RUPUNUNI 2001 - 04

Nappi Balata Artisans

Every once in a while, in your travels, you come across a village, often set just on the outskirts of a city or town, away from the urban sprawl. When you come upon this village, you feel as if you’ve taken a step back in time, the clock stopped, permanently marking time in a dusty by-gone era. There are no modern day conveniences or machinations; no shrieking fax machines, crashing computers, no alarm clocks, no deadlines to meet. People touch you with their genuineness and simplicity. They still smile and wave as you pass them by on the street, and children and dogs run along in the grass, with no concern about being abducted or hit by a speeding car.

One such place is the village of Nappi, 35 km outside the town of Lethem, Rupununi – a town which, mind you, itself takes you away from modern day stresses. You may be wondering why we would make this village our destination, where the bullock cart is as prominent now as it probably was at the turn of the century! We were going to meet with a group of men and women who had turned from the traditional income base of farming to the more creative avenue of making figurines, toys, statues – both life-sized and to scale – using the extracted ‘milk’ or rubber from the balata tree. They call themselves the Nappi Balata Artisans, and are headed by a forty-year, largely self-taught veteran of balata crafting, George Tancredo, an Amerindian artist.

It took us a while longer than we expected to reach them because we got slightly lost. Getting directions in the rolling hills is not the easiest thing. “Go up so, straight ahead, up that hill, to the house back there”. You look around you and see what looks to be a hundred houses, all “up so, straight ahead”. Up so, where? Which hill? To compound matters, there are dozens of paths running off like tributaries from the main trail, all leading straight ahead to some house back there. The residents walk unerringly along the paths as required or chosen, and seemingly have no problem discerning small houses “up so” in the distance. We even encountered a solitary bull taking an early morning stroll, who seemed mildly put out by the fact that he had to step aside to allow our vehicle to pass. We eventually found George’s house, only to be told that we had come to the wrong place. George was at another group member’s house, on another hill up so – but this time to the right and not straightahead. We had to retrace our steps, once again encountering the bull, though I think he seemed somewhat more put out this time.

After negotiating successfully with the bull and a six feet wide crater on the trail, we eventually made it up the correct hill, where we found George and five other group members. They were just setting up their apparatus under an outdoor shed – a small tin pot (in which to boil the balata), a wood fire, and, neatly laid out on a chair, their carving and cutting implements and colouring dyes, and pieces of balata, cut to various weights. Overlooking all this activity, was a coati – Coati Mundi or Narusa Narica, a member of the racoon family, native to forests and canyons – both forested and open. Though they are active during both day and night, they tend to seek out shady spots in which to nap. He was perched on a ledge just under the roof of the shed and looked at us with baleful eyes as we set up our camera equipment. We kept a wary eye on him, just in case he decided he wanted a mid-morning snack; I think one or the other of us may have been looking particularly appetising. Nevertheless, we started filming. George explained as he and the others worked, why they decided to become balata artists, from where they sourced their material, and how they found markets for their finished products.

“My father was a balata bleeder and he taught me how to do it. But it was very hard work. At school, one of my teachers taught us how to make simple things with the balata; those were very primitive looking. When I left school, I did all sorts of jobs and for several years, I didn’t pick up balata. Then one day I decided to give it a try, see what I could do. So now I’ve decided to pass it on to other village people, so that they could learn a craft and make a living”. As he spoke with his mouth, so too did he speak with his fingers, as he softened and moulded the shapeless blob of rubber into what looked like … a bird … no, a seal? It had a head and two legs. In as much time as it took him to explain how he got started, he had finished the basic form of a young boy.

The other members were equally quick and sure of themselves. Valentine, whose yard it was we had all descended on, explained how they used different amounts of balata to create their pieces. “Some people measure with balls – you know, 2, 4, or 6 ozs. I use balls. We spoke with Eleanor, Valentine’s wife, the only female present at the time, who explained that she got involved because of her husband, and she saw how it was a quicker way of earning money. “At first I did it to help with my sewing, but now I don’t sew anymore, because it so hard to get material and people don’t want a lot of sewing”.

A steady income is something that everyone deems a priority. But for the Amerindians, living as they do in the highlands in relatively isolated communities, putting food on the table is a daily battle. The income from farming is not only seasonal, markets aren’t always guaranteed. Many of the young men and women go off to Brazil to find work there. But as Nick Joseph, one of the members put it, Brazil was very hard. “Sometimes the people don’t want to hire you, and then you don’t know the language. I used to send back money for my family but it was too hard and I decided to come back. Then I heard of the Balata Artisans and decided to join. I have a family myself you know, that I have to support, and this is a steady, faster income”. In every Amerindian community, each member must contribute to the village. This could be anything from giving some of your farm produce to the village council to helping to clean the village, to teaching a craft, to bringing in an animal from the hunt.

In their communities, the women tend to the family and the farming, while the men go out and hunt. But for these balata artisans, their craft has subsumed their traditional way of earning an income. Time spent working on their craft is time spent away from the farm or hunting. But they must still make a contribution to the village. So they told us that 20% of their sales goes to an account that they have set up and this is for use by the village council. This money goes towards clearing a piece of land or helping a family in need. The tenet of “no man stands alone” is lived every day.

After we had had our fill of bananas, thoughtfully supplied by Valentine, we said goodbye to the Artisans and Courtney the Coati, who, while pretending to ignore us, was keeping a careful eye on the bananas. As we headed towards the flat land, there were dozens of anthills as tall as men dotting the hillside. We made our way down the hill, and not surprisingly, encountered a number of bullock carts, carrying families along the trail. It was in one such encounter that a puppy, running alongside his cart, got the fright of his life when he saw headed towards him, what must have been a most terrifying, noisy monster. He immediately turned tail and headed off in the direction from which they had come, tearing along in that lopsided gait peculiar to puppies. Jason, our driver, stopped the pickup and the puppy stopped with us. I tried urging him, telepathically, to go back to his cart but that didn’t work. So Jason started moving again. What horror! He tore off again, so frightened we could see the liquid evidence of his terror whipping around his legs and flying in the wind! Then he headed straight for the anthills, completely disoriented. Jason stopped again and the family meanwhile, realising their family pet was no longer with them, had also stopped. We were then treated to the hilarious spectacle of Jason from one side, and the pup’s owner on the other, tearing off behind him, while dodging the anthills at the same time. A rescue was eventually effected and the shaking puppy was back in the safety of the arms of his owner. With the image of the chase in our minds, and the call for food from our stomachs, we headed back to Lethem.