The news from Colorado is that our friend Non Prophet is leaving for the Peruvian Amazon with his bride. I had to brush up on my geography a little to discover that the mountains of Peru are only along the coast, the interior is Amazon basin. They’re going in with two journalists to Iquitos [see Google Map below] to spend some time with the Matses tribe. The Matses wear very distinctive facial decorations resembling whiskers which proffer upon them a cat-like aspect. Add to that their penchant for spotted tattoos over their entire body, and you realize they are emulating the fearsome Jaguar.

The Matses supposedly have the distinction of owning their own land and living traditionally (although recently Peru apparently sold off the oil rights of their land to a Candian company). Almost none of the Matses have ‘day jobs’, instead they subsist by hunting and gathering. They practice traditional herbal medicine, the importance of which reportedly is only now being recognized by western medicine. Unfortunately, this knowledge hasn’t helped them fight diseases like malaria and hepatitus which ravage their tribe. The population of the Matses stands at only around 2200 individuals, so there is some thought in my mind that we may be just in time to witness their extinction as a people, since 2000 is the lower end of a viable (perhaps, healthy) population if I remember correctly from ecology class.

There are no regular tours organized to visit the Matses, but you can usually find adventurous souls to bring you in (and hopefully, bring you out again). I’m assuming NP has hooked up with Peter Gorman, or that Peter has arranged his trip somehow. How much of this trip will truly be a trip in the shamanic sense I will leave for others to debate. In the meantime, I was one of several folks given the keys to NP’s site, so I may be posting some stuff that might be of interest to his normal readership in his absence. I wish them a safe trip and I look forward to reading all about it upon his return!

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