Irion Books: Visit to Indigenous People Arhuaco of Colombia in April 2014

Friday, May 2, 2014

Visit to Indigenous People Arhuaco of Colombia in April 2014

While in Colombia I was thrilled to meet Julio Cesar Nieves Escandon. Julio is a History professor of Indigenous people of Colombia - Arhuaco people. He was our mentor and facilitator and took us to see this private and extremely prestigious community.

The Arhuaco are a profoundly spiritual people who follow their own unique philosophy that tends to globalize their surroundings. They believe in a creator or "father" named Kakü Serankua, who engendered the first gods and material living things, other "fathers" like the sun and the snowy peaks and other "mothers" like the earth and the moon. They consider the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta to be the heart of the world, and believe that the well-being of the rest of the world depends on it.

The Arhuaco live in the upper valleys of the Piedras River, San Sebastian River, Chichicua River, Ariguani River, and Guatapuri River, in an Indigenous Territory in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains. Their traditional territory before the Spanish colonization, was larger than today's boundaries which exclude many of their sacred sites that they continue to visit today, to pay offerings. These lost territories are the lower parts by the steps of the mountains, lost to colonization and farming.

When I visited their community, I brought with me toothbrushes, toothpaste, cookies and soap to give to the children an their families, which they loved. Nutritionist Professor Iris Perico with the government was also there and she weighed and measured the children and gave a lecture about food preparation, nutrition and cleanliness to all the women. She taught them things like how important it is to clean under your fingernails before preparing food to stop the spread of disease.

Here are some photos from my visit. The children sang for us and thanked us in their indigenous language.