Friday, December 01, 2006

Call of the jungle

Indians living on the edge of Brazil's Amazon rainforest are to start selling recordings of their traditional chants as mobile phone ringtones.




Xavante songs like "the hunt song" and "the healing dance" will soon be available to people in China and Europe.

Brazilian mobile users can already download the tones for about 70p each.



Some 100 Xavante Indians in the remote Sao Pedro village in Mato Grosso state have reportedly already been profiting from the sales for the past few months.

Gilson Schwartz is co-ordinator of an aid group called Cidade Movel, which helps riverside communities in the Amazon find work that does not involve logging or mining.

"We want to create a business model of social content for the wireless phone industry."
The project has generated tens of thousands of dollars for the Xavante and several other impoverished rural communities where most people live without modern conveniences and economic growth usually depends on mining or logging the forest.

Brazil's four leading cellphones companies offer the ringtones.
Some more info about Xavante you can find here.

1 Comments:

At 06 January, 2007 14:11 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi there, I am glad to introduce myself as another individual who has experienced time amongst the Xavante. Initially in 1995 I founded the registered charity "Indigenous People's Cultural Support Trust" no 1050461 UK and through this charity set up a small health centre deep within the reserve with medicinal gardens. Do visit the charity web site www.ipcst.org. Professionally I am a 'cellist and composer and over the years of staying with a Xavante community I was invited to record their songs. I have recently completed "Bridge between Worlds" an orchestral work which has the Xavante songs integrated within. Through this work I intend to continue assisting the Xavante community do visit my web site www.emilyburridge.com to learn more about the production and listen to some samples of the work.
All the best
Emily Burridge

 

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