DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-BRAZIL: Civilization Destroying Great Pharmacy

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 16 1998 (IPS) - Nature is the most illustrious pharmacy in the world, able to cure illnesses that continue to perplex modern science, but civilization seems intent on its destruction, say the shamans (traditional healers) of Brazil.

The ‘pajes,’ as the indigenous shamans call themselves, met in Brasilia last month to approve a “Declaration on the Principles of Indigenous Wisdom” and announced a “closing of the heart” after 500 years of “robbery and devastation.” At the same time, they sought respect for their calling in return for the help they are willing to give to white society.

“We know the treatment for many illnesses, many pains that their wise men are unable to cure,” the shamans said. “We also know the solution for many agricultural plagues. But this knowledge is being threatened by the greed of the white man who is destroying nature.”

In addition, indigenous communities are dying from illnesses that did not exist in indigenous lands until white civilization brought them in, they said.

The shamans also denounced the pirating of their wisdom. “Many plants, animals, insects, and even our own blood are transported to the outside world and presented as “the wisdom of the minds of the ‘pajes.’ They are then sold to whomever pays the highest price,” they alleged.

The shamans were referring to the blood of two indigenous Amazon groups, the Karitiana and the Suiri, marketed in the exterior as genetic material. They also referred to vegetable medicines, long used by the Macuxis in the extreme north of Brazil, patented by a company in Canada.

Patent law justifies the “robbery” of indigenous knowledge, the shamans insisted. The white establishment “passes a mountain of laws,” supposedly to protect natives, forests, rivers, and air but actually they have no value because they are never put into practice, they added.

Their complaints against a “civilization that attempted to impose its values upon us and failed in the process,” reflects the difficulty of understanding between the two worlds. “We indigenous resist, we maintain our traditions and our respect for the great mother Nature, and because of this they call us savage and lazy,” they shamans argued.

Reconciliation appeared difficult given the growth in respect for bio-diversity on the part of “civilization.” The validity of indigenous knowledge of various natural resources is now recognized as at least a valid starting point for scientific investigations.

Observers believe that collaboration could advance in the laboratory and, more specifically, in the Amazon itself. Scientists recognize, recognize, for example, that Amazonian forests represent a one thousand year old industry that has developed medicines, insecticides, cosmetics, and inestimable quantities of food su