Baptised by Mercury: indigenous worlds in the Anthropocene

Author(s): Luis Garcia Briceno

Type: Photograph

Department: Department of Anthropology

Exhibit no: 42


After an intense evangelising campaign among the Ye’kwana in the Caura river in the Venezuelan Amazon, a Ye’kwana pastor takes a dip. The level of mercury in the bodies of the Ye’kwana is one of the highest in the world due to illegal gold mining in the Caura basin.