Jaguar people and their pristine world of the Amazonian forest

The Amazon Forest is an amazing world of pristine nature. Here, Indian tribes are still hiding, who live according to the laws of their ancestors and, along with wild animals, are full owners of the tropical jungle. Matses Indians, or Jaguar people, live in their wonderful world and are in no hurry to leave their native forest to become part of the global world.

One of the main places where the representatives of the Matses (or Majoruna) tribe live today is the Amazonian Selva on the border of Brazil and Peru. The largest number of Matses is concentrated in the Javari River Valley. They do not recognize state borders and freely move from Peru to Brazil and back when they need to go hunting or gather a nut crop. For this reason, and also because of the remoteness of their settlements from civilization, it is not possible to establish the exact size of the tribe. According to experts, the Matses Indians today are no more than 2,000 thousand.

Their life is not much different from that which their ancestors led. Interestingly, Matses women are engaged not only in raising children and housekeeping, but also participate in hunting along with men. They swim in boats hollowed out of a single piece of wood, and also hunt wild animals using bows and arrows. It is noteworthy that the Matses are very careful about the Amazon Selva, realizing that it gives them food and shelter. They alternate hunting and fishing areas so as not to exterminate animals in one place. In addition to hunting, they are engaged in growing crops using the method of slash-and-burn agriculture. The field at the site of the cut down forest is used no more than 4-5 years, and then moved to another site. An unattended former plantation quickly overgrows with a jungle, and in 15-20 years you can return to it again.

Matses people live in the wild Amazonian jungle and have deep knowledge of the plants that surround them. Of particular interest is how they use poisonous species to kill fish or prepare poison for hunting animals. One of the characteristic rites of this tribe is the adoption of frog poison, which people-jaguars call "hunting magic." The tree frog Phyllomedusa bicolor, which is capable of releasing toxic substances, is used by the Indians for rituals. After the poison is collected from the skin of the frog, it is released into the wild, safe and sound. Matses believe that taking frog venom helps increase the strength and endurance of men, and also makes them more successful in hunting. According to men, after taking the poison, a person feels signs of poisoning, and then falls into a state similar to a dream. After waking up, the frog’s magical action begins: the hunter can chase prey for hours without feeling tired and hungry, and if he finds a victim, his arrows will certainly hit the target.

No less interesting is another feature of the tribe: Matses women adorn their face with the likeness of a cat's mustache made of thin straws. This makes them look like jaguars - large predatory feline families that are very significant for matses. They believe that the pattern applied on the skin and the mustache make them invulnerable to the jaguars, convincing predators not to attack them.