Into the Amazon

Materials and manufacture in the Amazon Basin

  
       
       
 

Materials, Construction and Conservation

People living in the Amazon Basin have always used local natural resources to make things with. They mainly use materials from plants and animals. They also use local minerals or materials acquired from trade. Materials usually need to be processed before they can be used to make things with. What is used to make what?

Natural Resources   Used for
Trees, vines, bamboos and other canes Basket baskets and weapons
Barks Barkcloth Belt poisons such as curare, strips for bindings and basketry, barkcloth
Tree resins Resin Crop sometimes combined with beeswax or pigments for making and decorating artefacts
Seeds Seed Necklace necklaces and arrow points
Gourds   containers
Feathers (very colourful) Feather used in clothing, jewellery, weapons and domestic items
Beaks, bones, jaws, teeth, porcupine quill and hides of animals Porcupine tools such as scrapers and arrow points
Colourful beetle wings described as ‘mother of the sun’   used in spectacular costumes
Iron (obtained through trade) Metal Spear harpoon and arrow points
Glass beads (obtained through trade)   adornments such as the woven aprons

Dead BirdLooking after things

Some of the objects in this exhibition are over 100 years old. Many were very dirty with soot from years ago. Feathers had been attacked by clothes moth and carpet beetle. Changes in heat and dampness had caused plant based materials (wood, cane, bindings and resins) to become brittle, split and flake. Conservators used carefully tested materials and techniques to clean and repair the damaged artefacts for display.

Paxiúba palm trunk at the Museu Paraense Emilío Goeldi, Belém. This wood is used for the hardwood points and foreshafts of spears and arrows. It is also used to make the outer tube of one type of blowpipe, see E971 in the Weapons display. Photo: Morwena Stephens, October 2002.

Paxiúba palm trunk at the Museu Paraense Emilío Goeldi, Belém. This wood is used for the hardwood points and foreshafts of spears and arrows. It is also used to make the outer tube of one type of blowpipe, see E971 in the Weapons display. Photo: Morwena Stephens, October 2002.
 
       
     
 

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