Friday, December 22, 2006

Ticuna Indians Update

Back on March 4, 2005, I did a blog posting about investigating the possibility of broadcasting to the Ticuna Indians in the western Amazon basin. After this testing, it was decided that it would be better to use radio stations in the region instead of the Bonaire transmitter. Solar powered radios are en route to the area, radio production training is going on, and a recording studio project is in the works.

There are about 50,000 Ticuna Indians living in some 200 villages along 600 miles of the Amazon river, right were the borders of Brazil, Peru, and Columbia meet. The challenges facing the indigenous people groups on South America evoke memories of situation in North America 150 years ago: gold fever, land grabs, massacres, disease and the like. The Ticuna are one of the most significant groups, and have managed to preserve much of their culture and traditions in spite of 400 years of contact with the not so benevolent outside world, yet the large Christian segment of the tribe is also able to enjoy a liberation from the tyranny of the spirit world.

On the Trans World Radio, Brazil web site, you can see one of the Ticuna leaders, who visited the TWR (RTM) offices in Sao Paulo. There are more pages of photos here. You will need to click on the little link that says "proximo" at the bottom of each page of pix to get to the next page of pix.

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