Glenn H Shepard Jr

Ethnobotanist, sensory anthropologist, polyglot and filmmaker living and working in the Amazon. Migrating from birdsite as @TweetTropiques. Blogging at "Notes from the Ethnoground": https://ethnoground.blogspot.com
Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/ethnoground
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE4MTAyNDA0MTQwMjkwMDY2?igshid=MDM4ZDc5MmU=

Public Key

npub1g44q742m2jh40jv2zmazylesvk8w0949m8qwhhuq57slkf2pd39q7hj6xs

NIP-05 Address

toottropiques_at_c.im@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsy26s024d4ft6hex9pd73z0ucxtrh8j6jans8tm7q20g0my4qkcjspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsxc7qyg

Publishing to

nostr-pub.wellorder.net

nos.lol

relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

npub1g44q742m2jh40jv2zmazylesvk8w0949m8qwhhuq57slkf2pd39q7hj6xs

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-06-25 01:35:22 UTC

The perennial relevance of the Classics
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/116/808/171/632/795/768/original/fe1cc6832135324b.jpg

2025-07-31 15:16:43 UTC

"There's a word in Italian. Dietrologia. It means the science of what's behind something. A suspicious event... The science of dark forces."
--Don DeLillo
#books @npub1ny7…uv57
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/948/504/588/616/825/original/0e9272eb9994bf98.jpg

2025-07-15 16:14:00 UTC

Mary Gaillard's calculations correctly predicted the mass of the charm quark and contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson as she triumphed over sexism in the field of physics. Pioneering physicist and emerita professor at UC Berkeley passes away at 86.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/07/08/pioneering-theoretical-physicist-mary-k-gaillard-has-died-at-86/

2025-07-08 22:04:10 UTC

"The gifts of gods were always dangerous."
-- Nick Harkaway
@npub1ny7…uv57
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/819/874/643/581/367/original/31261f1147a4091d.jpg

2025-06-25 23:01:19 UTC

"In the Mancreu worldview, Americans were people who got up early and ran 5 km before breakfast and urged you to improve yourself…There were darkside Americans too, the ones where all that virtue and enthusiasm found its outlet in villainy…It was tricky, with Americans, because you never knew which one you were getting."
--Nick Harkaway
@npub1ny7…uv57
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/746/489/063/235/131/original/d1bc4e8333ec7579.jpg

2025-06-06 22:55:21 UTC

- reply

Not all NGOs are created equal. Training indigenous water committees is crucial to sustainability. Water services are in huge demand, communities are begging us for help. Don't judge without adequate information. Read and learn!
https://ethnoground.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-awakening-of-waters-clean-water.html
https://rainforestflow.org/

2025-06-02 00:06:50 UTC

- reply

Not me! They saw the results in a pilot community and begged me to bring a water filtration system to these remote communities after a diarrhea epidemic that killed 7 children! We can't force people to live out our romantic fantasies in human zoos!

2025-05-31 23:45:42 UTC

- reply

About 500 years late...so we do what we can given the grim reality

2025-05-27 20:45:32 UTC

- reply

These water and health projects have reduced the incidence of childhood diarrhea by up to 90%, and cut mortality caused by intestinal diseases by almost 75%, as well as reducing intestinal parasites by over 70%. It's neither fair nor reasonable to expect indigenous people to live out our fantasies of what their lives should look like, especially those who are now increasingly integrated into the global economy and pathogenic biome.

2025-05-26 20:15:00 UTC

- reply

The beauty of this project is that it uses natural processes and materials to purify water that otherwise leaves indigenous people suffering from chronic intestinal disease

2025-05-24 18:27:46 UTC

In Huacaria Native Community, Manu Biosphere Reserve with students from Purdue and Princeton studying water and sanitation projects by Rainforestflow.org that have transformed indigenous health.
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/564/218/775/863/909/original/01e3eeb0bc894869.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/564/219/102/521/110/original/0871100bc90a8eee.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/564/219/504/486/143/original/911ca846e82803de.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/564/219/827/546/194/original/8585a6880f2efb2d.jpg

2025-05-07 18:13:11 UTC

- reply

You need to have read Hard Boiled Wonderland first, and ideally the more recent, unabridged translation. This is both a prequel and sequel to that one, which ended in a cliffhanger. I'm enjoying it for the fan service, though it is much slower paced and contemplative than the original. But like all things Murakami, well worth the effort!

2025-05-07 18:10:26 UTC

- reply

Also, the original translation of Hard Boiled Wonderland was abridged and rather creatively reworded. There is a newer, much longer translation that is closer to the original Japanese that was released apparently in anticipation of this new book. Very interesting to compare this tale across these various versions which are surprisingly different. I'm glad he came back to that mysterious walled village to make up for the cliff hanger ending!

2025-05-06 17:27:13 UTC

"Unfortunately, dying doesn't make you any wiser."
--Haruki Murakami
@npub1ny7…uv57 #books #fiction #murakami
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/462/057/452/593/402/original/3b8f7c4391372962.webp

2025-04-28 20:55:39 UTC

- reply

https://www.academia.edu/38753090/Spirit_bodies_plant_teachers_and_messenger_molecules_in_Amazonian_shamanism

2025-04-25 21:34:07 UTC

On April 9, world-renowned scientist Dennis McKenna lectured in my class Psychedelics, Shamanism and Plant Intelligence at Princeton. He discussed his research on ayahuasca, the legacy of his brother, Terence McKenna, and showed the film BioGnosis
https://anthropology.princeton.edu/news/prominent-scientist-and-ethnobotanist-dennis-mckenna-visits-anthropology-class
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/400/744/601/378/687/original/d3cef80419e449b1.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/400/744/932/836/424/original/d5e01b266eddcae2.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/400/745/220/284/787/original/ef6a8b05bf666ab1.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/400/745/654/534/442/original/9ca5d52bc20f867d.jpg

2025-04-20 16:05:53 UTC

Don't eat the rich, just tax them. (They probably don't taste very good either). https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGydRdFy3L1/?igsh=MTU1M3pweHI1bWNqYQ==

2025-02-22 22:20:26 UTC

"Any writer who denied the childish element of revenge in what they did was... a liar. Writing was just a way of taking justice into your own hands."
--Rachel Cusk
@npub1ny7…uv57 #books
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/049/864/495/897/105/original/fce1319449d17cbd.webp

2024-10-22 14:47:16 UTC

"Terrestrial ecosystems are losing their carbon store and carbon uptake capacity... oceans are also showing signs of instability... Nature has so far balanced our abuse. This is coming to an end.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/14/nature-carbon-sink-collapse-global-heating-models-emissions-targets-evidence-aoe

2024-09-29 12:57:32 UTC

"When in history has one unelected individual held such sway over American national security?"
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/how-elon-musk-threatens-national

2024-09-27 18:23:07 UTC

Drought in the Brazilian Amazon
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/210/905/527/217/530/original/556f1e55fdb7faff.jpg

2024-09-22 01:06:17 UTC

"X, Musk’s social media platform, has backed down in its fight with the Brazilian judiciary...
The platform bowed to one of the key demands made by Brazil’s supreme court by appointing a legal representative in the country. It also paid outstanding fines and took down user accounts that the court had ordered to be removed on the basis that they threatened the country’s democracy."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/21/elon-musk-backs-down-in-his-fight-with-brazilian-judges-to-restore-x

2024-09-08 01:23:32 UTC

Two indigenous Yine men were killed earlier this week by isolated Mascho Piro people in Madre de Dios, Peru. Gerardo Gomez Zorilla (pictured here), 54 years old, and Edwin Chu Fernández (28) were felled by Mashco Piro arrows along Quebrada San Juan. Other members of their party were wounded and some remain missing.
Both Gerardo and Edwin came from the Yine village of Diamante along the upper Madre de Dios, where I carried out my first Amazonian fieldwork @princeton in 1986. Gerardo's uncle Victor Zorilla, whom I interviewed extensively at the time, was also killed by the Mashco Piro in 2018 at the age of 72 while on a fishing trip near Diamante village.
The Yine and the Mashco Piro speak what appear to be mutually intelligible dialects of the Yine language, suggesting an historical connection between these peoples. I have proposed that the Mashco Piro represent a sub group of the Yine who escaped from massacres carried out in the late 1800s by the notorious rubber baron Carlos Fermin Fitzcarraldo. As a survival strategy, they seem to have taken up a nomadic life of hunting, gathering, and avoiding contact with outsiders, though little is known about their actual history.
The region to the west of the Madre de Dios Territorial reserve for the Mashco Piro people is full of extensive LEGAL logging and Brazil nut concessions (see maps attached). From the information I have read, it is unclear whether this group of indigenous loggers (according to media reports) or Brazil nut harvesters (according to my contacts in the region) were actually in the reserve, or just in forests adjacent to it.
Looking at the maps, it seems clear that an arbitrary North-South meridian visible only on a map, and cross-cutting several major rivers, is not an effective means for guaranteeing the safety either of the isolated Mashco Piro people or their settled indigenous and non-indigenous neighbors, who likewise depend on the forest for their livelihood.
Local journalist Cesar Blanco Rocca has interviewed family members of the dead men on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/uUkVKi8B1At3ZpkX/?mibextid=oFDknk
Photo of Gerardo provided by Alejandro Smith Bisso.
#amazonia #Indigenousrights #isolatedindigenouspeoples #uncontactedtribe #Peru
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/099/310/755/572/682/original/f08f894c36288a63.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/099/310/856/815/834/original/b54e32778930638e.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/099/310/968/923/783/original/dc7737c8e70324e8.jpg
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/099/311/059/534/258/original/7b98f50f8d7bd6b5.jpg

2024-09-07 14:59:12 UTC

"The ethnographers have cast a dream of innocence over north Greenland, a dream that the Inuit will continue to be the bow-legged, drum-dancing, legend-telling, widely smiling exhibition images that the first explorers thought they were meeting south of Qaanaaq at the turn of the century."
--Peter Høeg
@npub1ny7…uv57
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/096/859/842/454/250/original/95c7b3d980621c27.jpg

2024-08-08 12:50:02 UTC

Day 18
@npub1zvn…mygc
@npub1ny7…uv57
@npub1jem…2tgd
#20days20books
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/112/926/483/963/766/749/original/b6ea5d0c8a2f33fe.jpg

2024-07-31 21:20:59 UTC

@npub1zvn…mygc
@npub1ny7…uv57
@npub1jem…2tgd
Day 10
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/112/883/194/379/207/989/original/69d0b8e60eb92122.jpg