Transcript:Filmstrip/The Green Light Expedition Part 1
[Music]
That dark green area at the top of South America is Venezuela.
It was there the first stage of the green light expedition took place.
Here are the members of the green light expedition leaving Caracas the capital of Venezuela to fly to Puerto Ayacucho.
From the left, David Walker from the United States, Mr. Massoud Ramsey, Pioneer to Peru and Counselor for South America,
Anthony Warley from Brazil, Dr. Nostrat Rabani, Pioneer to the Dutch Antilles and our Medical Advisor,
myself, Rodney Charters from New Zealand, and Mark Sedan from the United States.
The Baha'is Metis at the airport, the man shaking hands with me, is the first Guajibo Indian believer who accepted the faith over 10 years ago.
This is Dr. Anne Duze, the Governor of the State of the Amazonas,
whom I met on my previous visit to Puerto Ayacucho in 1968.
He is a famous authority on the Amazonian Indian tribes.
He received us cordially and gave us good advice about our trip.
We met with the Smart Baha'i community of Puerto Ayacucho, all of them Indian believers.
On my right is Leco Zamora, a pioneer to Venezuela from Argentina.
He is a Mapucci Indian and accompanied us throughout the first stage of the green light expedition.
On my left is his wife Ramona, a Venezuelan Indian of the famous Carib people.
A marriage between two such widely different tribes is very unusual, but exemplifies the complete lack of prejudice among Baha'is.
We visited the Baha'is in a nearby settlement. This is typical of village meetings.
They were very interested in the teachings regarding the development of man on this earth and his soul after death.
Finally, we got ourselves and our baggage into this truck and set off on the hour and a half drive to Venado,
catching our first glimpse of the beautiful jungle.
The port of Venado is nothing more than a giant rock in the Orinoco River.
From here one leaves for the vast jungles and river system of the Amazon area of Venezuela.
We saw our boat for the first time, an open barge with a tin roof.
We all got busy transporting our things from the truck to our new home.
Here are the members of our crew, Claudio the Motorman on the left.
Our extremely capable captain who knew the rivers like the inside of his pocket in the center and Milicio the boatman on the right.
The two boys are pure Indian from two different tribes. The captain is part Indian.
This map shows our route. Leaving the port of Venado, we went up the Orinoco River to San Fernando.
This part of the river is the frontier between Colombia and Venezuela.
We then continued up the Orinoco as far as Santa Barbara, where we turned off into the Ventuari River and headed northeast,
making side trips up smaller tributary rivers. Going to the town of San Juan de Manipieri and finally reaching Tenco Falls on the upper Ventuari River.
Our barge had no motor but was pushed by the outboard motors of two dugout canoes attached to her sides.
The one with a thatch roof was the captain's quarters where he slept in eight.
Little white enclosure at the back of the boat was our bathroom.
Ten of us lived and slept in this boat thirty-two nights. We became so fond of her we called her the Queen Mayor.
Our first act was to get our kitchen organized and unpack our things. Gradually we established a way of life new to all of us.
Some of us cooked. Some of us were enlisted for kitchen duty. Some of us wrote in our diaries. We were always busy.
The counselor is cutting up hard of calm to make us a fresh salad. One whole tree is sacrificed to make this delicious luxury.
The young men were very good about washing the dishes. There is Tony taking his turn. It was a tricky business because so easily one could drop something in the river and there would be nothing to take its place.
My hammock was slung in the prowl with my white mosquito net hanging over it. The red hammock was my storage place. I slept over six oil drums.
Our days began to form a pattern. We would land by the shore and walk up to the village.
As we were still near Puerto Ayacucho, there were many villages with Baha'i communities where we would hold an informal meeting, such as this one in the local schoolhouse.
Mr. Hamsey would translate into Spanish, my talk in English, and then a local person would translate from Spanish into the Indian tribal language.
In this meeting, the translator was a mother with a very good little girl sitting on her lap.
After the meeting, we had a group picture taken.
This woman, an expert potter in the great Indian tradition, has been of a high over ten years, with all her family active in the teaching work.
Her daughter-in-law and grandchild make three generations of Baha'is in one home.
Behind the old woman stands her son, who often goes on teaching trips. The other people are Baha'is who also live on Buenos Aires Island, all belong to the Guajibo tribe.
Further up the Orinoco we went, the more beautiful the scenery became.
The trees lying on the top of these giant boulders show how high the river rises in the rainy season.
Many of these villagers were also Baha'is. All of the believers we met everywhere welcomed us most warmly.
Unfortunately, they almost never had visits from other Baha'is.
We returned to our boat and went on up the river. The further we got from the town, the simpler was the way of life of the Indians.
There were a few Baha'is in this small community. This hut in which we met them is typical of the Indian way of life.
Although compared to the city, it seems a very poor way of living. It produces human beings who are sound physically, mentally and above all spiritually.
People with wonderful characters and deep family ties.
We always enjoyed having a group photograph and so did the Indian friends.
Many of them who could read Spanish were eager to receive pamphlets, telling them more about the Baha'i faith.
This is an outdoor meeting of the usual kind, people sitting on the ground or on mats.
We had our picture taken with them too. Before we left they gave us a gift, a strange fruit.
These were long pods with beans inside and it is the sweet wrapping around these beans that we are eating on our way back to our boat.
As usual, the people escorted us down to the river and saw us off in a most friendly way.
We never met an Indian in the interior who was not both polite and friendly.
Sunset was always a time of glory and peacefulness.
On all river journeys, the people pull up to the shore at sunset as the rivers are two treacherous, two full of sand bars and swift currents to navigate at night.
When the insects were bad, we got into our mosquito nets at sunset, but often there were none.
So we ate by lamplight and discussed our plans.
Sometimes, as on this occasion, we held a meeting in a village at night.
Here Mark is playing his flute and an Indian his pipes, seeing if they can make a duet of it.
The universal instrument of the Indians of South America is the flute of pipes which they play with great skill.
I strongly recommend that any pioneer or travelling teacher, with any musical ability, learn to play a flute of some kind as it is a key that unlocks a real response among the Indians.
A string instrument, in addition to being difficult to carry, will not have the same effect at all.
We sometimes shared tea and sugar with the villagers, getting them to provide a big pot of boiling water and all enjoying a drink together.
As long as the water had really boiled, it was safe for us to drink it too.
Getting out of our hammocks at dawn was a series of upheavals.
Hammocks are very comfortable to sleep in once one has learned how to do it, but it takes quite a lot of practice and time.
Every morning we roll them up and hung them on the side of the boat so we could have room to move about.
Our breakfast dishes are being washed and the crew members who had slept on the sand bar are getting up.
Claudio shot a stingray with a marrow and brought it ashore.
If it succeeds in stinging you with that little spine on its tail, you can be very sick.
That is why people watch carefully where they step in these rivers.
Although not particularly good eating, stingray can be eaten.
We ate this one, as I do not believe in killing animals for nothing.
We also ate this beautiful fish, which was delicious.
And this large handsome catfish.
In some parts of the river fish are plentiful, and Leko, Rodney and Claudio the moment we stopped when fishing.
Sometimes so did I.
Occasionally we cooked on the shore, the way our crew did every night and morning.
There was always driftwood for the fire.
I like to sweep the deck of our ship with this handsome native broom.
That is a heap of the jungle fiber used to make these brooms.
It is packed in bales ready to be picked up by boat and taken to the city.
The Queen Mary is more down on the left. On the opposite side of the river is the town of San Fernando.
We are on the Colombian side of the river, and that building floating on the water is a large general store.
There are a few shops along the river, and no one seems to mind on which side of the river one goes shopping.
Our captain bought a lot of goods for his wife and children here, as he said it was cheaper than Venezuela.
I followed his example.
There is a public square and the local church of San Fernando.
It is here travelers must register with the Guardian Asianal, a routine procedure which helps them keep track of people who go into the interior in case they get lost.
We had to check in on our way back too.
We also had our last cold drink here for 500 km.
We went on up the Orinoco to Santa Barbara, a malaria control post and also a center for the administration of Indian affairs.
To our great surprise we found horses coming down to the river to drink.
The whole character of the jungle is changing, and cattle farming is starting in many parts of this area.
Nearby we found the village entirely composed of the highs.
We had moved upriver from the Porta Ayacucho district to take up government grants of land for farming.
Our captain or chief, a fine bahai of many years standing, told us they had set aside a piece of orlan for their bahai center and asked us to go and see it.
We and the entire village followed him to the site, a nice large piece of ground.
We were impressed by the devotion of this small group of bahai families who had not seen any other the highs for a number of years, and we held a meeting with them, promising to return and visit them again on our way back down the river.
These people are Guajibos, and some of them had accepted the teachings of the Haulah more than ten years ago.
Dr. Nostrat treated the chief's little boy on our boat for a minor complaint.
Like all jungle children, he made no fuss and was not afraid.
The days were full of fascinating events, and the nights full of the music of the jungle.
Every morning members of the crew made a fire and cooked a meal. They rarely ate in the middle of the day, but would content themselves with a handful of dry cassava meal washed down with a little river water.
Their simple diet seems to keep them healthy, strong and intelligent.
In the tropical heat, no food can be kept long, so whenever we caught a fish we had to eat it quickly.
Here I am frying some for breakfast. I am wearing a net hat to keep the black flies from biting my face.
We very seldom used these hats, but this morning the flies were bad.
We had left the Orinoco River and were now on the Ventuari, a smaller river with rapids such as these.
There were also many hidden sand banks, and we often got stuck like this. The men would jump in to push us off.
This time we could not get off, and the temptation to get in and push was too much for me.
I jumped in to and added my efforts. I am good at pushing.
One of the drawers of our trip were the wonderful reflections in the water.
As we went up the Ventuari, these twin mountains were visible for days.
We found this old trading post, La Carmelita, entirely isolated in the wilderness, a fascinating place.
Almost everything could be bought here, including that lawn mower on the right.
This young man is the third generation of his family to run this trading post.
He is a Spanish background and was extremely courteous and friendly.
La Carmelita sold fuel for the many outboard motors passing up and down the river.
All over the jungle rivers of South America, one sees piles of oil drums such as these.
The further away from civilization, the Queen Mary went. The better we liked it.
The people adore children, and every woman seems to have a baby in her arms,
and each baby seems more adorable than the last one.
The Indians are a fine-looking race, and we found the village children bursting with health.
This little fellow is riding in a homemade carriage.
He sits in the natural sheath from a particular kind of palm tree,
which is widely used as a dish and for many other purposes.
The children were shy, but unafraid, and never seemed to cry.
The staple food of the jungle people of South America is Yuka, known to us as Maniok or Casaba.
The poisonous juice of the root is extracted by grating it, as this woman is doing.
It is then put into a woven tube shown here on the right,
and stretched until all the bitter juice is squeezed out by this simple but highly effective method.
The women then sift the Yuka through strainers to produce a coarse meal.
This is then roasted over an open fire, as this woman is doing here, until it is dried and cooked.
It can be made into cakes such as these, dried in the sun, which keep for some time
and are the regular food of the people, or eaten loose as meal.
One gets used to it, and I found it quite edible.
When sunset was near, we moored our boat in spots such as this, the boys went fishing at once.
Others took advantage of the opportunity to take a bath.
They had to be careful where they went in, because of the dangerous piranha fish which eat anything.
The ladies bathed in the little bathroom on the boat, but the only convenient place to wash one's hair was in the river.
One gets used to everything, and not everything was difficult.
Who can line bed like Rodney here and reach for a banana hanging from the roof?
When it was convenient to make a fire at night we did.
Here I am roasting potatoes, rather burned in the end, which we had brought from Caracas.
Our captain was the expert in everything.
He got his evening fire going in a few minutes.
The days were hot, but the night is very cold.
We began to meet very interesting tribespeople like this old mother and daughter who are Curie Tacos.
Only a small number of them are left in Venezuela.
They were very friendly and glad to receive a Baha'i pamphlet, where someone else would be able to read for them.
Another small tribe are the Macos.
A new home was being built beside the river by the typical Indian method.
Over a frame of branches, pan fronds, after being prepared, are carefully attached.
This man is the chief or captain of this group.
Note not only the twigs in his ears, but the small plug in his chin.
Since tribal water has been abolished, many Indians are coming out of the deep jungle to settle by the rivers.
The people were living in temporary huts.
Note the mosquito net, which is often used to protect the people, especially babies, from the blackflies when they are in season, which fortunately is not all the year.
The hammock the man is sitting in is homemade, but the people use many pots and pans from the city.
Note the parrot.
Nowhere in the world have I seen wild animals tamed and made pets of as the Indians do.
This little boy found the visit of the green light expedition as fascinating as we found him.
We set out to visit another Maco village inside the jungle.
The trail is a typical path in constant use by the Indians.
People like us are afraid of the jungle and afraid of animals.
We saw this lovely green snake and stopped to examine.
Wild creatures seldom attack men, but you must, like all jungle people, put your mind on what you are doing and watch where you go.
The reflection in the water was often so perfect, one could not tell which was the original and which the mirror image.
If you look carefully below the river bank, you will see the eye and head of this beautiful golden colored alligator.
Such bridges are the usual way of crossing a stream.
Most of us had not done any balancing of this kind since our childhood.
A more substantial bridge, which looks deceptively easier, was in fact much more dangerous,
because the hand roller was too light to support any weight, and the drop into the river was almost 6 meters.
These are typical huts in a clearing in the interior, far far from the pollution and moral corruption our civilization brings into the jungle and to its people.
In the Venturi area, we find many huts of this star, where the such roof covers the entire building.
They are shady and cool in the daytime, keep the heavy rains out, and are warm at night.
Here, as everywhere, the housewife roasts her yuka meal over a fire to feed her family.
This Indian is the captain of the small village. He has a beautiful face. These local chiefs seem invariably to be fine men.
And this head captain of the Mako people, a tribe of about 150 living in Venezuela, was also a fine man.
We were told they have not accepted Christianity. He gathered the entire village to hear about the faith.
Leko is explaining some of the teachings to them. The fact that he himself is an Indian,
and that we were foreigners, all evidently close friends, made a great impression wherever we went.
No audience was ever without babies at their mother's breasts and lots of children.
Because the tributary rivers are shallow, our large boat could not go up there, so we rented this big dug arp canoe.
Install the extra outboard motor we have brought with us, and we are free to travel anywhere.
After going in search of a new village, we upward is up this street.
We looked back at our Queen Mary, moored on the shore of the Venturi river.
Jungle such as this is almost impenetrable on foot. One would have to clear a path with machete's every step of the way.
The rivers are full of sand bars and sand banks such as this. We stop to look for turtle eggs.
It was a season when they crawled out of the rivers to lay their eggs. Our captain helped us find almost 30 in warm sand.
I collected them in my Chinese hat, and that night made a delicious omelet of turtle eggs and a can of deviled ham.
We went up the Marietta river as far as the falls and the large Pierroa village of Chábacía.
Most of the villages came down to welcome us with great interest.
The Pierroas are a large tribe, widely dispersed and very capable and progressive.
In some places there are petriplets, such as these pictures on the rocks.
No one knows who made them or when. They are traces of some previous culture.
After, as you know, there was a great attraction in that the Marietta river was found, a flute played in answer.
This one was made from a bone and produced a soft and pleasing music.
A family face of this old man, very beautiful. Unlike the new generation, he still is steeped in the traditions and culture of his people,
and murder out dreams to see it all being lost.
Macarse, in spite of their ferocious beaks, are very often tamed by the Indians who bring young ones up in their huts.
They become as tame and playfulness kittens, love to be fondled and never seem to bite hard.
This one would come when his mistress called him and begged to be picked up.
Here is my little green parachiquito I brought from an Indian.
She traveled with us everywhere and I still have her.
This was another Indian pet, a pygmy ant eater. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to rear them in captivity.
Here is our little piquiri, the pet of the expedition. We brought her from the Indians too, and she was very tame and exceedingly spoiled.
This PLO chief, we had already visited in his village. He is a very fine man of exceptional capacity.
When we met him again with a group of his people traveling up the river, we invited them all to come aboard and have coffee with us.
He told us about ten years ago some Baha'is had visited the Indians and eaten with them and spent the night.
This example of unprecedented human brotherhood and deeply impressed him. He was now eager to hear more about the faith.
Growing up another river, the Manipieri, we passed this party of mining perspectives deep in the Virgin Jungle.
This is San Juan de Manipieri, a growing town deep in the interior, now connected with civilization by a road,
and a center from which this whole area is being opened up to agriculture, mining and the general exploitation of civilization.
The town's garbage pours down the riverbank.
The hideous debris of our modern way of life lies everywhere, even in the residential area near the town square.
The town square itself was well kept and typical of all town squares everywhere in South America, with its neat park, church and surrounding buildings.
The compound of government administration offices on a hill outside of the town was, in contrast to the town, clean and well designed.
We had a pleasant conversation with a Catholic priest who, like so many missionaries we met in South America, is Spain.
Not about 24 hours. We also met these two Americans of another denomination.
The one in white shirt has for 20 years been a new tribe's missionary in these jungles.
They create a written form of the Indian's native language and then translate the New Testament into it and teach them Christianity.
To give a man his own language in writing is a wonderful service.
The green light expedition decided to walk inland to reach an island called Monotiti in the Upper Venturari River, which at this point is cut off by a large waterfall.
The young men took all her heavy equipment for filming and sound recording.
In the steaming heat of the jungle, just to protect us from insects, it was an exhausting all-day expression.
We walked about 30 kilometers, the longest walk of my life.
If you know which jungle Yana to cut, which our guide did, you can have a cool drink of sweet tasting water which dips out from the wood.
The old couple standing behind me most kindly let us use their canoe to reach the island.
This man met us on the outskirts of his village. He was delighted to see us and most enthusiastic hand-shaking took place.
Notice the plug of tobacco leaves he is sucking on his mouth, a very common habit among this tribe.
They belong to one of the largest and most primitive groups of Indians in Venezuela, the Yanu Mamos.
All this small settlement was already affected by its proximity to civilization.
The people were the nearest to the old untouched way of jungle life we met on our trip.
Note the woman holding a spindle of white raw cotton which she is spinning herself.
Our interest in each other was mutual. She found my long light-colored hair fascinating and wanted to touch it.
We were amazed at the size of the tobacco plug this woman on the left has in her mouth.
It is placed between the lower teeth and the lip and sucked all day.
A universal custom in this tribe would grow their own tobacco.
Note the painted face of the mother on the right and the typical old Indian way of cutting the hair.
The women grow and spin the cotton to make thread for their beautiful cool hammocks such as the one this woman is weaving.
The woman on the right is lying in another handmade hammock of jungle fiber.
The crowding in this hut is typical of this tribe's way of living.
Two people of more or less the same age group having a little rest.
He was a nice friendly man and consented to sing a song for us in his own language so we could record it.
The woman on the left is the mother of the young man in a white shirt.
He has some education and is already influenced by western culture but she came from the deep jungle.
The older people have a most endearing sweetness and nobility but the shadow of her generation's unrest is already on the younger people.
We were able to hire this boat to take us down river a shorter route than the way we had come on foot.
There were rapids and it was a turbulent trip.
David energetically baled water out.
We still had to walk a long way to reach the famous tank for waterfalls but they were so beautiful it was well worthwhile.
We climbed out to the very edge and listened to their thunder.
That way down the bench of worry is our pathway back to civilization in our own world.
Baha'u'llah said the city is the home of the body but the country is the home of the soul.
The Indians still live in the home of the soul.
The Indians still live in the home of the whole world.
