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alidottie's review against another edition
4.0
4 and a half stars
After teaching about the Rain forest this past school year in more depth and complexity than I ever have before, I am so saddened that we do not appreciate it enough to use it respectfully. The medicinal blessings it produces are but one HUGE reason we need to take care of it and not destroy it. Who knows what cures may never be found for disease if the plants that would provide the medicine are destroyed.
I loved how this book shows how wise the tribal shaman of the rainforest are and gives them the respect they deserve.
After teaching about the Rain forest this past school year in more depth and complexity than I ever have before, I am so saddened that we do not appreciate it enough to use it respectfully. The medicinal blessings it produces are but one HUGE reason we need to take care of it and not destroy it. Who knows what cures may never be found for disease if the plants that would provide the medicine are destroyed.
I loved how this book shows how wise the tribal shaman of the rainforest are and gives them the respect they deserve.
merc22's review against another edition
4.0
This book would have totally beeen a 5 star but there’s just some bits (likely due to the time it was written) that i was a bit
jennamalena's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
anne_sophie's review against another edition
3.0
This was interesting but rather problematic from a social anthropological perspective
jmrhike's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.5
wparke's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
mkesten's review against another edition
4.0
The evidence is conclusive: humankind despoils the landscape.
We remove the forest and replace it with pasture land, or mono-culture, or air-strips, or villages, town, cities, and industrial wasteland.
When we take away the tropics jungle we take with it the diversity of plant and wildlife, indigenous homelands, and millennia of knowledge about the way the land actually works.
I couldn’t read Mark Plotkin’s 1993 book about his time among the indigenous peoples of Surinam and northern Brazil without a lump in my throat knowing that by now, most of what he saw is gone forever. It is simply heartbreaking.
I am sitting here nursing tendonitis in my elbow reading about his own elbow troubles and submitting to a native shaman to remove his pain, which he does and I am wondering: where can you get a shaman when you really need one?
In these tropical jungles Plotkin finds the most amazing mixture of terror and beauty. From the large predators, including jaguar and giant anteater, to the microbial predators: skin digging larvae. Sandflies carrying the deadly leishmaniasis. Man eating crocodiles. Deadly mosquitoes. Parasites. And on and on.
Then the beautiful birds, and plants, the waterfalls and jungle canope.
And who owns what: the national governments? The aboriginals? Mankind. Who owns the future discoveries or medicines pioneered by indigenous doctors?
Who should pay for killing languages and cultures and way-of-life when civilization intrudes on people in their natural habitat?
So many awful questions to ask about what “progress” has done to this planet and its peoples without needing to become romantic about life in the bush.
Although, while i was reading Plotkin’s account of tribal medicinal rituals I couldn’t help but compare it with the rituals we have replaced them with: the annual trip to the family doctor; the bland waiting room; the white lab coats; the medical records, now on HP tablets and the doctor cursing about how damn slow the software is; the physical exams. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Joints. Rectum. The lifting of the genitals.
“Say AHHHHH!!!!”
But the jungles are more even than the Indians. In South America there is the detritus of the colonial period. Patois and the descendents of black slaves. Prostitution and poverty in the city slums. Dutch and French, Spanish and Portuguese languages intermingled. Poor Brazilians lured to the jungle for a new life. And Missionaries. And soldiers. Venereal disease. Garbage. And the smell of gasoline wafting through the air.
We remove the forest and replace it with pasture land, or mono-culture, or air-strips, or villages, town, cities, and industrial wasteland.
When we take away the tropics jungle we take with it the diversity of plant and wildlife, indigenous homelands, and millennia of knowledge about the way the land actually works.
I couldn’t read Mark Plotkin’s 1993 book about his time among the indigenous peoples of Surinam and northern Brazil without a lump in my throat knowing that by now, most of what he saw is gone forever. It is simply heartbreaking.
I am sitting here nursing tendonitis in my elbow reading about his own elbow troubles and submitting to a native shaman to remove his pain, which he does and I am wondering: where can you get a shaman when you really need one?
In these tropical jungles Plotkin finds the most amazing mixture of terror and beauty. From the large predators, including jaguar and giant anteater, to the microbial predators: skin digging larvae. Sandflies carrying the deadly leishmaniasis. Man eating crocodiles. Deadly mosquitoes. Parasites. And on and on.
Then the beautiful birds, and plants, the waterfalls and jungle canope.
And who owns what: the national governments? The aboriginals? Mankind. Who owns the future discoveries or medicines pioneered by indigenous doctors?
Who should pay for killing languages and cultures and way-of-life when civilization intrudes on people in their natural habitat?
So many awful questions to ask about what “progress” has done to this planet and its peoples without needing to become romantic about life in the bush.
Although, while i was reading Plotkin’s account of tribal medicinal rituals I couldn’t help but compare it with the rituals we have replaced them with: the annual trip to the family doctor; the bland waiting room; the white lab coats; the medical records, now on HP tablets and the doctor cursing about how damn slow the software is; the physical exams. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Joints. Rectum. The lifting of the genitals.
“Say AHHHHH!!!!”
But the jungles are more even than the Indians. In South America there is the detritus of the colonial period. Patois and the descendents of black slaves. Prostitution and poverty in the city slums. Dutch and French, Spanish and Portuguese languages intermingled. Poor Brazilians lured to the jungle for a new life. And Missionaries. And soldiers. Venereal disease. Garbage. And the smell of gasoline wafting through the air.