Men of the Montaña

Harry Tschopik, curator of ethnology at the AMNH, is interviewed for this program, which examines the cultural characteristics of a small Indian tribe living near the Amazon River in the Montana region of Peru and Ecuador. Tschopik recently returned from a perilous ten-month expedition (the AMNH Tschopik Expedition to Peru) in the Montana area, where he studied and recorded the cultures of the Shipibos, Conibos and Campas tribes before they encountered Western culture (recent discoveries of oil in that region had brought concern for the survival of the Indian cultures). Artifacts are presented in addition to a film which depicts religious, social, and political ceremonies in an Indian village. Tschopik narrates over the silent film for this broadcast of Adventure. The film covers hunting and daily life, and also concentrates on a girl's initiation feast during which a duel sparked by jealousy breaks out between two men and one woman, which ends in the slashing of one man's neck.