> That they engaged with it as both stewards and beneficiaries of its bounty
Sorry, but no, you might be thinking of Avatar.
They were just like us, they did whatever to it that they thought would be most beneficial to themselves, except more short term thinking than current society and with less technology and numbers so less damaging.
The question here is, did the do structural improvements for themselves (unlikely) or did they make large changes from how they lived like clearing and burning over lots of years (more likely)
It's cute how you try to apply a Western way of seeing the world to a radically different cultural mindset. The people I'm talking about believe, in all seriousness, that the plants have spirits, with whom you can communicate, and to whom you owe deference and respect, because they — and you — are part of a larger system that benefits from, even depends upon, a cooperative mode of co-existence.
That kind of thinking suffuses their culture. It is a premise to how they engage with their world. Short-term, "I can burn this down if it serves my immediate needs," thinking is inimical to the traditional way of life of Amazonian tribal societies — or at least the ones with which I've interacted. "Cut it down and turn it into money" is, necessarily, a new phenomenon, since "money" wasn't even a thing for these people until we introduced it to them.
So, yeah. It is, in fact, rather like Avatar, your snark notwithstanding. You can dismiss that kind of thinking as animistic, primitive, or whatever else you want, to your heart's content. But denying its existence to someone who's spoken with these people, and seen the sincerity and reverence with which they hold those beliefs, is ... well, it's very reductively Western, for starters.
EDIT: It's also patently absurd to call that kind of thinking "short-term" in light of the clear-cutting, slash-and-burning, &c, that so many people there commit these days, just to get by — let alone to call it more short-term than the ways people engage today. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
It can also be patronizing to say that non-western and non-eastern people have no agency, that only westerners and easterners have universality.
As if Mayans could not commit ecological mistakes or clearcut land for more farming. I'm not saying that All rainforests people clearcut or had disregard for nature, but it's rather odd to think that while human they could not commit the same kind of "savagery" westerners or easterners can commit.
As some fist peoples are humorously fond of exaggerating, we burned more land, killed more animals than any european ever did, that to make a point that they too can do bad things, that they too are human just like everyone else and can do have agency.
Sorry, but no, you might be thinking of Avatar.
They were just like us, they did whatever to it that they thought would be most beneficial to themselves, except more short term thinking than current society and with less technology and numbers so less damaging.
The question here is, did the do structural improvements for themselves (unlikely) or did they make large changes from how they lived like clearing and burning over lots of years (more likely)