文章基本信息

标题：Live like a world traveler: with the click of a mouse, you can beautify yourself and your home, save money, and help sustain native cultures
作者：R. Daniel Foster
期刊名称：Natural Health
印刷版ISSN：1067-9588
出版年度：2004
卷号：Jan 2004
出版社：American Media Inc

Live like a world traveler: with the click of a mouse, you can beautify yourself and your home, save money, and help sustain native cultures

R. Daniel Foster

A vast world of personal and home decor, steeped in personal history and cultural tradition, is finding its way into American homes. To search out these treasures, you don't need a passport, a water purifier or a fresh supply of Dramamine. Even world-savvy travelers are realizing that thousands of far-flung prizes are just a mouse click away.

In response to an increasingly homogeneous society, there's a growing desire to seek out creations of individuality and substance. Given the choice, frequent flyers and Web jockeys alike are passing up T-shirts, plastic mugs and other inauthentic "souvenirs" for genuine art and artifacts that are tactile, beautiful, handmade and connected to an identifiable location: pashmina shawls from India, African mudcloth, Balinese clove baskets, Thai spirit houses, or silver jewelry from Brazil.

It's a "hunger for authenticity," says Armenia Nercessian de Oliveira, a former United Nations human-rights officer and co-founder of Novica, an online international marketplace. On such a site, Oliveira explains, a customer can eschew a one-style-fits-all sweater from a chain store in favor of a garment made from "alpaca wool that Marcelino Bonifacio Silva painstakingly cleaned, combed, dyed, spun, and spent seven days knitting."

"This kind of information creates the soul of a product and makes it valuable," says Daniel Salcedo, founder of PEOPlink, a Maryland-based group that advises artisans on utilizing the Web. "A personal bond is created with another human being thousands of miles away."

Most multiartisan sites buy from cooperatives and bulk importers, then ship from U.S. warehouses. One company, Novica, maintains seven international offices, and allows customers to buy direct from the artisans, who set their own prices. Novica and the other sites mentioned here subscribe to basic fair-trade guidelines. As a result, creators make more, and consumers pay less. On average, items are priced at 20 percent to 50 percent below U.S. retail.

Julie Larson began shopping on the Global Crafts site a year ago, drawn by the Maasai jewelry and the affordable values. Now her living room abounds with Kenyan batiques, Guatemalan blankets and Indonesian furniture. "I surround myself with these things because it reminds me that people are creative," says Larson, 36, a senior researcher at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "It confirms that anything is possible. Some of these people have nothing, and yet they create the most amazing objects you've ever seen."

born of tradition and trauma

Akha tribeswoman Aphi Mina lives in a bamboo hut deep in a northern Thailand jungle. A widow whose son and grandson died young, she worked as a farmer most of her life; she now supports herself by embroidering traditional wall hangings. The vivid indigo of the thread she uses is extracted from the myong plant.

"I watch the movements of insects and animals, the colors of flowers and birds" states Mina. "Sometimes I get ideas from my dreams. Sometimes I look at the trees and a pattern comes into my mind."

Nearby is her village's ceremonial gate, which is lined on the outside with carvings of "spirit mischief," such as rifles, grenades and an asterisk-like object representing "evil not yet imagined." A few years ago, the hill tribes believed that e-mail and the Internet might fall into this catchall category. No longer. Aphi Mina now has her own Web page on Novica, which allows the traditions of an isolated land to cross oceans and continents in a flash.

Of course, that means the outside world, with its richer economies, has penetrated the village gates as well. That makes some anthropologists uneasy. "They were highly skeptical at first," says Salcedo. "They feared we were adding to a homogenized world by encouraging [mass-produced crafts]. But many artisans are desperate, trying to feed their families and preserve traditions." According to Mina, her tribe had practically stopped making its own clothes. "Now we do this again, much more often, using our beautiful traditional designs and new ideas," she says.

You can't ignore the future out of respect for the past, says Jane Griffiths, vice president of marketing for Connecticut-based Aid to Artisans. "Sometimes you have to preserve traditions by bringing them into the 21st century. Traditions do evolve, and that evolution can actually lead people back to the original tradition."

Such traditions can also be the source of essential emotional and financial support. Artisan cooperatives that sell to Web sites are often made up of women who've banded together to fight poverty and social injustice. Amber Chand, co-founder of handcrafts retailer Eziba, describes an open-air shed outside of Kigali, Rwanda's capital city, where women sit, chat, sing local songs, and nimbly arrange plant fibers into works of art.

These are widows left in dire straits after the country's 1994 "100-day slaughter" that left 800,000 people dead. Some of the widows are scarred by machete blows, and many have lost entire families; they have since turned to traditional basket weaving to support themselves. Eziba began selling the women's "peace baskets" in March 2003 and sold $10,000's worth in three months; out of the $55 retail price, the association's share is $20 and the Business Council for Peace gets $10.

"With the sale of just four baskets, a woman can live comfortably for a month," says Chand. "Also, women artisans tend to reinvest their income into their community. They buy uniforms for children, medicine for the sick, food for the table. The ripple effect is huge."

weaving with bugs, painting by elephants

Having a ready outlet via the Internet allows artisans to spend more time on their craft. The Ruiz Bazan clan, for example, has been weaving Zapotec rugs in Oaxaca, Mexico, for as long as they can remember. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins work side by side to produce the singular zigzag patterns on old wooden looms. The family farm is dotted with bonfires to heat ceramic urns of water--ready for exotic dye ingredients such as cochinilla bugs, which, when pinched, burst into a deep ruby red. Fermenting pomegranates are used to produce golden-colored wool, and eucalyptus bark helps to even out the wool's tone, transforming it into a warm tan.

"At any given time, while we're here on the farm, a sale could suddenly happen anywhere in the world," says Israel Ruiz Bazan. "We don't have to travel all the way to the city to try and sell our work. Selling on Novica enables our art to continue and thrive."

When the sites were first launched, however, consumers were wary. "A flat-panel computer monitor doesn't help people understand the texture and nature of crafts," says Griffiths. "And Americans expect a high degree of finishing. That can be a surprise to artisans" To bridge this cultural gap, all the sites mentioned maintain quality controls and offer refunds to dissatisfied customers.

Some of the artisans have a two-tier methodology. The Maasai make beautiful wedding necklaces, large collars with beads hanging down the front; the number of strands varies, depending on the stature of the women in the community. "Westerners like to hang them on a wall," says Renice Jones of Global Crafts, which imports from Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa. "The women make two versions, one termed 'tourist quality'; the main difference is that bead strips are wired onto the collar, instead of sewn on." Global Crafts sells both versions, at $30 and $80, which take up to one month to create. In times of drought, when the Maasai men end up losing some of their cattle, "sales of jewelry can often sustain them," says Jones.

Artisan Web sites constantly tinker with new approaches, such as Eziba's partnerships with nonprofit groups like the Business Council for Peace and the World Wildlife Fund. Novica has done well adding animal-themed jewelry and decor; given that 19 percent of the enterprise is owned by the National Geographic Society, the move was logical. As was the site's decision to sell abstract art made by homeless elephants.

That's right, elephants. When teak logging was banned in Thailand in 1990, thousands of lumber-hauling elephants became unemployed. With no one to feed them, they roamed city streets, looking for handouts. A handful of the more aesthetically inclined pachyderms now use their trunks to create whimsical and lyrical acrylic paintings, and the individual "artists" are even profiled on the Web site. Half the profits from sales of their works go to elephant-rescue sanctuaries.

carve out a connection

Among the 350 attendants to King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II of Ghana, West Africa, are the keeper of the king's gold; the official umbrella bearer; the king shaver, clothier, food taster and fanner; and the royal executioner, who's been idle for some time. Also among the entourage is Nana Frimpong, 61, a member of the Denkyira tribe and the king's chief carver.

Three years ago, Frimpong began selling carved stools, masks and statues through Novica, tripling his income and making him somewhat of a celebrity among Manhyia palace regulars. He can now proffer bottles of Scottish whiskey to tribal chiefs, a traditional offering. And he employs a staff of 15 carvers to keep up with demand. "It's changed my life," says Frimpong, his yet-boyish face wide with a grin. "And I bought a car."

The story of a carver and his king is especially relevant, not for the furthering of an ancient tradition or for Frimpong's newfound wealth, which is paltry by Western standards, but because an instrument of globalization, the Internet, has at least opened one man's heart to a wider world.

"When the British came, they took away everything good about Ghana," says Frimpong, standing in his crowded shop wearing a crisp, white Craftsman's jacket. "I've been angry all my life--angry at the British and resentful. I've held great malice. But now Westerners are appreciating my work. They want to know about our culture and traditions, and are even fascinated by it. Everything comes full circle."