Marajoara Culture: How to thrive in the Amazon

How does a culture thrive in the Amazon? For over half a millennium, Marajoara culture flourished at the mouth of the Amazon river and left the world with some of the most beautiful artwork of the Americas. Discover why this culture was misunderstood and how it’s critical reevaluation in the past 40 years has revolutionized our understanding of the pre-columbian Amazon.

[enriquegarcia]

The masks of the marajoara are allegedly the inspiration for the major's mask entry in the legend of zelda series.

[feveraven]

as a northern brazilian, i'm so happy foreigners are eager to learn about native amazonic cultures!! they're fascinating, and very much affect brazilian life till today

[gabrielb]

It's always good to see pre-columbian history other than inca, maya and aztec getting the recognition it deserves, great video, muito obrigado por existir.

[JazzyWaffles]

Ancient panties: are sometimes plain, sometimes fancy.

Archaeologists: Ah yes, these must have ritual significance.

Ancient Marajoaran woman: Mine has flowers on it because I like flowers

[michaeladu]

I'm gonna love your series on the cultures of the Amazon. My people, the Ashanti of Ghana, also lived in tropical forests, similar to the Amazon and I want desperately for someone to dispel the notion that forest peoples are/were backward.

[victoreguchii]

It is wonderfully refreshing to find beautiful and thoughtful content about the history of my ancestors. I'm from Belém, just across the river from Marajó. When I was studying industrial design at the state university there, I studied a lot of their iconography, pottery, and history. Another very important society from the region is the Tapajós people, which lived much farther inland and also had their unique symbology and pottery. Congrats and thanks for letting more people know about this amazing piece of history!!
On a side note, never ask for açaí "juice" if you're in the region because people will laugh at you! We eat it in the consistency of a thick cream with tapioca and/or cassava toasted "flour", along with some fried/salt dried fish, shrimp or jerky!
A hug from Brazil!

[bumbleguppy]

If our spirits are in our bones, the fact I had my wisdom teeth removed explains a lot. Great video, keep them coming!

[EpreTroll]

Never heard of this before, great discovery!

[kwali]

I literally can’t stop binging these history episodes

[sophroniel]

I wish all the energy for places like Egypt, the UK & Israel was put into these largely unstudied areas of South America! So much will get lost the more time passes!!

[incanusolorin]

20:39 açaí and manioc are actually widely consumed by millions of people all across Brazil, although we in the south mostly eat açaí with guaraná as an ice cream.

[carloseduardoaguiar]

Im from Belém (a city localized in the Amazon Delta right next to the Marajó archipelago), it is great to see the marajoara culture becoming more notable to an international audience. We have museums dedicated to it and much of our culinary comes from them, like the manioc (we call it "macaxeira" here) and the açaí.

[ximoleee]

Thanks for share some Brazilian pre-Columbian history. It's important to revalue the history of native American people.
I remember that when I was in school we only studied about native American people the fact that they sold brazilwood to the europeans... And the rest of the history of Brazil is about the colonization... That's bad.

[stephenmeier]

The book *1491: America before Columbus* covers this topic in good detail, and this is a great subject for further exploration! Thanks for the video 🤠

[beretperson]

This channel always make me wish we could just...look into the past. The detective work made by archaeologists is fascinating and very impressive, but imagine if we could just KNOW what all these fascinating cultures were like, why their remains look the way they do, what happened to them, etc

[mathidra]

I love your videos! I told my World History teacher about you, hopefully we get to watch a video of yours in class!

[AztlanHistorian]

As usual you did a magnificent work. I'm glad to see your channel keeps growing

Just two comments:

1. The shell mounds (also known as "sambaquis") are not universally agreed to be dumps, as some seem to have a pretty structured set of layers, which has led some specialists to think they may have served a ceremonial function; but such conclusion is heavily contested to say the least.

2. It's sad to remember that many of the Marajoara pottery pieces we knew were lost in the tragic fire of the National Museum of Brazil in 2018 :(

Again, I hope you keep with the fantastic work and well, you still have a lot of continent to cover!

Greetings!

[gabrielmendonca]

Absolutely amazing video, even as a Brazilian a never had such deep dive into the marajoara culture, mostly because we learn more in school about more southern and coastal tribes (it's tough to cover all of the tribes in such diverse and big country tbh, but they should do a better job still). I'm fascinated by their history and your channel.

[cozyfallout]

This is fantastic! Thank you so much for covering the fascinating indigenous history of the Amazon and Marajó island. I'm from the Amazon and I once did a presentation during highschool that was about Amazonian civilizations, with a special focus on Marajoara culture. Needless to say, I was so excited when I saw this video.

Amazing video. You just got a new subscriber.

[incanusolorin]

I’m from Brazil and it’s great to see the Marajoara culture being taught to foreigners. Great video!