National Geographic Kids USA - September 2017

ANDREW WATSON / GETTY IMAGES (19); FILIPEFRAZAO / GETTY IMAGES (20); DAVE YODER / NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE (21); DMITRY RUKHLENKO /

SHUTTERSTOCK (22); MACDUFF EVERTON / GETTY IMAGES (23); MARC ANDERSON / ALAMY (24); ANDAMANSE / GETTY IMAGES (25); MANFRED GOTTSCHALK / GETTY IMAGES (26); JUSTINE EVANS / ALAMY (28); ROLAND SEITRE / MINDEN PICTURES (29); MELICA / SHUTTERSTOCK (30)

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS 25

RAINFOREST

CULTURES BY JULIE BEER

Groups of people have been

living in rain forests around the

world for tens of thousands of

years.Check out amazing facts

about the history,art,and contri-

butions of these cultures.

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The Olmec,

which thrived

some 3, 000

years ago

in Central

America,

carved

11-foot-high

stone heads.

(^30) THE AZTECS,WHO
FLOURISHED IN MEXICO
FROM THE 14TH TO THE 16TH
CENTURIES,MADE AN EARLY
VERSION OF PEANUT
BUTTER.
Tarantula
fangs are
used as
toothpicks
by the
Piaroa
people
of Venezuela.
The Amazon
rain forest is
home to some
400 groups of
indigenous
(or native) people.
Indonesia’s
Korowai people dwell
in tree houses often
built over a hundred
feet aboveground.
THE YALI OF WEST PAPUA IN THE
SOUTH PACIFIC CAN DISTINGUISH
BETWEEN AT LEAST 49 VARIETIES
OF SWEET POTATO ON SIGHT.
The Moken people’s children,
who dive for food off
islands in Asia’s Andaman Sea,
see twice as well
underwater as
European kids do.
It was customary for the Mayna, which
thrived in Ecuador until the 20th century,
to stain their teeth black.
Thousands of years ago, citizens of a
city in Honduras’s Mosquitia rain forest
may have worshipped a monkey-like god.
THE KUKU YALANJI HAVE BEEN LIVING
IN AUSTRALIA’S DAINTREE RAIN
FOREST FOR THE PAST 50 , 000 YEARS.
THE LACANDON OF CHIAPAS, MEXICO,
ARE DIRECT DESCENDANTS
OF THE ANCIENT MAYA.
Some 2 , 000 years
ago voyagers canoed
1 ,500 miles from the
rain-forest-covered
Solomon Islands to
other Pacific islands.
The Orang Ulu
people of Malaysia
craft boat-shaped lutes called sapes.
Pygmy
hunters of
the Congo
rain forest in
Africa mimic
the sound of
an injured
antelope to
lure out its
predators.
Vaupés Indian
group members
in Colombia learn
to speak at least
three languages
fluently.
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