Use of wood by indigenous peoples of the Eastern Amazon, Brazil

Abstract

The Brazilian Amazon has the world’s largest concentration of indigenous American peoples, but many environmental threats have affected the preservation of this enormous human ethnocultural heritage. This study identified the species and studied the different uses of wood by two indigenous ethnic groups in Southeastern Pará, Brazil, namely the “Gavião” and “Suruí”. Ten taxa were identified, distributed in eight botanical families, with five being identified to genus and five to species levels. The wood of Bertholletia excelsa, an endangered forest species in Brazil, is important in the material culture of the Suruí indigenous people. The indigenous ethnic groups studied preferentially use medium density wood for building and high-density wood for hunting and warfare artefacts. The technological properties of wood justify its use by the indigenous peoples studied. We caution that the increasing environmental threats in Indigenous Lands within the Brazilian Amazon harm the preservation of the ethnocultural heritage of indigenous peoples.