We Are What We Eat: Bolivia
(Part 3 of 7) Photographer Matthieu Paley journeys to the Bolivian Amazon where getting a meal is a family affair for the Tsimane people, as children often scavenge for food and gut hunted animals.
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Transcript
I am in the jungle. And I have absolutely no experience in
South America. I've never set foot there. So, I went in the Amazon to look at a
specific community in Bolivia. And more specifically in a settlement called
Anachere. We went to look at the Tsimané. And the Tsimané, they are about 2,500
people living in the Amazon. We went up river for about two days in dug-out
canoes. After, you know, two-three days flights, buses, cars, whatever. We
follow the Maniqui River right here which is a tributary of the Amazon. And
eventually after two days we got here.
This is the Nate family welcoming us with SpongeBob. You see
SpongeBob? They live in small family settlements. They will have one settlement
here. And then you need to walk for 15-20 minutes, half-an-hour through the
jungle, up the river to reach another settlement. And you know it's very dense
jungle. They usually live in these bamboo houses with palm leaf roofs. They
used to be fulltime hunter-gatherer, only relying on hunting and gathering. Now,
about 200 years ago missionaries came there and introduced them to cultivation,
to agriculture. And so they grow a lot of plantain and banana a bit of rice as
well. And corn, which is originally from that part of the world. And they do slash
and burn agriculture. They burn, they grow right next to their settlement.
Also there is a lot of plantain. They eat so much plantain, it's
very dangerous because, you know, you're like, I'm going to skid on that, you
know, these banana skins and stuff everywhere. And they take the plantain and
they throw it directly in the fire. Or they leave the skin on or they shave it there's
all kinds of things. Let's go for a little drive down the river.
And so, the family gathers around, often, the fireplace like
this. This is the kitchen, this is it. You know, just an open space. The
youngsters will be around and often the older men they are going out hunting. And
everybody hopes for some meat to come back. But I am sitting there and I see
the two girls like standing up and they're just leaving. I am like, “Whoa,
where are they are going?” You know. I need to know anything what's going on. I
don't know, they're just going into the jungle. I'm like, dude, but there's like
snakes and all this stuff. Yeah, but that is their home. This is, for them,
like going around the block here. And so they go out in the jungle and they
start foraging. They're just, you know, sitting there and they just get up at
some point from camp and just start walking in the jungle let's go and find something
to bite on. And found this palm tree and started to eat palm fruit which is
full of good stuff. And I looked around, I saw these nice red berries. I'm
like, “oh, this looks good.” They're like, “you eat that, you're dead.” - I'm
like “okay.” So they know, I don't know. They are incredibly intimate, this
really impressed me. To see especially youngsters go out like this. It's really
beautiful.
They often go with dogs. They have a lot of-- a few dogs lying
around that they use for hunting. And there's a lot of rodents or you know,
various animals that live underground. So they hunt it. When the dogs find
something, they go with the machete to try to clear out the opening to help the
dog and find the animal. My room was in the far right there. I'll show you
because it's such a nice spot. So, this is it, this is my bedroom. Cool stuff,
there's a minibar. Let me show you.
Oh! Computer inside. I was miserable in Bolivia. I was
really miserable. There's so many mosquitoes, it is incredibly hot. I''m more like
a, you know, yak high-altitude type than monkey-jungle thing. So, next day we
go down the river. We want to go to next camp and you know, what happened is...
This is the real evolution of diet when you start feeding your camera with
rice. I fell, I fell in the river my camera went fully into the river, and... I
had a back-up, thanks God for the back-ups, so I could still shoot. But it
survived, so I put that in a zip lock with rice. So, if it ever happens you all
know the trick with phone and stuff, and it worked. A week later, ten days
later, I switched it on, it worked. You know we ended up going up river. I have
changed my camera, another camera, thanks God.
And we walked into this beautiful scene where this old man,
the older man we saw him before in his plantations standing there same again, I
went back. I love to go back to the same spot because he is at ease. You know
he is washing, he was stark naked but you know, he's seen me before talked to
him before, he just lets me there. And all this butterfly flying around. You
can see the body of one of the oldest men I met there and who has been hunter-gatherer
all his life. That would give this kind of body. He is over 70, still very
active, still physical because yeah, he has to walk every day to feed himself. You
know, his kids will help him.
But they go hunting. And so I went hunting, next day with
his son. They brought back food, finally. They brought this armadillo that they
cut up in pieces and... It tastes very much like chicken, like anything. They
boil the meat. They also had this coati, which is a bit similar to badger. They
singe it in the fire straight in. Protein is very important, protein. This is
the only way for them to get it. They don't get animals every day. Yeah, if
they get that once a week, they'll be happy. And then they do the gutting, often
the kids do the gutting. The guys come back from a long day some time the whole
day in the jungle. They are exhausted, they arrive back to camp they bring the
food. They sit down, the women prepare fire and then the kids are given the
task to go and prepare the animal. Everywhere, mostly everywhere I went it's
often the kids who do that task. And so the pieces of meat are taken, there is
plantain that is shaven and boiled, a bit of salt in there. And they have this kind
of porridge. Quite tasty result in that plate there.
So, stomach full, you know, feeling quite content I returned
and I knew I was quite happy. I knew what my next destination was.