Indigenous Jungle Tribes
Outside the few main towns, there are hardly any sizeable settlements, and the jungle population remains dominated by between 35 and 62 indigenous tribes - the exact number depends on how you classify tribal identity - each with its own distinct language, customs and dress. After centuries of external influence (missionaries, gold seekers, rubber barons, soldiers, oil companies, anthropologists, and now tourists), many jungle Indians speak Spanish and live pretty conventional, Westernized lives, preferring jeans, football shirts and cola to their more traditional clothing and manioc beer (the tasty and nutritious masato). But while many are being sucked into the money-based labour market, others, increasingly under threat, have been forced to struggle for their cultural identities and territorial rights, or to retreat well beyond the new frontiers of so-called civilization. In 1996 for instance, oil workers encountered some previously uncontacted groups while clearing tracts of forest for seismic testing in the upper Rio de Las Piedras area of Madre de Dios, northwest of Puerto Maldonado. In this region it appears that some of the last few uncontacted tribal communities in the Amazon - Yaminahua, Mashco Piro and Amahuaca Indians - are keeping their distance from outside influences. For most of these traditional or semi-traditional tribes, the jungle offers a quasi-nomadic existence, and in terms of material possessions, they have very little. Communities are scattered, with groups of between ten and two hundred people, and their sites shift every few years. For subsistence they depend on small cultivated plots, fish from the rivers, and game from the forest, including wild pigs, deer, monkeys and a great range of edible birds. The main species of edible jungle fish are sabalo (a kind of oversized catfish), carachama (an armoured walking catfish), the feisty piranha (not really as dangerous as Hollywood makes out), and the giant zungaro and paiche - the latter, at up to 200kg, being the world's largest freshwater fish. In fact, food is so abundant that jungle dwellers generally spend no more than three to four days a week engaged in subsistence activities.
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