Introduction: How It All Started
As a bright eyed youth
in the mid-1980s, frolicking around the UC Berkeley campus between Portuguese
classes, I pored through the journals of young tuberculosis
ridden Englishmen and treasure hunting colonialists, who adventured
across the rough seas to the exotic land of Brazil. The aroma of 150 year
old first-edition manuscripts enhanced my experience reading about the
"natives," strange animals, and European influence over this tropical land.
I'd been learning the language and as I read more literature, learned about the music and poetry, and had to pick a thesis topic, I became entwined with these adventurers' lives. As a Californian, I was fascinated by how Brazil's riches, climate, and Indians, attracting Europeans, paralleled with California's gold rush and Indian history attracting adventurers westward..and from the world. For years, I was convinced I'd been a Brazilian in another life. My favorite class at UCB was "Cultural Geographies of Indigenous Peoples," with Bernard Nietschmann whose theme intertwined nicely with my Brazil interest.