The Waiwai of Guyana, an Indian people who live in the rainforest, convert forest products into festive ornaments. The tall orange-red feather is from a macaw tail. The red and yellow feathers that encircle the headband are from toucans. The Waiwai decorate themselves and their implements with red paint derived from seeds of the achiote plant. South American Cultures Hall, National Museum of Natural History.

All books are adult level, unless otherwise indicated.
 

Aspelin, Paul L., & Silvio Coelho dos Santos, Indian Areas Threatened by Hydroelectric Projects in Brazil. IWGIA Document 44, Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), 1981.

Braun, Barbara, editor. Arts of the Amazon. London & New York: Thames & Hudson, 1995. Text by Peter G. Roe. Well illustrated.

Brown, Michael F. Tsewa's Gift: Magic & Meaning in an Amazon Society. A volume in the Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986. A study of the Aguaruna Jivero of Peru.

Chagnon, Napoleon A. Yanomamo: The Fierce People. A volume in the series Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968.

Chernela, Janet Marion. The Wanano Indians of the Brazilian Amazon: A Sense of Space. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.

Clay, Jason W. Indigenous Peoples & Tropical Forests: Models of Land Use & Management from Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, 1988. Cultural Survival Report 27.

Crocker, Jon Christopher. Vital Souls: Bororo Cosmology, Natural Symbolism, & Shamanism. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1985. Foreword by David Maybury-Lewis.

Davidson, Judith. Jivaro: Expressions of Cultural Survival. San Diego, CA: San Diego Museum of Man, 1985. Essay by Judith Davidson; photographs by Judith Davidson and Ken Hedges.

Dwyer, Jane Powell, editor. The Cashinahua of Eastern Peru. Volume One. Studies in Anthropology & Material Culture. Providence, RI: The Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, 1975. Well illustrated.

Flora (Flora Castaño Ferreira). Feathers Like a Rainbow: An Amazon Indian Tale. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. For young children.

Gregor, Thomas. Mehinaku: The Drama of Life in a Brazilian Indian Village. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Harner, Michael J. The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972, 1984.

Hemming, John. Amazon Frontier: The Defeat of the Brazilian Indians. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Hopper, Janice H., editor. Indians of Brazil in the 20th Century. Washington, DC: Institute for Cross-Cultural Research (ICR), 1967. ICR Studies 2.

Knapp, Brian. What Do We Know About Rainforests?. New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1992. For young children.

Langdon, E. Jean Matteson, & Gerhard Baer, editors. Portals of Power: Shamanism in South America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992.

Lewin, Ted. Amazon Boy. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993. For young children.

Lewington, Anna. What Do We Know About the Amazonian Indians?. New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1993. For young children.

Meggers, Betty Jane. Amazonia: Man & Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.

Merrifield, William R., editor. Five Amazonian Studies: On World View & Culture Change. Dallas: International Museum of Cultures, 1985.

Nicola, Norberro, & Sonia Ferraro Dorta. Arte plumária do indígena brasileiro / Brazilian Indian Featherart. São Bernardo do Campo, Brasil: Mercedes-Benz do Brasil S.A., 1986. Well illustrated. In English and Portuguese.

Pellizzaro, Siro M. La Celebracion de Uwi. Quito, Guayaquil: Museos del Banco Central del Ecuador, 1978. About the Shuar or Jivaro. En espanol.

Place, Susan E., editor. Tropical Rainforests: Latin American Nature & Society in Transition. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1993.

Plotkin, Mark J. Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest. New York: Viking, 1993.

Price, David. Before the Bulldozer: The Nambiquara Indians & the World Bank. Cabin John, MD & Washington, DC.: Seven Locks Press, 1989. A study of the effects of the controversial Polonoroste highway project in western Brazil.

Ramos, Alcida Rita. Sanuma Memories: Yanomami Ethnography in Times of Crisis. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1995.

Ricciardi, Mirella. Vanishing Amazon. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991. Introduction by Marcus Colchester. Focuses on the Kampa, Marubo, and Yanomami peoples.

Roe, Peter G. The Cosmic Zygote: Cosmology in the Amazon Basin. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1982.

Roosevelt, Anna, editor. Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present: Anthropological Perspectives. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.

Rubenstein, Steven. Alejandro Tsakimp: A Shuar Healer in the Margins of History. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

Schreider, Helen, & Frank Schreider. Exploring the Amazon. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1970.

Schultes, Richard Evans. Where the Gods Reign: Plants & Peoples of the Columbian Amazon. Oracle, AZ: Synergetic Press, 1988.

Sponsel, Leslie E., editor, Indigenous Peoples & the Future of Amazonia: An Ecological Anthropology of an Endangered World. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995.

Troughton, Joanna. How Night Came: A Folk Tale from the Amazon. New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1986. For young children.

Verswijver, Gustaaf, editor. Kaiapó: Amazonia: The Art of Body Decoration. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa; Gent: Snoeck Ducaju & Zoon, 1992.

Rainforests Resource Pack, 1986, Living Earth, 10 Upper Grosvenor Street, London W1X 9PA, England. A boxed resource kit for middle school and up.

Prepared by the National Museum of the American Indian,
in cooperation with the Public Inquiry Mail Service,
Smithsonian Institution.

1/2005

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