I agree, the film screamed ayawaska to me too. I would personally be surprised if the minds behind it had not directly experienced the vine. Someone email Cameron to ask, I dare ye!
I thought it was entertaining and charming. Sure it wasn't the best film ever written, and romanticised hunter-gathering, but I think it was made with very good intentions to awaken the masses to the plight of tribal people, and our own plight too, in a way that would not turn them off. The masses do not like films like The Mission, but they do like simple feelgood Hollywood films about fantastical aliens. Of course they would have wanted to make money too, but that does not detract from the good message. Tribal people are already jumping on its popularity, and Cameron's quote suggests that he truly believes in the message of universal connectedness:
Oh, doesn't the woman who dies when they try to transmit her soul to her avatar say "the Earth Mother, she's real"? Mother Earth is worshipped in Peru ('Pacha Mama'), so could that be counted as another link to ayawaska? I might have heard that bit wrong though, and Europeans also use the term Mother Earth.
I thought it was entertaining and charming. Sure it wasn't the best film ever written, and romanticised hunter-gathering, but I think it was made with very good intentions to awaken the masses to the plight of tribal people, and our own plight too, in a way that would not turn them off. The masses do not like films like The Mission, but they do like simple feelgood Hollywood films about fantastical aliens. Of course they would have wanted to make money too, but that does not detract from the good message. Tribal people are already jumping on its popularity, and Cameron's quote suggests that he truly believes in the message of universal connectedness:
Opiyum- the article says the language is based on Maori, not a Native American dialect. How they rode animals and paid respect to their kills definitely reminded me of north American tribes, while the aya spiritualism of course reminded me of Amazonians. And their seated trances made me think of more of Africa though I'm not sure why. Really the Na'vi stand for all tribal people, and I thinked he picked the 'best bits' of tribal cultures from all over the world.http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5466 said:‘Avatar is real’, say tribal people 25 January
Avatar's story is being played out in real life.
© 20th Century Fox
Following the film ‘Avatar’’s win at the Golden Globes, tribal people have claimed that the film tells the real story of their lives today.
A Penan man from Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, told Survival, ‘The Penan people cannot live without the rainforest. The forest looks after us, and we look after it. We understand the plants and the animals because we have lived here for many, many years, since the time of our ancestors.
‘The Na’vi people in ‘Avatar’ cry because their forest is destroyed. It’s the same with the Penan. Logging companies are chopping down our big trees and polluting our rivers, and the animals we hunt are dying.’
Kalahari Bushman Jumanda Gakelebone said, ‘We the Bushmen are the first inhabitants in southern Africa. We are being denied rights to our land and appeal to the world to help us. ‘Avatar’ makes me happy as it shows the world about what it is to be a Bushman, and what our land is to us. Land and Bushmen are the same.’
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, known as the Dalai Lama of the Rainforest, said, ‘My Yanomami people have always lived in peace with the forest. Our ancestors taught us to understand our land and animals. We have used this knowledge carefully, for our existence depends on it. My Yanomami land was invaded by miners. A fifth of our people died from diseases we had never known.’
Director James Cameron received his Golden Globes awards for ‘Avatar’ last week, and revealed one of the central ideas of the film.
‘Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected,’ he said in his acceptance speech, ‘All human beings to each other, and us to the earth.
Cameron was inspired by the Maori language of New Zealand when devising the language spoken by the Na’vi.
Survival’s director Stephen Corry says, ‘Just as the Na’vi describe the forest of Pandora as ‘their everything’, for most tribal peoples, life and land have always been deeply connected.
‘The fundamental story of Avatar – if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids – is being played out time and time again, on our planet.
‘Like the Na’vi of ‘Avatar’, the world’s last-remaining tribal peoples – from the Amazon to Siberia – are also at risk of extinction, as their lands are appropriated by powerful forces for profit-making reasons such as colonization, logging and mining.’
‘One of the best ways of protecting the our world’s natural heritage is surprisingly simple; it is to secure the land rights of tribal peoples.’
Oh, doesn't the woman who dies when they try to transmit her soul to her avatar say "the Earth Mother, she's real"? Mother Earth is worshipped in Peru ('Pacha Mama'), so could that be counted as another link to ayawaska? I might have heard that bit wrong though, and Europeans also use the term Mother Earth.