RIVERS CONNECT: FROM THE ATCHAFALAYA TO AMAZONIA

A Creole-Cajun Boucherie in the Prairie to benefit Indigenous Peoples of the Xingu River

A  Creole-Cajun Boucherie will be held on January 21, 2023 in Leonville, Louisiana to benefit Indigenous Peoples of Amazonia. The Boucherie is being organized and hosted by the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo network of Indigenous gardeners and the BioCultural Institute. 

Music by Louis Michot & Corey Ledet, Bruce Sunpie Barnes and Les Cenelles. 

Sunrise to Sunset, January 21, 2023.  Rain or Shine! Rustic camping is available on site January 20th and 21st. 

Rivers Connect is an ongoing project to gather and share stories of people and cultures along the world’s river basins. Origins: Amazonia, a New Orleans based initiative to benefit Indigenous People of the Amazon, sponsored a Rivers Connect delegation to the Amazon, in June 2022.  The delegation was hosted by the Indigenous Juruna (ja-ROON-ah) on their native lands along the Xingu (sheen-GOO) River in the Amazon Basin.  Subsequently, a Rivers Connect delegation shared stories and foods from the Amazon and Mississippi Rivers at Slow Food’s Terra Madre Salone del Gusto in Torino Italy in September 2022.   The delegation included members of the Juruna, the Houma Nation, Dillard University and the University of New Orleans and was featured on RAI, the Italian public television company.  

Origins: Amazonia is organizing a delegation of Juruna, Xipaya (ship-EYE-ya), and Curuaia (koo-too-EYE-ya) to visit the Gulf South Region in the Spring of 2023 to continue the cultural exchange of storytelling, food sharing, music making, social dancing, and solidarity against the global extractive forces that are destroying lands, waters and cultures.  The goal is to raise awareness of the struggles of Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon to explore and create collaborative pathways that connect the Atchafalaya-Mississippi River Basin to the Amazon for the protection of global well-being.  The Creole-Cajun Boucherie is the initial fundraiser to support this effort. 

The Xingu is a 1,300+ mile long clearwater tributary of the Amazon in northeast Brazil that covers ~200,000 square miles and provides ~ 5% of the water to the Amazon, a river basin that holds ~ 20% of all freshwater on Earth. The Xingu Indigenous Park, the first in Brazil, was created in 1961 to protect the native lands and waters of 14 Indigenous tribes whose existence and traditions depend on the Xingu River, which is home to 600+ fish species of which ~200 are endemic.   However, the protections of the park were short-lived as massive deforestation of the Xingu River Basin began in the 1980’s to extract timber and create farmland for commodity grains and livestock. 

The Belo Monte (BELL-o MON-chee) hydroelectric dam, the 3rd largest in the world, was completed across the lower Xingu in 2019.  The dam has reduced the flow of the river to the Amazon by ~80% and diverted water away from the Volta Grande region, which is considered the cradle of Indigenous Peoples of the Xingu.  The Indigenous Juruna, Xipaya and Curuaia, who live in the lower Xingu basin, are now cut-off from the river and way of life that arose symbiotically with the Xingu.   Those who lost their lands to flooding were placed in newly constructed suburban subdivisions that are totally foreign to their traditional ways of living with the river.   Interestingly,  the Belo Monte Dam is presently losing money as the reservoir has yet to fill to projected capacity due to drastic reductions in annual rainfall that is a direct result of 40+ years of clear cutting the Xingu Rainforest. 

The Belo Sun Mining Company, of Toronto Ontario, is now set to develop the largest open gold pit mine in South America in the sacred Grande Volta region.  The proposed Belo Sol Mine is one of approximately 60 proposed open-pit mines in the Amazon.  The repercussions of these mines, if built, would be devastating to the ecological balance and Indigenous cultures in Amazonia, a fragile ecosystem that plays an essential role in all life on Earth.   In addition to being one of the largest sources of freshwater on Earth, with much of it held in the clouds above the basin, the Amazon also provides ~20% of all oxygen on the planet.  

RAIN or SHINE!!!!

Family friendly, kids free! Please leave your pets at home & consider carpooling!

Exact Location will be shared January 19th.

For more info, contact: Gary Granata at [email protected]

Supported by and in collaboration with the School House 4 ReImagining Education, Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange, Neighborhood Story Project, Bvlbancha Collective, Women's Earth & Climate Action Network, the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South, Nouveau Electric Records, the Mississippi River Open School for Kinship and Social Exchange, Atelier de la Nature, Maypop Herb Shop, Granata Woods, Courville Innovative and Cafe Carmo. 

If you are unable to join us at the Boucherie we hope that you might consider donating here.

Art by Mercedes Rodgers Thomin