Sustaining Matses Indigenous Medicine - Phase II

Volume II of Traditional Medicine Encyclopedia Completed!

In September 2017, Volume II of the Matsés Traditional Medicine Encyclopedia, Neste Tantiaquidon Chuibanaid 2, was delivered to all 14 Matsés villages! 537 pages in length, the second volume is divided into 5 chapters, is hardbound and beautifully illustrated.

The two volumes of the Encyclopedia together comprise nearly 1,100 pages covering over 800 medicines, including treatments for 40 categories of Matsés recognized diseases. Matsés elders, leaders, and representatives from all 14 communities in Perú, unanimously agreed that, after five years of diligent work, the Encyclopedia project is complete!

The Encyclopedia was drafted, typed up, reviewed, and edited entirely by the Matsés themselves. This is what made the initiative so revolutionary and the first of its kind. There were no outsiders coming in to document their knowledge, no ethnobotanical expeditions, and no translations. The entire encyclopedia was written by the Matsés in their own villages, in their own words, and in their own language. All the photographs included in the Encyclopedia were taken by the Matsés themselves and the illustrations were drawn by a talented young Matsés artist. This incredible accomplishment by the Matsés people is all the more remarkable and inspirational considering sustained contact with the outside world occurred less than a half-century ago.

History and Background of the Project

Before the start of Acaté’s Traditional Medicine Initiative in 2013, the Matsés rich and ancestral legacy of healing knowledge and wisdom was on the precipice of being lost forever.

This wealth of knowledge and techniques of treatment had been passed on through oral tradition for millennia. This knowledge is more than a method to thrive in one of the most biodiverse yet difficult ecosystems on the planet, it is a realization of their deep spiritual and physical ties to the natural world. Throughout the world so much traditional knowledge was lost during the fallout from European conquest and disease. Today, with cultural change encroaching upon and destabilizing even the most isolated societies, this knowledge is disappearing ever more rapidly.

For the Matsés, peaceful outside contact was initiated in 1969, after decades of conflict. By then, the current elder healers had already mastered their knowledge before being told it was useless by missionaries. Today’s young Matses still encounter discrimination when dealing with the outside world. This has led many young Matsés to lose interest in or even feel ashamed of their culture. As a result of these influences, when we started the medicine project not a single elder had an apprentice. Yet at the same time, most villages still actively depended on and utilized the medicinal plant knowledge of the few remaining aging healers as a primary source of health care.

Once extinguished, this knowledge, along with the tribe’s self-sufficiency, can never fully be reclaimed. Historically, what has followed the loss of endemic health systems in many indigenous groups is near total dependency on the rudimentary and extremely limited external health care that is available in such remote and difficult-to-access locations. Not surprisingly, in most countries, indigenous groups have the highest rates of mortality and disease.

The Matsés elders who valued, guarded, and were ready to pass on their knowledge were aware it was perilously close to being lost. They had witnessed neighboring indigenous groups lose their traditions. From the outset, the Matsés elders and Acaté developed a plan of action to ensure their traditional system of health would endure for future generations as they adapt to the outside world. The first phase involved creation of a written encyclopedia of their traditional medicine knowledge. Each chapter of this traditional medicine encyclopedia was to be written by an elder shaman, chosen by the community. The elder was paired with a younger Matsés who over months transcribed his knowledge in writing and photographed each plant. The photos and text were then to be compiled and typed up on a laptop by a third Matsés who is an expert in a written transcription of their language. The written form of the Matsés language was articulated after contact with missionaries, who were intent on producing a Matsés version of the Bible. The younger Matsés were taught to read and write their language by missionaries who eventually produced a bible. This bible was the only Matsés language book at the time of its publication. The Matsés would now use these skills to document their own ancestral knowledge!

This novel approach would prove significant as an innovative mechanism to protect their knowledge from theft by the outside world. History is replete with examples of theft from indigenous peoples. For the Matsés, the threat is all too real as their knowledge has been stolen and misappropriated in the past.

For decades, prior efforts by conservation groups to protect against loss of indigenous medicinal plant knowledge were stifled by concerns of facilitating biopiracy. With the medicinal plant knowledge disappearing fast among most indigenous groups and no one to write it down, the true losers in the end are tragically the indigenous stakeholders themselves. The methodology developed by the Matsés and Acaté is a template for other indigenous cultures to safeguard their ancestral knowledge.

After two years of diligent work, in May 2015, the first volume of the encyclopedia was finalized during a historic meeting of the remaining Matsés elder shamans in the Matsés village of Puerto Alegre on the upper Yaquerana River.

The production of the first indigenous medicine encyclopedia received worldwide social media attention and inspired other indigenous groups and conservation organizations to begin similar projects. Without public announcement and fanfare, the Matsés leaders, elders and communities set-out quietly to continue their work in the creation of a second volume comprising an additional five chapters. Their work was carried out over two years with the support of Acaté and culminated in September 2017 with the completion of Volume II.

The Encyclopedia is a historical and critical first step towards mitigating the existential threats to Matsés healing wisdom and self-sufficiency in health. The Encyclopedia alone, however, is not sufficient to maintain their self-sufficiency. Just as studying a western medical textbook does not make one a doctor, learning the Matsés traditional medicinal system takes much more than book study. Indigenous healing systems, like all healing systems, are based on experience that can only be transmitted through long apprenticeships. This was true when the current elders learned from their fathers and grandfathers before them. 

The framework of Phase II of the Traditional Medicine Initiative involves the creation of Healing Forest Medicinal Plant Gardens, based on traditional Matsés agroforestry. In the earlier Apprentices Program, elder shamans—who were also Encyclopedia chapter authors—were accompanied in the forest by younger Matsés to learn the plants and assist in treating patients. The Matsés elders and Acaté decided to merge the pilot Apprentices program with the Healing Forest Medicinal Plant Gardens project that is based on traditional Matsés agroforestry.

For many, the term ‘medicinal garden’ might connote a sun-exposed garden adjacent to house or a farm clearing. What the Matsés are doing is different. Many of the rainforest vines, tree saplings, ferns and fungi that the Matsés use daily for healing will not grow in sun-exposed gardens. They require rainforest ecosystems for their propagation, adding considerable levels of complexity and challenge. Successfully transplanting and establishing these plants in the rainforests is not easy and requires a master’s understanding for successful cultivation. Western agroforestry and science could learn much from the innovation and mastery of these indigenous horticulturalists!

To an outsider, this forest might appear to be a nondescript stretch of rainforest along a footpath to their farms. In the presence of a master shaman pointing out the medicinal plants, you realize in a moment that you are surrounded in fact by a constellation of hundreds of medicinal plants cultivated by the Matsés healers for use in treatment of a diverse range of ailments. Healing plants are such abundance that truly careful attention must be made at all times to avoid clumsily stepping on a group of seedlings or small sapling.

It is important to also understand that the Healing Forests are not a new introduction but a restoration of traditional Matsés agroforestry practices that fell into abandon following sustained contact with the outside world. For generations, Healing Forests supplied the Matsés communities with an abundance of sustainably sourced medicinal plants to treat urgent health needs. The benefit of having the plants nearby, especially the rare ones, provides both a classroom for teaching and access for treating patients. These factors made the decision to re-establish Healing Forests an easy one.

After the success of the first two Healing Forests in Buen Peru and Remoyacu, in May 2016, Matsés High Chief Wilder  proclaimed his intent to see Healing Forests restored in all 14 Matsés villages during his tenure of leadership.

The creation of a Healing Forest agroforestry plot in a community is a big production, taking over a month of full time work by an entire team. The teams creating each Healing Forest comprise one elder shaman, at least 6 apprentices, and one Matsés coordinator, usually an experienced apprentice. The design for each Healing Forest agroforestry area is individualized by each healer and community. Some prefer to place the plants along winding paths in the forest while others favor a more centralized design.

The Matsés gave priority to communities that no longer have living resident healers. In Jorge Chavez, one such village on the mid-course of the Galvez river, Manuel was elected as the visiting teacher. During the village meeting to select the participants, the community decided that the apprentices should be a mix of young and old. One participant they selected was a widow named Isabella. No one knows how old she is because she was born well before contact and the Matsés did not mark birthdays. Isabella’s late husband was a shaman and she regrets that she never learned the medicinal plants from her husband while he was alive. Isabella was one of the most enthusiastic apprentices and her long experience in the forest gave her a huge advantage. Manuel decided that it was best to find as many of the difficult to find plants as possible and assemble them in one central area of around 4 acres. In total, they collected around 270 species. When the program was over the apprentices were so fascinated with the plants that they asked Manuel to come back for more training. He agreed and came back for another week and they found the plants that they missed on the first round bringing the total to over 300 species!

To the south, in the community of San Ramon on the mid-course of the Chobayacu river, Manuel's brother, Raul, was chosen to lead the Healing Forest program in that village. Raul’s vision was to collect enough individual plants so that there would be a sufficient supply for harvest as needed for treating patients. San Ramon is right next to Buenas Lomas Nueva and the two villages together make up the largest population of Matsés, so it made sense to plant a lot of medicines. During the project they transplanted between 3000 to 5000 medicinal plants representing over a hundred species.

Over the past year, the Matsés have established Healing Forests in five additional communities, bringing the total to seven. The Healing Forest in the village of Buenas Lomas Antigua about to break ground in the next month. With its completion, over half of all Matsés communities in Perú will have areas conserved areas for sustainable access to medicinal plants!

The value of the Healing Forest Rainforest Gardens cannot be overstated to the Matsés as healing repositories for their communities. For the global conservation movement, the scope of the Healing Forests that the Matsés are creating stand at the pinnacle of successful local agroforestry-based conservation. In Perú, we have already seen at least one NGO begin to replicate the model.

Next Steps: The Advanced Apprentice Program

The Matsés elders and apprentices alike confirmed that actually working with the plants in developing the medicinal Healing Forests was the most efficient way to teach the identifications and learn the applications. It also came up repeatedly in our discussions that consulting the Encyclopedia is a vitally important means of reinforcing field instruction from the shamans. Not all of the young participants in the Healing Forest program can be expected to acquire the knowledge to assume the mantle of a master shaman. Just like in Western societies, not everyone goes to medical school and becomes a physician. From those apprentices drawn out in each community, it provides the opportunity for the most dedicated and knowledgeable to emerge and select themselves out through their demonstrated aptitude, interest and dedication. The third phase set-out by Matsés elders is to identify the most knowledgeable and promising of the young apprentices and provide for further in-depth advanced apprenticeships with the remaining elder plant masters across their territory.

One such advanced apprentice we wrote about last year in our June 2016 field report is Mariano, from the village of Buen Peru. As we noted earlier, the Matsés decided to prioritize and send shamans to create Healing Forests in communities that no longer had living shamans in residence. Buen Peru in one such village selected for this reason to receive training from Master Healer Alberto of Puerto Alegre, a distant village on the Upper Yaquerana. Mariano was one of the six young Matsés men and women chosen by the community of Buen Peru to participate as an apprentice in creating the Healing Forest. In our tour of the agroforestry sites with Acaté leadership, visiting shamans and leaders, Mariano stood out from all apprentices and amazed all in attendance with his exceptional knowledge of plants. We were so intrigued we sat down with him to hear his story. Mariano told us that before studying with Maestro Alberto, he knew only of two plants, one of which was used to treat dogs. He said that his apprenticeship with Alberto was an awakening. He indicated would like to continue learning from Master Alberto, saying to us:

“It takes time to become a shaman. Just as you (Dr. Chris) spent years in school learning to use pharmaceuticals, my university is the jungle.”

Over the past year, Acaté provided support for Mariano to travel to Puerto Alegre. There he spent two months in residence under the tutelage of Master Alberto. He also helped oversee the creation of the Healing Forest in that village. In addition to using both volumes of the Encyclopedia, Mariano has created his own notebook where he records his notes from the teachings of the elder plant masters. After further training with Alberto and other remaining elders, he hopes to return to his village of Buen Peru to become the resident healer, filling a long void.

As of this writing, the advanced apprenticeship program is on hold due to lack of funds. Without the help of people who care about these projects this work cannot proceed. We urgently ask for your support today.

Acaté is a non-profit conservation organization dually incorporated in the United States and Perú that operates in a true partnership with the Matsés indigenous people. The Matsés safeguard an area of over 3 million acres of rainforest in Perú alone, including shielding some of the last remaining uncontacted tribes in voluntary isolation. Acaté works directly through on-the-ground initiatives with the Matsés to maintain their self-sufficiency and independence as they adapt to the outside world.

Acaté operates on the frontlines at the leading edge of conservation. Since 2013, our pioneering initiatives have included the first indigenous medicine encyclopedia as well as multiple other innovative projects with original methodology in sustainable economic development, traditional medicine, medicinal agroforestry, nutritional diversity, regenerative agriculture, biodiversity inventory, native language literacy, and mapping of ancestral lands.

Acaté does not maintain a physical office space or expend large administrative overhead in the United States because that is not where the frontlines are located. If you are passionate about rainforest preservation and directly supporting the true guardians of the rainforest, its indigenous people, please consider supporting our work today. Your funds will be utilized with unparalleled transparency, going to enable community-generated projects that have real impact and are reported with specifics and accountability. All contributions are tax-deductible.

Thank you!

The Acaté Team

Content, text and images ©2017 Acaté Amazon Conservation

Links:

• Acate Amazon Conservation November 2017 Field Update

The Matsés map their headwaters in landmark quest to demarcate their ancestral lands

Nothing could stop us from reaching our annual meeting with the Matsés. Planning for the meeting was in the works for months in advance to coordinate the participation of the delegations from each of the 14 remote Matsés communities along with the Acaté project participants and elders. Our flight from Iquitos to Colonia Angamos, the military outpost that is the frontier gateway to Matsés territory, was backlogged due to delays on account of weather and an Australian reality TV show that had fully ‘chartered’ two Air Force civic planes to bring their crew and equipment. Arriving in Angamos late, we had to set out at once on the two-day journey to Buenas Lomas Nueva, the site of our meeting, on the Chobayacu River. 

It was with some trepidation that we decided to try the first leg of the eighteen-hour journey in a dugout canoe with a small motor during the night. The first few hours traveling up the Javari river went smoothly as we watched the sun set beneath the canopy. As darkness set in, we knew that the difficulties and challenges of navigating the river would amplify, particularly once we turned onto the much smaller Chobayacu River. Segundo, our Matsés field coordinator, masterly navigated us through the darkness and fog banks using a flashlight toReyna spot the numerous submerged branches and tree trunks exposed by the unseasonably low water levels. It was already two in the morning when we arrived, exhausted, at the first village on the banks of the Chobayacu and dared not press further upriver until first light.

Waking up a few hours later, our spirits were buoyed by the prospect of reaching Buenas Lomas Nueva in time for our meeting. We set off after breakfast on what we hoped would be an eight hour journey. Our optimism were dashed about an hour upriver when our wooden canoe suddenly hit a submerged tree trunk, tipping the canoe and allowing the swift current to flood it. The canoe sunk to the bottom of the river in seconds. As we scrambled to cling to the muddy banks of the river with our valuables perched on our heads, Segundo started to grab some of our bags that were floating downriver. As we were raising the canoe from the riverbed and collecting almost all of our soaking wet equipment, a family of Matsés showed up and towed us to the nearest village. Through a stroke of good fortune we had loaded our most precious cargo in another canoe: the first printed maps of Matsés ancestral territories to present at the meeting. 

The Matsés had never before mapped their lands or formally recorded the locations of important ancestral sites or even their names for their rivers. Two years ago, at our annual meeting in 2015, the Matsés leadership and representatives from all 14 communities launched, with the support of Acaté, a major new initiative to map their traditional territory according to their own history, culture, and language. The scale and importance of this initiative is staggering. The Matsés traditional homeland exceeds 3 million acres of primary rainforest in Peru alone! This region contains some of the most intact rainforests in the world as well as shielding some of the last remaining uncontacted tribes hiding in isolation. They seek refuge here, in this the most remote corner of the Amazon, to maintain their sovereignty and way of life but are deeply vulnerable to exposure to disease and the destructive influences of the outside world.

The Matsés created a plan of action in order to map their vast homeland and transmit their ancestral knowledge to future generations. From each region, they created teams of three comprising: one Matsés GPS expert, trained by Acaté; one elder or expert on the territory and one apprentice who would learn the traditional geography as well as the use of the GPS unit. The plan also included a list of 17 categories of sites to map. These categories included places of cultural significance, such as ancestral villages and burial sites along with the names of waterways. Additionally, important ecological areas including hunting, fishing, gathering and trapping sites were mapped. Each team was equipped with notebooks, a camera, along with the handheld GPS units. The younger Matsés job was to document as much information about the localities from the elders as possible. 

In December 2015, Matsés elder Rómulo, from the village of Puerto Allegre, spearheaded the pilot initiative to map the headwaters of the Javari River, at the southern boundary of their territory. He was accompanied by Aaron, a younger Matsés trained by Acaté to use a handheld GPS unit. This extremely remote area can only be accessed by canoe after the seasonal rains raise the water levels allowing for easier passage upriver.

At the last day of the same meeting where Romulo spoke, the importance of the mapping initiative became apparent in immediate and concrete terms. The Matsés leaders were forced to convene an emergency meeting to respond to an attempt by the Peruvian Government to create a ten kilometer buffer zone within Matsés territory on the Upper Javari encroaching beyond the previously agreed upon lines. Although this attempted land grab was decried and unanimously rejected by the Matsés it reinforced the pressing need to demarcate their own traditional territories and acquire the independent ability to create maps and refute future attempts to seize or redesignate their lands. The assembly stood strongly behind the critical importance of the mapping initiative for the future of their people.

Our mapping initiative is anchored on the remarkable work and precedence set by prior participatory mapping initiatives over the past decades. In these projects, indigenous peoples were trained in the use of handheld GPS units to record culturally important mapping points. Particularly with projects involving recently contacted indigenous groups, the maps themselves are usually put together and created by partner organizations and NGOs with expertise in the highly complex mapping software. Media images associated with such projects, like a picture of an indigenous elder in a red loincloth in front of a laptop, belie the reality that computer literacy is low among recently contacted indigenous groups. Acaté’s mapping initiative has taken a major step forward by training the Matsés to use the GIS mapping software to produce the maps themselves, independently, thereby providing them the ability to revise current maps or create new maps in the future.

We knew we were entering into uncharted territory by attempting to teach this complex software to our indigenous partners, who are highly resourceful and motivated, but lacking in computer experience. Some of them had never even turned on a laptop before! Daunting as it might seem, this challenge brought with it a critically important opportunity to capacitate the Matsés in computer literacy. As with the historic Matsés Traditional Medicine Encyclopedia initiative before it, the Matsés Indigenous Map will be created entirely by the Matsés themselves, in their language and for their communities. Acaté will facilitate the project by supplying all the support and tools to bring it to reality.

Our agreement with the Matsés leadership was that we would train the trainers. In other words, the Matsés that received the training would then volunteer their skills to train other Matsés, and so forth. The first training class held in Iquitos in July 2016 consisted of Matsés, Acaté staff and Matsés leaders. The classes were broken up into long morning and afternoon sessions. The morning session was devoted to very basic computer use and word processing while the afternoon session involved a graduated introduction to the GIS software. The team members who had some skills or aptitude with computers helped those who started with none.

You can imagine how daunting it might be to learn complicated software package starting from having no idea how to even turn on the computer or even knowing where the letters are on the keyboard. To make all this even more impressive the GIS software is only in English so the Matsés had to memorize the menus and commands.

At first the task seemed impossible and the GIS software far too complex. But as the data from Romulo’s pilot voyage was transformed from the abstract pages of coordinates in a notebook to on-the- screen historical points and rivers, morale improved, re-energizing the initiative. They even overlaid the coordinates of an exploratory petroleum well by Pacific Rubiales and found that it overlapped the area Romulo demarcated in the Upper Javari as an important ancestral area!

Mapping of the Galvez / Loboyacu Headwaters

After a week of intense mapping software and computer use workshops, the Matsés were ready to get back out and map more territory. Now confident that with more practice and capacitation the project would indeed be feasible. Under the guidance of elder Matsés and shaman Roberto, the team began to map the headwaters of Galvez and Loboyacu rivers at the north and northwest margins of the territories. These areas contain some of their most important historical sites including the battle site of a skirmish with the Peruvian Army.

Mapping of the Chobayacu Headwaters 

In the two months leading up to the 2017 annual meeting, a team led by Matsés elder Marcos mapped the headwaters of the Chobayacu River. The Matsés traditionally lived in this area because it was very remote and far from any major rivers that enemies could use to find and attack them. Their treks to reach ancestral sites and old trails were long journeys through both swamps and hilly areas and were extremely arduous, even for the Matsés! We have rarely heard Matsés comment on the difficulty of treks, and this is all the more remarkable considering most outsiders would find their daily paths to their jungle farms to be a trek.

Preparation of the First Maps of the Ancestral Headwaters

Felipe brought the Choboyacu data back to Iquitos a week before we were scheduled to depart for the annual meeting. This left us with little time to enter the most recent data and prepare all the printed maps. In Acaté’s small office in Iquitos, accompanied by Felipe, Matsés High Chief Wilder and mapping instructor Marcial, we worked late into the evening.

Being able to visualize the data graphically as a map fundamentally changed how we thought about the Matsés landscape. Firstly, we had perceived the headwaters of the Galvez and Chobayacu Rivers to be distinct areas as represented in geopolitical maps of the area. On the new map, the large green void of seeming emptiness between the two rivers disappeared. The two seemingly disparate headwater systems clearly converged to create one continuous arc of indigenous habitation. The Matsés had traditionally avoided the rivers and traveled by foot to avoid detection by enemies such as rubber tappers or later Peruvian soldiers.

The greatest shock came when the demarcation of government-titled lands – the so-called Matsés National Reserve and recently created Sierra del Divisor National Park – were added in and overlaid onto the display. The resulting map left us all in silence, contemplating the reality that Matsés ancestral land use extended deeply into lands that have been ceded to the government and are no longer under Matsés control or ownership.

Maps of the Javari, Galvez, Loboyacu, and Chobayacu headwaters were prepared for presentation and review at the upcoming meeting. We debated whether to include the political overlays in the maps we printed to present to the communities. On one level, the layering made the maps difficult to interpret. The output of most indigenous mapping projects is typically an elegant and simple wall map that aesthetically portrays historical and current indigenous land use with traditional names of rivers and other landscape features. Current geopolitical boundaries tend to be minimized in the representations, so the maps look almost as if they were produced before sustained contact with the outside world. The maps in front of us, with complex patterning from multiple overlays of government boundaries, titled lands, and petroleum lots were certainly less aesthetically appealing and more complex but at the heart of the struggle of the Matsés people for sovereignty and self-determination.

Since time immemorial, the Matsés history has been defined by interactions and conflicts with outsiders seeking to take their lands, women, children and resources. From the cruel tyranny of the rubber barons in the early 20th century to the 1940s when the Peruvian government sent soldiers on a mission of ethnocide to rid the upper Galvez of Matsés communities to contemporary petroleum exploration by multinational companies.

We were hesitant as we knew the strong feelings and resentments it would generate among the Matsés, as the maps so clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that ancestral lands are no longer under their control. Matsés High Chief Wilder affirmed his decision to present the maps with the overlaid government areas along with the ancestral Matsés land use. The next morning we had the approved maps printed and made our final arrangements before setting out to present the maps to the Matsés delegations that were beginning to assemble in Buenas Lomas Nueva.

The Meeting of the 14 Matsés Communities

Despite the delays from the canoe sinking, we arrived at Buenas Lomas Nueva shortly before noon on the day that the meeting had been scheduled to start. Fortunately, the Matsés chief had been on the radio alerting all the delegations of the delay. Approximately 90 participants, including delegations from all 14 villages in Peru, Acaté project participants, Matsés shamans, elders as well as the Chief of the Brazilian Matsés were present. 

After opening remarks by Matsés High Chief Wilder, we decided to begin with an open forum of questions and answers before launching into the meeting agenda. Not surprisingly, many of their questions were concerning financials and fundraising. Organizations working with Matsés and raising funds in their name rarely present their financials. We presented our annual financial report to ensure complete transparency and answered their questions. The discussion of finances was complex across cultural divides but it seemed clear to all that while Acaté operates on a shoestring budget, it does so with transparency and all of our funds are utilized to directly benefit the Matsés communities.

The first major agenda item for the meeting was the Matsés Indigenous Mapping Initiative. The printed maps we brought of their ancestral headwaters were fixed on the wall. Matsés Field Coordinator Felipe took the floor and shared with the assembly his experiences working on the mapping initiatives using images projected onto a sheet. He detailed how he learned to use the GPS units, the mapping software and his most recent work deep the ancestral lands of the Chobayacu with Matsés elder Manuel.

From the projected maps, Felipe pointed out their ancestral lands and the overlaps with ar

Links:

• Acate Amazon Conservation