Last Tribes of El Dorado: The Gold Wars in the Amazon Rain Forest by Patrick Tierney

Publishers Weekly

The province of Roraima in northern Brazil has the highest number of native Indians (Yanomono) and one of the richest gold deposits in South America, mostly on Indian lands. Since 1980, illegal gold camps with nearly a million nomadic miners have sprung up throughout the Amazonian jungle highlands, spreading into Venezuela and Guyana. This largest gold rush in history involves miners, Indians and the Brazilian government. Posing as a miner, Tierney (The Highest Altar) spent almost a year in gold-rush country among miners and isolated villages of the Yanomono. Miners (garempeiros) work in small groups in the most remote places, supplied by light planes. Danger, disease and death are rampant; one of the most profitable services in the gold camps is murder, 30 grams of gold being the standard fee for a killing. Tierney views the garempeiros as one of the last tribes of El Dorado with their own mythology, ritual combats and closed circle of bloodletting. His vivid portrait of this gold rush makes North American rushes seem like Sunday School picnics. Illustrations. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Tierney, an anthropological journalist, provides an inside look at the largest gold rush in the history of the world, currently taking place in the Amazonian jungle highlands. He describes in graphic detail the plunder of the land, the uprooting of social systems, and the failure of the economy. He also shows the complexity of the situation, discussing roles played by the Yanamomo Indians, the miners (garimpeiros), the missionaries, the federal police (FUNI), and the military. Writes Tierney, "the culture of freelance strip mining-garimpo-has its own belief system, combining elements of social banditry, animism, and apocalyptic Christianity wedded to feudal loyalties and unfettered capitalism. He predicts that the garimpeiros will exterminate the Yanamomo "by turning them into rootless garimpeiros suffering from chronic malaria and malnutrition." Recommended for most general collections.-Mary J. Nickum, Germantown, Md.

BookList

A gold rush is occurring in the Amazon jungle, one that will ultimately prove to be the largest such rush in world history. The concomitant damage done to the rain forest and the native inhabitants is inestimable. Anthropological writer Patrick Tierney, disguised as a miner, was able to spend time with the "garimpeiros" (gold miners) and the Yanomamo Indians (who are engaged in a running conflict with the miners over land.) The result is a stunning account of Tierney's travels, including tales of his own culture shock, of his bouts with malaria, of being robbed at gunpoint and expelled by the police, of his awe of the fearsome beauty of the jungle, and of his frustration at the ineptness of governmental bureacracies. Many of the miners took to gold mining in order to escape the oppression and poverty of urban life. However, the life of the "garimpeiros" is filled with danger, disease, and death. They face harassment from the police, attack by angry Indians or drunken miners, and constant threat of malaria (which runs rampant throughout most of the miner camps). Additionally, the "garimpeiros" have spread their diseases to the Indian population, destroyed native Indian culture, and damaged the fragile rain forest ecosystem. Tierney's book is a fascinating offering of an insider's perspective on a dangerous, clandestine world.

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