Uncategorized – Siwar Mayu

Ecopoetics From the East and the South of Earth Mother

Original idea, pictures and interviews © Yaxkin Melchy

Translation from Japanese and Spanish into English by Yaxkin Melchy

Copy-editing by Sophie Lavoie

Translation from Spanish to Japanese by Chizuko Osato 大里千津子 and Mitsuko Ando 安藤美津子 with revision by Yasuko Sagara 相良泰子

Japanese version below ↴

Interview with Tokūn Tanaka, head monk of the Dōkeiji 同慶寺 zen temple in the town of Minami Soma in Fukushima, Japan, and Pedro Favaron, poet, researcher, and medicine man of the Nishi Nete clinic in the Indigenous community of Santa Clara de Yarinacocha in the Peruvian Amazon. The photographs were taken in Minami Soma, Fukushima, and in the Indigenous community of Santa Clara de Yarinacocha, Ucayali, Peru.

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South: Pedro Favaron, Santa Clara Yarinacocha Native Community, Ucayali, Perú

Yaxkin: Please introduce yourself

Pedro: I am a humble man on earth, who tries to keep a healthy body, a well-formed and active mind (simple and without entanglements), and a sincere heart. I was born in the city of Lima, the capital of Peru and, since I was a child, I felt the necessity to return to the earth. Also, from very early on, I sensed that Indigenous people kept a fundamental knowledge for reconnecting with the sacred network of life. My dearest moments during my childhood and adolescence were when I swam in the Pacific Ocean and when I walked its beaches at night during our family trips to the Andean desert and coastal valleys. Although I was lucky enough to get a Ph.D.-level academic education at the University of Montreal in Canada, my soul still thirsted for something that mere intellectual education could not give me. That is to say that I have no complaints about academic education in itself (except, of course, about the primacy of materialist positivism); but, in my understanding, current universities cannot meet the genuine necessities of our self-being. So, when I finished my studies, I came to live in the Amazon and married Chonon Bensho, a wise and beautiful woman artist from the Shipibo-Konibo people. She is a descendant of medicine men and women (Meraya) who, for many generations, have maintained the links between our world, the spiritual Owners of medicine and the ancestors. I have been able to learn at least a little of that ancestral knowledge and the spiritual connection that my wife’s grandfather (Ranin Bima) carefully preserved. My entire being has been renewed through the perfume of medicinal plants and the radiance of the Jakon Nete (the pure land, devoid of evil). Despite being a person of this time and experiencing, like the rest of society, the antinomies of modernity and the prevalence of cybernetic logic, I try to live in harmony between heaven and earth. It is from this harmony that we receive patients who ask for our help with humility and whom we attend to in the traditional way. Likewise, maintaining a dialogue with the forests and with the sacred network of life, I write poems, narratives, essays, and academic papers. I also make videos and films, trying to make a contribution to the world, sharing beauty and clarity to help these times marked by violence and confusion.

Yaxkin: Since you began to live in Yarinacocha, what is the current situation in the Peruvian Amazon?

Pedro: The lifestyle of the ancients has permanently disappeared from this world. There is no turning back. The media and new technologies have a profound impact on our lifestyles, on our aspirations, and colonize the unconscious of young people. Indigenous languages are being lost and with them all their sensitivity: their intimate relationship with the territory, and the knowledge implicit in the language. On the other hand, deforestation and excessive depredation of lakes and rivers continue to advance, as well as violence. This is a point worth mentioning, since both assaults with weapons and house robberies have grown worryingly, in time with the rage in people’s hearts and witchcraft. People do not want to make the sacrifices that the ancients made to purify their hearts and learn how to bond themselves with the spiritual Owners of medicine and the Jakon Nete in the ancient way. Formerly, the few people who followed the ancients’ initiation paths did so to help their families and protect them. Now, on the contrary, the knowledge of plants is learned only for business, to give visionary plants to drink to foreigners, thus likening our sacred medicines to any other drug. When one wants to learn motivated by selfish desires, that person will twist their way and only learn the negative, thus becoming an antisocial person who fosters disunity. In the heart of the medicine man, generosity and spirit of service must prevail. If one starts in the traditional way, it is still possible to bond with the Jakon Nete. The world of the ancients has disappeared from this existential dimension in which we live, but it still lives in a parallel time-space to ours. If we keep our hearts pure, its light will awaken in us and it will give us strength and wisdom.

Yaxkin: In your vision, what will be the challenges for the community of Santa Clara de Yarinacocha in the coming years?

Pedro: I believe that the greatest challenge of Indigenous families, in general, is how to survive while maintaining our cultural and spiritual differences, in the midst of the overwhelming homogenizing trend of globalism that wants us all the same, consuming the same, thinking the same, and wishing the same, disconnected from our own being and from the soul of the world. Is it possible for Indigenous peoples to participate in the market economy in a differentiated way, without losing their ancestral knowledge, their art, their language, and, above all, by preserving a harmonious relationship with the sacred web of life? I see that this is a major challenge, very difficult, but not impossible. I believe that this cannot be achieved if Indigenous peoples do not obtain a solid academic education. The problem is that almost all modern education is being used to eradicate peoples’ cultures and to discipline students so that they become functional to a system of exploitation of other human beings, and the rest of the living beings. It would be necessary to open up academic spaces: new technologies, modern sciences, and ancestral knowledge could be put into dialogue on equal terms, focusing on love and compassion towards human beings, the earth, and the rest of the sentient beings. I see, however, that, at the moment, the Yarinacocha region is very far from this possibility and that makes my heart grieve; however, I do not consider it entirely healthy to cling to that sadness, but rather we must look to the future with hope. Despite all the challenges and threats that stand against life in this time, there are also many people, from different cultures, who want to learn ancestral knowledge, and to seek more harmonious and beautiful ways of inhabiting the earth. What gives meaning to our lives is the service we provide to others. The light of wisdom shines for all those who sincerely seek to change their lives and heal their wounds, for people who work for the good of the sacred web of life.

Yaxkin: How could the spiritual vision of the peoples of East Asia enrich native communities and the mestizo Peruvian society?

Pedro: I have always sensed that there is an intimate relationship between the Andean-Amazonian cultures and the East Asian ones. In particular, in Peru, we had Japanese and Chinese migrations that were integrated into local cultures and whose contributions are evident in many ways (starting with cuisine). I feel that there is a kind of resonance and continuity. However, without being conscious and explicit about it, we cannot fully benefit from that relationship and what the spiritual traditions of the East Asian people have to teach us. I believe, for example, that the basic notions of Taoism are very close to the ancestral Amazonian sensibility: they seek humility, allying oneself with the movements of the cycles of nature without opposition, contemplation, and distancing from the National State. The Confucian ethic, on the other hand, that promotes selfless service to the State is quite absent in the Amazon (where nations without a State have prospered), although it is possible that something similar existed in the ancient Tawantinsuyo of the Inkas. Likewise, I believe that Chan and Zen Buddhism, with the emphasis on the return to our original condition, and understanding “satori” (comprehension) as an awakening to our inner truth, are close to the indigenous understanding of personal realization called “meraya.” The Buddhist emphasis on compassion and generosity is very close to our ancestral ethics: legitimate human beings (known as “jonikon” in the Shipibo language) should not be dominated by selfish desires, appetites, envy, or jealousy, but by a vocation of service and self-sacrifice in favor of their network of relatives and loved ones. At the same time, the Shinto’s understanding of nature’s spirits is really close to ours. My wife and I have a fondness for Studio Ghibli’s animations; we really like the intersection between modern and ancient Japan. I believe that this helps us to truly imagine our Amazonian modernity, one that can embrace the best of science and technology without losing its cultural and spiritual roots. Even Japanese painting and poetry are close to our sensibility. I think it would be very enriching to engage in a cultural, intellectual, and spiritual dialogue that does not need to be filtered through Eurocentric scholarship but rather can take place sincerely in an atmosphere of trust and understanding.

Yaxkin: Do you believe in Mother Earth? For you, what is Mother Earth, and from the point of view of the Shipibo-Konibo spirituality, how can we approach her?

Pedro: It is evident that the Earth behaves like a mother: her atmosphere embraces us like the uterine waters, she sustains and feeds us generously. In the same way, the Sun behaves like a father, who lights our way and fertilizes the Earth, making life possible. It is good to humbly acknowledge our debt to the founding elements of existence and our participation in the sacred web of life. We know, from the teachings of our ancestors, that all living beings, plants, trees, birds, the sun, mountains, stones, and rivers, have their own form of language, consciousness and spiritual life. The Great Spirit’s breath dwells in them and animates them. According to ancient narratives, in the past, all living beings shared the same original condition; therefore, we are all related and nothing is completely unrelated. Living beings participate in a sacred network and we complement each other. Humans cannot survive on their own, we depend on others. Therefore, we do not have the right to impose our whims or abuses on others, to the point of putting the continuity of life on the planet at risk. Health, in a holistic and comprehensive sense, requires us to live in harmony with the rest of living beings.

Yaxkin: How can we reconcile with Mother Earth?

Pedro: First, I think that we need to return to more austere lifestyles closer to land and plants. If one wants to reconcile with our mother earth, we have to slow down our worries and busy schedules, purify ourselves and return to the contemplative temporality of trees. We have to clean our retinas and recover our amazement by sailing the rivers in a canoe and walking under the green shade of the forests. In order to dialogue with the rest of living beings and experience unity with the sacred web of life, we must preserve ourselves in certain purity: eating healthily and lightly, renouncing the excesses of lust and selfish pleasures, breathing calmly, preserving the innocence of our heart, loving other beings, and letting our inner light to emerge. Our grandparents taught us precise words to converse with the rest of living beings. Our medicinal songs are like perfumed flowers that descend from the Jakon Nete to bless our world, calm sadness, and brighten hearts. Furthermore, I’m deeply convinced that the prayers of aints and sages are like invisible pillars preventing heaven and earth from mixing chaotically. We must preserve the balance and links between the visible world and the spiritual one. Human beings can only fully realize themselves if they receive strength, help, and wisdom from Master Spirits and the sages of the past.

Yaxkin: What is the role of poetry, songs, and arts in this reconciliation?

Pedro: The ancient Meraya were sages who healed patients with their medicinal chants. In other words, they were medicine-poets who healed with the vibrations of their voice. The suprasensible healing force comes down from the spiritual worlds and takes shape in the voice of the healer. This is a sacred poetry that purifies the body and mind, driving away evil spirits and fighting against witchcraft, restoring lost balance, and brightening the heart. We have been able to learn just a little about that heritage by continuing to practice it. These medicinal songs inspire the rest of our artistic practices. My wife and I believe in an art that, nourished by ancestral knowledge, territory, and the spiritual worlds, contributes to beautifying the planet, participates in the cosmic balance, and reminds us of having a good coexistence with the rest of the beings, showing us how to inhabit the earth in a beautiful, wise, and prudent way. I believe that at this time, when mental illnesses and the loss of our own humanity (under the primacy of cybernetics) are proliferating, art should lift us up and give us tranquility, love, compassion, and remind us about our own hearts. People are increasingly disconnected from themselves, from other beings, and from the sacred; our art seeks to be a medicine for these diseases and aims to provide relief to suffering.

Yaxkin: Please share your vision with a phrase or poem.

Pedro:

I spend my days
and nights
in a shelter
in the mountain

listening to
the liquid song
of the wild bird

and the deep and quiet
language
of the plants.

Alone, sitting 
under a tree
by the creek

vain desires
dissolve
in the waters

that neither hurriedly
nor slowly,
run down into the big river.

How different
the world would be 
if my brothers

listened
to the sweet rumor
of the creek

a spring
of love
at the base
of the heart.

East: Tokūn Tanaka（田中徳雲）

Yaxkin: Please introduce yourself

Tokūn: I am a monk in charge of a Buddhist temple in the city of Minami Soma in Fukushima prefecture. When I was in high school, I became interested in reading books about ancient Buddhist monks and began to study Buddhism. Since 2001, I have been living in this temple, dedicating myself to the practices that are part of our everyday life. Ten years ago, in this emblematic temple of our region, famous for its agriculture, fishing, and rich nature, everything changed enormously due to the accident at the nuclear power plant. My temple is located 17 kilometers northwest of this nuclear power plant [Fukushima Daiichi].

Yaxkin: Now, ten years after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster of 2011, what is the situation in Minami Soma, Fukushima?

Tokūn: Before the earthquake, the population was about 13,000 people. Many of these people used to live with three or even four generations under a single roof. The history and culture that had been passed down from the ancestors were also highly valued. In the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant accident, people were forced to lead a life as “evacuees” for a long period of time. The radioactive contamination that followed the nuclear power plant accident was an especially new experience for all and therefore it was very difficult for us to respond to the situation. This contamination is invisible to the eye, has no odor, and cannot be felt. However, it turns out that it is actually there. Then, the Japanese government downplayed the problem by limiting itself to following the national plan for nuclear power plants. As a result, opinions on radioactivity issues were divided within the local community and between families, for example, about things like letting your clothes air dry or not, or eating your own vegetables grown in the garden. Also, difficult decisions needed to be made such as whether or not to return to our homes; these ended up opening up a huge spiritual fissure. Today, counting the people who have returned and the people living in the town, we are about 3,500 people.

Yaxkin: In your vision, what will be the challenges for the Minami Soma community in the coming years?

Tokūn: We have a lot of issues. The first one is the issue of our decreasing population. Now, in the district of Minami Soma called Odakaku, the people who have returned are 35% of the people who were living there before the earthquake, and the vast majority are elderly people. Therefore, in the next ten to twenty years, it is estimated that the population will diminish significantly. The second issue is the environmental problem. For example, this 35% of the population is carrying out the cooperative work that the entire community used to do for the maintenance of the forests, but since most of them are very old, the work has become almost impossible. As a result, the mountains have become wild, and wild boars and monkeys come down to the villages to plunder the orchards. It is possible that one of the causes lies in the increase of this animal population during the time when people were evacuated from the area. However, it is important to think that this is also connected to the fact that there is no food on the mountain. I think that is precisely the reason why these areas require careful care. The third issue is the heart and mind problems. The children who witnessed the nuclear power plant accident will soon come of age [* in Japan this is at 21 years old]. They have grown up seeing how the government has not taken care of the population of their towns, and how it has lied to only take care of itself (and the corporations). This government has unscrupulously lied, using a double standard that covers its true intentions [“honne”] with a language of appearance [“tatemae”], pleasing the strong and trampling the weak. The children who have seen all this bear wounds and therefore have no hope in society.

Yaxkin: How could the spiritual vision of Indigenous peoples enrich the vision and life of the Japanese?

Tokūn: I especially believe that the spiritual vision of Indigenous peoples is important because I care about the future of our boys and girls. Also, because of their posture of respect towards the Earth, as if she were a mother who should not be hurt. This way of thinking was generally shared by the ancient Japanese. Because Japan is a nation of islands, anciently it was highly valued to thank nature, the sea, and mountains for the blessings received from them. Things from nature were not taken in excess and were shared. After the industrial revolution, capitalist thought entered Japan. Despite the fact that we have been losing sight of things and falling into confusion, searching for our immediate benefit, I believe that the genes that were asleep within us have begun to awaken. I see as a hopeful sign people who, tired of living in the cities, seek a life in the countryside, or the fact that more young people are trying to make their lives smaller and closer to self-sufficiency. I think that is happening not only in Japan but all over the world at the same time.

Yaxkin: Do you believe in Mother Earth? For you, what is Mother Earth and, from Japanese Buddhism, how could we approach her?

Tokūn: Yes, of course. I am one more part of the Earth. If we take an apple tree as an example, each one of us is a fruit and the Earth is our tree. It is necessary to awaken to the consciousness that goes from the fruit to the tree. Precisely this tree is the shape of our future. I believe that if our consciousness from the fruit to the tree awakens, then a metamorphosis occurs like that of the caterpillar that becomes a butterfly, and we will be able to naturally solve problems. I think that the emptiness [空 “kū”] explained in Buddhism explains these things too.

Yaxkin: How can we reconcile with Mother Earth?

Tokūn: Meditating within nature. Walking. Going into the sea and collecting garbage. Planting trees and caring for them in the mountains. These things allow us to listen to the voice of the Earth, and be able to “tune into it” by synchronizing it to our own being. Through this attunement, it becomes possible to hear the voice of the Earth. I believe that even with these little things, our mother (Earth) becomes happy and, as we heal from our wounds, we gain the opportunity to recover our connection with her.

Yaxkin: What is the role of poetry, songs, and the arts in this reconciliation?

Tokūn: The energy of the arts is very great. More than a thousand words, just a photograph, a single poem that makes a person’s heart resound is not a small thing. The Hopis have also written about this in their prophecies. It is known that the authentic Hopis are educated with clear thinking, good images, drawings, and rigorously chosen words. Education, in this case, does not mean education in White people’s sense, but true education for peace.

Yaxkin: Please share your vision with a phrase or poem.

Tokūn:

Soil for my feet
An axe for my hands
Flowers for my eyes
Birds for my ears
Mushrooms for my nose
A smile for my mouth
Songs for my lungs
Sweat for my skin
Wind for my heart  

Just that is enough.

Poem by Nanao Sakaki (1923-2008)

Thank you very much!

田中徳運氏(福島南相馬町にある道警寺の禅僧）、ぺドロ・ファヴァロン氏（ペルー、ウカヤリ県アマゾン森林地域のサンタ・クララ・デ・ヤリナコチャ集落のニシネテ治療院）

インタビュアーと写真　ヤスキン・メルチー

ペドロ・ファヴァロン氏

ヤスキン：それでは、自己紹介をお願いします。

ペドロ：私はこの大地に根を下ろし、健康な体と確固でアクティブな精神を持つ、迷いのない簡素で誠実な心を持ち続けようと努めている謙虚な人間です。

ペルーの首都リマで生まれました。幼少のころから「大地に戻りたい」という感覚がありました。そして少年の頃から先住民達が「生命の神聖なつながり」を再発見するために必要な深淵な智慧を保持していることを直観的に感じとっていました。

幼少期ー青年期で私にとって一番素晴らしかった思い出は海水浴や夜の海辺の散歩、家族でアンデスの砂漠や海岸の渓谷地域を旅行した日々です。

その後、カナダのモントリオールの大学で修士号を取得するという幸運に恵まれましたが、私の魂はアカデミックな教育では満たされませんでした。

そのような教育システムについて何ら批判をするつもりもありませんが、現代社会が物質至上主義を優先することについては批判的な考えを持っています。少なくとも現在の大学教育では私たちが本質的に必要としていることついては対応しきれていないと実感しています。

大学を終え、私はすぐにウカヤリ県アマゾン森林地域に移住し、シピボ・コニボ族の美しく知的な芸術家チョノン・ベンショという女性と結婚しました。彼女の家系は何世代にもわたって、祖先と*メディシーナ（スペイン語で薬の意味だがシャーマニックな世界では伝統的民間医療の施術で使われる薬草や歌、音楽などを指す。）の精霊の師たちと現生の人間世界とを繋ぎ続けてきた**メラヤ（シピボ・コニボの言葉でシャーマン、薬草をや唄、詩で治療する伝統的民間医療の専門家の意味）の血を受け継いでいます。妻の祖父のラニン・ビマが祖先から大切に受け継ぎ守り続けてきた智慧と精神世界との結びつきを私も多少なりとも継承することができました。そのおかげで、「私」という存在は完全に薬草、生薬の香りと***ジャコンネテ（純粋な大地、悪がないこと、悪のない大地）の輝きによって一新されました。

私は現代社会のジレンマやサイバネティクス理論に支配されたこの時代に、この社会に生きている現代人でありながらも天と地の間に調和を持って生きようと努めています。その調和をもとに私たちの慎ましやかな手助けを求める人達を受け入れ、伝統的な方法で対応、診療しています。また、森や「生命の神聖なつながり」との対話から詩やエッセイ、アカデミックな文献の執筆活動、動画や映画の制作などを通して、美と真実を分かち合うことでこの暴力と混沌に満ちた時代の救いの一手となるように努めています。

２ヤリナコチャに移住してからのことを振り返り、今あなたが住んでいるペルーアマゾンの森林地域の現状について教えてください。

ペドロ：古代の生活様式はこの世界からもうすでに消え去ってしまい、もう元に戻すことはできません。マスメディアや新しいテクノロジーは私たちの生活様式や願望に深く影響を与え、若者たちの深層意識に入り込んでいます。先住民の言語は、その繊細な感性やその土地との密接な関係だけでなく、言葉に内在する深淵な知識までも失われつつあります。その一方で森林破壊、湖や河川の汚染はとどまることを知りません。暴力も然り、です。

これは強調すべきことだと思いますが、武器を用いた強盗や空き巣被害の増加が深刻なだけでなく、人々の心の中に怒りや黒魔術が広がりました。

人々はもう、昔の人たちがしていたように心を清めたり、先祖から受け継がれた方法*メディシーナの精霊や***ジャコン・ネテとの繋がり方を学ぶために代償を払おうとしません。それでも昔は、限られた少数の人たちが家族を助けたり守るために先人たちから受け継いだ方法で道をたどり、学びを得ていました。ところが現代では商売として外国人にアマゾンの森林の神聖な薬草をまるでドラッグのように飲ませることを学んでしまうのです。もし、自己の願望のためにそのようなことをするのであれば学びの道は歪み、ネガティブな事だけを習得し、不調和を育む反社会的な人間に変貌するでしょう。**メラヤの心は寛容さと、奉仕の精神であふれているべきですし、古典的な方法で学び始めることができれば***ジャコン・ネテと結びつくことは今だ可能でしょう。古代人の世界は、私たちが生きているこの次元からは失われてしまいましたが、パラレルワールドにはまだ残っているのです。純粋で無垢な心を保てるのなら私たちの中に光は目覚め、力と智慧を与えてくれることでしょう。

3、サンタ・クララ・デ・ヤリナコチャ集落において、今後どのような課題や試みをビジョンとしてお持ちですか？

ペドロ：先住民の家族の今後の大きな課題は、私たちの本来の在り方だけでなく世界や魂から断ち切られ、皆そろって同じものを消費し、同じことを考え、同じものを求め、全てを同様に均一化させるグローバリズムという圧倒的な流れの中で、どのようにしたら先住民族独自の文化の精神性を維持しながら生き残れるか、と言うことだと思います。

先住民にとって、古代からの智慧や言、芸術を失うことなく「生命の神聖なつながり」と調和の取れた関係を保ちつつ、独自の方法で消費、経済市場に参加することは可能でしょうか？私はこれはとても難しい課題だと思います。が、決して不可能ではありません。けれども、先住民がしっかりとした学校教育を受ける事なしには達成できないと思います。問題は多くの場合、現代の教育が先住民達の文化を根絶し、学生たちに対して人類だけでなく生きとし生けるもの全てから搾取するシステムの維持に役立つ人員の養成に利用されてきたことです。

人々や、大地そしてその他の生き物への愛と慈悲の心に焦点を当てた上で新しいテクノロジーと近代科学や古代から受け継がれてきた智慧について公平な条件で話し合えるアカデミックな場を設ける必要があります。そしてそれは大地やそこに生きるかけがえのない存在達への愛と思いやりのもとに成されるべきだと思いますが、私の見解ではヤリナコチャ地域は現時点でこの可能性からは随分かけ離れており、痛ましい状況であると言えます。とは言え、悲しみにくれていても始まらないので、希望のある未来を見るべきだと考えています。多くのチャレンジや命を危険にさらすような脅威が立ちはだかるような時代ではありますが、より調和の取れた、美しい方法でこの大地に住むことに興味を持ち、先祖代々受け継がれた智慧について学び、生命の神聖な結びつきのために役に立ちたいというペルーアマゾン以外の文化圏の人々が多くいることも確かだからです。

私たちの生き方に意味を与えるのは他者への奉仕の精神です。智慧の光は誠実で強い意思を持って傷を癒し生き方を変え、「生命の神聖なつながり」を取りもどすことを望む全ての人々の上に注がれるのです。

ヤスキン：東アジアのスピリチュアルなビジョンはどのようにしたらペルーの先住民のコミュニティーと****メスティーソ（白人とラテンアメリカの先住民の混血）社会の生活を豊かにできると思いますか？

ペドロ：私は常々アンデスーアマゾン文化と東洋の間に親密な関係があると感じていました。特にペルーでは、古くから日本や中国からの移民が歴史的にペルー現地の文化に浸透しており、その貢献は特に食文化を初め様々な点で明らかな影響が見受けられます。それは共感を持って継続的に受け入れられたという幸運に恵まれた反面、意識的に明白な意図を持ってされたことではなかったゆえに、このアマゾン―アンデスと東洋の関係や東洋のスピリチュアル文化の伝統が私たちに教えうる恩恵を私たちは十分に受けるに至らないのだと思います。

例えば、道教の基本思想である謙虚であること、自然の周期の動きと対立せず調和をする事や、思慮深くあること、そして国家とは距離を置くことなどは古代アマゾンの感性と似通っています。一方で儒教の国家への献身的な奉仕という倫理観は、古代インカのタワンティスヨにはそれと似通っているものがあったかもしれないと言えますが、国家なくして民族が繁栄したアマゾン森林地帯ではあまり見られません。

また、仏教の禅宗は内なる真実への目覚めを「悟り」とし、自らの本質に戻ることに重きをおいていますが、これは先住民が理解するところの**メラヤの賢人の「個」の認識と近いものがあります。慈悲深く寛容であることに重きをおく仏教の考えは古代の倫理とよく似ています。例えば、まっとうな人間（シピボ族の言葉でジョニコン）はエゴや私利私欲、恨みや妬みに心を翻弄されてはならず、奉仕の精神で自己を犠牲にし、親族や愛する人々との繋がりのために身を尽くすのです。

同じように、神道の自然神についての認識は、私たちのそれとかなり近いものがあります。妻と私はスタジオジブリのアニメのファンでもあります。私たちが好意を抱いている近代日本の伝統との調和は、文化や精神性のルーツを失うことなく科学とテクノロジーの最も優れた部分を取り入れているという点で、私たちのアマゾンが真にアマゾン森林らしい現代化を遂げることを思い描く手助けとなってくれます。

日本の絵画や詩は私たちの感性と似ているとも思えます。西洋中心主義的なアカデミズムのフィルターを通さず、正面から向かい合い気兼ねなく分かり合える雰囲気で、精神性について知的で文化的な対話が始められたら話が弾み充実したものとなるでしょう。

ヤスキン：「母なる大地」を信じますか？あなたとって「母なる大地」とはなんですか？シピボ・コニボ族の精神性と見解ではどうすればその考え方に近づくことができるとお考えですか？

ペドロ：大地は母のような存在であることは明らかですし、大気はそこに住む私たちを子宮の羊水のように包み込み、支え、そして惜しみなくその豊かさを与えてくれます。そして太陽は父のようであり、生命活動の実現のため、道を照らし、大地を肥沃にしてくれます。今一度、私たちには生きて行くための基本的なことは与えられていることや、「生命の神聖なつながり」の一部であることの恩義を認識し、謙虚に受け入れることは大切なことだと思います。

全ての命あるもの、植物、樹木、鳥、太陽、山々、石、河、などはそれぞれ彼ら独自の言語や意識そして、高い精神性を持ち、偉大なる精霊の息吹がそれらに宿り魂を与えているということを、私たちは尊翁から伝授されています。先祖の言い伝えでは、全ての生命の起源は同じです。したがって、皆等しくつながっていて、完全に切り離されてしまっているものなど何もないのです。命あるものは、「生命の神聖なつながり」の一部で、お互いに補い合っているのです。人間は一人では生きていけず、お互いに助け合い相互依存しあっているのです。だからこそ、他者を尊重せず独善的、利己的にふるまうようなことは地球上の生命存続を危機に陥れることになり、私たちにはそんな権利はありません。包括的で統合的な意味での健康を考えるのなら、私たちが他の生き物たちと調和を保つことが必要です。

ヤスキン：どうしたら母なる大地とよい関係を取り戻すことができますか？

ペドロ：まず第一に、大地と植物に寄り添うような簡素な生活に戻るべきです。母なる大地と良い関係を取り戻したいのなら日常の慌ただしさやぎっしりと詰め込まれた予定を見直し、身心を浄化し、樹木のように黙想するようなゆったりとした生活に戻ると良いでしょう。瞳の網膜を清め、カヌーでゆったりと河を下ったり、森の木々の影の下を歩きながら、驚嘆する素直な心を取り戻すべきです。そして全ての生きとし生けるもの達と対話したり、「生命の神聖なつながり」の一部であることを体験するには私たち自身の純粋さを養うことが大切です。それには、健康的な食生活を心がけ、過度な性的欲求や、自我を満足させるためだけの快楽を絶ち、ゆったりとした気分で呼吸をし、純粋な心を保ち、全ての命を愛し、内なる光を輝かせるのです。尊翁たちは全ての生きとし生けるもの達と会話をするのに必要な言葉を教えてくれました。私たちの歌（伝統的民間医療で使われる治癒力のある歌）はジャコン・ネテから沸き立つ香り高い花のようにこの世界を祝福し悲しみを沈め、心を悦びで満たします。そして、聖人や賢人たちの祈りは天界と大地が混沌の中で交じりあってしまわないようにするための目に見えない柱のようである、と私は深く確信しています。さらに、私たちは目に見える世界と精霊たちとの繋がりとバランスを保たなくてはなりません。人間は、師である精霊や祖先の賢者から活力や助けや智慧を受け得ることではじめてまっとうな人間となるのです。

ヤスキン：詩や歌、芸術の役目はなんでしょうか？

ペドロ：古代の**メラヤは歌うことで人々を治療し、癒していました。つまり、彼らはその声の波動で治癒する詩人であり治療家だったのです。非常に繊細な感度の治癒力は精霊たちの世界から降りてきて、治療家の声をまとった姿で現れます。それは神聖な詩で精神と体を浄化し、悪い精霊を遠ざけ魔術と戦うことで失われたバランス感覚を回復させ心に悦びをもたらします。私たちはこの治療法を少なからず継承し学び、実践し続けています。そしてまた、歌うことは私たちの芸術活動にもインスピレーションを与えてくれます。

妻と私は共に、このアマゾンという土地や精霊たちの世界で先祖の智慧を身に着けて、地球をより美しくすることに貢献し宇宙の均整の一部となり、更には全ての生き物と共に生きる事、そしてどうすればいかに美しく、知的にかつ堅実な方法でこの大地に住むにはを想い起こさせてくれるような芸術を信じています。

サイバネティックス優先で本来の人間性が失われ、精神の病が蔓延しているこの現代に、芸術は私たちを向上させ愛と静けさ、そして慈悲の精神を育み私たちの本来の心とは何かについて思い出させてくれます。

今後ますます人々は自分自身の本質やその他の生き物たちだけでなく神聖で霊的なものとの結びつきを失いつつありますが、私たちの芸術はそういった病のための*メディシーナ、治療、癒しであり、苦しみを和らげる手助けとなるでしょう。

ヤスキン：あなたが得意とする詩で表現していただけますか？

ペドロ：

山奥の隠れ家

昼夜を過ごす

聞こえるのは

野鳥の一声

言葉少ない草木の沈黙

小川の傍

樹の下に独り座れば

ゆらゆらとした欲望は

水に溶け

急がず、だがとどまることなく大河へ流れる。

兄弟たちが

渓谷の甘いざわめきを耳にしたら

世界はどんなに違うことだろうか

心の奥底にある

愛の泉

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　訳　　大里千津子　安藤美津子

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　協力　相良泰子

田中徳雲

ヤスキン：それでは、自己紹介をお願いします。

田中：私は福島県南相馬市で禅寺の住職をしています。

高校生の時に、本で読んだ昔の禅僧に憧れて、仏教を学び始めました。

修行生活を経て、2001年から現在のお寺で生活をしています。

地域のシンボル的なお寺で、農業と漁業が盛んな、自然豊かなのどかな場所でした。

１０年前の原発事故で生活は大きく変わりました。

私のお寺は原発から北西に17㎞のところにあります。

ヤスキン：２０１１の東日本大震災、および福島第一原子力発電所事故からことを振り返り、今あなたが住んでいる南相馬市の現状について教えてください。

田中：震災前の人口は約13000人でした。多くの人々は３世代、４世代が同居して住んでおり、先祖から伝わる歴史と文化を大切にしていました。町には1000年続くといわれる伝統行事、相馬野馬追いがあります。

地震と津波と原発事故で、人々は長期間の避難生活を強いられました。

特に原発事故による放射能汚染は初めての経験で、対応が難しかったです。

目には見えず、匂いもしないし、感じることも出来ません。しかし、確かにそこにあるわけです。日本政府は、原子力発電を国策として進めてきたので、事故を矮小化しました。そのため、地域コミュニティーや家族内でも、放射能に対しての意見が分かれました。例えば、洗濯物を外に干す、干さない、畑で作った野菜を食べる、食べないなどです。元住んでいた家に帰る、帰らない、という選択も難しい問題で、精神的に大きな分断、消耗を強いられました。

現在、私の町に帰還して住んでいる人は約3500人程です。

ヤスキン：南相馬市において、今後どのような課題や試みをビジョンとしてお持ちですか？

田中：課題はいくつもあります。

１つには、人口の問題です。今、南相馬市小高区に戻ってきて住んでいる人は、震災前の約３５％ほどで、ほとんどが高齢者です。１０〜２０年後には、人口が激減するでしょう。

２つには、環境の問題です。例えば山林の手入れなどで、以前は地域で協力して行っていた共同作業も今は帰還した３５％の人で行っているわけです。しかも高齢者。それは不可能に近いです。そのため、山が荒れ、イノシシや猿が里に下りてきて田畑を荒らしています。人が避難していた間に、動物の個体数が増えたのも原因でしょうが、山にエサがないことも原因で、つながる一つの問題として考えていくことが大切です。このあたりの丁寧なケアが必要だと思っています。

３つには、こころの問題です。原発事故を目撃した子どもたちも、間もなく成人しようとしています。彼らは政治が市民を守るものではなく、自分たち（組織）を守るために、市民に嘘をつくことも見てきました。本音と建て前を使い分け、平気で嘘をつく。立場の強い人の機嫌をとり、立場の弱い人のことは踏みにじりました。それらを見てきた子どもたちは、潜在的にも傷つき、社会に希望が見出せないのではと思います。

子どもたちのためにも、そしてもっと広く、すべてのいきものたちのためにも、みんなが共感できる、祈りと行動が必要だと思います。

ヤスキン：先住民のビジョンはどのようにしたら日本の社会の生活を豊かにできると思いますか？

田中：先住民の精神的なビジョンで、特に大切だと思うことは、未来の子どもたちのことを考えること。それから、地球を自分の母親と同様に位置づけ、決して傷つけず、敬うこと。これらの考え方は、昔の日本人は皆共有していました。なぜなら日本は島国です。海の恵みをいただき、山の恵みをいただき、自然に感謝して、採り過ぎず、そして分け合うことを大切にしてきました。

産業革命以後、日本にも徐々に資本主義的な考え方が入ってきて、目先の利益に目がくらんで混乱していますが、自分たちの中に眠っていた遺伝子が起き始めてきていると思います。都会の生活に疲れ、田舎での生活に憧れる人や、生活を小さくして、なるべく自給自足に近づけていこうとする若者が増えているのも希望がもてることです。

そしてそれは、日本だけではなく、世界同時多発的に起きていることだと思います。

ヤスキン：「母なる大地」を信じますか？あなたとって「母なる大地」とはなんですか？日本の仏教の精神性と見解ではどうすればその考え方に近づくことができるとお考えですか？

田中：はい、もちろんです。　私たちは地球の一部です。

リンゴの木に例えるなら、一人ひとりが果実だとすると、地球は樹木です。

その果実から樹木への意識の目覚めが必要です。樹木こそが私たちの本来の姿です。果実から樹木に意識が覚醒すれば、毛虫が蝶になるように変化が起こり、問題は自然に解決していくと思います。

仏教で説かれる「空」とは、そのことを説いているのだと思います。

ヤスキン：どうしたら母なる大地とよい関係を取り戻すことができますか？

田中：自然の中で瞑想をすること。歩くこと。海に入り、海のゴミを拾うこと。山に木を植え森を育てること。それらは地球の声を聞くために、自分自身を調える（チューニング）することです。地球にチューニングすることで、地球の声が聞こえてくるようになります。

少しでもお母さん（地球）が喜ぶこと、傷が癒えることをすることで、繋がりが修復されるきっかけになると思います。

ヤスキン：詩や歌、芸術の役目はなんでしょうか？

田中：アートが持つ力は大きいです。

多くの言葉よりも、たった一枚の写真や、一編の詩が人の心に響くことは少なくありません。

ホピの予言にも書いてあります。本当のホピは、明晰な思考と、良い絵や写真、そして厳密に選ばれた言葉とによって、いかに教育をすれば良いのかを知っている。

（この場合の教育とは、白人的な教育ではなく、それに対しての真の平和教育を意味する）

ヤスキン：あなたが得意とする詩で表現していただけますか？

田中：

「これで十分」　ナナオサカキ

足に土。

手に斧。

目に花。

耳に鳥。

花に茸。

口にほほえみ。

胸に歌。

肌に汗。

心に風。

これで十分。

Thank you very much!!

For more about Yaxkin Melchy

(Mexico-Peru) He is a poet, translator of Japanese poetry, editor and researcher of ecopoetic thought. Yaxkin has a Masters in Asian and African Studies from the Colegio de Mexico. He specialized in the ecological vision of the Japanese wanderer poet and environmental activist Nanao Sakaki. Yaxkin is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He recently published Hatun Mayu (Hanan Harawi, 2016), Cactus del viento (an anthology of Nanao Sakaki’s poetry, AEM, 2017), Meditaciones del Pedregal (Astrolabio, 2019) y GAIA. Poemas en la Tierra (2020). In 2020 he wrote a column on ecopoetics and haiku for the magazine El Rincón del Haiku. Along with Pedro Favaron, they coordinate the “Cactus del Viento” ecopoetics collection of Mother Earth. He is a member of the Mother Earth Poetic Research Group. He publishes in his blog: https://flordeamaneceres.wordpress.com/

Ecopoetics from the east and the south of Earth Mother © Yaxkin Melchy

~ Siwar Mayu, July 2022

The Marrow Thieves. Cherie Dimaline

The Marrow Thieves © Cherie Dimaline

If you prefer to read as PDF, click here

Story: Part One (novel excerpt)

“Anishnaabe people, us, lived on these lands for a thousand years. Some of our brothers decided to walk as far east as they could go, and some walked west, and some crossed great stretches of narrow earth until they reached other parts of the globe. Many of us stayed here. We welcomed visitors, who renamed the land Canada. Sometimes things got real between us and the newcomers. Sometimes we killed each other. We were great fighters —warriors, we called ourselves and each other— and we knew these lands, so we kicked a lot of ass.”

The boys always puffed out their chests when Miig got to this part. The women straightened their spines and elongated their necks, their beautiful faces like flowers opening in the heat of the fire.

“But we lost a lot. Mostly because we got sick with new germs. And then when we were on our knees with fever and pukes, they decided they liked us there, on our knees. And that’s when they opened the first schools.

“We suffered there. We almost lost our languages. Many lost their innocence, their laughter, their lives. But we got through it, and the schools were shut down. We returned to our home places and rebuilt, relearned, regrouped. We picked up and carried on. There were a lot of years where we were lost, too much pain drowned in forgetting that came in convenient packages: bottles, pills, cubicles where we settled to move around papers. But we sang our songs and brought them to the streets and into the classrooms — classrooms we built on our own lands and filled with our own words and books. And once we remembered that we were warriors, once we honored the pain and left it on the side of the road, we moved ahead. We were back.”

Minerva drew in a big, wet sniff, wiped her nose across her sleeve, and then set about chewing the fabric once more.

“Then the wars for the water came. America reached up and started sipping on our lakes with a great metal straw. And where were the freshest lakes and the cleanest rivers? On our lands, of course. Anishnaabe were always the canary in the mine for the rest of them. Too bad the country was busy worrying about how we didn’t pay an extra tax on Levi’s jeans and Kit Kat bars to listen to what we were shouting.

“The Great Lakes were polluted to muck. It took some doing, but right around the time California was swallowed back by the ocean, they were fenced off, too poisonous for use.”

I’d seen the Great Lakes: Ontario when we were in the city and Huron when we lived on the New Road Allowance. The waters were grey and thick like porridge. In the distance, anchored ships swung, silent and shuttered, back and forth on the roll of methodical waves.

“The Water Wars raged on, moving north seeping our rivers and bays, and eventually, once our homelands were decimated and the water leeched and the people scattered, they moved on to the towns. Only then were armies formed, soldiers drafted, and bullets fired. Ironically, at the same time rivers were being sucked south and then east to the highest bidder, the North was melting. The Melt put most of the northlands under water, and the people moved south or onto some of the thousands of tiny islands that popped up out of the Melt’s wake across the top of our lands. Those northern people, they were tough, though, some of the toughest we’ve ever had, so they were okay, are still okay, the takes tell. Some better than okay. That’s why we move north towards them now.”

Migg stood, pacing his Story pace, waving his arms like a slow-motion conductor to place emphasis and tone over us all. We needed to remember Story. It was his job to set the memory in perpetuity. He spoke to us every week. Sometimes Story was focused on one area, like the first residential schools: where they were, what happened there, when they closed. Other times he told a hundred years in one long narrative, blunt and without detail. Sometimes we gathered for an hour so he could explain treaties, and others it was ten minutes to list the earthquakes in the sequence that they occurred, peeling the edging off the continents back like diseased gums. But every week we spoke, because it was imperative that we know. He said it was the only way to make the kinds of changes that were necessary to really survive. “A general has to see the whole field to make good strategy,” he’d explain. “When you’re down there fighting, you can’t see much past the threat directly in front of you.”

“The Water Wars lasted ten years before a new set of treaties and agreements were shook on between world leaders in echoing assembly halls. The Anishnaabe were scattered, lonely, and scared. On our knees again, only this time there was no home to regroup at. Meanwhile, the rest of the continent sank into a new era. The world’s edges had been clipped by the rising waters, tectonic shifts, and constant rains. Half of the population was lost in the disaster and from the disease that spread from too many corpses and not enough graves. The ones that were left were no better off, really. They worked long hours, they stopped reproducing without the doctors, and worst of all, they stopped dreaming. Families, loved ones, were torn apart in this new world.”

For more about the author

Cherie Dimaline is a member of the historical Métis community of Georgian Bay in the territory now known as Canada. On her website, her biography states: “I come from hunters and women who told stories and made their own remedies when they weren’t purchasing salves from the ‘peddler’ who would come across the Bay once in a while. Some remedies used holy water from the Shrine in town, others used water collected from the Bay on Easter Sunday. Many were based around onions and pine. To this day, my family hunts and harvests.” Dimaline is the author of six books but The Marrow Thieves, published in 2017, was declared by TIME magazine one of the best books for young adults of all times, among other prestigious prizes that the novel received in North America. This science fiction novel for teenagers presents a future when Indigenous peoples are being hunted for their bone marrow. Dimaline presents an eclectic group of characters that get together and collaborate to hide from the danger; at the same time she presents the social and environmental problems that have led to the dystopian context of the novel’s reality. The second volume of this saga, titled Hunting By Stars, came out in 2021.

Author’s website: https://cheriedimaline.com/who-i-am
“Indigenous Writers in Canada”. An Interview with Carla Douglas for Publishing Perspectives

The Marrow Thieves © Cherie Dimaline ~ Siwar Mayu, June 2022

Shunku-yay / Looking at Each Other Through the Infinite of the Heart. Samay Cañamar M.

Shunku-yay / Mirarse en la eternidad del corazón © Samay Cañamar M.

Translation from Kichwa © Fredy A. Roncalla

Ilustrations © Manai Kowii

If you prefer to read the PDF, click HERE

Shunku-yay

Shunku-yay arawi kamuni, runa shimipi, mishu shimipi killkashka kan. Ñukanchik allpa mamata kuyashpa charinamanta rimapan, shinallata runa warmikunapa kawsaymantapash riman.

Shunku-yay / Looking at Each Other Through the Infinite of the Heart is a collection of poems in Kichwa and Spanish that was born as a cry for empathizing with sacred Mother Earth as well as with the body of Indigenous women and their reality.

Minkachiway

Kallari willkay

Minkachiway,
kikin achiklla muskuywan,
kay munayta, kay shimita, kay rurayta watachinayan.
Allilla, kikin sumaklla ukuman yaykunkapak.

Kikinpa samaywan kay ñankunapi kumpatukunayan,
kucha manyakuman yaykunayan,
urku chakikumanta puri kallarinayan,
chakra manyakumanta tarpunayan,
kikin wasi ñawpakuman kimirinayan.

Minkachiway apukulla.
Minkachiway allpa mamakulla.
Kikin chaskikkunaman willapaylla. Mayllak shunkumari shamukuni,
upalla supaykunawanmari minkarimukuni.

Minkachiway, sumak kawsak samaylla, willka kuskalla.
Kikin wasiman, mayuman chayamunimi,
kuri allpakuta kay shunkuwan takarinkapak shamupanimi.

Minkachiway kikin ukshakupi, kikin apu pintukupi,
paktalla muskuykuta karawankilla,
usharinalla ushaykuta mikllachiwaylla,
tukuy llaki kawsayta kaypi uriyakuchichun sakiwaylla,
kikinpa rimaypi rikcharinkapak,
shinashpa samashkatapash tullpushpa sakinkapak.

Minkachiwaylla,
puyu killpamukpi,
inti llukshimukpi, 
tamya urmamukpi,
kikin rimamukuwankimi yasha.

Minkachiway (Kallari willkay)

Initiation

I ask for your permission

to enter into your realm

while I gently gather my desires

acts and words

with clear dreams.

I wish to talk about your time

in these paths,

arrive to your lake’s edge

get closer to your house’s entrance

and start my path

at the foot of the mountains.

I ask for your permission, dear Apu.

Give me permission, dear Mother Earth.

My body has been getting ready

and my soul wants some rest.

Welcome me,

sacred place that gives breath

to good ways of living.

I am arriving to your house and your river

to touch you, blessed land, with this heart.

Let the deepest dreams come

blessing me with your powers.

Let me go beyond all my tears

and wake up in this conversation

full of colorful and breathing words.

With the rain coming down

I will hear your words

talking to me.

© Manai Kowii

Ñukanchik allpa mamaka tawka kawsak apukunata, samaykunatapashmi charin, paykunapi tukuy pachapi kawsamushka kan. Kay wakakunaka, hatun ushaykunatami charin, hatun samaykunatapash, chaymi paykunapa wasikunaman yaykunkapakka, minkachiway nishpa yaykuna kashkanchik. Shinami paykunata rezashpantin, takishpantin, rimachishpantin yaykuna kanchik. Urkuman rikushpaka, minkachiway ninami nishpa hatun taytakunaka yachachishka kan. Ima chakrata tarpunkapak kallarikushpapash, minkachiway nishpa yaykuna kashka ninmi hatun mamakunapash. 

Chashnami shuk wakakuta minkachiway nishpa kallarikrinchik. Wakakunaka mana warmillaka kanchu, mana karillaka kanchu, shuk shuk ushaykunami watarishka paykunapika, wakinpika warmi, wakinpika kari, shina rikurin punta rimaykunapi, shutikunapi, ima ruraykunapipash.

Mother nature/allpa mama is constituted by several bodies and time-spaces or pachas. Sacred territories or wakas with their own powers, where we cannot enter without first asking permission, through prayers, greetings, chants, whistles.

Minkachiway is the beginning of an entering ritual to a space. The grandfathers say minkachiway when they start walking at the foot of a mountain. The grandmothers ask permission for announcing the arrival at a chakra/crop. The nights before a purification bath ritual, one reaches the water spring by saying minkachiway, just as one announces her own arrival to someone else’s house.

This is how we now enter a waka or a sacred place such as our apus, spirits of the mountain with diverse powers beyond the feminine and masculine, personified in names, actions, and stories.

Warmi Imbabura

Urku apu

Uksha pampawan killparishka warmimi
kuyaylla yana ñawiku, kalluyashka makiku,
tukuy wiwakunapa, yakukunapa, apu warmi.
Kikin umapika, Illull kuchata,
Chakishka kuchata,
Hatun kuchatapash chashkikunki,
paykunaka tamyapa ñañakunami
pakcha tukushpa, urku umakuta Wayku Chupakaman shamunakun.

Urkumanta hatun apu, hatun warmi kanki.
Uchilla michik wawakunata pampapi pukllachinki,
yana pumawan rimarishpa kawsashkanki,
atukkunaman alli rikuna ushayta karashkanki,
kikin wakakunapi sumaklla ushaykuta allichinki.

Intika paypa chawpi ñanpi kakpimi,
allpa samay pachata wayrawan kushilla takinki.
Kikintikukunaka kikin willayta aparimunmi,
waykukunaka chashkinkapak ashtawan paskarinmi.
Tukuykunami kikin apu punchapi kushiyanakun.
Kikinka kutin, pakta pakta kawsayta 
ashankakunapi churashka shuyanki.

Imbabura woman

Mountain deity

Covered by grasslands

—deep eyes and working hands—

you are the great mother of children

animals and rivers.

Your summit is Lake Illull,

Lake Chakishka,

Lake Hatun.

Their waterfalls and the rain

come down

valleys and crevices.

Great woman,

you come from inside the sacred spaces

play with the shepherd girls,

live talking with a black puma,

teach the foxes certain powers,

and keep the magic in your wakas.*

The sun is at the middle of his path

and you sing with august winds.

The hummingbirds bring us your message

and the valleys open up to receive us.

This day all the apus* celebrate.

You hold a well balanced basket

and wait for us.

* wakas and apus are sacred spaces, especially mountains

© Manai Kowii

Ñukanchikka, sinchi ushaykunami kanchik, wayrakuna, ninakuna, yakukuna, allpakunapashmi kanchik. Chay ushaykunataka wakinpika mana riksishpallatami chinkaririnalla kanchik.

We are also spirit that mutates within air, fire, wind, water, mother earth. An infinite force that very few of us manage to experience fully.

Samaymi kani

Samaymi kani.
Kuyurishpa, mirarishpa ashtawan kuyurik.
Sinchilla, tinkushna tantarik, tukyarik.
Paypantin mirarishka tullpushka puchkashna kawsakuk.
Paypura chimpapurarishka,
tukyarishka, mushukyarishka samay.

Ñawpamanta churu laya muyurishka kawsay
shamuk pachamantapash
kuntur yuyaywan sinchi watarishka.

Wayrapa shunku kani
kikinman samayta karakuk;
tukuy manchanayaylla uyariktapash mishkilla uyayta karak:
shuk taki sami shina
asha asha kay pachapa yuyayta takarishpa purik.

Pukyu ñawikushna kuyaylla kani,
urku apukunapa kasiyashka kawsay,
akapanashna kuyurikuk allpa
maytapash pawakuk ushay,
upalla kawsaypipash ima ninata allichishka.

Hatun sumak ushay kani
pachawan awarishka muyuni, 
muyumuni.

I am vital energy

I am vital energy.

One that grows moving.

I am strength and confluence.

A renewed energy

standing up

and exploding.

My life is the spiral of the past

and what comes ahead

tied up by the wisdom of a Condor.

I am the heart of the wind

that nurtures your vital energy

and makes the tremors of fear

sound gently.

I am like a spiritual song

touching all the memories of the universe.

I have the beauty of a fresh water spring

of quiet mountains

vast and exalted lands

and silence.

I am young and beautiful.

I go on clothed by the land.

Moving on and on.

Killkana

Imatak kan killkanaka niwarkami
Chayka imashachari nanay shunkuta tuksimurka, yuyaytapash, makitapash nanachirka.
Chay yashka kipaka nirkani;
Killkashpaka ankashnami kay kawsaypi muyurini…

Shina nishka kipapash, uchilla kaspishnallami ukuta upalla tuksimukurka.
Punta kawsayta yarishpa llakiyarkani,
Imatapash chushayachishka shina karkani.

Yachanimi. 
Punta watakunapika, tullukaman chayaktami waktashpa llikata killkanata yachachishka.
Shuklla apunchikmanta nishpa sarumushka,
Shuk shimillami tiyana nishpa. Shuklla runakunallami allikuna yashpa.
Ñukanchik yachaykunataka kuchushpa, ñuka wasi allpata nallikachishpa.
Tawkalla sami kawsaykunata wañuchishpa.

Imasha chay llika kanchikman chayamushkata yarishpa, imashalla ñukanchik pampakunata, awashkakunata, makikunata chushayachishkata rikuni,
tukuy puchkakunapa, kururukunapa samaykunata llakini.
Chay kawsaykunataka ñuka ñawika mana rikurkachu, shinapash ñukapakunami kawsarka.

Kunanka tapurinimi, maypitak ñukanchik killkayka.
Chayta yuyakpika, chumpikunami wasi ukuta warkuriyanakun,
chaykunapi puchkawan shuyurishkakunami rimawan,
ñuka hatun mamapa akchata watakuk cintami rikurimun,
ñuka hatun taytapa awashka katanami ukllamuwan,
ñuka anakupa kinkukunami kumpanakuwan.

Kutin imashpata killkanki nishpa tapukpika.
Ñuka yuyaykunata hampinkapak nimanmi.
Punta punchapika tullutapash nanachishka llikami
kunanpika ñuka shimiwan awarishka, samayachishpa kayman chayman llukshikun.

To write

They have asked me: what is writing?

A heartfelt confusion spread across time,

memory and my hands.

After a few seconds I answered:

Writing liberates me.

But there was a splinter silently bothering me.

I was swamped by nostalgia

and emptiness.

Growing in the mist of memories

an ambiguous voice screamed inside

Bringing rain drops to my face.

I know that at one point in time

the alphabet was forced upon us punch by punch.

With a God, lord,

King, and language,

that would mutilate knowledge and sweep my gardens

killing diversity.

Thinking about the origins of this alphabet

I can feel how they emptied my fields, weavings and hands.

I feel the threads and their designs are no longer there.

It’s a loss that my eyes did not see but was felt by my people.

I ask myself: where is our writing?

And hanging from the roof

there are weavings appearing in front of me:

figures drawn with wool thread,

the band that holds grandmothers hair,

the manta that my grandfather did with his life,

the zigzag I carry in my skirt.

If they were to ask me again why I write

I would repeat: to heal memory and remembrance.

Now I am healed with what at one point tied our bones.

I now write with their letters.

Killkakmanta

Samay Cañamar M., warmi kichwa Otavalomanta, yachachik, feminista, shinallatak psicoterapeutami kan. Arawikunatapash, ima killkanatapash ashtakata killkanata allikachinmi. Shinallatak runa warmikuna imashalla kawsaymantapash ashtakatami rikuchinkapak munan; feminismoskunamantapash.

About the poet

Samay Cañamar M. is kichwa from Otavalo, Ecuador. She is a university professor, a feminist, and a psychotherapist. She writes in Kichwa and Spanish, and is interested in Indigenous feminisms, and contemporary struggles of women and feminized bodies. @tsay.samay

More about Samay Cañamar M.

Shunku-yay / Looking at Each Other Through the Infinite of the Heart can be found HERE.
The author reads her poetry in Kichwa and Spanish HERE.
Kichwa writer Ariruma Kowii about Samay’s poetry. El Universo, 2021.

About the translator

Fredy A. Roncalla was born in Chalhuanca, Apurimac, Peru in 1953. He has studied linguistics and literature, in addition to a long journey in Andean Studies, with a special focus on aesthetics. He is also a handcraft artist who works with recycled materials. He has published poetry and essays in diverse online and printed publications. He is the author of Canto de pájaro o invocación a la palabra (Buffon Press, 1984); Escritos Mitimaes: hacia una poética andina postmoderna (Barro Editorial Press, 1998); Hawansuyo Ukun words (Hawansuyo/Pakarina Ediciones, 2015); and Revelación en la senda del manzanar: Homenaje a Juan Ramírez Ruiz (Hawansuyo/ Pakarina, 2016). He is currently working on Llapan llaqtan: narrativa y poesía trilingüe/ Llapan llaqtan: trilingual poetry. His trans-Andean projects can be found in the virtual ayllu: Hawansuyo Peruvian Bookstore, Churoncalla.com, and Hawansuyo.com

Shunku-yay / Mirarse en la eternidad del corazón © Tsaywa Samay Cañamar M.Translation from Kichwa © Fredy A. Roncalla 
Siwar Mayu, May 2022

Around the House. Maya Cú

Original poetry in Spanish from Alrededor de la casa © Maya Cú

Introduction, selection and translation by Gloria E. Chacón and Juan G. Sánchez Martínez

If you prefer to read the PDF, click HERE

Kaqchikel researcher Aura Estela Cumes explains that paternalistic culturalism in Guatemala represents the Mayan woman as a tourist object, a museum piece, a weaver and guardian of culture, but at the same time separates her from the possibility of being an “epistemic authority.” Maya Cú captures this sexist paternalism in the following verses:

(...) to be clear:
I am not
an ancestral clay doll
revived by divine breath
of postmodern intellectuals.

Since 1996, Maya Cú has been reminding Guatemalan—and by extension Latin American— society how scared they are to look in the mirror and discover how brown, how cinnamon, how mixed they are, how “beautifully brown” [they are] (“Rabia / Rage”.) In her essay “Poetas y escritoras mayas de Guatemala: Del silencio a la palabra” (“Mayan Women Poets and Writers from Guatemala: From Silence to Word”) (2016), Cú questions the censorship of colonial institutions (school, family, church) of Indigenous women voices, but also interrogates the self-censorship of Indigenous women. In some cases, Indigenous women do not recognize themselves as writers (84). In Cú’s words, the expectations of editors and academics about Indigeneity (as a rural and ethnic problem) preclude them from recognizing the diversity of contemporary Mayan expressions. The poems that we publish here are a sample of Maya Cu’s latest book, Alredor de la casa (“Around the house”) (La Chifurnia, 2022).

It was never
more than a shelter
from the outdoors

it had
fragile walls
humidity

there we cohabited
rats
trash
my sisters
me

it was the house
it is the house

root of
a human
group

and that woman
a column
who refuses
to let it fall

An aseismic house
must have a strong foundation
a deep iron frame

when the earthquake comes,
the house will hardly fall

What if this tenant does not have a good foundation?

Wooden walls
vulnerabile before fire

aluminum walls avert rain
but lock the heat in

cement ceilings and walls
protect from rain, sun, fire

how to avoid loneliness?
how does one defend oneself from sadness?
how to build
kick-proof walls?

who designs houses
that shelter, feed, protect
and provide endless doses
of understanding and tenderness?

For those in the room. Managua, 2002

We live together
we recreate love

we strip
our skins

we listen to each other
we fight
we laugh, we play
we were girls
we cry

we were
the women
from that room
killing borders
creating
a new house
from which we didn't 
want to leave

a refuge
with sisters and mothers
in a constant coven
giving us freedom

There is a lot to do
a lot to do

first
we will rearrange space

the cardinal points
will be oriented in the direction
of heaven

the moon
will be full
for a long time
the rainy cloud will come
at night
to sleep on the terrace

where will we put
the fog?
the balcony that is
on its way
will gladly share
its flower

you will have an infinite 
wall
to set up
your wildest exhibition

for me
I just want the corner
from where I will
see you
my love
assembling
and disarming the world

Where can a young heart go, wounded by distance, melancholy, disdain, if the house is half built? If the walls are fragile and the floor is damp? Seeking refuge without finding it. Leaves running naked, to shelter in other hungry hearts for company.

I aged
inside

left
pieces of me
scattered throughout
walls

I moved
by inertia

I left seeds
in some eyes
hugs
in some bodies

I left
almost empty

now I carry
wrinkles
white hair
nostalgia, pain

I pick up
my pieces
I put them in a bag
and I go out

and I can't find anything
but sadness...

I dreamed
of a house
 
White
surrounded by flowers
and tall trees
 
I only asked for a
deserved 
roof and floor
 
I never had it
 
Yesterday
a provider
of certainty appeared
He daily
builds
next to me
this new house
 
in mutual discovery
we are laying
the foundations
 
we make the walls
 
we share the dream
to put our pieces together
to build a new house
where we will live

Today I undressed
 
I posed for
the camera
 
the room  strewn with
clothes throughout
 
my footprints
scattered
 
when I stopped
I realized
that 
all the mirrors
disappeared
 
I found my body
dancing
smiling
friendly and passionate
 
and it was enough for me

She
knows that upon her return
she will open the door
and feel joy to meet you
for coffee
for dipping  bread
in  coffee
to the listen to the radio
and dance to the beat of your song
 
He
knows that upon his return
he will remove the wire from the gate
cross the patio to reach
your side
 
he will greet you happily
because he managed to finish a day’s work
because the earth responds to his care
 
the sun was benevolent and did not burn his skin
the rain is generous and will fall later
 
he will show you the best seeds
that he found
for the next sowing
 
they will eat next to the stone-bench 
beans and hot coffee
corn tortillas from their harvest
and cheese
 
melted
like them

Elena visits the house

Strange communion with Elena

Did you hear my name?
You looked for it and you preferred it, because you know that here, behind this nomenclature, my soul is waiting for a reunion celebration.
But, the only celebration we put up today is one of tears.
Time and time again, the weeping, why unites our hearts like this? Is our sorrow for these beloved cities so great that it is capable of uniting our distant melancholies?

girls reunion

Painting that afternoon would be fun if Elena was calm enough to pose.
But Elena is a restless girl who bites her nails and spits the waste on the chair. She wets her feet in the firm sand of a sea that cannot be crossed. A sea that erased the way back to the city of our daydream, our dream, our ephemeral root, our space of communion. I, the little sister, watch her carefully, while I wait for time to stop on this piece of beach, asking Yemayá to take care of us, to be our mother, our goddess, our friend, our compass, to return to that city.

III

The one I’m not

Diva
elegance in the word
voice and erudition
corporeal strength
unattainable height
charismatic presence
 
a story that I would like as my own
feet dancing on the urban cobbled street
sand full of your feet
water full of your fear
lips reciting verses next to Reynaldo

eyes alive of revolution
 
flashing fingers
 
mestizo song 
eternal song 
cheerful song
song with tone
song with you
your song
my song
 
Song  not yet written
half song
song without score
broken song
shared song
song in two rhythms
 
distant song
oppressive
uncertain
 
sad song without reason
sad permanent weep
 
never ending pain
intimate pain
pain countering
parallel pain
 
the one you are not
the one we are

Epilogue

If I ever belonged to someone
it's to you
 
because you chose me
or because my shadowy female ancestor 
chose you

Image

Grandma whisks cocoa
gathers the fire
secures the ocote-sticks
 
the girl braids garlic
draws a circle,  and skeletons 
rise dancing at its center
 
inviting to swing
a song
of few notes
 
I dance
the mist fills with colors
I rise
 
the image
is immortalized
behind the door

More about Maya Cú

Maya Cú’s anthology in the project Mayan Women, The Mayan Among Us.

The Translators

Gloria E. Chacón is Associate Professor in the Literature Department at UCSD. Both her research and teaching focus on indigenous literatures, autonomy, and philosophy. She is the author of Indigenous Cosmolectics: Kab’awil and the Making of Maya and Zapotec Literatures (2018). She is currently working on her second book tentatively titled Metamestizaje, Indigeneity, and Diasporas: Challenging Cartographies. She is co-editor of Indigenous Interfaces: Spaces, Technology, and Social Networks in Mexico and Central America by Arizona Press(2019). She is also co-editing an anthology Teaching Central American Literature in a Global Context for MLA’s Teaching Options Series. Chacón’s work has appeared in anthologies and journals in Canada, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, and the USA. She has co-edited a special issue on indigenous literature for DePaul University. .\

Juan G. Sánchez Martínez, grew up in Bakatá, Colombian Andes. He dedicates both his creative and scholarly writing to indigenous cultural expressions from Abiayala (the Americas.) His book of poetry, Altamar, was awarded in 2016 with the National Prize Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia. He collaborates and translates for Siwar Mayu, A River of Hummingbirds. Recent works: Muyurina y el presente profundo (Pakarina/Hawansuyo, 2019); and Cinema, Literature and Art Against Extractivism in Latin America. Dialogo 22.1 (DePaul University, 2019.) He is currently an associate professor at the University of North Carolina Asheville, in the Departments of Languages and Literatures, and of American Indian and Indigenous Studies.

Alrededor de la casa © Maya Cú ~ Siwar Mayu, April 2022
Introduction, selection and translation © Gloria E. Chacón and Juan G. Sánchez M.

Bringing the Cherokee Syllabary to the Spotlight, Jeff Edwards

Sequoyah © Jeff Edwards

By Celestine J. Epps

Published first in the Blue Banner, UNCA

“A Living Language” exhibition celebrated recently the cultural and national identity of artists from the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indian (EBCI) in downtown Tokiyasdi / Asheville, NC. The curated works on display at the Asheville Art Museum consisted of over 50 multimedia pieces by EBCI artists who direct audiences’ attention to the Cherokee syllabary.

Their artwork defies the bias that Indigenous languages are dead by uplifting local Indigenous creators who help to restore the language. A variety of compositions such as Rachel Foster’s stone-polished ceramic “Sequoyah,” show traditional representations of Tsalagi, or Cherokee, in cultural artifacts like pottery and basket-weaving. Likewise, the graphic designs of Jeff Edwards puts on a prideful display of the syllabary, and inspires viewers to want to learn how to speak it. His piece “Tsalagiopoly” is delightfully shocking.

The syllabary was invented by a Cherokee man named Sequoyah in the early 19th-century who translated the 4000-year-old language into visual symbols and the written form we know today.

Tsalagiopoly © Jeff Edwards

Edwards is also a Language Technology Specialist for the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. He contributes to the language education in schools and ensures that students are equipped with the technology needed to be successful. In 2010, the artist worked with fluent speakers to integrate Tsalagi into system keyboards on devices including Apple, Android, Microsoft, and Google

Edwards says: “What started our 10+ years of working with tech companies is we wanted our kids to be able to text in Cherokee. That was it. Nothing more. So, we worked with Apple for about 18 months and once the technology came available we saw something we didn’t expect. Our elders also took advantage of the technology. So not only were our students and elders communicating but they were also communicating with each other.”

Trickster © Jeff Edwards

Upon completion of the keyboard, Edwards explains the labor involved in translating entire operating systems and its impact on Cherokee people throughout the diaspora:

“So, when we started translating Windows 8 we had 18 months to complete the project. We had the 5 regular employees and some contract translators that were from various communities. We would receive 500-1000 words a day, I would do my thing, split them up evenly amongst the available translators, email the project out and when they finished they would send them back, I would submit and we continued this for 18 months with very little breaks. It is tough to say how many words were translated. It was well over the 300,000 range. But once the project was completed Microsoft in North America recognized two languages, English and Cherokee.”

Despite the nation’s success in making Tsalagi accessible on major platforms, they were forced to stop working with tech companies due to the endangered state of the language. There are only 176 people still living in the Eastern Band who grew up speaking Tsalagi and an estimate of 2,000 speakers left in the United States. Thus, prioritizing second-language speakers in tribal communities.

“A Living Languages” exhibit lived up to its name in its selection of pieces from Cherokee artists across generations. While navigating his busy schedule, Edwards continues to make original graphics. His latest piece, “Relocate, and/or Die” drew inspiration from Benjamin Franklin’s political cartoon intended to unite the colonies during the Revolutionary War.

Relocate and/or die © Jeff Edwards

Edwards explains: “My piece is made on a backdrop of a map of the Trail of Tears and the routes taken in Cherokee. My Uktena is cut into 8 pieces to represent the 8 states the tribes traveled through during removal and the Uktena has 5 buttons on his rattle to represent the 5 tribes that were forcibly removed from their homelands.”

“Anger can be a very good motivator.”

Ultimately, what inspires Jeff Edwards the most is bringing the syllabary to the spotlight.

“I try to showcase something that all Cherokee’s are proud of, our writing system.”

After seeing the exhibition multiple times, I was immediately drawn to Edwards’s work, especially “Tsalagiopoly.” Upon first glance, I recognized the similarity to the game Monopoly, and all that it represents in our western capitalist society.

Edwards’s intricate designs and sole use of Tsalagi communicate to a specific audience that is uniquely Indigenous. I believe his piece speaks volumes to first and second-language speakers. To participate in the game, you have to be able to understand the rules, but Tsalagiopoly breaks one’s expectations. With the syllabary as the centerpiece of his work, non-Tsalagi speakers like myself are stuck at collecting $200, incapable of moving forward.

The longer I examine the artwork, the more I wish to comprehend the nuggets of history, and cultural references embedded in the cards I imagine in the community chest space. Like anger, ignorance is a great motivator to understanding the language of the land that I stand on.

More About Jeff Edwards

At the Asheville Art Museum: https://www.ashevilleart.org/work-of-the-week/digital-works-by-jeff-edwards/
“Edwards Incorporates Cherokee Language in Artwork”, Will Chavez. Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper, 2021.

About Celestine J. Epps

Celestine J. Epps was born in Bronx, New York, on April 16, 2000. She is studying Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and is currently the assistant Arts and Features Editor at the Blue Banner. She enjoys learning about global Indigenous communities, including the Haliwa-Saponi near her grandmother’s hometown. Upon graduation, Celestine would like to write about her conversations with Indigenous storytellers and the impact of their artistry across generations.

Bringing the Cherokee Syllabary to the Spotlight, Jeff Edwards © Celestine J. Epps - Siwar Mayu, April 2022

Putisnan, disenchanting the memory

By Sara Ríos Pérez

Translated by María Grabiela Gelpi

“We did not know that we were Indigenous” is one of the first sentences that is pronounced in the documentary Putisnan, disenchanting the memory (2022), directed by Colombian Oliver Velásquez Dávila—an anthropologist who leads his life between activism and investigating the memory of Indigenous Communities of the Colombian southwest.

At the beginning we see green, green in majestic mountains sheltered by furrows and planted with potatoes, beans or corn. Then a panoramic view of the village of Aldea de María, located in the south of Colombia, in the Nariño Province. This is where the story of the Cabildo Indígena Aldea de María, Putisnan, of the town of Los Pastos is told.

Oliver’s recent documentary is a spiral flight over the territory. First, we look at the landscape, the mountains, the furrows; then we go down and we find the stones, which like great crumbs left by the ancestors, are responsible for taking the inhabitants of the territory to meet the memory of the Pastos. Closer and closer to the earth we see the town, the roofs of the houses, the crops, the roads, to land on the people, in the faces of the inhabitants and enter their house, to their daily lives.

Oliver together with director of photography, Juan Pablo Bonilla, propose a natural handling in the use of shots and follow-up sequences to the characters, with a camera on their shoulder they record the actions of the protagonists as an indiscreet spectator

From the reference of Jean Rouch’s cinema, they propose an image with social commitment and at the service of Indigenous communities. Likewise, there is the influence of the Colombian documentarian Martha Rodríguez, above all in the research methodology, which refers us to participatory narrative constructions, where the audiovisual production instead of made “about” Indigenous people is “precisely from” those involved, in order to support the process of seeking their identity, and the remembrance of their cultural history and resistance.

“We came from a culture of peasants, mestizos, from another way of thinking, not our own way of thinking, after that we came into this process (…) of feeling, thinking and acting like Indigenous people,” says Eloy Gesamá, one of the interviewees.

The documentary shows how the earth is the one who sustains, keeps the practices, the memory whose traces are in the stones. It recounts the process that the Aldea de María community has gone through to rescue their traditions as Indigenous Pastos People, claiming their rights and finding their history, after colonization, modernity, and “development” arrived in their territory.

There are shots of hands brushing the stones, cleaning the earth to remember, to claim the memory, and disenchant it. The stone is called Mama Piedra—she shines to make us see, it is the flame that guides us to rescue ourselves from oblivion.

Putisnan means cosmic library, which is why, in one way or another, the documentary shows how the inhabitants of the resguardo, from their daily lives, are remembering their ancestry as the original Pasto People, searching throughout the traces of that library: “first you have to teach people that there is nothing wrong of being Indigenous,” one of the young women, who is actively participating in this process of awakening, says.

In another scene, Alejandra Güepud adds: “for me, it is to start by putting aside the shame of saying I am indigenous (…) first we have to feel proud of what we are, of who we are, that we do not need to change anything, and begin to feel that we belong to something much bigger, because we descend from someone as important as the Pasto people (…) we have to feel that pride of saying yes I am Indigenous, I know where I come from, and I know where I am going.”

Oliver Velásquez Dávila accompanies this process by documenting with his gaze and showing the viewer a glimpse of the Pasto territory.

In addition to the present documentary, Oliver, within his searches, has focused on the transmission of shamanic knowledge from the Upper and Lower Putumayo River Basin, among the Kamëntsás, Ingas and Kofan Peoples, which allowed him in 2009 to carry out a documentary titled “Las Rutas del Yagé”, produced by Señal Colombia and DocTv, which deals with the dissemination of these practices in urban contexts. In this journey, he dedicates himself to studying photography and documentary filmmaking as a way of translating ethnographic research into images.

↪ Watch “Las rutas del yagé” here: https://vimeo.com/48574556

More about the Pastos Indigenous Community

Information about the Pastos on the Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia – ONIC
Interview with Taita Efrén Tarapués, Insitituto Humboldt.
Documentary “Tugta. Pinta de pensamiento”, Fernando Guerrero F.

More about Sara Rios Perez

She studied literature at the Javeriana University, and currently works as a reading and writing promoter. She is a collaborator for the digital publication Columna Abierta. She accompanies the processes experienced by public and rural libraries in different parts of Colombia. She is the author of De lo Imaginario a lo Real: Cuentos y leyendas de Montes de María (“From the Imaginary to the Real: Tales and legends of Montes de María”), and co-author of Voces que caminan territorios (“Voices that walk territories”,) an investigation on the right to communication in the Colombian Southwest.

The translator

Maria Gabriela Gelpi Cortes was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico on April 9, 2000. During her upbringing, she studied at the Colegio Marista de Guaynabo where she received a bilingual education. After graduating high school, she moved to the United States to continue her education at the University of North Carolina in Asheville. She completed her bachelor’s degree in International Studies and a minor in Political Science while working at the college’s Health and Counseling Center and interning with a non-profit organization. On the other hand, she worked alongside Dr. Juan Sanchez Martinez creating content and translating texts for the Siwar Mayu project. Maria also took on the task, along with two colleagues from the Latinx community, to create an organization at the university that would support the interests of marginalized communities and give them a space to carry out these types of conversations. In the future, Maria would like to continue her education and obtain a master’s degree in human rights.

Jonny Appleseed, by Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead (he/him) is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is currently a Ph.D. candidate, lecturer, and Killam scholar at the University of Calgary where he studies Indigenous literatures and cultures with a focus on gender and sexuality. His dissertation, tentatively titled “Feral Fatalisms,” is a hybrid narrative of theory, essay, and non-fiction that interrogates the role of “ferality” inherent within Indigenous ways of being (with a strong focus on nêhiyawewin). He is the author of Full-metal Indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017) which was shortlisted for the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018) which was long listed for the Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. Whitehead is currently working on a third manuscript titled, Making Love with the Land to be published with Knopf Canada, which explores the intersections of Indigeneity, queerness, and, most prominently, mental health through a nêhiyaw lens. He recently published Love After the End: Two-Spirit Utopias and Dystopias (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2021). You can find his work published widely in such venues as Prairie Fire, CV2, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, The Fiddlehead, Grain, CNQ, Write, and Red Rising Magazine.

Excerpt chosen and translated to Spanish by Sophie M. Lavoie

If you prefer to read the PDF, CLICK HERE

VIII

I have this recurring dream where I’m standing on the shore of this ocean. The sky is dark at the edges but lit by the glow of the city behind me. The water is a rich black-blue in colour and when it washes over my feet I see all sorts of things in it: mud, grass, even blood. The tide is retreating—there are dead fish, aluminum cans, and metal bolts lying in the wet sand, which shine in the glaring light of the city. But the water is not calm—it retreats only to get momentum. And the sea foam is no precious Grecian thing—the froth bubbles balck with grit and oil, burning holes in the land. As the waters retreat farther, I see a dark wave rising on the horizon. Every ounce of the ocean’s strength is contained within it. And the city is panicking now— I hear air horns and blackouts and screams as loud as bombs.

And there I am—a lone brown boy naked on the precipice of the end of the world, the soles of my feet burning in the residue of an angry beach. Turtles scurry between my legs and become boulders on the sand holding steady onto their own. I hear the doom song of orca, wolves, and bears all around me—the cacophonous cry of an animal feeling death like the texture of gauze sticky with blood and stone. A multitude of birds take flight towards the wave, carrying sticks, grass, and little rodents in their claws. They are going to fly over the crest and make a new home—somewhere over there, in the distant west. Suddenly a large bird, an eagle perhaps, digs its talons into my clavicles and lifts me into the sky. But it doesn’t hurt, as there are grooves in my bones, grommets even, for these claws to fit. I am like a toy in an arcade machine being lifted by a claw. And the higher we go, the colder it gets, so I climb onto its back and nestle in its feathers.

The great wave is nearing and the great skies are now red from a silhouetted sun, flashing lightning. Rain, hail and winds peck at our faces, but we push on through the storm. The wave is higher than we expected. The great bird won’t make it — it’ll have to pierce through the crest of the wave. The winds are strong enough now that they yank out my hair and scoop out handfuls of feathers from the bird. We are weathered and worn—both of us bleeding in the sky. And I decide, if we are both to live, that I must shield the bird from the impact of the wave. So I climb higher up on its back and wrap my torso around its head, tuck my legs beneath its stout neck, pull my body tight against its, then lean in and whisper, with gentle kisses, “It’s okay, it’s okay”.

It’s okay.

Then with a great flap of its wings, we shoot through the crest of the wave. The coldness of the water stings my flesh, the pressure and force rips open my back as if it were a zipper, and the debris that churns inside the wave bruises our tired bodies. We emerge on the other side of the wave, both a bloody mess—both a sad, scalped sight flying through the sky. We ready ourselves to find a promised land on the other side with the Fur Queen and Whisky Jack waving us home, but instead we see that the water has not calmed, and there are waves as far as the eye can see. The waves are coming—they are here to take back what is rightfully theirs; we are all due—a thunderbird and Nanabush both.

More about Joshua Whitehead

Author’s website: https://www.joshuawhitehead.ca/

Animating Cherokee Narratives. Joseph Erb

By Juan G. Sánchez Martínez

If you prefer to read as PDF, please click HERE

At the turn of the century, animation was not the first option for Indigenous artists. Actually, when Joseph ᎧᎾᏘ Erb (Cherokee Nation) drove from Oklahoma to Philadelphia to do his Graduate Studies in Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, he wanted to be trained in sculpture. However, some days before he arrived, there was an accident in one of the sculpture studios, and the program he was interested in was all but canceled. Since he did not not know exactly what to do, some professors motivated him to go into animation. While learning this new art, someone asked him: “Why don’t you try Cherokee stories?” This was in the early 2000´s, and that question opened a door through which Joseph Erb has refined his aesthetics and traditional narratives, elevating Indigenous animation to a new level. “The Beginning They Told / ᏗᏓᎴᏂᏍᎬ ᎤᏂᏃᎮᏓ” was the first Cherokee animation in Tsalagi, the Cherokee language. Since its production, Joseph Erb has expanded the use of Cherokee language in technology, cinema and education. Currently, he teaches at the University of Missouri Digital Storytelling and Animation.

In “The Beginning They Told / ᏗᏓᎴᏂᏍᎬ ᎤᏂᏃᎮᏓ”, Grandpa Beaver, Little Water Beetle, and the Great Buzzard work together somehow to create what today we call the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. It is not just the use of Tsalagi and the syllabary that makes this short animated movie Cherokee, but also the way the elder-ones talk respectfully with each other, and are comfortable with their long silences. Furthermore, small pieces of a complex cosmology are shared in these stories such as the relevance of the numbers 4 and 7, or references to specific places where the community gathers medicines. As Erb explains, not all audiences pay attention to these details, and Indigenous animation is sometimes classified as “fiction” or “myth” in film festivals. Nevertheless, Erb prefers to call his art “traditional narratives”, because –as the animation title above suggests– these stories are still being told, believed, and followed by some members of the community. These short animations are not about supernatural beings, but contemporary representations of stories –which have many versions– that teach how to walk in “the proper way” (Duyuktv.)

Screenshots of an animated series, “ᎡᎵᏏ ᎤᏁᎫᏥ / Granny Was an Outlaw”, placed in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in which modern day Cherokee life intertwined with tradition.

When you ask Joseph Erb about the challenges of doing what he does, he has plenty of stories to explain. Indigenous animation is not just about designs and aesthetics, but also about having the right tools, resources and technology. For instance, the software, app, or program being used needs to offer the syllabary keyboard and include the appropriate fonts to represent the language. This special consideration requires establishing relationships with big companies such as Google, Apple or Microsoft. Once you finally have the technology, you would never imagine that the syllabary font has to be approved at some point by the tribe, because the digital version is a different one than the 1820’s type that some elders are accustomed to. Now, after all of those negotiations –extra work– with both tech companies and the tribe, imagine that the moment to share your work has arrived. If the animation’s voice over is in Tsalagi (the Cherokee language), then you hope the non-Tsalagi-speakers will engage with the version with English subtitles, which is not something that some audiences enjoy. At these crossroads, Erb’s art finds the proper way to represent Cherokee narratives between codes, channels, and audiences. As Erb told me, elders who he worked with in “The Beginning They Told / ᏗᏓᎴᏂᏍᎬ ᎤᏂᏃᎮᏓ” were really excited about the possibility of seeing the Great Buzzard represented for the first time in this code. “A couple of elders made me actually animate it”, said Erb laughing.

The first animation that I encountered by Joseph Erb was “Mini Wiconi / Water is Life”, an artivist piece dedicated to the protectors of water at Standing Rock Sioux Nation. As voice over, Standing Rock Chief David Archambault II guides the animation with a clear message. Black uniforms over a red horizon in which fences disrupt the land are juxtaposed with black and red buffalo running free through the great prairies. How can an artist adequately represent the fact that 31 million buffalo were slaughtered at some point as a settler-colonial stratagem? Mountains of buffalo skulls in white fill the screen so the snake/train –a metaphor for progress and extractivism throughout Abiayala– can cross. Instead of the rhythm of buffalo’s hooves on the land, we suddenly can hear only bulldozers. Led by women, all types of peoples, all nations will always protect water for future generations. No Dakota Access Pipeline.

When I asked Erb about his vision for the future of Indigenous animation and game design, he was excited about the possibilities for indigenizing “narrative structures” with those unique flavors that place and community can add to creativity. “A place-based robust aesthetics” is Joseph Erb’s advice for younger Indigenous designers. One of his latest projects is Trickster, an app-video game in which the player drives the journey of a young person who is rescuing words in Tsalagi within a forest. While the player enjoys the obstacles and visuals (i.e. tree bark tattooed with Mississippian designs, or the underworld patterned as a basket), everytime he hits a word, they are able to listen one of the beautiful languages of one of the first peoples of the Appalachian mountains, the Cherokee.

Trickster. An app-video game by Joseph Erb

More about Indigenous animation and Joseph Erb

Joseph Erb’s website
“Thumb Talking and the Art of Speaking Cherokee: Joseph Erb”, by Heather Ahtone. Dreamcatcher 43.
“People are finally listening”- Indigenous Animation Rises Up, by Chris Robinson for Culture Days, 2020.

About Juan G. Sánchez Martínez

He grew up in Bakatá/Bogotá, Colombian Andes. He dedicates both his creative and scholarly writing to indigenous cultural expressions from Abiayala (the Americas.) His book of poetry, Altamar, was awarded in 2016 with the National Prize Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia. He coordinates Siwar Mayu, A River of Hummingbirds. Recent work: Bejuco (2021), Muyurina y el presente profundo (Pakarina/Hawansuyo, 2019); and Cinema, Literature and Art Against Extractivism in Latin America. Dialogo 22.1 (DePaul University, 2019.) He is currently Associate Professor of Languages and Literatures, and Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of North Carolina Asheville.

Resilience. Marcie Rendon

Marcie Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, author, playwright, poet, and freelance writer. As a community arts activist, Rendon supports other native artists / writers / creators to pursue their art. She is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership, and writing. Rendon is an award-winning author of a fresh new murder mystery series, and has an extensive body of fiction and nonfiction works. The creative mind behind Raving Native Theater, Rendon has also curated community performances such as Art Is… Creative Native Resilience, featuring three Anishinaabe performance artists, premiered on TPT (Twin Cities Public Television) in June 2019. Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by MN AARP and POLLEN in 2018. Rendon and Diego Vazquez received a 2017 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship for their work with women incarcerated in county jails.

If you prefer to read in PDF click HERE

“Resilience”. Living Nations, Living Words – online map and recordings from 47 contemporary poets Anthology, edited by poet laureate Joy Harjo, WW Norton, 2020 © Marcie Rendon

Resilience

My mother, in 7^th grade, ran from a South Dakota boarding school back home to White Earth in an age before Interstate highways, cell phones or google maps. That determination and love of life is resilience.

A Native father sitting in Perkins, after working a late shift, with a two-year-old toddler in a high-chair, explains that the baby’s mother showed up at his door with a child he didn’t know existed and said, “Here, I’ve done this for two years, I’m done. He’s yours.” He didn’t hesitate to do the right thing. That is resilience.

The woman who lost her child to child protection because she was caught in the cycle of addiction and street life. Sent to prison. Who spent five years getting clean, going to meetings, petitioning the court against all odds to regain custody of her child. That is resilience.

The poet, who grew up with a not-so-easy life in Oklahoma. Resilience gave her words to write, now US poet laureate. Resilience also gave her music in her heart that pours out of her saxophone, healing hearts of listeners.

A Native Artist living on the street collected discarded lipstick and eyeshadow to create gallery-worthy paintings. Creating beauty out of beauty-discards. That is resilience.

My father, along with thousands of other fathers, for more generations than we want to remember, sat alone, not changing residence, waiting, waiting, waiting for children to return. That is resilience.

Men who went to prison – who somehow came out and started businesses, who raised families and took jobs way below their skill level; who became sweat lodge runners, sun dancers and pipe carriers. That is resilience.

The children, raised in families outside the culture, who followed their heart’s spirit back home – facing rejection, ridicule, identity-questioning – but staying, becoming one with the community, one with their tribe. That is resilience.

Mothers – who, with or without shame, have stood in line at Salvation Army for cheap toy giveaways, food shelf lines, who sit in welfare offices again and again because it is one way to keep the family going. That is resilience.

Our relatives who never hesitate to go to war, wars that are never ours. Code talkers, tunnel rats, snipers, those who walk point, medics. They die fighting because that is what we do. Or they come home and hide the pain as best they can and carry flags at Grand Entry. Or not. That is resilience.

People who give more than they get. Mothers who love their children, fathers who stay. Grandparents who babysit, even in a wheelchair.

We create beauty out of scraps. Hold cars together with duct tape. Work jobs and sell beadwork for cash to ‘have a little extra’. Make frybread even though we know it isn’t good for the diabetes but because it’s good for the spirit.

Resilience is making decisions that benefit the whole instead of just the individual. It is getting up and putting one foot in front of the other, even when you don’t want to. This is our resilience.

what if I never said…

what if i never said another thing
     	but sat silently
              	smoking filterless cigarettes
              	drinking colombian coffee
holding grandchild after grandchild
on a lap ever leaner, ever bonier with age
 
what if i never wrote another word
but filled my heart with beauty
     	sat silently wrapped in fog
     	while thunderstorms shook me to the bones
     	and lightning currents
     	connected brainwave/thought waves
     	to spirits dancing on the shoreline
 
would my silence drive you crazy

More About Marcie Rendon

Author website: https://www.marcierendon.com/

“A conversation with Marcie Rendon”, with Jeff Berglund. Waxwing Magazine.

nila northSun. Vignettes

Nila Northsun, of Shoshone-Anishinaabe descent, was born in Shurz, Nevada, and raised in the Bay Area. She completed her BA in art at the University of Montana-Missoula. Some of her volumes of poetry are Diet Pepsi and Nacho Cheese (1977), Small Bones, Little Eyes (1981, with Jim Sagel), the anthology A Snake in Her Mouth (1997), and Love at Gunpoint (2007). In 1980, Northsun also authored After the Drying Up of the Water: A Tribal History of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone. In 2000, she was awarded the Silver Pen Award from the University of Nevada Friends of the Library, and in 2004 she received ATAYAL’s Indigenous Heritage Award of Literature. She lives on the Stillwater Indian Reservation in Fallon, Nevada, where she works as a grant writer. Nila has shared the following poems with Siwar Mayu. Although “falling down to bed” and “The coat” are renowned among her works (see the video below), here is the first time that they are translated into Spanish. The other four poems are unpublished. A conversational, intimate and sarcastic tone is sustained throughout Northsun’s poetics. Her verses question romantic perspectives on indigeneity through day-to-day-life-vignettes in the reservation.

If you prefer to read in a PDF file, click HERE

rez cars

it’s always one thing

or another

fuel pump out this month

radiator blown next

bald tires of course

paint faded and clear coat peeling

from no garage

crack so long on the windshield

you’re afraid to take it

to one of those car washes

with the big whirling brushes

but there is a sweetgrass braid

on the dashboard

an ashtray full of sage

an eagle feather dangling from the

rear view mirror

and some sort of native decal

on the back window

your ride is ‘protected’

from everything except

mechanical failure.

falling down to bed

i used to look at with disgust

these indians laying around

on the dirt & grass

passed out drunk

their bodies littering

the pow wow grounds

or city parks

i’d look at their crumpled bodies

laying in the noon sun

still sleeping where

they fell

but one time

i went to the 49

after the pow wow

& got shit faced drunk

then got sleepy

& fell in the dirt parking lot

it seemed nice

the ground was clean in the darkness

the stars were vibrant above

the night air was cozy

‘get up get up’ they said

‘no no leave me here

i want to sleep here’

luckily they shoved me into

the car

or i would have been

the drunk somebody looked at

with disgust

at least now

when i see them

i understand.

The coat

his coat hung in the closet

the coat he wore

for funerals

and court appearances

the dark somber coat

waiting for his return

as did we

never really understanding

his lengthy absences

in jail

or just partying in another town

with another woman

days became years

until all we had left

were faded photographs

and his coat in the closet.

nila northSun reads “The Coat”, “Falling Down to Bed”, and “The Art of Living Poorly”

marry me or I’ll suicide

I had this friend

since high school

that I saw maybe once

every 5 years

he was a tribal guy

and when I last saw him

in his 40’s

he said he wanted to be

married before he was 50

but not to any white women

that he seemed to attract

he wanted a tribal woman

so when he was at ceremony

there would be his native woman

waiting for him

bringing him food

making him proud

he said if I don’t get married

by the time I’m 50

I’m going to suicide

will you be my bride?

walmart

it is finally there

just on the other side

of the freeway

located on our tribal land

our poverty is over

we get all of the sales tax

besides the lease on the land

it is a fact

our unemployment rates

will decrease

an elder is a greeter

her white hair brilliant

against the blue of her

walmart smock

she smiles at me and

says ‘welcome to walmart’

minimum wage is

better than nothing.

Medicine bundles………for cheri

As we sat around the table making

Little yellow bundles of tobacco, cedar,

And sage tied with red string to help her

With a peaceful passing

We talked about how she’ll be the

first one of us to find out what death is like

is it going to heaven and meeting god?

Is it being reincarnated into something else?

Is it nothingness?

Will there be ghosts and spirits?

Will she be turned into energy that floats

With the dinosaurs?

Will she mingle with the stars in the universe?

And the 10 year old says ‘lucky’.

More about Nila NorthSun

http://nativeamericanlit.com/northSun.html