From hammocks to health.

• Author: Simpkins, Mary Ann
• Position: Rupununi Weavers Society

A weaver's society of Amerindian women in Guyana is preserving a traditional craft, and spinning a network of programs in farming, nutrition, and sanitation

Hanging in London's British Museum is a hammock described as "the finest example of Amerindian craft produced in this century." An intricate, meticulously crafted weave with elaborate side fringes, the hammock is unique because of its width; it could hardly be crafted on a standard loom. Produced just in the last few years by native weavers in the Rupununi, the largest of Guyana's ten regions, the hammock has also been the catalyst for widespread improvements within Guyanese society.

Approximately fifteen thousand Amerindians live in small villages scattered throughout the Rupununi savannas. Covering approximately five thousand square miles, this area of grasslands, swamps, and forested mountains borders Brazil and Suriname. The lack of a good road between the Rupununi and Guyana's population centers on the coast, the high cost of air transportation, and the absence of telephone service isolate the region. Even within the area, some villages are completely cut off from others during the five-month rainy season.

Fields of bones testify to the tribal warfare that plagued this region as late as 1910. Intermarriage between members of the three main tribes now occurs, but generally the Wai Wai stick to the most southeast region of the Rupununi, while the north and central regions are home to the Wapishana and Macushi.

Many Amerindians still reside in one-or two-room thatched roof mud huts and exist on hunting, fishing, and subsistence farming. Their small plots of land are usually located in the better soil at the base of the mountains, a walk from their villages of five to fifteen miles.

In the 1980s, as Guyana experienced an economic downturn, life became even harder for these Amerindians, who relied on flown-in supplies, and many began migrating across the Tacutu River to Brazil. Within two hours of Lethem, the largest town in the Rupununi, having a population of two thousand, and the government administration center, are two bustling Brazilian towns, Boa Vista and Bom Fim, which lure Amerindians as young as twelve years old to cross the river for jobs as maids and farmers.

In contrast, international aid workers have been pouring into the Rupununi. Among them was VSO (Voluntary Service Organization) volunteer Matthew Squire, who came from England in 1990 to teach woodworking to young people. But finding only boys participated, he looked around for skills to teach the girls. Hammock weaving was a tradition among the Amerindians, but machine-made hammocks could be brought...