Women Hold the Key to Building a Sustainable Future

In the article “These Women Hold the Key to Building a Sustainable Future” a program called Jungle Mamas is introduced. These Jungle Mamas go around to the indigenous women of Achuar and teach them about safe practices for the pregnancy period, childbirth, and raising healthy families. Typically, Achuar women have children at the young age of 14 or 15 and have about 4 to 12 children each. She leads a normal lifestyle no different than her regular one leading up the birth, and when she goes into labor she goes off by herself and gives birth essentially by squatting and holding on to a wooden post. These kind of procedures definitely are not the safest, which is what the Jungle Mamas hope to change. As of now, the Jungle Mamas have educated the inhabitants of 71% of the Achuar land and hope to reach 100% by the end of 2015. 

Reference:

Landes-Gilman, Ryan.
2015 These Women Hold the Key to Building a Sustainable Future.Pachama Alliance. March 6, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.pachamama.org/blog/women-sustainability-jungle-mamas. 

Gender Roles In The Achuar Society

           In the Achuar society, like other Amazonian societies, woman mainly do domestic activities, such as food preparation, pottery, raising children, etc. The men, on the other hand, are the hunters and gathers, where they hunt, fish, clear gardens, and warfare. These two roles are not so distinct, for example woman will also participate in hunting. The women are the ones that own the hunting dogs and lead them in the hunting pact. This happens often, especially in a monogamous household, where the wife may go hunting several times a week with her husband. The qualities of the dogs and the ability to control to them are seen as products of the technical and symbolic skills of the women who raised them, and is essential to the skills in hunting. Woman will also occasionally hunt game on their own or with their husbands. This shows how important women are to the Achuar society and how much more power they have compared to other societies.

Reference:

Gregor, Thomas, and Donald Tuzin
2001 Gender in Amazonia and Melanesia: An Exploration of the Comparative Method. London. University of California Press. 

Achuar defend territory from oil pollution

In an article from globalvoicesonline.org it explains how there is an eternal struggle of the Amazonian communities to defend their ancestral lands against oil pollution. The government does not help the achuar, or any of the Amazonian people with their fight. So they have taken it into their own hands. One protest took place in the Tigre River. The communities blocked the river. The Amazonian people are demanding that the oil companies pay environmental compensation for the use of land and water in their communities. They are having a hard time getting the oil companies to meet these demands. It is important to note that the Amazonian people are not totally against oil exploitation but they are against how it is going on now. There are changes to be made. They still have a long fight to go in order to protect their communities.

Reference:

Peru's Achuar and Kichwa Indigenous Communities Defend Their Territory From Oil Pollution, globalvoicesonline.org
March 23rd, 2015

The fight for survival

We do vey little to support the Achuar people, and we may not even know it. Nature is probably one of the most overrated objects known to man these days. We seem to take it for granted and the Achuar people rely on the wildlife and or nature to survive. The oil companies have destroyed so much of the land. This makes the land not even profitable. Along with these problems come health consequences because of the bad exposure to the oil which has the ability to enter through skin absorption , ingestion of drinks or food, or when you inhale the particles. It messes with the texture of your skin as well, it can cause it to dry up as well. If i were in charge of the money i would build schools, and communities so that the population can rise and they become a civilized union.

Reference:
Ballantine, Lydia
October 27, 2014  Indigenous Religious Traditions

The Achuar Dream Practices: A View of Reality and Understanding

The article “The Achuar Dream Practices” written by Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D. & Frank Pascoe, Ph.D, is based on the results of a detailed study of the Achuar people’s dream sharing practices. This research field was conducted in the Amazon from 1997-2003. The purpose of this study was to create a detail description of the Achuar view of reality through a greater understanding of their dream-sharing practices experience with the dominant Western perspective towards dreaming. In this article, researchers describe the name “Achuar” as the people of the lowlands. The Achuar people are known to practice dream-sharing as a way of determining and or shaping their waking activities. They gather in a village in small groups before sunrise. They shared a teal-like fusion called wayus and begin sharing their dreams. They call this practice “Wayusa” which signifies that individuals dream not only for themselves but also for the community as a whole. There are different kinds of dreams. For instance, a kunktuknar dream announces a successful hunt. While a mesekraprar dream foretells of illness, conflict, and unfortunate events. Also a karamprar dream is sent by guiding spirits, to transmit important messages to the tribe. During the research study it was seen that five teenage Achuar boys were recruited to keep dream-diary journals for 12 months. In exchange for their collaboration, they were given scholarship to go to Indigenous University. The findings of this field study was that in the Achuar perspective, many dreams predict an outcome or relate to the future walking life circumstances in some way. When the field researchers talked to the president of the Achuar community,Santiago Kawarim. He told them that there are two types of dreams, the dreams made out from normal sleep, and the dreams created through hallucinogenic plants. He also says that both types of dreams possess a type of “energy”, which is accesses by the dreamer through the experience of the dream. In order for Achuar people to create vision dreams they consume ayahuasca, maikua and tabbaco, which are examples of plant-spirit medicines or hallucinogens. At the end it is up to the Achuar dream and his-her interaction with the community to understand when to encourage the normal dream energy when its promise is positive and when to amend or remedy the dream energy when it is of a negative nature.


Reference:
Schlitz, Marilyn, and Frank Pascoe,
2005 The Achuar Dream Practices:Mystic Mountain:Center for Healing Arts. March 24, 2015.
http://www.mysticalcompany.com/Achuar.php