Learn The Surui Cultural Map

This calendar week we're at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. We're sharing a serial of posts near our activities at the conference on the Green Blog; inwards this cross-post we've gone into to a greater extent than particular near 1 annunciation taking identify there. -Ed.

This calendar week at the Rio+20 conference, the first visited Google as well as proposed a partnership. The storey of that visit, as well as the remarkable projection that followed, are told inwards a novel brusque documentary also launching hither at Rio+20: “Trading Bows as well as Arrows for Laptops: Carbon as well as Culture.”



Training the Surui youth equally mapmakers
Over iii visits to the Surui territory betwixt 2008 as well as terminal month, our Google globe Outreach squad taught Surui youth how to receive got photos as well as videos as well as to collect stories from their elders (such equally from the fourth dimension earlier outset contact amongst the modern world). Then they learned how to upload these to the Google cloud using tools similar Picasa, Docs, as well as YouTube. From at that spot nosotros used Spreadsheet Mapper 3 to bind it all together to create a Google globe KML of their map, which contains almost 300 sites.

Map highlights
Through this project, my squad has learned that maps are an human face of culture. Mapmakers shout out to the “atomic element” of a map equally a point of interest, or POI. The Surui mapmakers created POIs that reverberate their traditional culture’s unopen interdependency amongst their woods home. So instead of hotels as well as gas stations, on the Surui map you’ll detect the locations of parrots as well as toucans, or the iii kinds of trees necessary to brand their bows as well as arrows. You’ll larn where to detect the Acai trees (which render delicious fruit equally good equally the thatch for their maloca longhouses), the locations of skillful hunting grounds for the porcao (wild pig), as well as where the jaguar roam (jaguars receive got particular spiritual significance to the Surui people as well as figure inwards their creation myth). There are also sites as well as stories of historical battles amongst other tribes as well as amongst the white settlers who started arriving afterwards “first contact” inwards 1969. Here’s an illustration POI for the Jenipapo tree:

The text reads: “Jenipapo fruit is produced past times the jenipapo tree, which reaches 20 feet high. From the meaty travel of the greenish fruit, an ink is extracted amongst which human pare tin transportation away travel painted. This makes the fruit really of import for the Surui, because the fine art of icon is e'er included inwards everything that they do, peculiarly inwards celebrations as well as rituals. The fine art of icon is 1 of the things most valued past times Paiter. Each occasion calls for a dissimilar type of painting.”

Here’s a rich storytelling tour of the Surui Cultural Map, narrated past times Chief Almir as well as the Surui youth who were the star mapmakers:



As Chief Almir says at the decision of the Surui people’s Google globe tour:

Without the forest, our entire civilisation would disappear. And without our culture, the woods would receive got disappeared a long fourth dimension ago. It’s of import to alive inwards a sustainable agency as well as to strengthen those whose livelihoods straight depend on a good for you lot ecosystem. We receive got a 50-year sustainability plan, which includes solutions for our territory. An illustration is the Surui Carbon Project, which uses engineering scientific discipline to monitor the carbon stock of woods as well as merchandise it inwards the marketplace for carbon credits. Our promise is that nosotros tin transportation away come upward together virtually as well as inwards person, as well as that nosotros tin transportation away detect as well as implement solutions together.

It’s been a groovy accolade for us to piece of job amongst the Surui people as well as to sense their populace view, peculiarly to encounter how they blend their traditional noesis as well as civilisation amongst modern technology. We’ve learned from Chief Almir that partnerships, consensus as well as collaboration are central; inwards that spirit, we’d similar to give cheers our partners on this project: ECAM, Kanindé as well as Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol, who has documented the life of the Surui people for to a greater extent than than 20 years.

You tin transportation away sentry a video of the  tour or download it inwards English or Portuguese. To larn to a greater extent than near the Surui tribe, known equally “Paiter Surui,” delight see www.paiter.org.

Posted past times Rebecca Moore, Manager, Google globe Outreach as well as Google globe Engine

(Cross-posted from the Green Blog)

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