AMAZONIAN INDIGENOUS IN A HEARTH RESILIENCE PROCESS

 

                   

Bajo la planta de canangucho
Llora una niña, 

 sangre en su rostro y caucho en sus venas,

 no recuerda la historia de su árbol

 ¡lava el oro blanco y seca el dinero negro!

Resiliencia del corazón 
Coraje en su andar. 

¡Viva la yuca brava, la fariña, las lenguas y el progreso! 

Resistencia con amor, rebeldia del espiritu.

Under a canangucho plant 

A girl is crying 

Blood on her face, rubber in her blood vessels, 

She doesn’t remember the story of her tree 

Wash the white gold and clean the black money! 

Resilience of the hearth 

Braveness on her pace, 

Hurrah for the Yucca brava, the languages and the progress! 

Resistance with hearth, rebellion from the spirit 
by Cindy Peña

Back to 1900’s, and among all the treasures our South American land possesses, there was one resource that caught British colonizers’ attention: Rubber in the Amazon. In the name of this “white gold” more than 600 million of hectares were devastated and around 100 hundred thousand of indigenous were tortured just to squeeze out our rubber trees(1). White gold was the economic goal for decades. During that period, British people made this material the central product of prosperity…of course no prosperity for us. 

Imagen tomada de http://noticias-ambientales-internacionales.blogspot.com.co/2012/10/cien-anos-del-genocidio-de-casa-arana.html

Sadly, different from the Avatar movie, the locals, the Uitoto tribe, couldn’t kick English colonizers out from their land called Chorrera-Amazonas. Instead of this Hollywood happy ending, the Amazonian indigenous balance ended up with the total loss of their native languages, their customs, their innocence and basically their spirit. 

Then, while a slender, tan, short and naive native was learning to replace their “ha+d+kue” salutation for a “hello” or a “hola”. Hundreds of colonists and civilized men persecuted indigenous to make them work hard with the excuse of two big and similar words: God and Gold… white gold and a black hearth God. 

In a story of David versus Goliath, Rubber exploitation was overused to supply the giant worldwide demand. This story demonstrates how something hidden deep inside the Amazon was actually feeding the global economy to satisfy big industries like United States, United Kingdom, and other European countries. However, rubber sacking remains invisible to most of us, so not even our Colombian people know about this genocide. 

Rubber fever connects invisible yet existent paths that make worldwide events fit together, it makes us remember the existence of the butterfly effect. This phenomenon shows how just a mild flap may produce a huge commotion in the other part of the world. In this way, the slight lap was a cracked and defeated indigenous skin which was hurt by a huge tornado called global economy. 

Imagen tomada de http://ghermoza0-gustavo.blogspot.com.co/2011/02/

At least we can start to heal the butterfly by recognizing the existence of a story never told.  Or even to recognize our personal lifestory: What are your personal wounds? who did you hurt?. So... it’s up to us, as human beings, to manage that commotion as well as to accept the responsibility of each of our decisions before facing the possible consequences. 

At least we can, for example, start by recognizing names like La Casa Arana and The Peruvian Amazon Company; places that were the epicenter of exploitation and genocide. We can tell people how this house committed crimes against humanity and spot their money with bloody hands and slavery. 

Fortunately, nowadays slavery is not defined anymore by lashes, torture, ethnocide, repression and free work. But, we still have a lot of work to do. Nowadays slavery is hidden with those who fool our beliefs through buried stories and threaten people with debts, guiltiness, entertainment, publicity, and lack of access to basic needs like food, health and education. 

Slavery still exists and it uses masks so-called laziness, selfishness, self-victimization, indifference, resentment... Currently, subjugation covers our world with a lot of “lacks”: lack of forgiveness, lack of nurturing, lack of great leaders, lack of knowledge, lack of discipline, lack of self-esteem, lack of love, lack of true stories, lack of a conscious of the different realities… 

Our reality for example is full of words, powerful words: Kilombos, Aikijijitsu, gringos, Capoeira, Religion, tarot, theatre, literature, Orishas, Bollywood, Malocas, America, Tesla, Guaqueta, tuza, Carnivals… all of these and many others are words that deep inside narrate a drama. They are words that have a story that represents the potency of a revolution with intelligence, purpose and massive action. 

They are words that tell the repeated story of an egotistical, stupid, brute human race that at the end transforms such ignorance into a more conscious and sensible humanity. 

So then the conscience wonders What is an English teacher doing when having a bilingual project with the great-grandsons of the tortured free-workers in the Amazon…? Why shall Bora, Muinane, Uitoto, Ocaina, Nonuyas or Andokes people speak any word in English while living in the middle of a dense and remote jungle? Is there any need to “instruct them” with that kind of knowledge? What for? Well, as you could see, these forgotten Amazonian populations have had more contact with the English world than any of us. 

A century ago, speaking English - and even Spanish, French or Portuguese - in an aboriginal land would mean the control and manipulation of the foreigner’s oppressors, something that happened when Spaniards beat America down, Portuguese colonized Brazil, and France enslaved Africa… all of the colonizers used a language to close others’ mouth and erase the aboriginals. 

But as life is about progress, forgiveness, and evolution, we have the chance to apply a universal metaphysical law that teaches us to use the same energy that once tore us apart and instead, transform it to heal and join people. So, why not using the foreign language as a tool to travel, interchange and share the stories never told before? We already had a start, a Colombian movie named The Embrace of the Serpent but you all need to speak up as well, and caress that serpent, show it to the world. 

It’s about controlling the tool that before was the biggest threat, this is the parody of a story that has been always repeated through centuries and makes possible the impossible: the power to change and to keep the hearth resilience going on. 

In this way, what before was a language crime and a culture torture, can be now the tool and the chance to spread, revive and get the native culture back. Achievements like speaking English as a foreign language will help the native youths, those who breathe jungle and Canangucho, recognize the value of their own valuable culture and clear misunderstood stories with words that citizen can now understand and witness with the presence of the same words. 

It is not a secret that English is the universal language; undeniably it is the tool everybody has to connect with the world. English makes possible that people from Africa, Micronesia, Brazil, Peru, Dubai, Serbia and The Amazon can speak to each other… But now we can speak it with a new meaning: English as a tool and not as a part of a culture. 

I believe in a different world, I trust hearth resilience; I have the conviction of deep changes. If change couldn’t be possible, there is no need to go on. But, in our current world, black people can be president, women can vote, men can fly and you can be whatever your imagination encourage you to do. Right now, we are doing and living things that one hundred years ago were impossible. 

Yes, there is a lot of pain, I feel it every day with my people, with my students, with my memories, with my neighbours, even with my possible enemies, but there are still lots of healing ways and all of us should remain ourselves in front of the mirror every day, that our soul empoweres itself and it resurges from hearth ashes such in the way the Uitoto culture did, because they survived. And, such in the way nowadays we are speaking the same language to continue rebuilding the broken bonds.

Now, through this English text, you know now that there was a white gold fever and they: the indigenous, know that they can talk to others using a foreign language to spread a message and trade with cultures. Something that will help them as well, to value more their own forgotten universe. There is a “oneness” that is up to each one of us, there are "more broken-spirited" survivors, there is always an answer, there is me writing to you this article, and there is you, looking over this text and deciding what to do from now on.

(1)Steiner, C., Paramo Bonilla, C., & Pineda Camacho, R. (2014). El Paraiso del Diablo: Roger Casement y el informe del Putumayo, un siglo despúes. Bogota:: Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Cindy Peña.