Venezuela Indigenous News: Barí Disenfranchisement, and a new Yanomami Language Manual

Barí People Left Without Land by Oil, Cattle, Coal
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41953
By Humberto Márquez

KUMANDA, Venezuela, Apr 11 (IPS) - For 900 years, Barí indigenous hunters roamed freely throughout a vast region in western Venezuela. "Now they want to sentence us to die by locking us up in this corral, watching the white man get rich by destroying the land that used to be ours," says schoolteacher Conrado Akambio.

The huts and multi-family dwellings of the 150 inhabitants of the community of Kumanda are scattered over a hectare of heat-drenched grassland along the banks of the Aricuizá River.

The walls of their homes are made from tree trunks, the floors are packed dirt or a few wooden planks, the roofs thatched palm leaves. Everything is bleached a pale dry grey by the blazing sun. Children run and play among a handful of chickens as the adults seek a shady spot to sit and talk about their plight.

"Our grandparents fought to defend our land, but they lost their fight to the oil companies, who sent in men with rifles. Our people took refuge in the mountains, and then the cattle farmers came in and grabbed this," said Ignacio Akambio, another member of the community.

"We can’t hunt anymore, because all the animals have disappeared, and we have nowhere to grow crops," he continued. "And so we eat corn flour bread or spaghetti, and we don’t live to be old-timers like before; instead we are sick all the time and only live to about 60." It is a harsh fate for the people that Sabaseba, the creator, plucked from the inside of pineapples, according to legend.

Anthropologist Lusbi Portillo, from the non-governmental organisation Homo et Natura, told IPS that "the crux of the Barí people’s problem is that between 1910 and 1960, they lost their land and were decimated by the advance of oil exploration, first, and then by the cattle farmers who occupied and cut down their forests in the flatlands and pushed them towards the unproductive land in the mountains."...continue reading

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New Compendium on Yanomami Language
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26404

By Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Nov 23 (IPS) - When a Yanomami Indian dies, his or her name is not to be pronounced for some time, so as not to soil the memory of the deceased.

This may be a problem if, for example, someone is called Shoco, which is also the term for Tamanduá, an anteater that is common in the jungles of southern Venezuela and northern Brazil, where the Yanomami live.

However, the difficulty can easily be resolved thanks to the linguistic wealth of this indigenous group that has existed for over 25,000 years, a living testimony to the Neolithic era, the most recent period of the Stone Age.

There are several synonyms for the names of animals, and also of some plants. Therefore, ”aroto” means exactly the same as ”shoco”, and the community can use that word without violating the tradition that protects the deceased.

This explanation is provided by one of the 10,000 entries in the ”Compendio ilustrado de lengua y cultura yanomami” (”Illustrated Compendium of the Yanomami Language and Culture”), a book by French anthropologist and linguist Marie-Claude Mattéi that has just gone to print.

It is more than a mere dictionary, instead serving as an encyclopaedic manual that can be used in Yanomami schools and for outsiders studying the Yanomami language and culture.

After 15 years of research, ”we have concentrated our efforts on producing something more useful and rich in information than a simple dictionary -- a book that can support the didactic measures that the Venezuelan society and state have the obligation to undertake with respect to the indigenous communities,” Mattéi told IPS.

Venezuela's new constitution, which was approved by voters in 1999, dedicates an entire chapter to the rights of indigenous peoples, including ”the right to an intercultural and bilingual educational system that takes into account their special social and cultural characteristics, values and traditions.”...continue reading

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Indigenous Peoples Congress in Venezuela, Aug 7-9

Indigenous People Congress Starts in Venezuela

Caracas, Aug 7 (Prensa Latina) The International Congress of the Anti-Imperialist Indigenous People of Latin America will start on Tuesday in the Venezuelan eastern region, with attendance of representatives from 22 countries.

The meeting will last until Thursday, and will be held in Anzoategui and Bolivar states.

Referring to the importance of this forum of the original populations, Venezuelan Minister for the Indigenous People Nicia Maldonado said it is about saving the planet above all ideologies.

She highlighted that the event"s agenda includes analysis of the different Indo American socialism proposals, as a liberating and integrating alternative for the peoples.

The Congress will be attended by delegates from Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, El Salvador, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Guyana, Suriname, Paraguay, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Brazil, Honduras, the United States, Uruguay, Panama, Venezuela, and other countries.

The closing ceremony coincides with the commemoration of the International Day of the Indigenous People, established on August 9 by the United Nations Organization.

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Caracas, Aug 8 (Prensa Latina) The Indigenous Parliament of America will session from August 8-11 at the National Assembly of Venezuela with lawmakers from seven countries.

In his opening address, Roberto Hernandez, vice president of Venezuela's Congress, called the resurgence of the indigenous peoples a historic event for America today.

The indigenous peoples resisted European conquest and maintained their cultural identity along five centuries, so they can teach the rest of the world respect and care for nature.

Noheli Pocaterra, president of Venezuela's congressional Indigenous Peoples Committee, voiced pride in the indigenous cultural heritage despite humiliation and mistreatment.

Jose Poyo, vice president of the Indigenous Parliament of America, said they will focus on rights claimed beyond their countries, like the UN and OAS, and overcome the neoliberal dark age.

Venezuelan Indigenous Youth Broadcasting

From:

Humberto Marquez
Updated May 25, 2007, 03:54 pm

Indigenous youth learn broadcast skills

CARACAS, Venezuela (IPS/GIN) - Youth from 10 different Indigenous groups in Venezuela are learning to be broadcast journalists, preparing for the launch of eight new Indigenous community radio stations this October.

Eiker Garcia and Nelson Maldonado, two young Yekuana Indians from the Watamo and La Esmeralda communities in the Amazon rainforest, traveled to Caracas in late April to learn new skills.

They took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, producing a long mmm sound, following the instructions of the professional radio presenter who was giving them breathing and elocution lessons.

Mr. Garcia and Mr. Maldonado's home, which is about 500 miles south of Caracas, is one of the sites where a radio station is set to be installed and networked with the public Venezuelan National Radio station.

Read more at:
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3520.shtml

Indigenous Founding Mothers of the Americas

Many thanks to the author of the following article, Rick Kearns (rickearns@comcast.net), for the permission to reproduce his article below. This website's Creative Commons license does not apply to this piece. The article originally appeared in Indian Country Today (www.indiancountry.com), on November 9, 2006. Rick Kearns is also the author of several pieces on the Taino restoration movement that appeared in Issues in Caribbean Amerindian Studies--please see: http://www.centrelink.org/Papers.html

The indigenous roots of Colombia are coming into focus, as it is yet another Latin American nation learning about its true history: the founding mothers of Colombia were indigenous.

According to a recently released DNA survey, 85.5 percent of all Colombian women have indigenous mitochondria, a component of DNA that is passed down unaltered through the maternal line.

Dr. Emilio Yunis Turbay, a distinguished scientist who founded the Genetics Institute at the National University at Bogota, was the principle author of the study. Yunis Turbay assembled a team of specialists, including his son, Dr. Juan Jose Yunis, who analyzed 1,522 samples of mitochondrial (mt) DNA from across Colombia.

The final analysis yielded a startling conclusion: Almost 90 percent of all Colombian women have a Native grandmother in their ancestry. This finding echoes the results gathered in Puerto Rico three years ago, where it was discovered that 61 percent of all Puerto Ricans had indigenous mitochondrial DNA.

According to Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado, author of the Puerto Rico study, this signals a trend.

''This seems to be a common thread in all Latin America,'' he asserted. ''I spoke with a Mexican researcher who tested some Mexicans in the north of their country as well as Mexicans living in the southwestern United States, and over 80 percent of them had the indigenous mitochondrial DNA.''

Martinez Cruzado added that he had examined 16 indigenous mtDNA samples from Aruba recently and 86 percent of those samples showed the indigenous mtDNA. He has been in contact with Venezuelan scientists who informed him that a majority of the residents of Caracas, the capital city, also contained indigenous mtDNA.

''And in Argentina, which is so white, so European and which is most identified with Italy and Spain, most of the Argentineans also have indigenous mtDNA, according to the research of the well-known scientist Claudio Bravi,'' asserted Martinez Cruzado.

The presence of these grandmothers in the histories of Colombia and probably all of Latin America will force a re-evaluation of each country's story. And while the role of fathers and grandfathers is very important in any culture, it is the mother who teaches the children directly. It is the mother and grandmother who transmit the cultural values and beliefs.

For anyone who comes from Latin America, a great many of us are ''part-Indian.'' The ramifications of this historical fact will produce some similar results as well as some that are unique to each country.

Yunis Turbay put forward a similar argument in other media statements. He noted that upon analyzing the genetic structure of the Colombian population, one re-invents the history of the country as one reaches the conclusion that Colombia (like many Latin American countries) is genetically fragmented. But for Colombians specifically, there is another aspect of their genetic fragmentation that bears examination, according to the famous scientist.

There are ''the mulattoes on one side, the blacks on another, the indigenous in another, the white mestizos [mixes] in another,'' he pointed out. ''One begins to make a picture that shows a country made up of genetic patches. Looking at it this way explains the utilization of the tools of power to exclude populations,'' he asserted.

''The unity of Colombia is made by 'superstructures,' not by a structural development based on means of communication that integrate the market, allowing for the exchange of products, of cultures and unions of different origins,'' he continued. ''We have made Colombia a very unequal country, and what is worse, with citizens of different categories. We have regionalized race.''

Yunis Turbay and others in Colombia there are trying desperately to unify the country, an extremely difficult task for now. However, there is a good chance that Yunis Turbay's research and calls for action will be taken seriously. He is possibly the most well-respected scientist in his country, who has also contributed to national Colombian discussion on identity. He conducted a larger genetic study of the country in 1992 and authored a book, ''Why Are We This Way? What Happened in Colombia? An Analysis of the Mixing (Mestizaje).'' This work contains a series of essays in which he connected genetics, history, geography and politics to advance his argument of how to unify the country through markets and geography.

Here's hoping that his fellow Colombians are listening to him. Here's an idea: Maybe we should invite him to study the U.S. population, starting with Washington, D.C. Just a thought.

Rick Kearns is a freelance writer of Boricua heritage who focuses on indigenous issues in Latin America.