.

The whole time, everyone puffing away on large pipes, sending their prayers out to whatever gods they thought were looking out for them that day. It was a great time, and very, very interesting to see tobacco used in a way that we don't get to see too often in these parts.
 

unadoptedlamp

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 19, 2014
742
1,368
Indigenous pipe smoker


the-world-indigenous-games-fil-eminimizer-22-638.jpg


This is a typical pipe from the Tupi-Guarani. The face and body paint is not too common though. Very much ceremonial, from what I've seen.

One of these pipes was gifted to me, but it is painted red. They smoke pretty good with a nice open draw, but if you fill the chamber, it's close to a 3 hour smoke. Fill the chamber with their tobacco, and for me, it's' about a 10 minute smoke until I'm on the floor and wondering who hit me in the head with a brick.

They like to smoke very strong ropes that have been fermenting and getting concentrated for who knows how long. Potent stuff. Sometimes mixed with herbs to change the taste and offerings, but I'm very careful about accepting tobacco there now. It's just too strong for me.

Perhaps the strength is a part of the spiritual nature of the smoke. It can definitely kick you into another dimension. It was explained to me that the smoke is a prayer. They didn't keep it a secret though. Interesting that the Nova documentary was different, but they are geographically fairly distant. The similar part is that of tobacco being a celebration and sacred.

The stem is a reed, which you can swap out later on if it gets clogged. I've never seen a pipe cleaner used in one of these. Hard to even find a pipe cleaner in Brazil. I also have a couple of pipes from them carved in the style of animals (anteater and a jaguar), but they are much smaller and mostly ornamental. I've only ever seen the block style pipes smoked though. They're more practical and robust. Almost impossible to break.

No personal pictures, as the pipes are at my house in Brazil and covid has been a real problem for getting back there this past year. I have some pictures of the village, but I don't think they would want those posted freely, as there's kids smoking and that's the kind of thing that would cause some people to flip out... until they see those kids take a dose of Ayahuasca and their heads explode because children... just... can't... *pop*

Just a different culture. Glad they're out there doing their thing. It was one of the more peaceful places I've been to. Tough for most people to get too worked up when you're enjoying a pipe!
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
unadopted', I thought this post was a shout in the wind, but instead it is an appendix to the documentary! Most interesting about your friend in Brazil, and the communities there where everyone enjoys tobacco. I'm smoking some C&D Big'n'Burley, which is a five-star in strength, and I now realize to some pipe smokers it would be way mild. I would hope urban cultures would just leave these communities alone and let them realize their cultures their own way. They have languages, music, art, religions, and governance of their own, that might outlast ours at the rate we're going. Best leave them alone. If we can't escape to another planet, maybe we can leave alternative civilizations to sustain their own way.

cosmic', what I most associate with bananas in the field are great big spiders. I didn't see any on the bananas off that ship, but I kept it in mind. About ten years later, Guam was infested from "visitors" off visiting ships, large green snakes that appeared everywhere. I think Guam has subdued them, but I suspect they're still there and occasionally show up in kitchen cabinets and such.
 
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unadoptedlamp

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 19, 2014
742
1,368
Most interesting about your friend in Brazil, and the communities there where everyone enjoys tobacco
I've been ridiculously lucky in my life in that I have been afforded the rare opportunity to live part time in that country. My wife grew up there and does participatory research with waste pickers in Brazil, which is just a fancy way of saying that instead of being a typical academic who goes there to "study" people and leave, she embeds with them and becomes a part of their group to give them an equal say in how the research is directed and what comes out of it so that the work benefits them in ways that they determine are needed. It's being going on for well over a decade now.

I find the work fascinating.

One of the most interesting outcomes -I think- was from a female waste picker who overcame alcoholism and an abusive husband (not to mention abject poverty) who went on to speak in front of the UN. That's a whole other story of meeting interesting people in interesting places and seeing first hand what amazing things are possible if people are just given a chance to live without poverty and threat.

Through my wife, I've been introduced to the most amazing people. Just got lucky in finding an incredible wife who tolerates me, I guess. My friend with the indigenous connection is a marvel to walk through the jungle with. His father grew up in a tribe in the jungle and passed on a depth of knowledge that is rare in this world. More than any university degree could ever offer. My friend continued the thread and can rattle off the scientific names of every plant and tree we encounter (that's saying a hell of a lot in the jungle). But then, he adds the indigenous stories that have been passed down. Like "She is a trickster of a plant, my friend! You must not fall asleep under her, because sometimes, you will not wake up again."

He lives in Sao Paulo, which is a city that looks like they had a fire sale on concrete and it has never stopped. His solution is to grow trees and plants at his house and he transplants them illegally throughout the city and takes care of them until they are growing to bring back nature. Just a wonderful person that I wish everyone could know. He's not complaining about things. He's just doing his bit to make it a better world and he's never asking for recognition.

The tribe he introduced me to is not far from Sao Paulo, but far enough to escape the reaches of that place for now. Many Tupi have been "relocated" -displaced- by development, and this group is one of them, but have found a new home in the jungle. They want to be left alone, but it is difficult. Many missionaries feel it is their duty to convert them and "bring them to civilization". But they know what this is and reject it. They're constantly showing up though.

I have other friends, who are missionaries -an unlikely, but interesting friendship- and we have talked a great deal about this. We just have very different perspectives. I'm not religious, but I can see from them, that they genuinely believe they are doing the right thing by trying to "save" these groups of indigenous people who practice their own ways of spiritual living. It's a matter of life and death for the very soul, from their point of view. I don't like it, but I understand it better from them. It's a difficult situation.

But, I have a similar view to yours. In meeting these people and seeing how rich and interesting and connected with nature their culture is, I kind of wish that they were the missionaries spreading the word about how they live and interact with the natural world. There are a lot of amazing lessons there. Pipe smoking being just one of them! If it all goes to crap, I'm reasonably sure these people will be the ones most able to survive a world without easy access to modern convenience.

I wish everyone had the opportunity to meet these people. It's really incredible to encounter that kind of diversity in culture. I hope it is not eventually lost, despite the grim odds.
 

anantaandroscoggin

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 9, 2017
647
1,008
70
Greene, Maine, USA
Up here in Maine, we sometimes get the door-to-door religion salesmen. Some of them show an attitude that the more people they can convert, the closer to the right hand of Jesus their throne in Heaven will be. Others, when they say they will "pray for you," actually pray that their god will override your free will and force you to want to convert for the salesman's sake.

From my lifetime of reading histories, and of absorbing the news of the day over the past 67 years, my observation is that
Monotheistic Ideology and its institutions are the greatest threat to ALL LIFE on this planet in the past 65 million years.
 

saltedplug

Lifer
Aug 20, 2013
5,194
5,097
There are very few things as well-intentioned but stubbornly resistent to change than the effort to "save" others by inculcation of Jesus. So you're going to trash my belief system in favor of yours simply based on a belief in a scripture which you claim is infallible? Why? Because the Bible says so.

I think this trash. Not only have these
Brazilian people's lives been hurt by this spiritual co-option, but so have a millennia and more been hurt by evangelical Christians, insisting that Jesus is the only way to spirit. Why? the bible says so. Depends on your interpretation. In their sectarian mania, a spirit which has cost millions of lives, they insist on their interpretation.

In the last two years I lost a 20-year relationship to those who put faith ahead of reason. I will never enter into such with Christians again. Our best faith must withstand our best reason, and vice versa.
 
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Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
43,250
108,355
with bananas in the field are great big spiders.
We'd find them on produce shipments in a grocery store I worked at as a kid, pinktoed tarantulas.

GettyImages-178947057-5816ba5b5f9b581c0b810547.jpg


Big and hairy but virtually harmless. Non lethal to humans, skittish, and being arboreal, a fall of a foot or more will kill them. I kept a couple that we found.
 

kcghost

Lifer
May 6, 2011
13,158
21,427
77
Olathe, Kansas
I think some of you guys might have dropped a few words on our extreme Muslim friends. Any religion that goes to extremes has to controlled or eliminated.
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
It requires a special breadth of perspective to understand the benefits of many religious cultures, rather than thinking that the one you grew up with and may hold dear is the only way. Some Buddhists are smart in accepting the variety of religions and encouraging people to practice "their own." Usually, the good qualities are more evident in the congregants than the institutions. Growing up with many Roman Catholic kids, I always admired their cultivated consciences. Having know several Quakers, I have come to admire their social consciousness and strength in projecting it in public. I grew up in a ecumenical Protestant "community church" which I liked very much. I served as an acolyte (candle lighter) and later as an usher. I don't belong to that kind of church now, but I feel it is woven into my religious and philosophical self. I love the account of the plant expert in Brazil who also encompasses the folk tales of plants and their magical properties. Some serious thought is being given to the sentient aspects of plants by botanists and philosophers.
 

saltedplug

Lifer
Aug 20, 2013
5,194
5,097
It requires a special breadth of perspective to understand the benefits of many religious cultures, rather than thinking that the one you grew up with and may hold dear is the only way. Some Buddhists are smart in accepting the variety of religions and encouraging people to practice "their own." Usually, the good qualities are more evident in the congregants than the institutions. Growing up with many Roman Catholic kids, I always admired their cultivated consciences. Having know several Quakers, I have come to admire their social consciousness and strength in projecting it in public. I grew up in a ecumenical Protestant "community church" which I liked very much. I served as an acolyte (candle lighter) and later as an usher. I don't belong to that kind of church now, but I feel it is woven into my religious and philosophical self. I love the account of the plant expert in Brazil who also encompasses the folk tales of plants and their magical properties. Some serious thought is being given to the sentient aspects of plants by botanists and philosophers.
Not only the "sentient aspects" but also the consciousness that all organic, as well as inorganic life, especially trees, is said to possess; accorded by scientists in general.
 

mingc

Lifer
Jun 20, 2019
3,976
11,065
The Big Rock Candy Mountains
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