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Witness History

Photographing Brazil's Yanomami

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 September 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1971 photographer Claudia Andujar began documenting the lives of a remote indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Claudia went on to take thousands of unique images of Yanomami men, women and children. Her photographs helped the campaign for recognition of the Yanomami's rights over their own land. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from Claudia, now in her 90s, about how she was received by the indigenous group when she first arrived in the Amazon, and how she won them over with her smile, and her camera.

Photo:Antônio Korihana thëri, a young man under the effect of the hallucinogenic powder yãkoana, Catrimani, 1972-1976. © Claudia Andujar

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:24.9

searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.

0:30.9

Hello. Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service,

0:38.6

first-hand accounts of events that have shaped our world.

0:41.6

I'm Mike Lanchin. Today we're going back to the

0:44.4

1970s when a young Hungarian Swiss photographer began documenting the lives of

0:49.9

a remote indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. The pictures taken by

0:55.5

photographer Claudia and Dujar would go on to help secure recognition for the

1:00.7

Janu-umami people.

1:10.0

For tens of thousands of years the Janamami have lived a simple life,

1:14.0

surviving on what they could hunt or pick from the trees. And they don't harm the rainforest.

1:17.0

They believe that if they did, the Amazon and its animals would take their revenge.

1:22.0

Can you remember what your first impression of them was?

1:28.0

I liked them. They were open. They were interested to know me just as I was interested in knowing them.

1:39.4

That's photographer Claudia and Duchar. She's now in her 90s and lives in Sao Paulo,

1:45.2

surrounded by the images that she captured of the Yannumami people

...

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