1. Ceiba or Silk Cotton tree2. Village house
3. Mayan local
4. river inside jungle
Photos are taken by my husband Debrup Chakraborty.
After visiting Bonampak pyramids we visited the Lacandon rain forest where Mayan ,rather Lacandon Mayans still live in their secluded communities. The Lacandons are the descendent of the ancient Mayans. They still rever their old cultures and customs and live as before in their village. They could survive the Spanish because of their living deep inside the forests. Now approximately 700 people can speak Lacandon Mayan which resembles Yucatec Maya. We got the oppertunity to see a Lacandon house,a walk inside the forest where we noticed many undiscovered pyramids lying deep inside the forest ,some waterfalls ,and varried trees and insects and butterflies. We were told Jaguars are also there but not in the part we were visiting. Among many tress in the jungle Ceiba is worth mentioning because of its size. These people has demonstrated the subsistence farming inside the forest area for the preservation and conservation of the tropical forest ecosystem. since they depend on it at various levels like fishing,wood,hunting so its preservation has been key.
Ranjana, I would like you to express an impression. How do you see the things you have seen? How are they compared to your culture?
ReplyDeleteRanjana...nice description..makes me want to ask questions...like 'Why is the Ceiba the silk-cotton tree? Do the people use its leaves/fibre to make fabric?'
ReplyDelete'Are the people friendly to outsiders? For example were you or Debrup able to talk to the guy whose photo appears here through signs or otherwise?
Good to know they are conscious of conservation though..sometimes these ideas are very foreign to locals.
Anyway..carry on!
Hola Marco,
ReplyDeleteI can say that comparison to our part of the world and these old cultures like Lacandon they are very similar. they have respect for surroundings and environment. But in both our world and their world there are huge changes. Things are changing fast. So both are working hard to cope with such change in general. The places we visited in Chiapas are pretty touristic so they are have good roads, good connections which is much worse in India. Indias infrasructure is just not upto but it will catchup I guess.
BAishalidi,
ReplyDeleteYes people are very friendly but one should know Spanish inorder to talk to them but some of them are tourist guides so you can always take tours and get to talk to them.We couldnt talk to the guy in photo though. Conservation can be seen at a lot of places that is good.But forests are vanishing all over the world whatever is remaining is because of local conservation I guess. I am not deep into these matters but local communities at a lot of places work actively for conservation.