Ingenious tribal innovations

For many tribal peoples, immersion in nature over thousands of years has made them aware of the subtle cues of the natural world. The Moken tribe, which lives on the Andaman Sea have developed the unique ability to focus under water, in order to dive for food on the sea floor. Their eyesight is 50 percent more acute than that of Europeans.

The Moken's oral history is rich in knowledge of the sea, winds and lunar cycles. One legend tells of the la-boon, or 'the wave that eats people'. When the waves receded prior to the Asian tsunami of 2004, the elders of a Moken village in Thailand recognized the signs and led their community and tourists safely to higher ground.

Sophisticated hunting, tracking, husbandry and navigation techniques have been developed by tribal peoples in response to the challenges of their environments. In the rainforests of Borneo, Penan men hunt wild boar with blowpipes made from hardwood and darts laced with tajem, a poison extracted from the milky latex of a tree. The poison interferes with the functioning of the animal's heart.

Until the 1960s all Penan people lived as nomads, communicating while on the move in the rainforest through a complex signal system of stick and leaf symbols they call oroo. Oroo relayed such messages as 'the person who passed here was hungry'. Penan ancestral lands have been bulldozed, burned and cleared for large-scale logging, oil-palm plantations, gas pipelines and hydroelectric dams.

Many tribal peoples have an encyclopedic knowledge of the animals, plants and herbs native to their homelands. The Yali people of West Papua excel as ecologists and recognize at least 49 varieties of the sweet potato and 13 varieties of bananas. South American’s Yanomami use around 500 species of plants on a daily basis.

Over time, tribal peoples have developed complex, holistic health systems. The bark of the copal tree is applied to eye infections, crushed aromatic leaves are inhaled to alleviate colds and nausea. Many drugs used in western medicine today originate with tribal peoples, like curare, a muscle relaxant. Yanomami hunters are using it as poison on the tips of arrows to paralyze prey.

Members of the Wichi tribe of Argentina catch fish by detecting minute ripples on the surface of rivers. Survival International, which works to promote the rights of tribal peoples, says the development of such skills ensures that when living on their lands, employing the techniques they have honed over generations, tribal peoples are typically healthy, self-sufficient and happy.

The weapons used by the Hazda tribe in Tanzania are inspired by their surroundings. The bowstrings are made from animal ligaments; the arrows meticulously crafted from kongoroko wood and fletched with guineafowl feathers. The sap of the desert rose shrub is used to coat the arrow tips in poison.

The Hadza have developed a mutually helpful relationship with the honeyguide bird, which leads them to wild bees' hives. The bird calls to the hunters, who whistle back to it. It flits from tree to tree, stopping to wait for hunters to catch up, eventually leading them to a hive. The hunters climb the tree with burning grass to smoke out the bees. The bird is rewarded with the honeycomb leftovers.

Most tribal peoples are sensitively attuned to animal behavior. Pygmy men are such proficient mimics they can imitate the sound of a distressed antelope in order to lure another out of the bush. Similarly, Siberian hunters are able to mimic the cry of a reindeer calf looking for its mother or the bark of a rutting male.

Reindeer meat is the most important part of the diet of the Nenet tribe, from Siberia. It is eaten raw, frozen or boiled, together with the blood of a freshly slaughtered reindeer, which is rich in vitamins. The fat content of reindeer milk is 22 percent; six times as much as that of a cow.

Awa women in Brazil care for different species of orphaned baby monkeys by suckling them. The women also extract the resin of the Brazilian redwood tree to light houses at night. Today, their forests are being illegally logged and the Awa have become the Earth's most threatened tribe; they live under the threat of extinction due to violent attacks and the theft of their land.

The Awa leave little sign of having passed through the forest other than disturbed liana leaves and marks on tree trunks. The Yanomami’s fish poison breaks down rapidly in the water, leaving no pollution. For many tribal peoples, to take more than is needed or to degrade the earth is not only self-defeating, but a neglect of their unborn children. (all photos by Survival International)