Echoes

Echoes is an ongoing documentary project to record the voices of those who depend on their land as they suffer the effects of climate change.

The Arhuacos are one of four indigenous groups situated in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the area by the border between Colombia and Venezuela. Originally a coastal people they were forced into the mountains by the Spanish and have become the guardians of the Sierra Nevada to this day, even as the area suffers widespread drought, water shortages, colonial agriculture, and more.

What follows are the recorded interviews with Mamos and Atimamas (male and female spiritual leaders) along with everyday Arhuacos on the state of the Sierra Nevada and their place in it.

Have you noticed a change in the earth during your lifetime?

Of course! You’re talking about the warming. You can see it above us now, the climate is warmer. The rivers are drying, the animals are beginning to disappear, and there is a change in everything. Before there was a time of rain, the rivers flowed stronger. Now the trees that grew below now grow above, the snow in the mountains is disappearing. Where I used to see the snows now they’re just nothing.

What message do you have for the women who are leading the climate movement (Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Greta Thunberg)?

The message to these women would be, I never learned letters, I never learned to write, but it’s the spirit that moves me and has moved me. Instead, you have the advantage that you’ve learned from the sciences, but it isn’t with that knowledge that you will save the planet. It must be with your heart. From inside. You compliment what your spirit is telling you with what science is telling you and you consolidate those forces. In my seclusion, I couldn’t imagine that there was such a movement of young women. I just learned what is going on in the world, and I would like to tell them that this makes me very happy. I didn’t know I had other women helping me in the work. Keep rising up.

Have you noticed a change in the Earth?

When I was growing up I saw a situation that was very different. The time of rain and the time of drought fulfilled their cycle, and you would know when it was going to rain. At what moment the water would fall. Things have changed. It’s surprising that now we no longer recognize these moments. They don’t behave the same, and we ask, “What are we doing wrong, what have we forgotten? What do we do so that these things stop changing?” It’s painful for us. We know the laws of the earth to keep things from changing, so why are they changing? Is it that the mamos have lost their way? What have we done wrong? What are we forgetting to do? Outsiders think that we have lost our spiritual power.

 Not long ago, I went up into the Sierra. And there it was dry everywhere. Where there was snow on the peaks now it is no longer white, but yellow instead. We know that the snow is what gives birth to our rivers and we wonder what will happen if the mother of our water disappears? What will happen to the life of the people?

 I am preoccupied with the thought that we are doing something wrong and that’s why these things are coming to pass. That we are losing our understanding.

Who are you and what are your responsibilities?

I’ve been working for 25 years on the question of recovering our land. My work was always been managing between the government and our land. Searching for funds and resources to buy land.

The nonviolent way to reclaim what we have lost is to buy and pay for it from the farmers the colonizers who are occupying our land. It’s a slow process, but it’s allowed us to buy many hectares throughout the years. It started in the year 1970 before I was born.

My father started it, and on this path, they assassinated him.

Who assassinated him?

I would prefer never to know.

The capitalists don’t need any more money. They brand us poor and vulnerable, and we have to keep going through the world asking. Explaining that we are poor and vulnerable when the reality is, we got a bad deal. They have submerged us in that condition and when we could have the opportunity and it’s our heritage.

What do you think you need to protect the Arhuaco culture?

The world must be aware of the effort that we make, and the conditions necessary to develop these efforts, and we are also demanding respect as we are. If they do not respect us, we cannot advance in our work and the conditions we need are not created. For example, we were pushed into these mountains and lost many lands below. How will we recover those lands? We need encouragement so this new generation continues to develop and we need to make an effort to sustastain this knowledge, since along the way some, not all, will perish in their effort.

Have you seen changes in the rivers, in the trees, here in the Sierra Nevada Mountains? 

Yes, we are witnesses to changes in all these things. It doesn’t rain when it normally would rain, the snowcaps on the mountains have deteriorated, the air is no longer healthy, these are new conditions. This is not the most important thing, because it’s so easy to see. The important thing is; where are these changes originating from? These problems originate in other parts of the world and effect all of us. Where is the intelligence to repair? The same way we seem to have endless intelligence on how to destroy we need to find that intelligence on how to repair. Because if we don’t find it what will happen? 

I think there are many persons who have noticed that the problem is serious. They have seen that we have to move from site to site searching for water because we are losing water. We can see how everything is becoming drier and how the sun is burning everything. I’m not a specialist in all these things. I am a specialist of the earth and that is what I was taught and that I teach as well. One thinks that with this action I am helping, so that these problems don’t exist. We recognize this as our duty. 

I’ve been doing this work for more than 40 years. It looks like suddenly now the people are giving this work importance, and they are suddenly asking me to teach and to educate others, because its moving to other places. Sometimes I feel like the effort isn’t enough. I want to do more and see that we are changing the course of things, but I have the sensation that we are losing. Also we can see that there is a sickness that is effecting the intangible world.

The solution to this sickness will be intangible, in the thought. If the people would ask we would love to share this knowledge, but they have to apply it. If we tell them and they don’t apply there is no point. What is happening is connected to the way we understand things, our way of thinking. We would love for people to understand that other world. The problem here is very simple, because the origin is intangible, and people think many things and their manner of thinking turns to poison. That type of thought is impacting the intangible world. To resolve it is to change the way of thinking. Who knows how the other side will understand, but we have to find a solution. We need to see evidence that things are coming back. But who has the knowledge of how to bring back a river? To bring back all the things we’ve lost? Who has that knowledge? It is very easy to destroy, but to repair, and to return the climate? We alone here cannot fix the problems. We all have to agree. We need to have one single direction. If you are going to take us seriously, because we have difficulty to say what we would need, but if what we think doesn’t have any importance we have the feeling that we are wasting out time. I’m not old and I have my limits and I know I won’t live to see these solutions. I won’t reach the point to see the solutions. I don’t know what will happen if it continues like this.

Why do you think we are experiencing these changes? 

Mankind has impulses, destructive impulses, and the manifestation of those types of impulses is what you see. The same way that you become sick, the earth also becomes sick. It’s a sickness of the earth. But created from human impulses. It doesn’t come from proper causes, natural causes it does not come naturally from the earth. It comes from the impulses of human beings. It’s almost as if we are attracting these problems, or as if we were cultivating these problems. So we can’t interpret that this is happening because the age has arrived that this would happen. What’s more is that if the land becomes sick we humans also become sick. It’s a connection. 

It’s interesting that you say that because right now we are experiencing the pandemics and human sickness spreading across the world. (Corona Virus started spreading around two months ago) What do you make of that?

The reason-  It’s not good it’s not bad. You must identify and correct it. The Sierra has 4 groups of people that are supposed to protect the world. But it looks as if we’re not doing something right. Because our mission is to protect the world and if we’re not doing it well things like this will happen. The problem doesn’t originate out there it comes from here. We are a piece of many pieces and every piece is important. Everyone else is fulfilling their role but it looks as though we’re not completing our role, so everything falls out of balance. Things work like a machine but when things are out of order you have problems like these. 

The answer is not to start saying, “oh look how the vegetation is dying let's go plant some more trees”, because that is a temporary solution. It will not produce a big change, the change will happen when the thinking changes. Your thinking has to coordinate with the mother law because they must all obey a principal. 

How do you understand those principals? The moment when you understand the meaning that a tree has, that water has, that land has, when we stop believing that they are just things and not part of life, that thinking will then allow everything to start functioning as it should. When you don’t see the world for what it is, you don’t know your true responsibility. We can say that the problem is due to damming the rivers and that’s why some areas are experiencing drought. Or because they are cutting the forest that is why we are having problems, but the true problems are the ways of thinking. We the Mamos think we have the world in our hands so it works well, but there is so much to do, and it fills me with sorrow.