“Look before grabbing any branches because the ants bite. You will be in pain for 24 hours,” a guide warns. “And watch where you step. You don’t want to get bitten by a snake.” Yikes. A walk in the rainforest isn’t for the faint of heart.
Manaus is the capital of Amazonas, a Brazilian state. Each year, tourists venture there to witness the wonders of the Amazon rainforest, an area nearly as large as the continental United States.
At the rainforest’s edge, monkeys screech, birds bellow, and bugs buzz. The cacophony is both terrifying and calming. Visitors can swim with freshwater dolphins, gawk at alligators, and fish for sharp-toothed piranhas. For many, the most curious site may be “the meeting” of the Negro and Amazon Rivers—where water differences make the two flow black and yellow for miles.
Rainforest conservation is an ongoing worry for some environmentalists. Discussions about saving the rainforest often include talk about the area’s native tribes. These South American Indians provide windows into centuries of life in the rainforest. There are still scores of “uncontacted” tribes in the area, but most are at least partly connected to modern-day Brazilian society.
Of course, no tribe is unknown to God. He sees and understands every human on Earth—and every animal, plant, and place.
At a village of about 100 Dessana tribe members, the people dress as they have for centuries: red face paint, feathers, clothing made of cloth and hay, and necklaces studded with alligator and jaguar teeth.
A villager named Bohoka says the tribe still dwells in huts without electricity, running water, or cellphones. But they have a few modern twists—like tourists. “Tourism allows us to maintain our way of life,” Bohoka says.
Bohoka’s village is only a 90-minute boat trip from Manaus, a city of over 2 million. Manaus reached its splendor in the 1800s, when global demand for rubber brought throngs to the area to cut and gather sap from rubber trees. A beautiful opera house built during that time is the city’s main tourist attraction.
As Bohoka talks, a boat lands on the riverbank. About a dozen tribe members in slacks and T-shirts and carrying plastic bags jump out. They disappear into the huts and emerge wearing tribal clothes. Bohoka says the group has come from buying supplies in Manaus.
When asked why they didn’t wear tribal clothing there, Bohoka laughs. “Impossible,” he says. “Indians’ home is the forest.”
