Amazon River Dolphin Healing (video)

Wisdom Quarterly (REPORTING)

Dolphins are amazing beyond belief. How many of us know that there are dolphins native to Nepal -- a landlocked Himalayan kingdom with no saltwater and no natural lakes, the reputed birthplace of the Buddha (Lumbini), where Buddha Boy now resides? Snow melt from Mt. Everest and other mountains creates rivers. And long ago it seems dolphins swam up (or were brought) and are now indigenous and endangered. But they continue to try to heal humans:

However they got up to the Himalayas, they're there. There's also a species in the Ganges River in neighboring India (and a Ganges shark). There is even a freshwater dolphin species in the Americas, in the greatest body of fresh water on Earth, the Amazon River.

This is a report on the healing power and compassion of the Brazilian pink river species. Sadly, natives in each of these countries either have fear-based superstitions or greed that provokes them to slaughter these mammals to the verge of extinction. This is in spite of the fact that one never hears of dolphins harming humans but only the contrary: Dolphins help humans, saving lives when we are drowning or lost or suffering illness (as in this video). They are like dogs to humankind, without having had their wild nature selected out. They are like "Man's best friend," Fido, the domesticated-wolf.

• Did dolphins really evolve from dogs?
• VIDEO: Dolphin Moko saves whales in New Zealand
• VIDEO: Belugas (also cataceans) save diver's life
• VIDEO: Humans give sick dolphin artificial tail
• VIDEO: Dolphins won't maul boys even when ordered

"The Cove" documentary LA Times review

Destroying an Ancient Culture

• VIDEO (ABC News)

Descendents of Mesoamerican cultures, now existing as lost bands and soon-to-be extinct tribes, were once influenced by Buddhism as laid out in How the Swans Came to the Lake. But these cultures are rapidly vanishing as modern consumer greed leads farmers to illegally burn and usurp more of the rain forest. Amazonian Indians' home is disappearing as the deforestation rate triples.

• Video: Ancient gold to be displayed in "Gold Museum"
• Thousands of pre-Hispanic golden and ceramic pieces that had been kept in storage for decades will be on display next month when Colombia's famous Gold Museum reopens after years of refurbishment (AP, 10/19/08).
• Video: Pair of 3,000-year-old temples discovered in Peru

Scientists find ancient lost settlements in Amazon

Dense jungle along river in once widely inhabited Amazon, Brazil (braziltravel.com)

WASHINGTON (Reuters, 8/28/08) -- A vast region of the Amazon forest in Brazil was home to a complex of ancient towns in which about 50,000 people lived, according to scientists assisted by satellite images of the region.

The scientists, whose findings were published on Thursday in the journal Science, described clusters of towns and smaller villages connected by complex road networks and housing a society doomed by the arrival of Europeans five centuries ago.

European colonists and the diseases they brought with them probably killed most of the inhabitants, the researchers said. The settlements, consisting of networks of walled towns and smaller villages organized around a central plaza, are now almost entirely overgrown by the forest.

"These are not cities, but this is urbanism, built around towns," University of Florida anthropologist Mike Heckenberger said in a statement.

"If we look at your average medieval town or your average Greek polis, most are about the scale of those we find in this part of the Amazon. Only the ones we find [here] are much more complicated in terms of their planning," Heckenberger added.

Helped by satellite imagery, the researchers spent more than a decade uncovering and mapping the lost communities.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans starting in 1492, the Americas were home to many prosperous and impressive [Buddhist-influenced] societies and large cities. These findings add to the understanding of the various pre-Columbian civilizations. [Explore the reference.]

How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America [Rick Fields, Shambhala, Boston & London; 1992 (1981)]

The existence of the ancient settlements in the Upper Xingu region of the Amazon in north-central Brazil means what many experts had considered virgin tropical forests were in fact heavily affected by past human activity, the scientists said.

The U.S. and Brazilian scientists worked with a member of the Kuikuro, an indigenous Amazonian people descended from settlements' original inhabitants.

(Reporting by Will Dunham; editing by Maggie Fox)