we are in the oldest place on earth. its formation began 200 million years ago, when the supercontinent pangea began to split apart. since then, the devastating force of nature has constantly modelled it, sculpting the most beautiful forms in a never-ending work of creation. here, on the guayana massif, in the south of venezuela, along the brazilian border, lies the largest, most intact virgin forest in the world. hundreds of waterfalls, torrents and fast-flowing rivers and streams are the only clearings breaking up the lush vegetation of the jungle. the snake among the dense green canopy, crashing down from the spectacular rock formations,
the sacred tepuys of the indians, the dwelling place of the gods of the great savanna of venezuela. the mountain of mystery in the interior of this green world lost in time, live men intimately adapted to their jungle environment which, though fascinating, is full of dangers. they are the inhabitants of the jungle, who live alongside and respect the endless different life forms around them. their culture is ancient, almost as ancient as the landscape in which it has developed. it is the scene of hunters and hunted drop your guard for just a single moment, and the order is immediately reversed, the hunter can become the prey and the prey an implacable predator.
but the king is always the tiger, the jaguar who is always on the lookout with its sinister gaze. its roar silences the forest, paralyses the beat of life. the jungle does not regain its breath until his majesty has collected his blood tribute. here live indians of different ethnic groups: pemon, maquiritar, panar and hotis, divided into an endless number of tribes. all of them, and especially the pemons, fear and respect the tepuys, these table mountains that seem to have been carved by mighty beings, giants of the universe like those described in their mythology. without a doubt, the most venerated tepuy of all is the auyan-tepuy,
"the mountain of the devil" in the pemon language. they believe that up there live extraordinary beings, evil monsters and three-headed serpents. down one of its faces crashes the kerepakupai-meru, also known as the angel falls, which is absolutely taboo for the natives. in their psychedelic trances the shamans sing to warn their people: "when you walk through the forest or sail along the river churun, bow down your heads and be respectful. do not look up! be cautious! on the auyan live cruel, perverse spirits who may not be observed.
and if you have to go to the "devil's canyon", your eyes should never see the great karapakupai falls. behind it live the most powerful of the gods. if you see them, they will immediately take your life." you don't have to believe in the myths of the natives to recognise that this natural setting exercises its influence over us. the auyan is one of the most beautiful tepuys in venezuela. a colossal rock formation that dramatically rises out of the dense forest vegetation, vertical walls over a thousand metres high.
the waters of the rivers churun and carrao are reddish, and along the rapids become multicoloured due to the effect of the foam. this colouring is due to the large quantity of tannin they contain. the disinfectant power of this substance means that the tea-coloured water is fit for drinking. the churun is a tributary of the carrao, whose dark waters in turn flow into the cloudy, brown, alluvial waters of the caroni, a tributary of the orinoco. these rivers are difficult to navigate due to the many rapids and falls along them. in the dry season, from december to june, the churun runs almost dry,
making travel along it impossible. here, everything takes on colossal dimensions. the force of nature constantly manifests itself, creating an awe-inspiring atmosphere which, for centuries, has fired the imagination of the traveller, and has given rise to all types of legends. perhaps that is why arthur conan doyle was inspired by canaima when he wrote the novel "the lost world" rounding a tight bend in the river churun, the mythical kerepakupai of the pemons, the angel falls, appear. it is a spectacular sight, a unique landscape.
it is not surprising that the first european travellers were profoundly moved by its very presence, and that it has been, since time immemorial, the home and origin of the native pantheon. it is the highest waterfall in the world. the accumulated rain waters of this part of the plateau crash down from a height of 972 metros, almost a kilometre. it is 17 times higher than the niagara falls. flying over the auyan-tepuy, looking down at the walls of the devil's canyon, it does not surprise us that arthur conan doyle should dream of dinosaurs inhabiting this lost world. on the 700 square kilometres of the auyan-tepuy, the vegetation and wildlife are different from those below.
the tepuys are the remains of an enormous plateau which in the pre-cambrian era occupied the entire region. the vegetable species that covered the ancient massif, and part of its fauna, have survived on the summits of these hills, isolated by the high vertical walls. after falling for almost kilometre, the water crashes to the ground forming rain, and creating a ghostly atmosphere, giving the falls an ethereal, dreamlike appearance. at dawn, the reflection of the first rays of sun produce a rainbow which adds even further to spectacular image of what the indians call kerepakupai. the falls were seen for the first time by the guayanan explorer felix cardona in 1927.
ten years later, the american pilot jimmy angel, landed on the top of the auyan. he was looking for a gold mine. but the plane got bogged down in a swamp area, and they had to descend on foot. after 15 days of hard struggle for survival, they arrived exhausted at the village of uruyen. since then the kerepakupai has been known as the angel falls. did jimmy angel find the gold of the auyan? some people say he did, and that one of his partners, the latvian alexander laimel, kept it in secret. this mysterious figure dedicated his life to the auyan-tepuy, and even lived on its summit. what did this eccentric cartographer see on the auyan-tepuy? laimel died some years ago without revealing his secrets,
but to those of us who knew him he spoke of mutants, of beings from another world who lived on the auyan, the sacred mountain of the pemons. we are now flying south, to the makiritare village of canaracuni, the only clearing in the jungle for some 800 km an hour by canoe along the river canaracuni, we had our first encounter with the sanema, a nomad group which had split off from the yanomamis, "the fierce people", as they were unjustly named by the north american anthropologist napoleon chagnon. though they and the yanomami have common ancestors, the linguistic separation took place a long time ago, much earlier than that of french and spanish, for example.
today, their languages are mutually unintelligible, though their customs are almost identical. the sanema abandon their villages when hunting becomes scarce. they then move to a distant region where they can more easily capture their favourite prey: the dantos or tapirs and the vaquiros, a type of wild pig, smaller than the boar. their houses are large and open-plan. on the walls made of sticks and sometimes of mud, they place a covering of palm leaves. the fire is the central focus of the room. one side is used as a store for the food and the few utensils they own. in the rest of the space they hang their hammocks, in which they rest and sleep.
though they are hunters, they also grow some crops, essentially bananas and manioc, which, along with the proteins they obtain from hunting and fishing, make up their diet. the crop lands belong to the community. the women are in charge of growing and harvesting the crops. the manioc is a bush of the euphorbia family, between one and two metres high, which develops very large roots in the form of fleshy tubers. they are very nutritious, due to the quantity of starch they contain. the sanema women are responsible for the majority of domestic tasks: they gather fruit and firewood in the forest, work the land, cook and look after the younger children.
the men spend almost all their time hunting and occasionally fishing in the streams near the village. once they have been dug up, the manioc roots are washed and grated using these graters with thin metal points. some years ago, a dc-3 airplane crashed into the river, just a short distance from the village. since then, the sanema have used the aluminium of its fuselage to make small metal tips for their graters. on occasions, their neighbours the makiritare, or yecuana as they are also known, come here in their canoes to trade with the sanema. they exchange plastic basins, machetes, graters, salt and red cloth for skins, smoked meat and dried fish. the tapioca, which is the product of grating the manioc, is placed in the seucan,
a flexible basket which serves to squeeze out the liquid. making the seucans, also called tinquis, is a job reserved exclusively for the old men, who meticulously carry out their work because they have the gift of patience. the juice of the manioc contain hydrocyanide acid, which is very poisonous, and that is why they have to extract it, squeezing the tapioca in the seucan. by means of a kind of press which tenses the fibre, using a lever, the poison slowly seeps out. they are addicted to tobacco. both men and women take on a fierce appearance as they place a thick wad of tobacco between the lower lip and the gums. more than the need to chew tobacco, this habit gives them the mineral salts that complement their diet.
they dampen the tobacco leaves and smear them with ashes. little by little they shape this mixture until they obtain a solid ball, which they place in their mouths. like so many other things that are communal among the sanema, the wads of tobacco are happily passed from mouth to mouth. such is the lack of salt in their diet that sometimes, especially the pregnant women become geogphagists, that is, they eat soil. they dig into the seams along the river banks and swallow handfuls of earth. when the press has extracted all the poisonous juice, the tapioca is ready to make the cassava, the bread of the jungle.
the tapioca may be cooked and then wrapped in banana leaves, or toasted on a metal sheet to make flat cassava loaves. these men of the forest have the custom of decorating their bodies and faces before undertaking any action. above all, they use red, from the seed of the onoto, and black, which they obtain from burnt wood from the fire. each sanema has a specific design which protects him. they generally represent totemic animals seen under the effects of the sacona or yopo, a powerful hallucinogenic substance they inhale through the nose. the effects of the sacona are almost immediate. now, the symbiosis with the magical dimension of the jungle is almost absolute.
from their psychedelic vantage point they can see the spirits of the jungle with out being vulnerable to their influence and been united with their moresbi, a part of the soul of the sanema which lives in a particular animal of the forest, making it his protector. they frequently go on these journeys to the world of the spirits. almost every day, the sanema feel the need to transform into their totemic animals and visualise, through its eyes, the other reality of their existence. under the protection of their ritual paintings, the hunting parties move deeper into the dense vegetation of the oldest primeval forest in the world. along with the amazon, it forms part of the largest lungs of the planet,
a resource which belongs to all humanity, and which we all have the obligation of preserving. the hunters remain immobile, on the lookout, waiting for some prey to move in order to launch into attack. quickly, the sounds return to the jungle. the animals regain confidence, are unaware of the presence of a superior intelligence which immediately interprets every noise they make. man is out hunting, and even the jaguar king seeks refuge in the shadows of the jungle, unable to compete against the superiority of humans. the sanema move around an enormous area. they can be found near any river in the southern part of the guayana massif.
mainly in the caura basin. this powerful river, a tributary of the orinoco, has many rapids and cataracts, which makes it difficult to navigate and so for outsiders to penetrate into one of the least explored areas of venezuela. its waters are dangerous. the strong currents of the river form powerful whirlpools capable of swallowing a man. the hunting parties also take advantage of the night. this is when the jungle is at its most dangerous. the majority of predators hunt in the dark, including the terrible mapanare, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world, whose bite is always fatal.
but the sanema know their way around this world they have dominated for over 3,000 years. dawn is rising in canaracuni. the fog lifts and the sarisariã±ama tepuy majestically appears. the young yecuana/makiritare, the neighbours of the sanema, are preparing their blowpipes. they make sticks with the dried stalks of palm leaves, and plane them to form thin, pointed darts around 15 centimetres in length. at the rear of the darts they roll fibres, similar to cotton in texture, of precisely the same thickness as the diameter of the blowpipe. when they blow, the fibres receive the pressure of the air, and the dart is launched at great speed. here, everyone uses the resources provided by the forest vegetation. before setting out to hunt, they must make the small darts poisonous. by themselves, they would be useless.
they make incisions in the bark of a tree called tunare and wait until an extremely poisonous orange resin oozes out. then, they dip the sharp tips of their darts in the viscous poison, turning them into the most efficient of weapons. just a slight wound from one of these lethal darts could end the life of a man. they are expert mimics, capable of imitating the songs of almost all the birds they know. they hunt all types of birds, for the yecuana everything that flies is edible. their favourites are the toucans and the macaws, the tongues of which they assure us are a real delicacy. from canaracuini we fly over the sarisariã±ama tepuy.
up there, the vegetation is just as down below, but this tepuy contains an extraordinary phenomenon. here is the largest crevasse in the world, and the fourth in absolute depth. the surface of the plateau is scarred by deep crevices and the largest crevasses formed by the collapse of sandstone rock. the largest is 352 metres across, 350 metres deep and 502 metres in diameter at the bottom. they were formed by the collapse of enormous cavities of sandstone rock. they have their own drainage system formed by watercourses that begin on the walls and edges and end by disappearing underground. near to sarisariã±ama, the canaracuni and the merevari come together to form the river caura.
its waters plunge down the para falls, one of the most spectacular cataracts in venezuela and a sacred place for the native indians. some relatives from the itucu river have arrived at the sanema village. the compulsory greetings are a real ritual. two by two, they recite their respective family trees, which sometimes go back twenty generations. meanwhile, daily life continues at its slow, steady pace. the sanema work just enough to eat and be comfortable in the village. they spend a lot of time doing nothing or playing simple, almost childish games. the arrival of visitors always breaks the monotony. they prepare dances, games and food for all.
the warriors paint themselves with burnt wood as they do when they go into battle against other tribes. this is a very old custom, challenging outsiders, even if it is only in play. the sanema have always been and always will be a warrior people. the visitors enter the village with their bows strung. there, other warriors await them. the tips of the arrows are wrapped in banana leaves so they will not wound anyone. this is merely a welcoming ritual. the sanema believe that after the creation of the world the gods fought a cruel battle in the stars. from the drops of blood that fell to earth, mixed with the dust, men were born. so, they believe they came from violence, which could explain why war and confrontation in battle are so important for them.
they are always on the alert, observing the jungle that surrounds them. enemies always come through the jungle, this tangle of vegetation which here is especially dense. on the guayana plateau the jungle grows on granite soil. the trees have had to develop both ground and aerial roots, and so there are parts of the forest which are virtually impenetrable. the shamans are the most respected people of all. it is their job to order the social behaviour of the community, take charge of the worship of the spirits, and cure illnesses. they know the pharmacopoeia of the jungle and how to make medicines and powerful poisons. it is also their responsibility to collect and prepare the sacona or yopo.
they search in the jungle for the tree called ama-ahã. the bigger and older it is, the stronger will be the hallucinogenic substances obtained from it. first, they have to make a fire, which is not easy in the depths of the jungle, because the atmosphere is extremely humid and the wood, though it is not green, is soaking wet. they light it with a red-hot brand they have brought from the village. though at times they manage to get matches from the yecuana, they always keep a fire lit in the village. when someone wants to light another fire, they take some of the embers. it has been like that since the beginning of time, the fire never goes out, there was always someone, chosen by the shaman, entrusted with the supreme mission of keeping it alive.
there have even been wars over fire. when a group was left without their fire, they attacked another one in order to steal the embers. to extract the sacona, they tear off strips of the bark of the ama-ahi, moisten them with saliva and place them over the flames so they release the alkaloid. the wisdom of the shamans is the reason behind a new invasion of the jungle. first, it was those who came in search of rubber, then later gold. now, the pharmaceutical laboratories have come to exploit the botanical knowledge of the shamans. they are less violent, they do not organise massacres of the indians, but their presence and the objects they bring with them in order to negotiate,
upset the balance of the culture of these indigenous communities. they are the latest scourge to which the jungle has been subjected. the hallucinogenic resin forced out by the action of the heat is put into a pot and then cooked until it solidifies. the sacona can be classified within the group of enteogenous indolic pharmaceuticals. they are only used ritually, as in the case over the societies with peyote, ayahuasca, the san pedro cactus or, in central africa, the iboga. before returning to the village, one of the shamans tests the efficacy of the preparation. the visit is also a good excuse to go fishing. but first, they will have to collect barbasco lianas. once again they make use of their vast knowledge of their environment.
the jungle provides everything they need, and hence the profound respect they feel towards it. this is where the spirits of their ancestors live, along with others of the jungle itself. every tree, every plant, every living being, is the dwelling place of a spirit, and that is why, every time they cut a tree or take something from the forest, the shamans have to ask their gods for permission. they cut the barbasco lianas and crush them with wooden clubs so the sap will be more easily released when they submerge them in the river. these communities are self-sufficient. they belong to this land just as much as the jungle itself.
they know no other world beyond the limit of the forest. they are happy with their deeply-rooted customs. but there are still some zealots who come here to speak to them of the true gods of the west, to deprive them of their culture, to plunge them into confusion and bitterness. they are missionaries, especially those of some protestant sects such as the "new tribes", who fervently seek to convert the infidels, and cause authentic disasters with their ridiculous, outdated preaching. we have met indians covered in fungal infections because one day some missionaries came to their community, were ashamed at their nakedness, and so dressed them in sports shirts. but they didn't teach them how to wash the clothes, nor did they give them soap.
today, they are not naked indians, they are indians dressed in rags and crawling with parasites. the sap of the barbasco slowly clouds the transparent waters of the river. it is not a poison as such, it does not contaminate or leave residue. the barbasco absorbs the oxygen of the water, and so the fish are forced to come to the surface to breathe. then, it is a simple matter to catch them. in a short while, the barbasco is swept away by the current without any consequences for the river. today wouldn't seem to be a good day for fishing. the fishermen stare down at the water, but the fish do not emerge. and to make matters worse, the sun has now given way to a storm,
a very frequent occurrence at this latitude where the weather can change several times in a single day. in the sanema villages there is always a communal covered area where most of the social life of the group takes place. in the morning, it is customary for the sanema women to gather here, to paint their faces and bodies with clan or esoteric designs. another of the usual communal activities is delousing. almost constantly, the women comb through each other's hair in search of these tiny parasites. when they catch one, the kill it with their teeth and eat it. there's no accounting for taste. like eye drops, the juice of this liana soothes the irritation in the child's eye. they know a thousand and one remedies for the ailments they suffer. but here, illness has a religious significance, as the source lies in magic and spells.
so, apart form the potions and ointments with which they treat the ill, the shamans must travel to the other world, the country of the spirits, to receive their advice. they are the only ones capable of undoing the spells. they have to ingest large doses of sacona, which makes them salivate profusely. the journey they must go on to find their gods and ask their questions is very long. the ritual chants and the rhythmic movements are efficient means of leaving their bodies, transcending to the world beyond, to open the door which allows their consciousness to enter a different reality. in this case they are trying to cure a child who has a stomach ache. the mother believes that a shaman from a nearby village sent this evil with a man who came to woo her and was rejected.
this type of conflict is very frequent among the sanema. the problem is that there are fewer women than men, and this causes constant disputes. kidnappings, and the consequent clashes between tribes and villages, very frequent. the head shaman indicates what they must do in order to purge the evil from the body of the child. the others execute his orders, while they continue to ingest the powerful hallucinogenic. the youngest rubs his hands over the stomach of the child to absorb the evil within. then, he turns and throws it away from the covered area, into the jungle. the child will almost certainly be cured by the herbs they give him later, but the mother needs this cathartic rite in order to feel the spell has been broken.
the woman are preparing for the dance that will take place at sunset. they make skirts from banana leaves, separating the veins and cutting them in half. these hands hold 3,000 years of culture. these same skirts were made by their mothers their grandmothers and great grandmothers and all the women since the beginning of time, their time in this jungle. it is a world that is coming to an end. like so many other cultures in the amazon, it will be destroyed in one way or another, and with it will be lost the knowledge of the jungle. even the jungle itself is disappearing forever, taking with it its pharmaceutical secrets,
secrets that might have provided solutions to the terrible diseases that today threaten humanity. meantime, the sanema women will continue to wear the ceremonial quilts or the cotton-like fibres, the same ones they use in the death ceremonies, in which they acquire the qualities of their dead relatives by ingesting their ashes mixed with banana pulp. the men also decorate themselves for the dance, though less elaborately. it must be said, our friends of the forest are not the best of dancers. their dances are simple and monotonous, but once again they demonstrate the cheerful, playful character of these people. here ends our fascinating journey across the guayana massif in venezuela, and back in time with the sanema indians.
perhaps now, those who have followed us feel the same need as we do, the need to protect this unique world which is in danger of being lost forever.