Out of the Amazon: Material Culture, Myth and Reality in Amazonia

This publication represents an ongoing investigation that furthers the study of the vast, continually increasing collection of Amazonian material culture at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The museum has under its protection some 4,000 objects representing over 130 tribes in the Amazon basin, many of which do not exist, either physically or as cultural entities. 

In a world with increased interconnectivity and ever more feverish tempo, there are still people who live in tune with nature's rhythm: the people of the Amazonian basin. Covering 2,700,000 square miles, roughly three-quarters the size of the United States, the rainforest basin is home to about two hundred native cultural identities. While some of these tribal groups are very vibrant, numbering in the tens of thousands, other communities can consist of only a few hundred members; most of these tribes are on the brink of extinction. The loss of t heir environment, due to deforestation of the rainforest, acculturation, disease, illegal mining and logging, and the flooding of their ancestral lands with the building of large dams, all contribute to their slow demise.

As these indigenous populations experience ever-growing pressure from the outside world to assimilate to the larger society, their language, mythologies, beliefs, and customs slowly disappear, as well as their abilities to create these wondrous objects. We view it as our duty to maintain this collection and gather as much contextual information as possible to help future generations of visitors and scholars to learn about their way of life and to understand their value to us as a link in the chain of humanitiy's evolution.