Macedonio Villafán Broncano (Peru, 1949) is a Peruvian writer and educator recognized for his contributions to contemporary Andean literature and for his work in revitalizing the Quechua narrative tradition. Born in the region of Áncash, his writing draws deeply on the Andean cultural world, oral memory, and the historical tensions shaped by colonization and extractivism in the Peruvian highlands.
Villafán’s work is distinguished by its ability to bring Western narrative forms into dialogue with structures rooted in the Andean worldview, particularly the centrality of community, orality, and a living relationship with the land. In his novel Apu Kolki Hirka (1997), he gives voice to a mountain that recounts centuries of mining exploitation, offering an Andean perspective in which nature is understood not as a resource, but as a living subject. His writing thus emerges at the intersection of memory, territory, and historical conflict, constituting a powerful literary intervention that invites us to rethink the relationship between community, spirituality, and modernity in the contemporary Andes. Below are selected excerpts from Apu Kolki Hirka. In this bilingual narrative in Quechua and Spanish, the apu—a mountain-deity—recounts centuries of history through a non-linear temporality, revealing the sacred bond between Quechua communities and the land, as well as the progressive devastation brought about by colonial invasion and its ongoing expression in contemporary extractive capitalism.
“I am the old Colquijirka, the mountain or hill of silver, inhabitant of these immense cordilleras of the serpent god Amaru. I am the venerated one of ancient ayllus, their great Apu or Mountain God. For good or ill, for fortune or misfortune, I have offered the mineral of my entrails to all who came to ask for it in good spirit. Since when? Since how many pachacutis or great changes? As if it were only today, I remember it despite the passage of time. And now that they have exhausted the mineral I could offer, seeing how the mining workers leave with their children and their poverty; hearing the voices of the dead in the wind flooding me with their nostalgia, within me I remember… “(p. 5-6)
~~~
Tsaymi noqaqa achka qellayniita pashtaratsipurqaa. Kushikuymi urya kaq tsay patsachaw. Kallpankunawan yanapanakur, kushikuypa uryarmi qellayta raslla aylluriyarqan. Tsaypitanam takiraakun apakuyarqan qellayniita, Qanchis Qochapeq yarqoq Tampu mayu uranpa. Markanman chaarirnam wayra tullpankunachoo ñanpuyaaratsir, ichikllallan qellaypeq shumaq murukunata, waatakunata ruraykur, Mama Pachapaq, noqakuna apukunapaq, Qanchis Qochapaq, churayaamurqan, tamya kananpaq, mikuy achka kananpaq, waatankuna mirananpaq; ari paykunaqa Tampu mayu aywaqchoo quñu patsapita rara punakamam murupakuyaq, waatapakuyaq. Tsaynoo llapanta rurayarmi shumaq kawakuychoo kakuyaq: Mama Pachata kuyashpa, apukunata kuyashpa, Qanchis Qochata kuyashpa; llapan imaykachoopis yanapanakushpa, kushiypa uryashpa… (p.8) Tsay patsachawpis kushikuymi urya kaq llapanpaq (p.10)
Then I made my silver spring forth abundantly. Work was a joy in those times. Joining their forces and working joyfully, they gathered my silver. Then, dancing, they carried the metal to their ayllu, descending along the banks of the Tampu River that flows from the Qanchis Qocha lagoons. Upon reaching their village, smelting it in their wind furnaces, they made fruits and little animals of silver that they placed as offerings to Mother Earth, to us their gods, to their Qanchis Qocha, so that there would be rains, so that their cultivated fields would bear fruit, so that their animals would multiply. For in that Tampu River basin they cultivated and raised their animals from the warm lowlands to the cold high punas. By doing everything in this way, they had achieved good living; venerating Mother Earth, Qanchis Qocha, the mountain gods, helping one another, working with joy… (p.8)
All the peoples kept my great mandate in mind. They never forgot it. (p.10)
Everyone was astonished by how the Spaniards coveted gold and silver. The ransom that the Inca Atahualpa gave them in Cajamarca, filling a room so that they would grant him freedom, had meant nothing to them. Because immediately, without showing respect to the gods, they began to take the gold and silver from the temples; they even began to destroy the temple of the ancient Chavín gods; from the great temple of Qoricancha they took all the gold and silver of the gods. They said that the ambition of those bearded wiracochas for gold and silver was so great that they even killed one another. (p.12)
~~~
Chaykaayarqan pasaypa hatun kaq vetaaman. Hina kutipaykuryanmi, Toruupis, Mukiipis, runaakunapis capatazninkunata, willapaq: Achka mineraltam apakuykaayanki; Tayta Kolki Hirkapaq achka qaraynin churayay, nishpa. Tsay shumaq wayinkunachoo, asikuyaqmi mandakuqninkuna, imayka asikuypaqnoo niyanqan kanqantanoopis. Allaapam piñaykurqaa shunquuchoo. “-Tayta, kaykunata kallpaykita musyaratsishun...” (p. 40)
They were already reaching my greatest veins. Reiterating many times, my bull, my muki, my runas warned their overseers saying: they are taking large quantities of mineral; make great offerings to Father Kolkijirka. But their bosses laughed in their luxurious offices as if the warnings were a joke. An immense rage grew in my spirit.
“Show them your power, father.” (p. 40)
For more about Indigenous Literatures and extractivism
Andrea Echeverría Langsdorf is an Associate Professor at Wake Forest University. She earned her doctoral degree in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of Yeyipun en la ciudad. Representación ritual y memoria en la poesía mapuche (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2021) and El despertar de los awquis: migración y utopía en la poesía de Boris Espezúa y Gloria Mendoza (Paracaídas Editores & UNMSM, 2016), as well as of several academic articles published in journals such as Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Latin American Research Review and the Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies. She is currently working on a book that studies Mapuche visual art.
Danilo Vásquez (b. 1960) is a Lenca poet and teacher who was born in San Miguel, El Salvador. He received a Bachelor’s in Literature from the University of El Salvador. He resides in Santa Rosa de Lima where he teaches language and literature at Centro Escolar Centroamericana. His published writings include: El diablo en Santa Rosa de Lima (1987), Náuseas de Lemas y Dilemas (1988), Adiós a un ideal (1989), Cuentos de Santa Rosa de Lima (1989), Mamá abuela (1990), Cuando la luna llena (1992), Fragmentos de un sueño (1998), Cuba…una sílaba tras otra (1999), and Cuadernos lencas taulepas (2016).
The poems I have chosen to translate come from various places, such as his poemario Cuando la luna llena (1992) and Cuadernos lencas Taulepa (2016). For this reason, I have decided to “name” the following group of translated work “Poems from Lenca lands.” I have included the original poems in Spanish so readers are able to consult either the original or my translations into English. In his poems, readers will find an array of themes and ideals, many of which speak to a trans-American and Lenca experience.
Danilo Vásquez’s work has gone unnoticed by many readers and writers, which is of no surprise given the peripheral status that Central American authors have been afforded within Latin American literary and publishing spaces, as well as World Literature more generally. Amidst this reality, many Indigenous writers from Central America and Abya Yala have found ways to disperse their work in and outside of Latin America, particularly through Indigenous-led writing collectives and the Internet’s ability to connect millions of people across time and space. In Danilo’s case, much of his work is no longer under (physical) circulation, so the Internet has been an important avenue for the circulation of his poems from Lenca lands. He has turned to sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Scribd, and Twitter, among many others, in order to share his poetics with readers like us.
In Danilo’s work, readers will find the maneuvers and beauty that he deploys through his use of the Spanish language. As many Indigenous scholars and artists have pointed out, even though we produce in colonial languages, such as Spanish and English, we have made them our own, ultimately Indigenizing the languages. In deploying Spanish, Danilo is able to capture the tensions and beauty found currently in Lenca lands in order to advocate for and to convey the contributions Lenca writers have to the world of literature. In the poems I have included, Danilo’s words speak historically and culturally to a post-bellum El Salvador and the legacy of colonial violence found on Lenca lands, lands that are divided by what today are known as El Salvador and Honduras. The poems the reader will find below are filled with Lenca cosmovisions as well as preoccupations with international and transnational struggles and solidarity efforts. These culminate in a tapestry of Lenca words that seek to build connections across time and space with non-Lenca and Lenca peoples alike.
Lastly, I would like to dedicate these translations to Berta Cáceres, a Lenca activist who was murdered in Honduras for advocating for Mother Earth and for Lenca and Indigenous rights and autonomy. She was taken from us too soon, a decade ago on March 3, 2016. Danilo Vásquez has a poem on her power and sacrifice, titled “A Bertha Cáceres,” where he recounts how the Lenka people will keep fighting against the material injustices perpetrated by the nation-states that occupy Lenka lands (Honduras and El Salvador). In conversation with Danilo, he told me the following about her: “La magia y el amor de una incansable luchadora manifestado en su aguerrida lucha. Berta es el atavismo genealógico de las guerreras Comizahuales” (25 Jan 2026 via Whatsapp). Abrazos.
A Poem for Berta Cáceres
March 3, 2016
From Cuadernos lencas Taulepa (2016)
English translation originally published in Latin American Literature Today (2026)
We grieve for Honduras
Like the twin sister
Who suffers at the same time as the heart
We grieve
Because we carry a sea of blood that unifies us
Because for every thorn that wounds us
Grandparents
parents
And siblings bleed.
It breaks our soul
To know that foreign gunpowder
Keeps exploding in our mountains
Cowards
Murderers
How dare they spill our blood
Murderers
Forever dammed
The blood that dyed red
Our rivers wasn’t enough for them
Did they really think that the children of Manawana Lempira
won’t raise their spears?
Our arrows will be poisoned with dignity
With decorum
To combat the grim and crude invader
All the fury of the confederation
All the strategy and tactics
Will be felt in the vengeance for our spilled blood
Our fallen, heroic siblings
will be avenged one by one
The fight begins
The combativeness of the glorious Lenca will be felt
Even in the rotten and dirty bones of the transnationals.
From Cuando la luna llena (1992)
MONDAY
The rain has already washed the horizon
The night covers the earth with her cloth
A cricket sings desperate songs
An out-of-tune rooster plays along with him
Slowly the moon walks
Without knowing where to.
THURSDAY
And I will keep living
In each of the sun’s marimbazos *
Picking up the lost lights
Shaping the faces of the past
Walking hand in hand
With my existential dread
Crashing my full moon voice
Spilling the aged wine
On the comal of a dark town. **
~~~
* The Central-American marimba is a melodic percussion wooden instrument.
** The comal is a Central-American rounded earthenwear griddle where tortillas are cooked.
Christián González Reyes (b. 1997) (They/he) is a scholar and writer. Chrisitán is finishing a PhD in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, where they focus on Post-Civil War Central American, Mesoamerican, and diasporic literature and film. They are interested in the impact Marxism has had on these cultural archives. Christián is also a writer of short stories in Spanish, and they are currently finishing a book of short stories.
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Javier Jayali is originally from Cota (Kundurmarka, Colombia). He is a writer and an educator of literature and orality. He studied Literature at the National University of Colombia. For years, he directed the creative writing workshop Tejedores de historias (Story Weavers) at the Public Library of Cota, from which he published the poetic anthologies Cota se cuenta en copla (2020), Cuerpos y palabras (2021) and Senderos, resiliencias y otros espejos (2022.) Since 2018, he coordinates Fiba we, a research and pedagogy traditional lodge for community practices. He is the founder of the Cota Literature Network (2020-2023), as well as the Andean music collective Sikuris del Majuy (2018-2023.) He is a farmer, cultural organizer, and community leader. The following poems were selected from his book Sangre de Tabaco, a unique volume in the recent literature produced in Bakatá/Bogotá, the fertile valley of the condors, the ancestral Muisca territory.
Kusmuy (House of Thought)
Storm rain animal everything has its place and desire its movement and word in the house of thought. Mourning healing sickness all has its story, its pattern –echo– its purge for life and a right to silence. Everything has its limit too invincible aloneness, confusion impossible understanding. Somewhere someone seeks reparation reconciliation and a place, common lineage in the countryside a lane on the path and the nearness of the hillside. Someone seeks to exist seeks their spiritual name their fish or worm clan and a sense of their abyss. Someone seeks a home for their visions a divining rod for their intuition. Everything seeks the secret forge to display their courtship and their shroud, the feverish balm to dance their first dance, the fertile corner to share isolation.
There is an open door the wood spreads out its arms and the homefire beats like the tongue of a drum: Welcome, welcome, to this chink in the finite though standing so alone a straw peaked roof on stilts has been for many dreams a compendium of the cosmos a breviary of the dawn and a library of fires. The house of thought is open.
Hoska (Rapé)
Be calm tobacco carries the hummingbird spirit comes close with its sifted song and pow- dery feather. Crosses your nostrils like a gust and aurora brings present –echo, buzz– the beat of its wings pollinates the mind. Runs through the brain tames the voices who lie in wait like angels and the past eases and the future awaits. From its emptiness a crevice greens. The body feels its own time, clean.
Walking Seated
The tree trunk my ancestor whose dream is a place to go forward sitting.
With my body seated and my mind walking I am a a vein of the tree an appendix of the earth. And I am with poporo with mochila and sash and spindle in my hand –and without these things– with a brilliant breast collecting stars and silences.
I am also with my splintered glance legs bound with veins tongue forged with a wrinkled sadness and fury; I am upon a ceremonial stool (an extension of flesh) heart seated deeply blood flowing in front of a fire.
Whole or in pieces everything and all am I if I have space to speak to confide or be silent strike a chord or call out because I have body and place my soul, a seat.
I am, perhaps, –upon a cosmic stool for musing drawing on tobacco telling a tale or suffering– vestige of the tree action springing from thought.
Gorge
For a long time he tended a rotten fire stoked at his walls a flaming tuber death sun that devours amygdalas and aborts the wind. There within the bloodstained veins the word the pyrite word the obsidian word the magma word. The word? –timid, teimid, tamid– a fossil preserved in volcanic urns. He waited a long time like a star that burns as it dies and as it dies, it names. In this way the forest birthed the word, unconscious, crestfallen. The gorge was once crater, laid out and defeated to whom the hummingbird offered tobacco seed, tobacco dust medicine from air balm from the word.
Flames of fire now blanket the volcano.
Canopy of Birds
I have in my vertebrae a canopy filled with birds who nest and forage whose songs are presences, lucid or terrible.
They later throng to my breast sometimes all of them sometimes none and these ones, these who don’t emerge who do not migrate through the veins, or are more like fruits of the tree, or abstracts, they also sicken.
Suspended in air many have died tremulous with hope; some others persisted their feathers turn to air their latency, idea.
Always, they hope that from my mouth will stretch forth the ancient heavenly vine that binds time to the world; perhaps a question, a response, a page and a pen, a couplet, a whistle from the wooden flute. Always… The juices from the coca and tobacco show the way and free them..
The Rock of Confession
On the mountain, first and foremost, permission with a barefoot soul, without notions imposed. I offer yarn and corn husks, I remember the path. I seek the rock of confession. I speak with her: like the primate who only recently descended from the tree but also like the spores on the fern. And I come again, as I have come before I come to surrender, to feed the mountains and return to the world weightless. I want to descend lighter, walking seated, with an empty mochila, I return.
The andean chameleon glides between the cracks. The highland eagle passes before the rock.
Fire Dream
Dreaming displays remains of those things that have not yet happened of that which has not yet been named and yet exists.
Smoke seems like the fire’s dream, the fire dreams. He dreams of an open house of hands spread with sandy clay of ears of corn and owls and Andean colored flags at dusk.
If there are words, the fire rests. If silence, he dances.
The questions seem to be the dream of thought, Thought dreams: “Which dream do I need? The tall flame that kindles or frees? The medium flame that observes and contains or that slow one that gives out? The ember that subdues yearning to lethargy or that one there that calms the suns at the dying of night?
Awaken smoke embraces the rays of light. The fire dreams the dream of the ancient one: “another existence exists.“
Equinox
The sowing season arrives and the seed falls from the water. The fist of the universe opens the rain returns with its outstretched palm. We put on the plumage of birds and wait to be born anew. The sun will wait for us as it highlights its eternal analemma. We will be there and we will know that we’ve said what we never wanted to say that we have been unjust with the living that we have postponed the postponed that we have seen the river paved over that our eyes are worn out-diminished.
We have waited for the new sun. The day lasts as long as the night and the awakening as long as our fears. We will make a cosmic contract and a sowing of purpose: we’ll ask the voices in our minds to rest give ourselves time and discipline consume what is necessary. We will sink our hands in the ground. We’ll make an offering. The equinox sun will watch us be born. Thank-you.
Mochila
The cord and the placenta that some sowed and buried that were robbed from us or that we lost becomes visible with the thread in our hands a thread that creates its history of itself like the ring of a tree like the myth like the story of country folk.
The threads and color knot together to make a mochila weave the visible the memories and the tangible. Moving inward they weave emptiness space and form the invisible: a grave in the earth memory to remember and a query: What do you want to carry and how much can you bear? to go through the world without origin? The mochila is a placenta united to its umbilical cord.
Lorrie Jayne, a collaborator in Siwar Mayu, teaches Spanish, Portuguese, and Personal Narrative in the Languages and Literatures Department at the University of North Carolina Asheville (USA). She lives with her husband and daughters in the Appalachian Mountains where she enjoys plants, people, and poetry.
Gloria Mendoza Borda (1948) is a renowned Peruvian poet from Puno who currently resides in Arequipa. She joined the Carlos Oquendo de Amat Group in the 1960s and has published Wilayar (1971), Los grillos tomaron tu cimbre (1972), Lugares que tus ojos ignoran (1985), El legendario lobo (1997), La danza de las balsas (1998), Dulce naranja dulce luna (2001), Mujer, mapa de música (2004), Q’antati deshojando margaritas (2006), Desde la montaña grito tu nombre(2013), Amtasiña (2013), and Mi abuela, mi patria (2018). In the three poems below, included in Dulce naranja dulce luna (2001), Mendoza represents how plants communicate their memory. Three of them: the cherry tree, the avocado tree and the honeysuckle. These texts provide an ecological vision based on Quechua-Aymara forms of knowledge that transcend the anthropocentric perspective. To initially approach these poems, perhaps the best thing to do is to ask yourself: what do these plants communicate? What vision do they convey about the passage of time? What forms part of their memory? I invite you to read these poems within the historical framework of the political violence that affected all of Peru, and especially provincial cities and rural communities in Peru during the Conflicto Armado Interno (1980-2000). As you will notice, these plants cry and suffer the passage of time, nostalgically remember the past, and communicate their experience about traumatic episodes that happened in this context.
~~~
The Cries of the Cherry Tree
I am the old cherry tree
who saw them grow
as artists
I also knew how to be an artist
I also knew how to be a river
phosphorescent birds
would stay in my currents
they made nests with dazzling weeds
and they sang to life
my roots
keep moving forward
through the underground
I cry in the name of mother earth
in the skin of the boys
suffering
the desolation of the courtyard
I cry
on the posters
that they hung
on my mutilated arms
“Protest against the Cherry Tree’s Death”
I cry
because I don’t know the reason
why did they destroy my branches
I cry
in the name of the white doves
(those who came from the Plaza Mayor
they will no longer be able to shelter from the sun
under my shade)
I cry
because the sound of the boys’ pan flutes and guitars
stayed in me
they played in my lap
during the sunsets
however
I exist
in our memory
I exist
I am the invisible cherry tree
that keeps them company
my fruits used to adorn
girls’ heads
that took shelter
in my skirts
why did the ax become enraged
with my silence?
from my invisible image
I predict life
I light the fire
my currents grow
I also feel bird
I also feel man
I also feel artist
I also feel river.
Listen to Gloria Mendoza reading her poetry in Spanish
Andrea Echeverría Langsdorf is an Associate Professor at Wake Forest University. She earned her doctoral degree in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of Yeyipun en la ciudad. Representación ritual y memoria en la poesía mapuche (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2021) and El despertar de los awquis: migración y utopía en la poesía de Boris Espezúa y Gloria Mendoza (Paracaídas Editores & UNMSM, 2016), as well as of several academic articles published in journals such as Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Latin American Research Review and the Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies. She is currently working on a book that studies Mapuche visual art.
Unforgettable characters, enlightened by random revelations, cross the coffeeshop, the sidewalk, the freeway while Cliff Taylor records them through narrative-verses and laughter in his Ponca Lunch Hour Poems zine. In the first page of this zine, hand written, we read:
I wrote these poems in the Spring of 2019, after my girlfriends and I moved to Astoria, Oregon. Some I wrote at work, some at the coffee shop before work, some in Tokyo, some while traveling back. I am a Ponca Indian so a lot of them are about my tribe, our people, how we see and experience the world. I am also into comic books, horror movies, and just everything to do with art: so expect to find some of that in here too. I would love for some of these poems to become your friends on an unexpected day or night as you’re busy doing your thing or taking a well-deserved break. I hope you like them.
Thanks, Cliff.
Busu
It took us three months and a total of two cars to
drive across the country and move from New Orleans
to Astoria, Oregon, a city neither of us had ever
actually been before. It was epic, unforgettable,
exhausting. Our second day here, while I was on
the sidewalk outside the coffee shop smoking, a big
tattooed dude walked up to me and asked, surprising
me like birdshit in my eye, “Your name wouldn’t
happen to be Cliff would it?” i rocked back; how
could anyone here know me, let alone this guy?
Then I flashed: I remembered this guy from high
school, he was a classmate, a punker and skateboarder,
20 years ago back in Columbus, Nebraska. “Ken?”
I asked back. “Ken —?” It was him; he owned
the three stool walk-up noodle shop two doors
down from the coffee shop. Having not crossed
paths in 20 years, he recognized me. I pointed
to our packed car and told him that we’d just moved
here, yesterday. “Welcome to Astoria,” he said,
friendly as I remembered, “This is maybe one of
the most beautiful places in the country. Glad you’re
Here.” We talked and smoked and I was kind of stunned,
dazed, transported into the surreal nature of the mystery
of why we’d come here, to Astoria, this place we’d never
been before. My ancient past had sent a messenger
to welcome us to our freshest chapter, to shake our
hand in the middle of this great unknown. For the
rest of the day I was speechless with the magic of it
all, a cheetah wandering a woodsy wonderland, an
Indian in full regalia on Ray Bradbury’s sweet Mars.
We’d been delivered to the right stretch of earth;
We were drinking our coffee right where we were
meant to. Miraculously, we’d arrived.
.
Cliff Senior
I wish I remembered more stories
from my grandpa (who doesn’t, I guess).
My mom would often comment on how
he talked so quietly you could barely
hear him. My little brother spent
more time with him that I did, as he lived with him for awhile when
he got out of juvenile detention; he
has some good stories and they’re
all new to me. Sometimes at my
gas station Indians I didn’t know
would come in, learn who I was,
and tell me stories about my
grandpa’s house back in the day;
“There was always a big pot of
soup on,” they’d say; “He was
always feeding everyone who stopped
in”. I remember visiting him on
my way up to Sundance, hanging
out with him in his bedroom
when he was on oxygen. He sat
up and lit himself a cigarette,
handed me one when I asked for
One. He was on his way out; this
was the kind of smoke you couldn’t
regret. “So what are they gonna
do, pierce your nipples?” he asked.
Yeah, something like that,” I
said, smiling. I wonder what
story my grandpa would share
if he heard me read this poem.
I wonder what he would share
if he could only share just
one. Grandpa? You’re up.
Relic-worker
I talk with this elder who has diagrammed,
mapped, and database every earth-mound in
America. It’s staggering. There are shapes
of every imaginable variety. It’s been his
life’s work. He hands me the zip drive with
everything on it. “It’s yours now,” he says.
“When I was young I was told that this
was my calling. When I got old they told
me that it would be the next person’s calling
to know what to do with it.” I drive along
the coast with my two dogs, heading towards
a thunderbird’s mound in Oregon; its eye
is a somewhat well-known mountaintop.
“I guess it’s our turn now,” I tell the dogs,
ocean visible through the open window.
“Let’s go see what this thunderbird has
to say.”
Signals and cages in the Seattle Art Museum
I had just hopped off the Greyhound
and, walking around, I bumped into
the Seattle Art Museum and saw that
there was Indigenous exhibit.
I wandered in, began to ascend the
Stairs. Then, like an out-of-the-
blue gunshot in the YMCA, I was
hit by this grief of the spirits, brought
to the verge of tears. I kept it
together, proceeded forward, went
into the exhibit. A few minutes
in I heard the spirits tell me to
sing a song for all the spirits that
were boxed inside this place,
enmeshed with the displayed objects
and unseen. I was young, too nervous
to upset all of the interested browsing
that was going on; I was asked but
not strong enough to do so. I saw
the living shamans’ rattles, ornate
paraphernalia and utensils, big hides
and pots that were so potently
not inanimate. Half of me was a museum-goer,
half of me was a Sundancer seeing everything
with ceremony eyes. When I left
I thought, Someday I’ll write about this.
Wandering aimlessly down the street,
I thought, People should know what
Indians experience when they encounter
their stuff still being held hostage.
We took him back to our place so he could shower
This was in Standing Rock when all the shit
was going on. He tells us about all sorts
of stuff that I don’t think most anybody
would believe. Prophecy. A multi-dimensional
coded mythology. What he was told on the
hill. His grandma feeding little people who
came to her windowsill. A cave in the Andes
where leaders from all over the Western Hemisphere
Piam are the stories that are passed from generation to generation, and reveal meaningful events in the Mapuche’s history. Many of the piam happened in the historical time of the persecution and genocide of Mapuche families during the so called “conquest of the desert,”perpetrated by the Argentine nation-state between 1878 and 1885. Piam are a type of counter-history and counter-memory that stand counter to the official history of that invasion and colonization of Puelmapu, Eastern Wallmapu, Mapuche ancestral territory, in what is now known as Argentine Patagonia.
Unlike academic and well-documented studies that confirm state terrorism in Argentina, piam, as oral histories, are passed from generation to generation, or are recorded, and they reconstruct a specific time. Here we offer one of these piam, transcribed for us to counter forgetfulness. As they are told to us and as we hear the piam, we believe it: we don’t need to verify it because we know that it happened in this way and it is in the collective memory of our people.
Although they seem like stories from a remote past, they are current for today’s generations. They are revitalized in every new gathering, because the signs of those events are part of a symbolic and effective violence that renews the invasion daily. For instance, in the Villa Llanquin rural elementary school, there is a human skull on display in a glass case. Until recently the skull had a sign that said “head of an Indian.” Another example is that a lake, a city in Patagonia, a train line, and many streets and parks are named after Julio Roca, the Argentinian Minister of War, who led the invasion of Wallmapu, and who continues representing Argentinian society. Furthermore, there are several equestrian statues of Roca in uniform throughout the country, one which is even located in the Civic Center of Furilofche City–an emblem of the power that is exercised today against the Mapuche nation in their own territory.
The following piam, told by Cornelio Puelman, was told to him by his grandfather, who belonged to the generation that witnessed the beginning of the end of that ancestral world that was once still free and autonomous. Puelman belongs to the generation of grandfathers and grandmothers, chachay ka pu papay, who left this world around 2011. Daughters and sons, nephews and nieces of Puelman’s generation are now mothers and grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers of the generation who are revitalizing the language, the land and the memory, and who are speaking Mapuzungun, a language that suffered from the Argentinian policies of the silencing and prohibition of Indigenous languages.
The story that Cornelio Puelman is telling us is not an isolated one. Stories like these have been heard in many places, such as among the Rankülche in the Province of Buenos Aires, or in the Pewenche areas, as well as in other regions of Wallmapu where people witnessed similar events.
These stories are told in Mapuzungun with the grammatical suffix “em” or “yem”, which is used to report something that is old or that is no longer here. It also carries a connotation of sadness and nostalgia for that world that is gone. It is customary in Mapuche philosophy to reflect upon the kuifike che yem, because Mapuche thought is always thinking toward the past, on what the ancestors would have done if they were here in the present. This is a way for the ancestors to continue speaking to the present, so that the past returns and the circle closes. This is why it is important to rescue this piam.
PUELMAN CORNELIO ÑI NGÜTRAN ~ English version below
Feychi zungu ta mülele faw mu, fey mu ta müley ta tufa zungu. Fechi zugu ta mülele, inche ta laku zuam ta ngülam ta tufi. Ngey mapu em ta tufa mo, inchiñ ta kupay ta winka chew weshake kuzaw ta kupay. Müley ta kulliñ. Inche ta mülen…, inche ta ngen mapu, fey entuy taiñ paisano em. Inche ta nielay ta fey paisano em. Inche ta feychi zungu, ta niey ta tio em. Kupaygün kupay winga inche nga entunge mapu pi em, entunge mapu.
Fey miawngey mapu em, pia em, winka. Tüfa mari kiñe tripantu nien, mari küla tripantu, miawunge mapuzuam. Entuy mapun tiewtüfa kangelu mapu tati.
Consejalu ka winka entungeiñ mapu em. Ka winka mapuche tiew mülele, küme rüpü tüfaw pülle, inche feychi kampu, inche ta rangi pingey mu, tüfaw mu ta entungen, piam . Fey mo ta inche ta em.
Amuen tüfy ta tüfachi tüken ta tüfy, ta tüfachi mapu, fewla tañi mapu nien. Tükulen fewla ngülam müten kampu ta tafy, anay. Femgechi ta conseja ñi ta che, fey ta consejo feyta küme amuy ka. Consejaniele che inchiñ taiñ paisano em. Kiñe ta ka pülle amuy ka anüy ta kay müley pu che. Fey mu ta inchiñ ta winka ta kiñer, pim, pülle ta winka. Kom fey mincheawchi amuley, fey mu ta winka awüwün ta kelluy ta tüfey.
Así es.. unos con otros los winka no se tratan de joder. El paisano trata de joder al que está bien, trata de joderlo. El winka no, el winka se ayudan unos con otros, al jodido lo ayuda, por eso levanta, y nosotros no.
Felelay pues… felelay, felelay.
Inchiñ müley ta tüfey. Ilkungey feyta müley ta che ta tüfey. Feychi wule ta trawayu kom ta kiñelzungu pülle kom fey pülle. No, trawayu inche kupalan, inche amulan, well weza zomo, tiew weza ka mo ngelay ko ka tiew nielu lelfun mew. Fey mu ta tripalay fey. Kiñelzungu ta pilen, fey kiñelzungu, ¡ta müley fey! –¿Amuay pülle? –¿Amuayu? –¡Amuaiñ!
Fütra kuifi ta müley pichi paw llazkünun ta tüfi. Fey mu ta tripalay ti pu che. Inchiñ taiñ mapuche ngeiñ ta tüfa. Kom ta feychi kiñelzungun ta nielay. Kiñe ta kay zungunge kangentuy ta ka zungu ka rakizuam müley. Fey mu ta inchiñ küme kuzawlaiñ. Küme kuzawlaiñ.
[…] Antiguamente estaban todos unidos, todos unido. ¿No ve? Hoy estábamos conversando cuando yo tuve conocimiento tendría unos 10 años, 11.
Pütuiñ may, ngolliiñ, zunguiñ. Peleao, peleao may tati peleolaiñ tati. Küme nguntrankaygün, tayültuku faw, tayültuygün, ngollygün, ulkantuygün, paylanaygün, pero weza zungulay. Fewla, kiñentuku pichikeche, pichikeche wüneltun me quieren pelear. Fey winkangefuy ta tüfey. Eso ha sido antes así.
Kuifikeche müley inche ñi fütra laku em nomen nga cruzafiy, rumen nga trentrenün zafiy, pi. Chew wefürpun pun gelle fulle, epu gelle fulle. Tripay nga lewfun mo nga amuaygün kiñe ngillañ engu. Kintuy nga chew müley rume nentuy sale fey mu tüfay müley pi, fey mu akufuy ñi puwükey.
Inche nga pikey ñi fütra laku em. Puwi nga winka nga inawlfiy katan ñi kawell pi, mollfunkawell mu nga bebiiñ. Müley nga la kulliñtufuy iloentufiy fey ñi fütra laku em zomo nga kütrangeiñ, fütra nga kütrangeiñ laku em tañi kushe laku em. Femgechi nga rupay pikey fütrakeche. Fewla nga ngtrumka mu ngelelle nge che koilaniefige “inche pelafi koila tati”, pingen tati. Así fuy.
Yo digo así fu. Son mentiras, dicen, yo no lo he visto. Pero uno que ha conversado está como un libro abierto, mi hijo. Clarooo… eso contaban los antiguos, que sufrían tanto, comían caballo muerto, punzaban su caballo. Si iban diez personas, diez kawell punzan, y si no, no alcanza la sangre. Mollfüñ kawell para matar el hambre. Si estaban sin comer, ellos, van dos, tres días, si no matan ningún bicho tienen que punzar el caballo. Punzan al lado de la vena. Si lo punzan del guargüero por lo menos cuatro litros de sangre sale. Ahí van tomando en jarro, sal y sangre, sal y sangre.
Pasaban tanto hambre porque tenían que andar disparando. Disparaban cuando vino este… ¿Cómo es que se llamaba el que vino a acaparar el país acá? ¿Los españoles? ¿Colón…? ¿Cristóbal Colón no es? …No, Roca, cuando vino ese.
Ka müna weshaley winka.
Una vuelta creo que kuifikeche piam müleygün, müley ta wütan, wütan ta müley. Amuaiñ fey mu winka nga müley fey mu, inche nga lay nga ñi pu che, pi. Nga kasike amuaiñ nga ñi kasike kechu mari …kechu pataka …kechu waranka wentru, piafi em. Kechu waranka wentru, piam,langümeymu, piam.
Tranawüftuy nagtuy, nagüntun, nagentual. ¿Chumafungechi? Trafyeymu lanza mu trawil mu. ¿Chumafuy? Traka mu müley tralkatuy. Kechu waranka piam lay.
Cinco mil personas le mataron al cacique. Murieron, dicen. Que le dijeron un wütan, wütan antes de ir hubo, un wütan. Y wütan es cuando le late un brazo o le late donde quiera, y le va ir mal, no, no vaya. No, voy ir nomas. Voy a atropellar a los winka, decía. ¿Que van a hacer con los Remington de los winka? Los agarraron en fila, así los mataron. Caían como pajaritos. ¿Y las lanzas y las trawilche, qué van a hacer los paisanos? Cinco mil mataron, dicen, volvió con mil. Seis mil personas, creo que atropellaron. ¿Qué va a hacer con el winka?
Wütan mu piam mu. Müley ta müley ta zugun wentru zomo fey zugunge. ¿Chumngechi amuan ta tüfa? ¿Küme amuan ka weza amuan? Weza amuaiñ, pita, weza wütan. Weza amuaiñ. No, amuan müten. La wütantufe le había dicho, la adivina ya le ha dicho que le va a ir mal. ¿Y usted cómo sabe?, dice el lonko. Venían por él. Si yo tengo un wütan, zugun wütan, zungulu wütan ¿küpaley winka? Küpaley. Wütan ta tüfy, küpay nga tiew. ¿Chew küpaley winka? ¿Küpay winka? Küpaley ta winka ta tüfa.
¿Mirador pürayaiñ? May, püray mirador. Püraaiñ mirador piam. Resultó ser un mirador, para el sur. Püray nga, piaeymu. Küpaley winka püralu winka tüfa mu imulüy kümey kura kay lamngümaiñ winka.
Küpay, piam mu. Küpaley, piam mu. Küpaley, piam mu, pu winka. Küpaley winka. Itrokom kelü rangiñ, kelü rangiñ. Tiew faw küpaley tati. Püraley ñi kiñelke pu che, los matan. Kansau pi ta winka, müna kansau. Katripel, katripeliel lanza mu, winka piwke lanza mu. Püraiñ. Rupay winka. Rupalu winka, si disparalew kawellun wiñotuy. Volvieron para atrás otra vez, en el mirador.
Antiguamente, eh, cuando andaban disparando de la expedición, subieron para el cerro y dice que si llegan a subir vamos a hacer rodar una piedra desde allá arriba. Van a pasar, llevando caballos, gente, y cuántos. Püraley winka, püraley antü. Pülle nga ta antü ta purraygün lamgümfiy.
Si llega la hora suben. Todos no van morir, algunos dos, tres pueden subir allá, los matan a esa gente, van a salir disparando. Püra antüley che. Chumgechi nge montuy. Montuy. Feychi zapiley.
THE NARRATION OF CORNELIO PUELMAN
If we were to talk about this matter that we are dealing with here. If we were to talk about this topic, my grandfather would give me this advice. We were the keepers of this land before, but the winka [non-Mapuche] brought bad works wherever he settled. Before there were animals. And being here…, and being from this land, the winka took the land from the Mapuche, as we were here and of this place. Those things didn’t happen among us. That was how my late uncle told me. They arrived, the winka, and although we were from here they took the land from us–they say–that’s how they took the territory from us.
The old ones used to say that the winka were trying to get land. I was eleven years old, I was thirteen, and they, the winka, were going around with the intention of taking land. They took away our rights to our land and to other lands as well.
The winka had been instructed to take away the old lands from us. Also the winka took the land of those Mapuche who had been on the good path, or that field in the middle. I remember those sad memories.
When I first came to this land where I am now, I planted this. Now I have this land. I only have this advice about the land: sow, friend. This is how people used to be counselled, so you will continue to be fine following this advice. The old Mapuche used to counsel us in this way. Some of them went and settled near the winka, and there were all the people. It is said, then, that we and the winka began to be together. The winka all went one on top of the other, so if a winka is harmed by himself or by others, they help each other, that’s what they do.
That’s how it is… the winka don’t try to screw one another. The paisano tries to screw someone who is doing well, they try to mess him up. The winka, no, the winka help one another, they help the one who is screwed, this is why they go forward, and we don’t. This isn’t any good…. It’s not good, no good at all.
We live in this way. There are folks that get angry, folks that are just like that. If someone says:
“Tomorrow we’ll get together to address the same question-united- one with another.”
“No, I’m not going to get together, I’m not going… suddenly my wife is sick, the one from over yonder is still ill: I don’t have water.”
So the matter never comes out. I would like to bring these things out all together, united. In this way, if someone says, “Let’s meet over there?” Everyone answers, “Come on! Let’s go!”
In former times, we nearly grieved over these things. Now these folks don’t come out. We are Mapuche here. We no longer have matters that we work on all together. When there is a concern, it is not like it was before, things are different, it’s another kind of thinking. So we don’t do good work, we don’t work well.
The old folks. The elders, those who came before, cousins, uncles, helped one another, we helped ourselves together. The sons, the daughters, my uncle, they walked all together as if they were one, they say. All of them! That’s how.
Yes, that’s how. Because before, I was already forty, and even so my deceased father told us what to do as if we were children. “Do this!”, he ordered, and I did it. He wasn’t my father, he was my uncle. And today a fifteen year old son, what does he do? If he wants to do something, he does it, if he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t do anything. How are things going to go well in this way, my Friend? It’s because of that that it goes so badly.
…In the olden days, they were all united, all united. Can’t you see? What we just said, when I would have had understanding, I would have been ten or eleven. Sure, we drank before, we got drunk, we talked. But fight? Fight amongst ourselves? No, no, we never fought. We had good conversations, then we’d start the tayül, sing the tayül, sing romanceadas, and rest.1 But there weren’t any problems. Nowadays the kids drink and the first thing they want to do is fight. This comes from the winka. That’s how it was before.
1 The tayül is a ceremonial and sacred song. Every element of nature has a sacred song: the lake, the river, the rain. People also have a tayül. The romanceadas are spontaneous songs that relate to or narrate everyday situations and are told in a sharing and funny way. Sometimes they are sung in counterpoint. There are many kinds of songs about a diverse range of situations that are sung as romanceadas.
(Puelman now tells what the violent occupation of the territory was like and about the stalking and persecution of families during the invasion of the Wallmapu. He also tells the stories that he has heard from his elders.)
His brother-in-law was who crossed my great-grandfather over to the other side of the river with just enough to cure him, the elders say. Even though it was night, and they were two, they crossed to the other side. They came out of the river, and he and his brother-in-law went on together. They looked for any way out, this way, they said; that’s how they got there.2
2 For the Mapuche worldview, rivers should not be crossed at night. The situation of persecution described is so desperate that it forces them to transgress that rule.
That’s how my deceased grandfather told it. Then, later, the winka arrived there. They told of times when they were being persecuted, and they pierced their horses, they, my grandfather and his wife, found dead animals and ate their flesh. These things suffered. Many torments were set upon my deceased grandfather and paternal grandmother. In this way they got on, this is how I was told the elders survived. Even though I tell it now, people say that I am lying. “I didn’t see that,” they say ”It’s a lie.”
I tell this story and they say, “They’re lies, I’ve never seen it.” But those who have spoken are like an open book, my Son. That’s what the old folks said, that they suffered so much, ate dead horses, pierced the flesh of their own horses. Ten people would go and pierce ten horses, if they hadn’t, they couldn’t have reached enough blood. They drank their horses blood to stave their own hunger. If they didn’t eat for two, three days, and they didn’t kill any other animal, they had to pierce the horse. It is pierced on one side of the vein. If the horse is pierced by the guargüero, you get at least four liters of blood. Right there they drink from a jug: salt and blood, salt and blood.
They suffered so much hunger because they had to shoot as they went. They had to flee, escaping when the… what was he called, the one who came to devour the Mapuche nation here? The Spanish? Columbus? Was it Christopher Colombus? No, Roca, Roca it was . That winka was real bad.
One time I think that the older one, they say, who had a presentiment, a hunch, there was a wütan, when a part of a muscle pulsates.3
3 The wütan is a pulse in the muscle that is interpreted as a premonition, a sign. Having a pulsing beat on the left side of the body is considered a bad omen.
“Let’s go then, because the winka, who killed my people are here,” said the Ionko. “Let’s go,” said the chief, “with 50…500…5000 men,” the grand Ionko said. They say they killed 5000 men.
One after another they lined them up on their knees and shot them down, downhill. What were we going to do? They went with lances and trawils.4 What were they going to do? The winka were armed and they fired. They say they killed 5000 men.
4 The trawil is a weapon with a single stone that has a slot in the middle where a rhea or choyke tendon is tied.
They said that he had a feeling, a hunch; he felt a wütan before going. And the wütan is when you feel a pulse in your arm, or a pulse anywhere, and it lets you know that things are going to go badly for you, so don’t go.
“No, I’m just going to go,” they say the Ionko said. “I’m going to trample the winka,” he said.
But what were they supposed to do against the winka’s Remingtons? They lined them up. That’s how they killed them. They felt like little birds. With lances and trawilche? What were our countrymen going to do? They say they killed 5000. He came back with a thousand. I think they killed 5 thousand. What could they do against the winka?
They said that he had a feeling, a hunch. The chief brought this news to the community, and they discussed: “What do we do with this? Are we going to do well or are we going to do badly?”.
“It’s going to be bad for us. That hunch is bad presage, it’s going to be bad for us”, they told him.
The wütantufe, the one who interpreted the sign, had already told the lonko that it was gonna go badly.
“And you, how do you know?”, they say the Ionko demanded. “If I have a feeling, the feeling, what the pulsing says is that the winka is coming?”
“Yes, they are coming. This presentiment is that they are approaching from over there?”
“Where are they arriving? Are they coming here?”
“Yes they are arriving,” the wütantufe told him.
[In another persecution that the Mapuche families suffered on the prairie it is told that they said]
“Should we climb up to the lookout?”
“Yes, let’s climb up to the lookout.” “Let’s climb on up!” they say they said.
It just so happened that there was a lookout, to the South.
“Climb up!” they shouted. “When the winka arrive and are climbing up we’ll roll down a hefty rock, that’s how we’ll kill the winka.”
[He sings] “They’re coming, they say they said/ They’re approaching, they say./ The winka, they’re arriving, they kept on saying/ The Winka comes.”
Half the people were covered in blood. Here they come! They climbed on up. Those that climb up are killed. They say that the winka were tired, very tired. With their spears they went for their necks and their hearts. That’s how it happened for the winka that climbed up. When the winka passed through, they had to run away, they returned riding. They retreated again, in the lookout.
Long ago, when they were fleeing from the expedition, they climbed into the hills. It is told that they said if they manage to climb after us let’s roll a good-sized rock from above. They’re likely to go by with horses, people, everything. And if the winka should come up, their hour has arrived. If that day arrives when they come up, they’ll kill them.
If they go up once they reach the lookout, not all will die, some, those who go up. Two, maybe three, will keep on climbing, they’ll be killed, they’ll be the ones to be killed, shot. That’s how it went at that time, that’s how the Mapuche people saved themselves. That is how they freed themselves. That was the way they took care of themselves.
FOR MORE ABOUT THE STORYTELLER AND THE TRANSLATORS
Cornelio Puelman is Teodora Puelman’s brother. His mother was a machi, that is, a traditional Mapuche healer. He lived in the area of Fütra waw, fütra lelfun mew, in a rural area located in the prairies, near Comayo, Puelmapu, today the Province of Río Negro, in the so-called Argentine Patagonia. He belongs to the generation of grandfathers and grandmothers who left in the 2000s. Many of his great-nephews and his descendants continue to live in that area known as Línea Sur. They are reclaiming their Mapuche identity and the Mapuzungun after years of “shaming policies.”
Sandro Rivas Pichicura was born in Furilofche, Nawel wapi lafken mapu mew, in Puelmapu, also known in Spanish as Bariloche, Province of Río Negro, in Argentine Patagonia. His father was born in Fütra ruiñ, Cabestro Quemado. His mother was born in Pilawe. Both–Fütra ruiñ and Pilawe–are located in the rural area of the great prairie of the so-called Línea Sur. He has been a member of different Mapuche organizations and is currently an activist for the revitalization of the Mapuzugun. He teaches Mapuzungun at the Highschool Level and works in different linguistic revitalization projects. He has worked as a radio communicator and has participated cultural innitiatives, such as the microdocumentaries Mapuzungun. El habla de la Tierra.
Violeta Percia was born in Buenos Aires. She currently lives in Nawel wapi lafken mapu mew. She is a poet, audio-visual artist, and scholar. She works as a professor of Literary and Comparative Studies at the University of Buenos Aires. She studied film at the Cuban EICTV Alternative Cinema. She recently translated and wrote the introduction of I Am a Damned Savage, by the Innu writer An Antane Kapesh (2023). She also has published Ideorrealidades. Poemas y papeles dispersos de la obra futura de Saint-Pol-Roux (2013); El narcisismo del arte contemporáneo de A. Troyas y V. Arrault (2020), the poetry books Clínica enferma (Buenos Aires, 2003), and Poesía del Tanti Rao (Mexico DF, 2019); and the novel Como nubes (Córdoba, 2021).
“Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s lovingly drawn characters work hard to preserve their innocence in a world where irony and cynicism would be easier. They spend a lot of time travelling: on land, on the water, through space and time–in cars, trucks, fishing boats, canoes, and in their minds: between bars, forests, reservations, curling rings, kitchens, lakes, and highways. These exquisitely rendered journeys become symbols for our desire to understand and never stop learning, no matter the cost. There is heartbreak here but also many moments of fleeting grace, and a wry humor that promises to keep us safe”
–Ursula Pflug
“indinawemaaganidog / all of my relatives”
i am standing on the wharf in cap saint louis just wondering, when a guy i’ve never met shows up. you should know i make it a policy not to talk to people unless absolutely necessary which is judgmental and damaged and yes i miss out on possibility, but at the same time tricky people do manage on occasion to penetrate my aural perimeter. it all works out in the end. sort of.
so etienne shows up and says allo and obviously he knows i’m not suppose to be there so i’m suspicious of what he wants. i tell him i want to see the seal colony even though that’s not what i want and that’s not what i am looking for. he immediately says he’ll take me. i ask how much. he says for free.
fine.
nothing in life is free. the best things in life are free. there is no such thing as a free lunch.
we walk down the dock and he offers his hand so i can step down onto the deck of the boat. of course i refuse and step down onto stacked broken plastic bins on my own because we need to get a few things straight right from the beginning and this is one of them.
he starts the engine and i’m in the back with the gear so we can’t talk. it’s sunny and it’s windy and it’s perfect and as we drive away from the shore i think about dexter and all the possible scenarios. he interrupts, offering me a coors light iced tea and i take one on impulsive even though it’s only ten thirty in the morning and coors light is always gross. Suddenly we’re a mile off shore in the atlantic.
we drive past a kayaker and kumbaya plays in my head and i stand up and wave like a happy person so he’ll remember me when the cops question him later.
it’s only a few more minutes to the seals which are herded on a sand bar so they can catch the fish moving into the river with big tides. we get close and they stampede into the sea reminding me of dogs and sheep and buffalo and etienne ask me if i want to go farther.
with the same impulse as the coors light iced tea, i say yes and he says he knows this place where there is a school of mackerel. we could fish because last night he was there and he caught a thousand pounds just jigging for them. i decide he is mi’kmaq because he could be and even though that probably means nothing it makes me feel less nervous.
on the way to the mackerel, etienne tells me how the feds kicked his family out of the park and paid them three hundred and fifty bucks for their land in 1968 and then they bulldozed the house. i tell etienne that i know how that feels but i don’t think he believes me because he thinks i’m from toronto and i’m rich and judgmental and full of shit because that’s what people think when you say the word “ontario”.
etienne gets out the lines and in two minutes we know we’re on the school because we’re pulling in mackerel easy. he watches as i hold the hook and snap the fish into the garbage pail, which is my reveal. it’s sunny and it’s windy and it’s perfect and the arms of the day are wide open and no one has to be anywhere. i see a northern gannet and i love gannets because they can disconnect their wings before they plummet into the sea after a fish. imagine disconnecting a body part! the gannet swims over to the boat smelling the fish blood and etienne hands the gannet a fish and says “the bird is my family, all of this, the fish, the seals, the water–this is my family,” which is his reveal.
our eyes meet because now he has my attention. i walk over and hug him and he is the kind of person that can give and receive a real hug and i’m not one of those people because my alarm system goes off when people touch me and i freeze up and shut down. this time that doesn’t happen. i decide to kiss him and it’s perfect and easy and we make out void of awkwardness but with a clearly defined beginning and a clearly defined ending. then he drives back to shore while i gut the fish in the back of the boat using his terrifyingly sharp knife, feeding the guts to the gulls and the gannets. he drops me off on the dock. we thank each other. we say goodbye and i pay attention to each step, instead of looking back.
~~~
Watch ↳ here Leanne Betasamisake Simpson performing “Islands of Decolonial Love”
For more about Leanne Betasamisake Simpson and her art
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics, story and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity.
The literary work of Fredy Chikangana (Wiñay Mallki, root that remains in time) is fundamental in the history of contemporary Indigenous literatures from Abiayala (the Americas). His verses and essays mirror his life experience between community work and “walking the word” within cross-cultural spaces. From Chikangana, we have learned that “returning to ourselves” is always possible, and that the ancestral territories continue to speak the languages of the land, in this case: Quechua. With his flutes, poems and koka leaves in his chuspa (bag), Chikangana has shared his message of memory and unity from Chile to California, and from South Korea to Italy. Aware of the migrations of his Yanakuna Mitmak ancestors, his verses speak of chaskis (messengers), chakas (bridges), and exchanges. (Juan G. Sánchez Martinez)
Dina Ananco is a Wampis and Awajun poet, translator, and interpreter. She has a BA in literature, and a Master’s degree in Peruvian and Latin American literature from Universidad Nacional de San Marcos, in Lima. She participates in poetry readings and academic events in Peru and internationally. She will be representing Peru at the Guadalajara international book fair in 2022.
Sanchiu (Lima: Pakarina Ediciones, 2021) is the first published book of poems in the Wampis language. The Wampis people are located between the south of Ecuador and the north of Peru, and they are part of the Jibaro linguistic family. The book is a bilingual edition in Wampis and Spanish, and the author translated her poems into Spanish herself. “Sanchiu” was the last name of Ananco’s grandmother, who appears on the book’s cover. This collection of forty poems is a tribute to the Wampis women which makes visible their strength and suffering, as well as current challenges inside and outside of the communities.. The poems follow the Wampis literary poetry form called “nampet” and their celebration of singing anywhere with nostalgic emotion, tenderness, humor, and dubious tone.
Katia Yoza is a Ph.D. candidate in the Spanish department at Rutgers University and a University and Louis Bevier Fellow. She is currently co-organizing the Andean and Amazonian Studies Working Group at Rutgers. Her research focuses on Amazonian textual and visual narratives on indigenous cosmovisions involving urban, public, and global audiences. She has a MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Paris IV–Sorbonne and a BA in Hispanic Literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. She has taught literature and Spanish courses to undergraduate and high school students in the United States, Peru, and France and worked in public humanities through local associations and NGOs in the United States. She also published a collection of short stories about animals from the Amazon rescued from illegal trade.
“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.”
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.
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