An interesting look at the changing cultural landscape involving the use of the traditional Shaman and how that is being overcome by the Church Priest. Villagers no longer seek the Shaman but instead seek the Priest......recommended viewing.
3 Reviews
A classic case of ethnocide
barrydayton26 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
At the start of this film the word ethnocide was defined as differing from genocide. In genocide the population of a primitive society is wiped out. But ethnocide merely wipes out the social structure and institutions of a primitive society. While genocide is abhorred by civilized nations, ethnocide is often seen by these same people as being good. The primitive people are being transported to modern society and indoctrinated by western religion. This is happening not with armies but missionaries, safe from blame as our agents of god. Chiefs, warriors, religious leaders and ordinary people lost their status and sense of tradition to become welfare people living in poverty.
What makes this different from the ethnocide of American Indians, Australian aborigines and many African tribes which occurred in the 18th and 19th century is that it occurred in 1969 to the Paiter Surui an indigenous people in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. When this was filmed there were still a number of people who had been around in 1969 who had undergone the transition. One of the striking differences was that instead of the young men wearing a stick as a phallic symbol attached to their waist they were now wearing the western phallic symbol of a strip of cloth hanging down from their necks. One of the tribe members most affected was the Shaman who had been the representative of the people before the spirits. He now meekly helped with the Christian services representing a god who did not bring gifts of fish to the people. Surprisingly some of the most upset were young people who abandoned their cell phones to help make a large musical instrument to try and summon the sprits.
As a film this is not great but it is important as a lesson we still have not learned.
What makes this different from the ethnocide of American Indians, Australian aborigines and many African tribes which occurred in the 18th and 19th century is that it occurred in 1969 to the Paiter Surui an indigenous people in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. When this was filmed there were still a number of people who had been around in 1969 who had undergone the transition. One of the striking differences was that instead of the young men wearing a stick as a phallic symbol attached to their waist they were now wearing the western phallic symbol of a strip of cloth hanging down from their necks. One of the tribe members most affected was the Shaman who had been the representative of the people before the spirits. He now meekly helped with the Christian services representing a god who did not bring gifts of fish to the people. Surprisingly some of the most upset were young people who abandoned their cell phones to help make a large musical instrument to try and summon the sprits.
As a film this is not great but it is important as a lesson we still have not learned.
the story of an ethnocide
Hayduke5559 September 2023
The story of one of the thousands of indigenous tribes terrorized by Christian hordes and civilization. The film drags on a bit, following the life of the shaman Perper, who lived and hid in the Amazon jungle for years with his isolated group, until he was forced to convert to Christianity after the evangelical churches tracked him down and accused him of consorting with the devil. It is not a story from the time of Columbus, but the present, where bigotry and profiteering in Latin America are still flourishing, and even growing again. The aim of the director was to highlight the issue of ethnocide, which is relentlessly carried out by the contemporary Christian Inquisition.
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