Collecting Exhibition Genesis Reproduction Crossing			Hunting Sleeping Weaving Healing Nourishment	Transitoriness Social and Political Order Celebration Growing Up Exchange
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				Collecting "The American who discovered Columbus first, made an excruciating discovery." (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg) Since the Europeans discovered the "New World", the population originally living in Latin America was subjugated to slavery and deprived of their land and lives as they were considered obstructing the advance of progress. The resources in the Savannahs and in the Rain Forest (such as caoutchouc, gold, and cacao) are available in abundance and represent an attractive source of income for the powerful intruders and colonisers who kept and, still today, keep a tight rein on them. Nevertheless, some communities managed to save their traditions and keep on developing themselves in a life of self-determination. A representative example for these surviving cultures are the societies living between the Upper Orinoko and the mountain range Sierra Parima, where the legendary Lake Parima, the former home of El Dorado - The Golden Man - is expected to be found. As it were in the shadow of El Dorado, some Indian tribes managed to preserve and re-define their own identity. Since the 1950's Edgardo González Niño, who has been living with the Amazonian Indians for a long time, has collected evidences of the lives of these cultures. Within the scope of his tireless work, he collected more than a thousand objects in the Upper Orinoko region which comprise almost the whole repertoire of the material culture of twelve Venezuelan tribes. In 1988, the collection was acquired by Patricia and Gustavo Cisneros. In the Fundación Cisneros an inventory was taken of the collection, which subsequently was expertly preserved and reconstructed from a scientific point of view. The artefacts were hauled to the exhibition site in 60 heavy custom cases made from tropical wood.
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				Exhibition This exhibition is divided up into 14 different key subjects which characterise lives of the societies living in the Upper Orinoko region. The individual societies are not separately and comparatively represented focusing on their individual culture. Concepts such as genesis, development, feeding, organisation, celebrations, healing, and the passing of time rather intensify to form a network of concepts which is equally characteristic of all these societies and manifests itself in practice of life, family, celebrations, industry and commerce, or shamanism. The objects and photographs show a journey through their lives. Obviously identical objects convey different contexts and varying meanings. Apart from their practical functionality, the numerous Indian artefacts express both social and cosmic laws. The creation of an object always entails the symbolic meaning of working on the continuance of the world. And these material evidences represent results of transforming processes which originated from the world of ideas.
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				Genesis The stories about the beginning of Creation give an account of a time when no difference was made between creatures. Man and animal could freely communicate with one another, they married or fought each other. It was not before the creation of the dramas about mythical events that creatures were divided up into man and animal. To the inhabitants of the South American lowlands, "Creation" is performed in a process of finding, bringing-things-into-the-open, and in particular, in transformation. The culture heroes are great mythical figures transforming the world and giving things their names. They bestow useful plants, craft techniques, and creative skills upon man. These gods do not immediately intervene the everyday life of the people existing today. In rituals, however, their power is restored again, and in memory of primeval times, the world keeps on being created anew. Images have been created from the very beginning of the world. Indian iconography discloses astonishingly close parallels to ideas we are familiar with. The Creation of man using limbs such as arms and legs is reminiscent of the Creation of the biblical Eve out of Adam's rib. The constantly changing shape of the Moon represents a symbol for life and death and is also related with the power of menstruation, i. e. blood coming out of the belly. The image of the eye being the soul's mirror and symbol for the state of mind is repeatedly found both in Christendom and in African and Asian cultures. In addition, a remarkable similarity exists with the creation-related vocabulary used by some of this century's artists such as Federico García Lorca or Luis Buñuel. The eye represents a nodal point between form and spirit, being and non-being. However, further proof must be provided as to whether these familiarly striking images of strange myths originate from the same roots and actually go back to a meaning which is common to all people.
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				Reproduction A close relationship is recognised between the fertility of game, plants, and man. For this reason, hunting incantations, planting rituals, and love magic work on the basis of a very similar principle. Lianas and grass plants, the substratum of which should influence the willingness of the beloved woman, are similar to those used for luring hunting prey. The official courtship ritual is performed in accordance with regular habits, with the kinship system providing clear standards concerning the choice of the partner. Mostly, a bachelor willing to marry goes to the bride's village where he performs his son-in-law-duty by working for his parents-in-law for a certain period. The decision where the couple finally settles down - either with the wife's or the husband's family - is handled in the most different ways. The Indian ideas about the fathering of a child clearly distinguish themselves from our biological and medical knowledge of a unique act of procreation. To father and foster a child it is necessary for the Indian couple to meet frequently. The place of love-making is located outside the common house, at a place where plants grow or game live, in the garden, or in the forest.
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				Crossing Laid out paths are only to be found in the immediate environment of the village. The paths link the village to vegetation or the river. If Indians have to walk a long distance to open up new hunting or planting territories or to transport merchandise, for example, they walk through the woods. Particularly high trees, hills, brooks, waterfalls or other landmarks serve as their guides. In addition, they mark their paths by snapping off branches or making cuts into the bark with their machetes. They wade through or swim across water barriers. If this is not possible, they build bridges across the river. They ram stands made of crossed beams supporting one or two trunks into the bottom of the river. Comfortable bridge versions have railings made of lianas. Some of the societies mentioned, namely the Ye'kuana, are known for their boat construction and navigation skills. Rivers are their key routes.
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				Hunting Amazonian Indians eat a lot of plants but fish and meat are always a welcome change which cover their protein requirements. Men mainly hunt mammals with a blowpipe or bows and arrows. For some time, Indians are also widely known to hunt animals with firearms. The disadvantage of rifles, however, is that if the shot goes wrong, the bag will have been warned and scared off. The advantage of live traps is that animals can be held captive which, due to the tropical climate, is the only way to preserve meat. Tortoises or armadillos, for example, are held captive some time before being slaughtered and eaten when their meat is needed. As is typical for hunting societies, most of them belief in a mythical "owner", "protector" or "creator" of game animals who provides man with game for food. The natives try to win the favour of animals with musical and dancing rituals or by invoking the "ruler of the animals" or his female equivalent, the "mother of animals". Quite a few of the larger mammals are a taboo and must not be hunted as they are put on a level with the "lord of the animals" or the "mother of animals" as the ancestors of man. The ruler of the animals must be respected if future hunting fortune is not to be endangered. Before going hunting, the natives celebrate certain rituals to put the "ruler" or the "mother of animals" in the right magnanimous and lenient mood. After the bag was shot, it is spell-bound by the shamans to appease the soul of the animal and to pray for future hunting fortune to feed the tribe. Fish is the key source of protein for communities of Indians living at the river. Fish are caught with fish baskets, nets, spears or bows and arrows; during the last decades, the use of the fishing rod has increasingly become common. In shallow waters, fish poison (Barbasco) is also used.
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				Sleeping The hammock was invented by South American Indians and constitutes the main furnishings in the home of the Indians. Hammocks are made of cotton, bark and liana stripes or palm fibres. For an Indian native to the Orinoco-Parima region, sleeping on the floor is inconceivable. If night falls unexpectedly, he just uses plant-origin raw materials from the environment to make a simple hammock. The visionary power of dreams plays a decisive role for Indians living in the Amazonian lowlands. Dream visions are neither interpreted as messages from the subconscious mind nor dismissed as a hallucination. They are considered messages from mythical reality - which is considered more important than ordinary reality - which are to be taken seriously and to which normally only the shamans have access. Dreams are interpreted and frequently taken into account in the decision-making process: the visions of a hunter or warrior could be interpreted as an indicator for the right time for going hunting or to war.
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				Weaving The art of weaving is one of the most traditional arts and crafts. Products are woven in almost all cultures, irrespective of their technological state of development. The tropical forest offers raw materials suitable for weaving such as palm fibres, lianas, canes, rushes and roots throughout the year. Baskets are the typical weaving products, but fans, sieves, strainers, plates, squeezers, mats, weapons, fish baskets, cages, quivers, musical instruments, bags, boxes, hats or jewellery can also be woven. In South Venezuela, basket weaving has become a creative form of art above all in Caribbean tribes. In contrast to other tribes such as Arawak peoples or the Yanomami, weaving is a traditional male domain in Ye'kuana and E'ñepa tribes. As plants are guarded by a tutelary spirit, weavers must know where and when to cut stems to avoid enraging the spirits. If the rules are not observed, baskets could transform into a man-eating monster. The Indians have inherited weaving techniques from their mythical ancestors, the legendary culture makers. It is in remembrance of them that baskets frequently have patterns representing these cultural heroes: monkeys, frogs or snakes.
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				Healing The tropical rainforest offers an inexhaustible drug store in which the range of products definitely is as abundant as in pharmacies in western Europe. Indian peoples, however, not only have innumerable healing plants but they also abound in spiritual know-how, formulae and rituals which are applied in case of need. Hekura (also hekula) are the remedial spirits which support Yanomami which doctors. Originally, the hekura were savage spirits which were tamed by the shamans and since then reside in their chests. Shamans heal and enchant with the help of the hekura and send them out to fight against enemies and to carry out magical attacks. The medicine man has to sniff yopo powder (also referred to as epena), a hallucinogenic drug to activate the hekura which puts him into a trance and enables him to fully identify himself with his remedial spirits. When an adult falls ill, it is mostly the manifestation of evil hekura spirits sent by hostile shamans entering their bodies. The shaman removes the spirits from the body of the diseased by laying his hands on or intensively massaging the diseased part of the body and wiping the substances causing the illness off his hands. Above all as far as children are concerned, however, an illness is frequently interpreted as a loss of the diseased person's soul. Singing and dancing is an important ritual in almost all tribes. In many tribes, the magic rattle, maraca, is also used for curing the diseased. The noise and the wind it makes represent the breath of the remedial spirit which "blows away" the illness.
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				Nourishment Potatoes, sweet corn, tomatoes and peppers were the first foods from the New World to be imported to Europe; sweet potatoes, pineapples, papayas, cashew and Brazil nuts were later added to the list of imported products. Almost all Amazonian peoples cultivate farmland. New infertile soil is opened up by fire clearance; first, most trees on relatively small areas of cultivation are felled and bushes are subsequently burnt. The resulting ashes are used as soil fertilisers. The soil will be completely infertile after a period of two to five years and it will then no longer be cultivated. Manioc is the key starchy tuberous root in the area which is the basic food of the Ye'kuana, E'ñepa, De'áruwa and Arawak tribes. Although approximately 200 different plant cultures exist, a differentiation is mostly only made between the bitter variants, that is the variants containing hydrocyanic acid, and the sweet, non-toxic variants. The bitter and toxic varieties are primarily used. Highly toxic manioc is processed with sophisticated and creative devices: A grater is used to grate the tuberous roots into a pap the juice of which is extracted - thus detoxified - by means of skilfully woven compaction tubes. The resulting mass is roasted and eaten as semolina in soups or baked as flat bread stored in flat baskets. The procedure of transforming the poisonous raw material (manioc) into wholesome food involves the idea of transformation which plays a decisive role in how indigenous Amazonian societies view the world. The idea of transformation is also recited when treating the prey which is only edible after the shaman has done his singing and insufflating.
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				Transitoriness Death is not considered the ultimate consequence and a natural part of life. Indians believe in the unfavourable influence of the spirits; or they think death is the result of an evil spell cast upon the deceased by hostile shamans. Death, however, is not considered the end of existence as such but a transition to a different sphere of existence. The indigenous people imagine the hereafter to be a realm of the dead to which the deceased travel after having overcome a number of obstacles and stood a number of tests. The purpose of the complicated burial ritual is to make this transition as little problematic as possible. The spirits of the dead, that is the souls of those who have failed to find the hereafter are very dangerous for the living. The Yanomami burn their dead and crush the bones remaining in the funeral pyre into ash powder which is kept in small containers. Several times during the year, this powder is mixed with banana soup during the Pjiguao palm fruit festival ceremony and is subsequently eaten by the closest relatives of the deceased. Through this so-called "endocannibalism" (people eat their "own" relatives), the living relatives spiritually absorb the positive parts of the deceased person's soul. In order to prevent the evil spirits of the dead from returning, all objects which used to belong to the dead person are destroyed; his name is never again mentioned. Although death is not considered a "natural" fact, numerous myths explain how it came into existence. Death was only sent to the world when the first beings failed to observe a commandment. In mythical primeval times, man used to be immortal and could become rejuvenated again and again in several ways.
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				Social and Political Order There is almost no social and political hierarchy in Indian societies living in the Venezuelan savannah and rain forest. The round house is the symbol of equality of ranks. The office of the chief used to be of minor importance and it was only established as such when Indians came into contact with white man. The leaders are considered the speakers of the group, not as authorities. Important decisions concerning the whole group are taken by the community. But this often causes conflicts which are partly solved by ritual competitions - sometimes with clubs. All adults equally master the practical skills needed for every-day life. In some tribes, the working and living quarters of men and women are clearly separated. Their understanding of the equality of the sexes is different from ours. While we think that equality means equal rights for man and woman, they think that it signifies the equal coexistence of man and women in different areas separated from each other. The social structure is particularly expressive as far as secret male rituals such as flute celebrations in which no women are allowed are concerned. Women have their own celebrations from which men are excluded. The office of the shaman is the only particularity as shamans are the mediators between the spirits, animals and man. There is a decisive difference in how the Indians view the world. The cult specialist mediates between these areas, he explains reality, interprets misfortune and diseases. His particularly glorious head dress reflects his dignity.
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				Celebrations During the annual cycle, there are several occasions for celebrations. The right time must be chosen to have enough food available for entertaining guests. The pudali trading festival of the Arawak tribes, for example, is carried out at the beginning of the rains, that is the time when the leporinus fish come to the flooded forest areas. The purpose of the festival is not only to maintain a friendly relationship with other groups and mediating marriages; festivals are always also celebrated for the spirits. Festive rituals stage primeval conditions as described in the myths. Music and dancing, intoxicating drinks or hallucinogenic drugs put the people involved in the world of the spirits. The savage spirits are embodied by masked dancers. They perform impetuous and grotesque acts, and then again mad and comical acts. In the ritual, the savage masked dancers are tamed; man is thus given access to the power and skills of the spirits, available for their every-day life. The ritual is part of both realities: the mythical and the ordinary sphere of reality; it combines both spheres and separates them at the same time. In the ritual, there is no clear-cut line dividing man and animals. The separation which normally exists between male and female ways of life does not exist in the ritual either. Ultimately, however, the wild performance of the ritual confirms the social order.
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				Growing Up Like in our society, the process of development of a child into an adult is also celebrated at certain stages of the children of Amazonian tribes. The mentioned societies celebrate the initiation rites in totally different ways: some of them exclusively celebrate the maturity of boys, other only celebrate that of girls. In some tribes, the youths of both sexes are initiated in the same rites, in others they are initiated with different rites. The Yanomami, for example, have an individual celebration for each girl while the E'ñepa only have a celebration for all boys of the same age. While our society celebrates the Holy Communion, the confirmation or the solemn introduction of adolescents into the adult world, young people in Amazonian ethnic cultures sometimes have to stand hard initiation tests. The purpose of tortures such as flagellation or "ant tests" is to strengthen the personality and will power of the adolescents. Those who were tested are proud to have stood the test. However different the initiation rite, there is always one thing the rites have in common: the entire community participates in the initiation of young people. Apart from the special occasion, the rites always also confirm the cohesion and continued existence of the tribe.
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				Exchange Trade with goods is a phenomenon different forms of which can be found in all human cultures. The purpose of exchanging goods is obvious: One can obtain goods one is unable to produce oneself. Trade is based on this purely economic aspect of exchanging goods, above all trade involving an exchange against monetary compensation: One hands over a certain asset or a certain amount of money to receive the desired good in return. But not all exchange transactions are solely based on such profane grounds. Goods can be exchanged in the form of "presents", which means that an asset is not exchanged with something of exactly the same value. When a present is given to someone, the recipient is asked to remain loyal to the provider of the present. This type of exchange for reinforcing the social bond can be of a very particular kind in some Amazonian societies: the rahaka bamboo arrowheads are exchanged between Yanomami men of different local communities. The arrowheads they produce themselves are not used for hunting as the Yanomami are convinced that they would be unable to hit the target. The exchange of arrowheads is not only practical, however, as it provides the people with effective weapons, the rahaka is also considered a pledge for the bond between the groups. The exchanging parties are generally equal. The exploitation of natural or mineral resources by foreign colonial companies or settlers is contrary to the aims of well-balanced trading. The original owners of the land are mostly neither integrated into the process of exploitation of natural resources nor do they receive a profit participation. The idea of compensation does not exist; the transaction is a unilateral process which only serves to exploit nature and mostly also the indigenous people themselves. Some Amazonian societies try to develop their own trading strategies and potential in contact with Hispano-American people. As far as arts and crafts are concerned, for example, the Híwi are successful with pottery; they have learned the techniques from their Indian neighbours. A group of Ye'kuana women is also very successful on the arts and crafts market with innovative weaving products.
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