Architects and Macaws

Photographs, illustrations and words Nick Sidle

Illustration – Red-and-green Macaw, Ara chloropterus

Will the sky and the heavens fall and if they do, will the Macaws help? We never seem to have been quite sure how real the threat is. A fear of the sky falling is used to illustrate an irrational and excessive anxiety but in the law, the Latin ‘Fiat justitia ruat caelum’, ‘Let justice be done though the heavens fall’, makes the concept more tangible, even if it may be imagery rather than literal reality. In South America, there are stories of the need for the order in putting and keeping earth and sky in the correct places. The Wayapi, one of the indigenous peoples of the continent, saw all existence as a dark place until, at the bidding of the high God Yaneya, two sets of architects separately put earth and sky where they should be. There were to be four worlds in separate layers, two of the earth, two of the sky. The lowest was for the giant sloths, who believe they are the true humanity. In case this seems too fantastic, fossils of Giant Sloths from up to around 10,000 years ago have been found in Guyana and there is a reconstruction of one that at 15 feet (5m) tall towers above visitors to the Guyana National Museum. Their views on their place in creation are yet to be confirmed. The indigenous peoples of the Americas date back to approximately 15,000 years ago and so the eras of people and the Giant Sloths do overlap. The next world was for those people and with this, the disposition of the earth was complete. Then it was for the sky architects to finish the creation. Above the land world for people was the first world of the sky, a realm for the vultures with the balance of their connection to the passing of all living things.

Illustration – Black Vulture, Coragyps stratus

Illustration – King Vulture, Sarcoramphus papa

Above that was the second world of the sky, the highest, and this was to be a place of residence for the Creator, a home for God. The Wayapi however did not see this God as kind and caring. After creation, they thought this God lost understanding in people and lived on high, not interested in their fate and destiny.

Illustration – The sky was too low

The team responsible for the sky initially placed it too low and had to collect the scarlet tail feathers of Macaws and, dressed in these, they danced until the sky rose to where we know it, then they added the stars.

Illustrations

The architects responsible for the earth drove in four giant posts at the corners of existence to finally hold the sky in place.

Illustrations

There was still an issue though. The Wayapi told stories that even this great work was in danger during a lunar eclipse, when the world might collapse back into chaos.

Illustrations

Photograph – Lunar Eclipse

There seem to be many threats of chaos today, possibly more than have been known for a very long time and felt by more nations. Different cultures have seen these and responded in different ways. Perhaps the biggest need now is for those different cultures to work together, it could even be with the help of the Macaws. The Wayapi today live in the South East border area of French Guiana and the adjoining territories to the South in Brazil. These however are not their only original tribal lands. As with many indigenous South American peoples, in older history they were greater in number, established in larger settlements and distributed more widely in the territories that were their homes. Their association is broadly with areas of Brazil, in particular along the Xingu river, a tributary of the Amazon, and part of what is now termed the Guyanas. From West to East, the Guyanas comprise the Guyana region of Venezuela, modern day Guyana formerly British Guiana in the colonial period, Suriname formerly Dutch Guiana, French Guiana and the Amapá State of Brazil formerly Portuguese Guiana. It is the central areas of this, sometimes referred to as the three true Guyanas, that the Wayapi are associated with in history, both by residence and trade including the system of preferential paired tribal trading partners controlled by the Wayana peoples.

Illustration

It is also recorded that The Wayapi slowly migrated North especially along the Xingu and that their location on the land evolved. The Wayapi fared badly through contact with the Europeans when they arrived. This was from direct conflict, from new diseases, and from disruption of their settlements and ways of life. In recent history, they have also suffered from road building and illegal mining and deforestation. They and their stories have however endured and the remaining tribal members have in more contemporary history received some recognition and protections, still though their way of life remains threatened by the outside world.

Then there is the question of Carnaval or Carnival. There are many suggestions for the origin of the traditions which, although felt all over the world or at least in the second level of the earth creation, have in many ways become synonymous with South America. In Europe, its beginnings are often said to be Christian and linked to the marking of Lent. Although there is such a connection, as in many examples it is likely that older traditions were coopted into Christian settings. There may even be a smoking processional torch implicating Pope Paul II in that act with his intervention in 1464 creating the Renaissance Carnival incorporating races for animals and people, with distinct echoes of Roman games but fortunately without the celebrations of mortality. Even for this there was a small reference, since over time one tradition was for people in the procession to shout ‘death to anyone who is not carrying a candle!’ There is a very good case to be made that Carnival dates back to the Saturnalia festivals of Ancient Rome but there are also parallels that link it to the celebration of Sham El-Nessim in Ancient Egypt, a rite used to move out of winter and into the beginnings of spring by driving out the winter spirits who had had their dominion for their season. All of these European and North African influences arrived in South America with the Spanish Conquistadors and have undoubtedly had an effect on the development of Carnaval on the continent. There was also an influence from African traditions brought by the enslaved peoples transported to South America by the European colonists, especially from Portugal who for a time assumed control of Brazil and other territories. This connection also explains the emergence of Carnaval in Trinidad and Tobago in the ritual of Cannes Brulees, which translates as a name as ‘Sugarcane Burning’ because the festival rapidly assumed a role in protesting and rebelling against enslavement expressed by actually burning sugarcane.

Photograph – Carnaval del Pueblo, London

All of which leaves the question how much of the South American Carnaval tradition has its roots in the native peoples and cultures of the continent? This brings us back to the story of the architects. Faced with a threat, a problem and a need, they responded with costume based on their home and beliefs, performance through dance and a group communal celebration with a united purpose which, for them, did not move mountains but did move the sky which might be even more of an achievement. Mountains have actually moved over the eons of time whereas, once its position was corrected, fortunately for everyone the sky has stayed where it should be and by now this has even survived many, many lunar eclipses. That these themes appear in a cultural story central to one of the indigenous peoples of South America shows that the themes, form and traditions of Carnaval are no import to the countries of the continent but were fundamental long before the contact with Europeans which was so traumatic when it first came. Carnival is now worldwide but Carnaval in South America is simultaneously part of that but also a connection back to the first peoples of those lands.

Photograph – Carnaval del Pueblo, London

So, is Carnaval still a way of trying to make the world a better place or sometimes even to help it survive? Social themes have crept into Carnaval from its earliest recorded stagings. More recently, environmental issues, the fate of the South American rainforest being no small example, have appeared in the Rio Carnaval as well as other festivities and in London Carnaval del Pueblo is working on bringing the life and questions of the natural world into its processions alongside the connections to the energies and realms of people. It really could be that an important reaction to the pressures and threats of today is to reach for the Macaw feathers and make a costume so long as they have been ethically and sustainably collected, just as they were by the architects at the beginning of time

Illustration