I did not realize that on the sandy banks of the river Keila and the dancers, Simão and his little daughter, were all watching in astonishment. When I came out of the water, the strongest-looking boy, with two earrings in one ear, asked me in amazement, “Voce não tem emedo? ” (“You are not afraid?”)
“Não—eu gosto! ” I replied. (“No, I like it!”)
Twice more I entered the water and swam with the botos. I recorded forty-nine sightings in forty-five minutes—and Dianne, on shore, saw many more surfacings, for as usual, without my knowing it, they had surrounded me. And then, it seemed, they moved off.
It was sunset, and a huge fire smoked in the western sky. The dancers were waiting for us on the other side of the point. Keila had set up a little grove of driftwood as props. “My mother doesn’t want us to cut trees from the forest,” she explained. The young dancers had consumed their drinks and snacks and carefully stowed their garbage away in the cooler. Already, they had donned their costumes. The girls, serious as virgins, wore simple white gowns. They stood facing the river.
The boys, wearing white pants and shirts and hats, began a confident, sinuous saunter toward them, as if swimming. In unison, they began to sing:
“Quando o boto virou gente
para dançar no puscirum
trouxe arco, trouxe flecha
e até muiraquitã, e
dançou a noite inteira com
a bela cunhantã.”
“When the boto transformed to a man
to dance at the village ball,
bringing the lucky bow and arrow,
and carrying the frog-charm for luck and passion,
he danced all night with the beautiful peasant maiden.”
They danced on the beach like lovers, each couple a unit, tenderly cupping the face or touching the hair of the partner, staring into each other’s eyes. “They were blind for one another,” Necca had said; in this moment, each partner seems to glow with passion. With the sun at their backs, we could see the shadows of the girls’ little black bikinis beneath their white dresses, all innocence and new desire. The boys laid down their partners in the sand and embraced them, singing:
“Um grande mistério na
roça se fax, fugiu cuhanta
com um belo rapaz. . .”
“The mystery throughout the land
being the disappearance of the village beauty
with the handsome man . . .”
The sun was melting a golden river on the water, backlighting the dancers. Their features were now indistinguishable. No longer were they these boys and girls; by the magic of their story, they were transformed. Now their song seemed to merge with the voices of the spirits: the Mother of the Vine and the Mother of the Lake, the angels of Music and Opera, the ghosts of divas and murdered Indians and Mario’s little son. They called out to us to remember. They sang with the voices of the scientists: Vera and Gary, Miriam and Andrea and Peter, inciting us to probe and to wonder. They sang with the voices of the visionaries: those who create and sustain reserves for both people and wildlife, like Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo and Mamirauá, urging us, even in this era of need and of greed, to hope. They sang with the voices of Violetta and Alfredo, the impossible lovers of La Traviata. And they sang in the voices of Moises and Ricardo, Don Jorge and João Pena, reminding us that, here in the Amazon, the most preposterous of impossibilities can come true.
In this way, Keila’s young friends became the story, as ancient, as perfect, as distant, and as present as the sun on the water. And perhaps the dolphins knew this, too. When we looked toward the water, we saw the botos had returned. They swam low and slowly, blowing softly, their eyes above the water, watching the drama on the beach.
“E o boto ligeiro na roça fugiu.
Desejando a cabocla
na beira do rio. . .”
“The boto fled through the fields, desiring the maiden by the river’s edge . . .”
The boys sprang to their feet, and with amazing speed and suppleness, leapt into the river and porpoised through the waves—exactly like dolphins.
We are far from the Manaus opera house and the Meeting of the Waters. Now the air is thick with smoke instead of rain. Yet the journey ends as it had begun beneath the fabulous ceiling frescoes of the Teatro Amazonas: again, I am flanked by Dance and Tragedy.
Out of the water, the dolphin-men emerge. Joyously, each joins his lover, reenacting the promises by which we know the fullness of the world. The botos swim, the dancers dance. But in the western sky, the Amazon is burning.
Selected Bibliography
Following is a list of some of the books and articles most helpful to my research, and some books on related topics that readers might particularly enjoy:
Explorers’ and Travelers’ Accounts
Bates, Henry Walter. The Naturalist on the River Amazons. New York: Dover Publications, 1975.
Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, and Mose Richards. Jacques Cousteau’s Amazon Journey. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984.
Kane, Joe. Running the Amazon. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Kelly, Brian, and Mark London. Amazon. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1983.
O’Hanlon, Redmond. In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon. New York: Vintage Press, 1990.
Rambali, Paul. In the Cities and Jungles of Brazil. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1993.
Shoumatoff, Alex. The Rivers Amazon. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986.
Dolphins and Whales
Bateman, Graham, ed. All the World’s Animals: Sea Mammals. New York: Torstar Books, 1985.
Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, and Philippe Diole. Dolphins. New York: A & W Publishers, 1975.
Kendall, Sarita, Fernando Trujillo, and Sandra Beltran. Dolphins of the Amazon and Orinoco. Bogotá, Col.: Fundatión Omacha, 1995.
Leatherwood, Stephen L., and Randall Reaves. Sierra Club Handbook of Whales and Dolphins. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1993.
Lilly, John C. Lilly on Dolphins: Humans of the Sea. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1975.
Perrin, W. E., et al. Biology and Conservation of the River Dolphins. Gland, Switz.: IUCN/World Conservation Union, 1989.
Pilleri, Giorgio. Secrets of the Blind Dolphins. Karachi, Pak.: Sind Wildlife Management Board, 1980.
Ridgway, S. H., and R. J. Harrison, eds. Handbook of Marine Mammals. London: Academic Press, 1989.
Thewissen, J. G. M., ed. The Emergence of Whales: Evolutionary Patterns in the Origin of Cetacea. New York: Plenum Press, 1998.
Natural History of the Amazon
Bernardino, Francisco Ritta. Amazonian Emotions. Manaus, Braz.: Amazon Multimedia Stock, 1996.
Duellman, William E. The Biology of an Equatorial Herpetofauna in Amazonian Ecuador. Lawrence: University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, 1978.
Emmons, Louise H. Neotropical Rainforest Mammals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Forsyth, Adrian, and Ken Miyata. Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rain Forests of Central and South America. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1984.
Goulding, Michael. Amazon: The Flooded Forest. New York: Sterling Publishing, 1990.
Hilty, S. L., and W. L. Brown. A Guide to the Birds of Colombia. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Holldobler, Bert, and E. O. Wilson. The Ants. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990.
Kricher, John C. A Neotropical Companion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Moffett, Mark W. The High Frontier: Exploring the Tropical Rainforest Canopy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Walker, Ernest. Walker’s Mammals of the World, 4th ed. Vols. I and II. Edited by John Paradiso. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.
Wallace, A. R. Natural Selection and Tropical Nature. London: Macmillan Publishers, 1895.
Wilson, E. O. The Diversity of Life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.
—.
Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Mythology, Legends, and Stories
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
Beaver, Millie de Sangama, and Paul Beaver. Tales of the Peruvian Amazon. Largo, Fla.: AE Publications, 1989.
Roe, Peter G. The Cosmic Zygote: Cosmology in the Amazon Basin. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1982.
Slater, Candace. Dance of the Dolphin: Transformation and Disenchantment in the Amazonian Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Smith, Nigel J. H. The Enchanted Amazon Rain Forest: Stories from a Vanishing World. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1996.
Amazonian People, History, and the Future
Collier, Richard. The River That God Forgot. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968.
Davis, Wade. One River: Science, Adventure, and Hallucinogenics in the Amazon Basin. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Descola, Philippe. The Spears of Twilight: Life and Death in the Amazon Jungle. New York: New Press, 1996.
Engl, Lieselotte, and Theo Engl. Twilight of Ancient Peru. New York: McGraw Hill, 1969.
Goulding, Michael, Dennis J. Mahar, and Nigel J. H. Smith. Floods of Fortune: Ecology and Economy Along the Amazon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Institute del Tercer Mundo. The World Guide, 1997– 98. Oxford, U.K.: Internationalist Publications, 1997.
Kane, Joe. Savages. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Page, Joseph. The Brazilians. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995.
Plotkin, Mark. Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
Smith, Nigel, et al. Amazonia: Resiliency and Dynamism of the Land and Its People. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1995.
For Advice on Vulture Brains and Other Remedies
Werner, David, with Carol Thurman and Jane Mazwell. Where There Is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook. Palo Alto, Calif.: Hesperian Foundation, 1992.
Some Scientific Publications
Azevedo, Aline, et al. Mamirauá: Management Plan. Brasilia: Sociedade Civil Mamirauá, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Environmental Protection Institute of the State of Amazonas (IPAAM), 1996.
Berta, Annalisa. “What Is a Whale?” Science, 14 January 1994, pp. 180– 181.
Best, Robin C., and Vera M. F. da Silva. “Inia geoffrensis. ” Mammalian Species no. 426 (1993): 1– 8.
—. Preliminary Analysis of Reproductive Parameters of the Boutu, Inia geoffrensis, and the Tucuxi, Sotalia fluviatalis, in the Amazon River System. Report of the International Whaling Commission, Special Issue UE 6, 1989.
Caldwell, Melba C., David K. Caldwell, and William E. Evans. Sounds and Behavior of Captive Amazonian Freshwater Dolphins, Inia geoffrensis. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, Contributions in Science No. 108, 1966.
da Silva, Vera M. E., and Robin C. Best. “Freshwater Dolphin/Fisheries Interaction in the Central Amazon” Amazoniana XIV, nos. 1/2 (1996): 165– 175.
— . “Sotalia fluviatalis ” Mammalian Species no. 527 (1996): 1– 7.
Gewalt, Wolfgang. “Orinoco Freshwater Dolphins Using Self-Produced Bubble Rings as Toys.” Aquatic Mammals 15, no. 2 (1989): 73– 79.
Gingerich, Philip D. “Origin of Whales in Epicontinental Remnant Seas: New Evidence from the Early Eocene of Pakistan.” Science, 22 April 1983, pp. 403– 406.
Pilleri, G., M. Gihr, and C. Kraus. “The Sonar Field of Inia geoffrensis . ” Investigations on Cetacea 10 (1979): 157– 176.
Sylvestre, Jean-Pierre. “Some Observations on Behavior of Two Orinoco Dolphins in Captivity at Duisburg Zoo.” Aquatic Mammals 11, no. 2 (1985): 58– 65.
Thewissen, J. G. M., and S. T. Hussain. “Origin of Underwater Hearing in Whales.” Nature, 4 February 1992, pp. 444– 445.
Thewissen, J. G. M., S. T. Hussain, and M. Arif. “Fossil Evidence for the Origin of Aquatic Locomotion in Archaeocete Whales.” Science, 14 January 1994, pp. 210– 212.
To Conserve the Pink River Dolphin
and Its Habitat and to
Visit the Dolphins’ World
The conservation emergency in the Amazon has grown even more urgent since this book was first published. One-fifth of the entire Amazon has now been destroyed.
In Brazil, within whose borders most of the Amazon resides, between May 2000 and August 2005, a record 50,950 square miles of forest was felled—an area larger than Greece. A shrinking Amazon, converted increasingly to the demands of agribusiness, could dramatically speed dangerous global climate change, as its greenhouse gas–absorbing powers are reduced when more trees are felled.
The picture is better in Peru. Largely due to protected areas—which are 18 times more effective at reducing deforestation than unprotected areas—deforestation rates in Peru now are among the lowest in tropical countries, according to a study by the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology published in 2007. Still, that study, based on satellite surveys, found that between 1999 and 2005, forest was being destroyed at a rate of 249 square miles per year, with another yearly 244 square miles of forest disturbed, while not destroyed, each year.
There is still hope for the Amazon rainforest. In 2007, the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo community reserve in Peru, where much of the narrative in this book takes place, was significantly enlarged, thanks largely to the efforts of Rainforest Conservation Fund. (The enlarged reserve—now more than 1 million acres—has been renamed Area de Conservation Regional Comunal Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo, reflecting enhanced legal protection.) Your donation to RCF directly benefits its people, waters, and animals. So strongly do I support its work that I joined its board of directors. Find out more from the webpage: www.rainforestconservation.org
Donations may be sent to:
Rainforest Conservation Fund
2038 North Clark Street, Suite 233
Chicago, IL 60614
E-mail: [email protected]
Amazon Rainforest Conservation Society is a Chicago-based not-for-profit organization that works exclusively with Peruvian communities near the 1,000,000-acre Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo conservation area. ARCS works closely with other organizations, including RCF, coordinating a variety of complimentary programs including family planning, conservation education, vigilance, and sustainable management. To send a contribution to ARCS, write:
Amazon Rainforest Conservation Society
123 South Hudson Street
Westmont, IL 60559
E-mail: [email protected]
Much of the early dolphin observations recorded in this book took place at Amazonia Expeditions’ lodge near the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Community Reserve. The company runs a number of expeditions, guided by an ecologically and culturally sensitive philosophy and an all-Peruvian staff, some of whom you have met in these pages. The company supports RCF with generous, regular donations. To arrange a trip, you may contact:
Amazonia Expeditions
18500 Gulf Boulevard, No. 201
Indian Shores, FL 33785
Tel: 800-262-9669
E-mail: [email protected]
The Amazon Conservation Team, founded by ethnobotanist Dr. Mark Plotkin, works to preserve local knowledge of plants, and promotes shamanic study in the Amazon to conserve traditional knowledge and natural habitats. You can become a member by writing to:
Amazon Conservation Team?
4211 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203
You can visit its Web site at: www.amazonteam.org
There are now opportunities for tourists to visit Mamirauá, Brazil’s first sustainable development reserve and site of the Brazilian dolphin and manatee studies featured in this book. Proceeds from tourism benefit Projecto Mamirauá. To arrange to visit the reserve, visit the webpage at:
www.mamiraua.org.br
<
br /> (though it is in Portuguese, note that you can automatically
translate to English with a click)
Arrange a visit to the reserve at:
[email protected]
Earthwatch, a nonprofit organization that pairs interested laymen with field scientists needing research assistance, offers several projects in the Amazon for paying volunteers. For more information, contact:
Earthwatch Institute
680 Mount Auburn Street
P.O. Box 9104
Watertown, MA 02471
Tel: 800-776-0188
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.earthwatch.org
Acknowledgments
A large number of kind and committed people—scientists, fishermen, conservationists, writers, shamans, editors, fellow travelers, and friends—contributed importantly to this book. Many of them appear in these pages; others inform the text more quietly, and I would like to thank them here.
The idea for this book was born at the Eleventh Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Orlando, Florida, in December 1995. I am particularly grateful to cetacean experts Thomas Henningsen, Randall Reeves, Brian D. Smith, Fernando Trujillo, and the late Stephen Leatherwood for their generous advice, insights, and information. There I also met Vera da Silva, who later graciously shared her limited time, copious knowledge, and warm friendship during visits to Manaus.
Throughout the four research expeditions for this book, I was blessed again and again with patient and knowledgeable guides to the geographical and spiritual landscape of the Amazonian communities I visited. I am indebted to Moises Chavez, Jorge Soplin, and Ricardo Pipa for their help in Peru. For piloting us safely through lightning storms at the Meeting of the Waters, I thank Nildon Athaide. Miriam Marmontel, Andrea Piris, and Ronis da Silveira guided us in Mamirauá (and also kept Dianne and me from falling out of trees and into caiman jaws). At Alter do Chão, I am grateful to Maria do Socorro D’antona Machado for the succor of her lovely pousada; to Braulio for our daily trips on the Gigante do Tapajós; to Gilberto Pimentel for the voyage to Rio Arapiuns on the sturdy Boanares; and especially to Ludinelda Marino Gonçalvez and Keila Marinho for their stories and dance.
Journey of the Pink Dolphins Page 27