Bridge of Dreams - Ponte Dos Sonhos
This is the first photo safari by an Amazon Indian to show the daily lives of the tribes in the jungle as it really is.
I am a professional photographer married to an incredible Amazon Indian Woman of the Fierce and Colorful Tupinamba Tribe of the Amazon Jungle Brazil.
We wanted to take the Jungle to the rest of the world and to take as professional as possible friendly and up close images of the Tupinambas and other neighboring tribes in the interior. Any small item especially a camera or iPhone can be deadly for their value. Therefore some of the images were taken fast and while moving through the inner jungle. But the rarity of the images far outweigh the crudeness in which a few of them were captured. These are the results of her first Amazon Safari. Especially rare is the fact that indians ever create a work about indians of the Amazon.
We call it Ponte Dos Sonhos or Bridge of Dreams
At night the majestic anaconda seems to whistle an eerie whistle and the Indians say she is protecting us from the outside world. While we love her protecting the Jungle we also fear being swallowed by her. The mighty Onca 'jaguar of the jungle' is a predator to all living things. He is as fast in the water as on land and to him, all things in his path are his prey, people and animals, big and small. His savage attacks happened more regularly than I would like to remember.
I was born on the side of the Amazon River, yet I never learned to swim, I was too terrified of what lay beneath the surface of the flowing murky water. The ever present Piranhas attacked and devoured entire beings of any type human or animal. Nothing escaped their mighty jaws. If a canoe overturned, the piranhas made fast work of the entire family. In a matter of seconds they were all gone. I saw it far too many times to know I would be a smart girl and never go in that water. To this day I still cannot swim for fear of water.
My grandmother was a tiny fair skin and blonde hair precious white woman who was sold as a slave in her native Israel when she was only sixteen years old. I grew up beside her telling me many stories of her young life in Israel, of a land where all people were white like she was. Her skin fascinated me, I could see her veins. Her hair was different and I wanted to know where people like her came from, about their world. She always told me, 'you are different from this primitive world' my little one. She told me, 'you have my blood, you are like me'. She was so right, because I am the only member of my family to ever leave the Amazon region.
From the time I was a little girl I never believed I was from that world. I always dreamed of another world far far away, that someday I would finally live. I always dreamed of marrying a white man who spoke English. My skin is brown, called parda in the Amazon. I am called a 'cunha poranga cabloca' or Jungle Girl.
The story of Hi's Jewish grandmother is fascinating. She landed on a slave boat in Rio De Janeiro in 1931, only to be put on another ship for the Amazon Jungle where she remained until she died. Her grandfather was a brutal warrior chief of the tribe Tupinamba. He was a plantation owner who traded a entire banana forest for her grandmother in order to purchase her for himself. In order to remember her beloved sacred Jewish life in Israel and her family she would never see or hear from again, she hid the tiny Star of David her mother gave her under her tongue almost her entire life. She went on to bear 19 children by natural childbirth with Hi's grandfather. She died last year 2016 in the jungle community called Parintins which she never left, at 101 years old.
Although most of Hi's family still lives in the jungle she managed to convince her father and mother to take her and her sister into Manaus, the capital of the Rainforest. Tupi Guarani was the tribal indigenous language she behind and began to learn Portuguese the official language of Brazil. She was able to study in school, however primitive they were and eventually as bright as she was she knew she wanted to learn to protect herself.
Abuse against women and children in the Amazon is among the worst in the world. Manaus Brazil is the capital of the Amazon. It is the most isolated city on earth, two thousand miles from any other city. The only way out or in is by air or boat since there are no major roads in the vast region.
ALL PROCEEDS OF THIS AMAZING PROJECT ARE TO PURCHASE BADLY NEEDED MEDICAL SUPPLIES FOR VACCINES AGAINST VIRUSES THAT THE INDIAN MEDICAL CENTER DOES NOT HAVE. TO TRANSPORT SICK WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO MEDICAL HELP INSTEAD OF THE CROWDED BUSES OR WALKING MILES. AND TO PROVIDE EDUCATIONAL EVEN BASIC NEEDS OF THE PRIMITIVE SCHOOLS FOR THE BRILLIANT MINDS OF THE AMAZON INDIAN CHILDREN.
WE ARE A 501c3 TAX EXEMPT CHARITY IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A SEPARATE DONATION TO OUR FOUNDATION,
BAJITO ONDA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION WHICH HI HENDRIXSON IS THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN MINISTRY GLOBAL DIRECTOR. DEL HENDRIXSON IS THE GLOBAL
Read MoreI am a professional photographer married to an incredible Amazon Indian Woman of the Fierce and Colorful Tupinamba Tribe of the Amazon Jungle Brazil.
We wanted to take the Jungle to the rest of the world and to take as professional as possible friendly and up close images of the Tupinambas and other neighboring tribes in the interior. Any small item especially a camera or iPhone can be deadly for their value. Therefore some of the images were taken fast and while moving through the inner jungle. But the rarity of the images far outweigh the crudeness in which a few of them were captured. These are the results of her first Amazon Safari. Especially rare is the fact that indians ever create a work about indians of the Amazon.
We call it Ponte Dos Sonhos or Bridge of Dreams
At night the majestic anaconda seems to whistle an eerie whistle and the Indians say she is protecting us from the outside world. While we love her protecting the Jungle we also fear being swallowed by her. The mighty Onca 'jaguar of the jungle' is a predator to all living things. He is as fast in the water as on land and to him, all things in his path are his prey, people and animals, big and small. His savage attacks happened more regularly than I would like to remember.
I was born on the side of the Amazon River, yet I never learned to swim, I was too terrified of what lay beneath the surface of the flowing murky water. The ever present Piranhas attacked and devoured entire beings of any type human or animal. Nothing escaped their mighty jaws. If a canoe overturned, the piranhas made fast work of the entire family. In a matter of seconds they were all gone. I saw it far too many times to know I would be a smart girl and never go in that water. To this day I still cannot swim for fear of water.
My grandmother was a tiny fair skin and blonde hair precious white woman who was sold as a slave in her native Israel when she was only sixteen years old. I grew up beside her telling me many stories of her young life in Israel, of a land where all people were white like she was. Her skin fascinated me, I could see her veins. Her hair was different and I wanted to know where people like her came from, about their world. She always told me, 'you are different from this primitive world' my little one. She told me, 'you have my blood, you are like me'. She was so right, because I am the only member of my family to ever leave the Amazon region.
From the time I was a little girl I never believed I was from that world. I always dreamed of another world far far away, that someday I would finally live. I always dreamed of marrying a white man who spoke English. My skin is brown, called parda in the Amazon. I am called a 'cunha poranga cabloca' or Jungle Girl.
The story of Hi's Jewish grandmother is fascinating. She landed on a slave boat in Rio De Janeiro in 1931, only to be put on another ship for the Amazon Jungle where she remained until she died. Her grandfather was a brutal warrior chief of the tribe Tupinamba. He was a plantation owner who traded a entire banana forest for her grandmother in order to purchase her for himself. In order to remember her beloved sacred Jewish life in Israel and her family she would never see or hear from again, she hid the tiny Star of David her mother gave her under her tongue almost her entire life. She went on to bear 19 children by natural childbirth with Hi's grandfather. She died last year 2016 in the jungle community called Parintins which she never left, at 101 years old.
Although most of Hi's family still lives in the jungle she managed to convince her father and mother to take her and her sister into Manaus, the capital of the Rainforest. Tupi Guarani was the tribal indigenous language she behind and began to learn Portuguese the official language of Brazil. She was able to study in school, however primitive they were and eventually as bright as she was she knew she wanted to learn to protect herself.
Abuse against women and children in the Amazon is among the worst in the world. Manaus Brazil is the capital of the Amazon. It is the most isolated city on earth, two thousand miles from any other city. The only way out or in is by air or boat since there are no major roads in the vast region.
ALL PROCEEDS OF THIS AMAZING PROJECT ARE TO PURCHASE BADLY NEEDED MEDICAL SUPPLIES FOR VACCINES AGAINST VIRUSES THAT THE INDIAN MEDICAL CENTER DOES NOT HAVE. TO TRANSPORT SICK WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO MEDICAL HELP INSTEAD OF THE CROWDED BUSES OR WALKING MILES. AND TO PROVIDE EDUCATIONAL EVEN BASIC NEEDS OF THE PRIMITIVE SCHOOLS FOR THE BRILLIANT MINDS OF THE AMAZON INDIAN CHILDREN.
WE ARE A 501c3 TAX EXEMPT CHARITY IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A SEPARATE DONATION TO OUR FOUNDATION,
BAJITO ONDA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION WHICH HI HENDRIXSON IS THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN MINISTRY GLOBAL DIRECTOR. DEL HENDRIXSON IS THE GLOBAL