[Terrapreta] indigenous practices

[May Waddington]

Being new at the list and a bit shy on the public polemic ground, let me say
I am impressed at the quality and vigor of the discussions on this list. The
engineering aspect of Terra-Preta-dos-Índios and biochar are too new to me,
but obviously seem to be what arouses the lists impetus since it
***is*totally related to the most important current issue of our time,
climate
change... So, even with Lou's gentle recommendation's that we focus on
cooperation, I can see that perspectives get* hot* before they get
incorporated! Still, I'd like to say a few things about knowledge,
innovation and practices on the "down to earth" every day practices. Then I
promise to be quiet(er)!

So excuse me for being long on this one...

During my time with the Yawanawa tribe, I observed that knowledge management
in general, could fit into a quote by late Jorge Terena, that "knowledge,
practices and innovation by indigenous peoples are not the result of one
man's work in a specific time, but of a collective effort over many
generations". So, proprietary issues aside, we can also identify the
basically empiric approach to experimentation. But experimentation is
carried out within a system - call it holistic, consider its non-exclusion
of other spheres of existence such as magic, spiritual, etc. - which is not
analytical as is ours. We have the fantastic example of Dr Maurice Iwu,
African born phyto-pharmacognocist, who after many years of research in the
US returned to his village and realized that the active molecules he was
investigating maybe did not have the same effect without the rituals he had
left behind as he left village life... So, the shaman lou mentioned may
detect alkaloids in a plant because of its bitterness, associate it to the
heart because of its shape, but will still be acting in accordance to
insights and intuitions acquired by an ayhuasca or similarly provoked
trance, and will be following procedures and cumulative knowledge and
efforts which were relayed to him in very strict training, generation after
generation, in a very disciplinary approach. All at once.

The end result may be as simple as the replies anthropologists get when
looking for deep meaning by asking why such ornamentation and receiving the
answer "to look pretty"... Or one of my very respected professors adventure
with the Maku, after the third or fourth year of registering the tribe's
eating habits was shocked that they abandoned the fruit that had been neatly
noted down in previous years, and eagerly devoured a different fruit that
season. After anxiously asking for an explanation, he received a reply to
the effect that they "were into this other fruit now"....

The bottom line is, very unfortunately I was ignorant of the terra-preta
issues when I lived with them, and still very interested in their farming
methods. I took pictures and accompanied some of the slash and burn
practices, read about and took notes on how they managed three or four
gardens at once, etc. the cycles by which they returned to already used
capoeiras, etc. Still, without the engineering skills demonstrated by most
of the experts in the list, I still don't understand what the big question
is, in regards to the origin of TP: whether it was waste or soil management.
The originally much bigger and more sedentary groups of varzea indians may
have developed more sedentary agricultural practices - where was most of the
TP located? I would like to read more about these anthropological questions,
so please recommend me literature, and let me know if there are articles you
can send me. My very ignorant guess, at this point, is that the burning of
VERY BIG Humid FOREST may result in a lot of charcoal material; many
different practices such as smouldering fish and ceramics, and even keeping
warm by burning big logs slowly under the hammock - use charcoal, all in
small scale but repeatedly, in cycles...  don't know, really, but would like
to read up.

Now, I *am not in the Amazo*n. I am working in the Northeast region of
Brazil, between Piauí and Maranhão, almost at what is known as the
transition to the amazon region. As everywhere else, we are facing climate
change in rather severe ways. This is a drought ridden region, subjected to
intense slash and burn.

Last year we went through 9 months with no rain, and someone criminously set
fire to the native pastures in my land, provoking a 5 day forest fire that
burned a big part of the *caatinga* area of the farm and the *cerrado *forest,
and of the 10 thousand trees we had planted. They did that "to renew the
pasture" -  a traditional practice, another example, along with slash and
burn -  of traditional knowledge and practices which used to fit wisely into
this world, which just seems to be getting smaller.

The practice makes a lot of sense for the  guy who lets his goats loose in
my land, thinking he has all the right in the world to do so, and expects
the new growth to be chummy, soft and fresh as soon as the rains come. My
"practice" led me to call the police, fence that part of the farm, cry over
the figures that had been so neatly taken down on how many trees I had
planted at each parcel of land! Information forever lost - *scientific
control forever lost * unless I spend money having someone count how many
trees re-sprouted (a very large number, happily!).

So, It becomes a very crucial point to the immense population of small
farmers in Brazil, to have alternatives to slash and burn. This is of utmost
importance. To begin with, this population seems invisible to the modern
world, which seems to consider *peasants* as an extinct living form. But it
as a social category which not only accounts for the livelihood of an
enormous percentage of the Brazilian people, but also generates a sort of
overseen economic asset that regulates prices (downward) by producing cheap
food and providing food and natural resources for this vast contingent who
are "out-of-the-market". More importantly, these until recently "invisible"
Brazilians have been struggling for their very deserving *role* at nature
management, landscape management... after all, nobody is closer to the Earth
as farmers.... which many times have no alternative as to employ
slash-and-burn farming procedures.

At the Buriti Doce farm, following Ronaldo's specifications on the
alternative burning we were making, the locals were shocked. They thought we
were doing it in a very stupid way, because we spent more money than they
would have done, because we invested so much in separating the wood,
preparing the caeiras, et., before the fire w2as set to the land. And I
still had no idea of the benefit from biochar.   thought I would simply sell
the charcoal and make up for the extra expenses...

So, with all the extremely modern or post-modern scientifically generated
information coming in from the US, Germany, Holland, Australia we see in the
list and in this amazingly fast growing network... if there are keys that
may help,  this is awesome.  I participated in a project with a very
organized political group - Assema, babassu breaking women - in substituting
burning practices which was extremely interesting, and would like to see
this proposal grow in this country.

This being probably my main focus of interest, I would very much want to
learn about the engineering side of things... slash and char, and other
considerations such as the CH4 product of the traditional charcoal *caieras
*(kilns?), and whatever more I can learn from the list.

Since local EMBRAPA was pretty open to the proposal and their soil expert is
coming to the site on Monday, we will be working on  a project. Dr. Lehmann
has already contributed with a pretty objective design for expermental lots,
and Dr Christoph has menioned he is intereste in finding out about CH4
emissions in the traditional kilnns (caeiras). The more input qwe have over
the next few weeks the better!



2008/5/14 lou gold <lou.gold at gmail.com>:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> With respect for everyone here and also with highest regard for the wisdom
> of ancient and present indigenous peoples, I would like to suggest that we
> should be celebrating rather than arguing when one variable seems to be
> confusingly intertwined with another.
>
> Social science has long observed that there may be a difference between
> purpose and function and that humans may or may not be aware of all the
> functions that their acts of intention perform. Yes we can be inspired by
> the wisdom of ancient practices AND we can reach for wise future forms. The
> key is wisdom and the guideline toward wisdom can be different from what we
> might arrive at by focusing exclusively on the questions of knowledge which,
> in modern times, have had a heavy bias toward reductionism and the logic of
> either/or.
>
> The anthropologist Jeremy Narby reports asking an Amazonian shaman how he
> discovered various plants cures, how he was led to the knowledge of specific
> remedies for specific problems. The shaman answered by saying that he looked
> for "correspondences", even visual similarities such as the possibility that
> a plant with a heart-shaped leaf might offer a cure for heart problems
> (physical or emotional). But the shaman being a solid scientist never
> assumed that correspondence equaled cure. He took the next step of making a
> trial and judging the empirical results. We moderns do something similar in
> statistical analysis. We look for correlations (even counter-intuitive ones)
> and we are mindful that correlation does not necessarily mean cause.
>
> It keeps ocurring to me that the whole biochar project contains the kernel
> of great wisdom that is applicable not merely for healing the soil but also
> for healing the mind. The leap of thought is to move from the illusion of
> separation toward the wisdom of connection, to somehow get free of thinking
> that it must be either this way or that way into the realization that it can
> indeed be both this way and that way. This is the guidance of
> "correspondence." And this is what we should be looking for. So, when I hear
> that biochar can increase soil fertility, retain moisture and nutrient,
> filter water, manage waste, feed people, slow deforestation, create economic
> opportunity, etc, etc, I don't want to argue about which variable is the
> most important.  I want instead to celebrate that a great wisdom of
> recipocity and connection seems to be emerging (or re-emerging) and get on
> with the empirical experiments that will most likely show that there is no
> one-way-fits-all but a variety of ways that include diverse best practices
> for specific places.
>
> Sometimes, when I contemplate terra preta (and I'm not embarrassed to say
> this), it seems so beautiful and so healing that it brings tears to my eyes.
> I never imagined dirt (not in my eyes) could do this.
>
> hugs and blessings to all,
>
> lou
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 2:45 AM, Richard Haard <richrd at nas.com> wrote:
>
> > Robert - i have been puzzled by this statement outlined below in red.
> > Reading Christoph Steiners dissertation, Slash and Char as Alternative to
> > Slash and Burn, –   soil charcoal amendments maintain soil fertility and
> > establish a carbon sink
> >
> > I have indication that indigenous practices are intentional knowledge
> > based soil fertility management. Whether you or Nikolaus I am curious what
> > is basis of this assumption, as my Inuit friends still to this day rescue
> > stranded 'expeditions' using their traditional knowledge in the far north
> > and perhaps we need to give credit where it is due for the soil management
> > skills of these indigenous people of the Amazon.
> > From Chapter 1, page 35, 'Indigenous Knowledge of Terra Preta formation
> >
> > clip from abstract
> >
> > quote
> >
> >  In order to gather
> > more information about the creation of Terra
> > Preta (TP) we describe indigenous soil fertility
> > management; analyzed managed and unmanaged
> > soil and compare soil chemical and micro-
> > biological parameters with those of prehistoric TP
> > (TPp); and, discuss the formation of TP under
> > indigenous soil fertility management. Fire and
> > organic matter (OM) are the main components of
> > indigenous soil fertility management. Small fires
> > are used to create burned soil (Terra Queimada),
> > and burned organic materials (ash and charred
> > residues) are used to increase the fertility in
> > patches for special plants like medicinal plants
> > and vegetables. After a burn (Terra Queimada)
> > the soil had a strong scent of pyroligneous acid
> > (Terra Cheirosa) which is stimulating soil micro-
> > organisms
> >
> > unquote
> >
> > Yet this is present day - how can you presume to know the motive of
> > people who are long gone other that what their heirs are doing today?
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear Nikolaus,
> >
> > Once again, you give them all, and this is the only response!!!
> >
> > Boys and Girls, when someone of higher leaning speaks, "listen" and
> > "learn" and don't just comment because you want to add without substance!
> >
> > Nikolaus in your own words during our correspondents, "Terra Preta was
> > formed as a waste management practice, not a soil management practice" So
> > any who claim different, then find fund and send students to South America
> > and prove this otherwise!
> >
> > Biochar is a start, biochar enhancement is a next step but agri
> > engineering is the real solution!!!
> >
> > Rob.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
> --
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