“Every time a shaman dies it is as if a library burned down” – Mark Plotkin, Ethnobotanist and Author
With disease, deforestation and damage to the rivers that bring them life-giving food and water threatening their continued existence, the Matsé tribe decided the only way to ensure its knowledge could continue to be passed down to future generation is to write it down, reports the non- profit conservation organization Acaté.
“The Matsés knowledge and the accumulated wisdom of generations stood on the very precipice of extinction.” Acaté’s president Christopher Herndon told the enviromental newsite Mongabay in an exclusive interview.
“Fortunately, there remained a few elder Matsés who still held the ancestral knowledge as sustained contact with the outside world only occurred within the past half century.” he continued.
Written entirely in their own native language so it cannot be used by the government or corporations to steal their traditional medicinal secrets, the book is meant for the younger generations of Matsé to come.
“The project was not about saving a traditional dance or costume, it was about their health and that of future generations of Matsés” Herndon said, “The stakes could not be higher.”
The homeland of the Matsé people, who number around 3,000 according to various estimates, is the deep jungle between the Javari and the Galvez Rivers near the border of Brazil and Peru. This area is also home to one of the last “uncontacted” communities left on earth.
“From the global conservation perspective, the Matsés protect over 3 million acres of rainforest in Perú alone,” Hendon explained, “This area includes some of the most intact, biodiverse, and carbon-rich forests in the country.”
Acaté also runs a permaculture project in the area designed with the help of the Matsé, who want to be able to continue their traditional way of life. Now that the book is finished, Acaté and the Matsé are starting an apprenticeship program designed to train younger tribe members to become shamans while the last remaining elders are still around.
