Native Elders in Colombia Hope to Save Mother Earth
6/21/97
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Headline: Native Elders in Colombia Hope to Save Mother Earth
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/21/97
Byline: Karl Penhaul
Copyright 1997 by Reuters
BOGOTA (Reuter) - Indigenous shamen and tribal elders from
across the Americas were airlifted Saturday to the far reaches
of Colombia's Amazon jungle to begin a week-long meeting aimed
at rescuing Mother Earth.
Some 400 native Indian representatives headed to the town of
Araracuara aboard two Colombian Air Force Hercules transport
planes and were then due to paddle up the River Caqueta to hold
council in a traditional ceremonial long-house or ``maloca''.
``The Maya elders say there is a great sickness coming to
our planet...everybody must rise up as one and no group must be
left behind,'' said ``Wandering Wolf'', a priest of Guatemala's
Maya Quiche group, at a ceremony to officially inaugurate the
event late Friday in Bogota.
``Wandering Wolf'', a diminutive man with chiseled features,
is chairman of the Inter-American Council of Elders, an
organization said to have existed before Europeans arrived in
the Americas and resurrected in Guatemala in 1995.
``This is the time to bring out our great knowledge. Mother
Earth has told us to wake up mankind,'' said Marceliano
Guerrero, of Colombia's Huitoto community.
The core aim of the jungle reunion, to be conducted away
from the gaze of the media and curious onlookers, is to work for
harmony ``between man and Mother Earth,'' said organizer
Francisco Quiroga, a mixed-race Colombian.
The elders have said they will give a message to modern
society in a last-ditch bid to stop the world ``spinning out of
balance'' -- marking one of the first times in 500 years since
Columbus ``discovered'' the Americas that they have broken their
silence.
The meeting itself threatens to become a Tower of Babel.
English and Spanish have been chosen as the main languages yet
for many of the delegates neither language is their mother
tongue. And while the meeting will concentrate on the sacred
prophecies of the elders, some delegates are keen to discuss
other politically-charged issues such as land rights and the
defense of indigenous culture.
``The U.S. government took away our land and assigned us
places to live. Now we're buying back land we owned in the
1800s. The government also took our language away and made us
learn the white man's way,'' Philip Largo, a native American of
the Jicarilla-Apache tribe from Dulce, New Mexico, told Reuters.
Even if the confederation of indigenous groups succeeds in
drawing up a common message, Jose Gabriel Alimaco, of the
secretive Kogi community from northern Colombia's Sierra Nevada
doubts the white man or ``younger brother'' will listen.
``We want to live in peace as brothers with the younger
brother and for him to respect our land and sacred traditions,
Alimaco said. ``But the younger brother is creating great
disorder and sickness.''