Abstract
This chapter provides the biogeographical, historical and socio-cultural background to the empirical case that follows in Chapter 4. I argue that this detailed account is necessary in order to provide a suitable context for understanding and interpreting the ensuing metabolic findings. For this endeavour, I am going to start with a general description of the indigenous Tsimane’ territorial setting, and move on to a description of the natural and cultural landscape that shapes their world. The following section gives an overview of the most decisive historic events surrounding their ethnic community and entails an account of the peoples’ growing exposure to outsiders. The final part of this chapter deals with the social sphere of the Tsimane’ world. This involves a description of population trends as well as introduces the reader to life at the household as well as community level.
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Notes
- 1.
The available data from 1998 (Tobías 1998) reveals that 75 Tsimane’ communities were distributed along the Rio Maniqui (35 along the Lower Maniqui, 40 along the central and upper parts of the river), while merely 11 Tsimane’ communities were found to live within the TIM.
- 2.
In1876 the British botanist Henry A. Wickham, extracted 70,000 rubber seeds and smuggled them to England, where they were planted in a glass house in Kew Gardens near London.
- 3.
In his informative travel records he examined one community and concluded that between the years 1897 and 1912 each year 83.5 children in 1,000 people were born – compared to Russia where between 1896 and 1900 the number was 48.4, in Sweden 26.9 (Nordenskiöld 2001[1913]: 176).
- 4.
The Matsigenka of Peru, for example, have an annual growth rate of 2.30–3.19%.
- 5.
See, for example, the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert (Lee 1979) and the Matsigenka in the Peruvian Amazon (Johnson 2003).
- 6.
Gurven et al. (2007: 388) further reported that the main causes for an infant’s pre-natal death are due to the mother’s traumatic fall (36.5%), from over-working or carrying too much weight (16%) and maternal sickness (15%). An additional 7% was self-induced as a means of spacing births or because of doubts concerning paternity.
- 7.
While some early historical accounts characterize the Tsimane’ as a semi-nomadic tribe (Metraux 1948; Riester 1976), others emphasise that many Tsimane’ settlements have geographically stable histories. Hissink (1955) and Hissink and Hahn (1952) on their adventurous travels along the Rio Maniqui describe settlement clusters which can still be located in the same places today.
- 8.
Ellis (1996: 52), however, warns about establishing strict rules of rigidity on Tsimane’ residence decisions, as she has various case histories that simply do not comply with such patterns.
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Ringhofer, L. (2010). Exploring an Indigenous World in the Bolivian Amazon: The Case of the Tsimane’. In: Fishing, Foraging and Farming in the Bolivian Amazon. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3487-8_3
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