These tribes do have occasional and sometimes deadly encounters with other societies around them and their land is indeed threatened by illegal logging and mining operations. Unlike Qui’s tribe in this book, most do not emerge as victors from these encounters. Their personal loss is a tragedy and the destruction of the ethnosphere is an ongoing catastrophe. You can learn more about the challenges that indigenous people around the world are facing and how you can help from Survival International at http://www.survivalinternational.org.
The khipu are real. The Inca created untold numbers of these knotted string bundles and they were used to carry information throughout their empire. However, no one has yet figured out what they mean, and indeed, the Spanish destroyed most of the ones they found when they first conquered South America. The Museum of Natural History in New York City has a wonderful collection of 124 khipu, although only five are on display to the public at this time. It will take a lot more research to crack their code and decipher their mysteries. It will take some vision too.
As for Teddy Roosevelt’s expedition, he did actually navigate the River of Doubt with his son Kermit in 1919, and the expedition nearly cost him his life. As far as anyone knows, he did not stumble onto El Dorado, or any other lost city.
Snack Cakeville is not a real place, but it is based on Fordlandia, which is, unbelievably, a real place—a model American town built in the heart of the Amazon by the carmaker Henry Ford. Like Snack Cakeville, his experiment was a failure, and the town has largely fallen into ruin, reclaimed by the jungle and forgotten by history.
Did that answer your questions?
I hope not.
The act of exploration is an act of continual questioning, and unlike Oliver and Celia, I hope you will be curious to learn more about the people and places we encountered in We Dine with Cannibals. As Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
I hope you will share with us what you see.
Please visit http://www.calexanderlondon.com to share your discoveries, questions, and ideas, or write us an old-fashioned letter at:
C. Alexander London
Explorer, Adventurer, Librarian
Care of: Philomel Books
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014 USA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. ALEXANDER LONDON is an award-winning author of nonfiction for grown-ups, an accomplished skeet shooter, a master scuba diver, and a fully licensed librarian. He has watched television in twenty-three countries and survived an erupting volcano, a hurricane, four civil wars, and a mysterious bite on his little toe in the jungles of Thailand. Currently, C. Alexander London lives in Brooklyn, New York.
www.calexanderlondon.com
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