Indigenous Peace in South America Poetry from Year of The Poet (Vol 62)
Featured in The Year of the Poet February, 2019 Volume 62.
The poetry posse is a diverse group of poets from all over the world. We value diversity. We love the differences between us in terms of the culture we come from, the kind of poetry we love to write, and the way we look at the world. I particularly value diversity as I grew up and had the opportunity to live in several parts of the world.
January’s The Year of the Poet focused on Native American languages spoken in the United States. I love that volume because I grew up with a father who spoke Navaho and a connection to the American Southwest.
This month’s volume of The Year of the Poet focuses on the indigenous people of South America. As an eight year old living in Bogota, Colombia, I learned the value of education. My parents would rarely hand out money on the street even though there was such poverty all around us. Instead, I saw my parents pay for the school uniforms and books for neighborhood children. The schools were free but you could not go to school without a uniform and books. My parents paid for sewing classes for women who worked for us and I learned that education can be a way out of poverty and that the ability to provide someone with education and opportunities is a gift to the both giver and the receiver.
South America has given the world many things. With only six or seven percent of the world’s land mass, tropical rainforests are thought to house fifty percent of all the world’s species. If we continue as we are going, 20 percent of the Earth’s biodiversity may become extinct in our lifetimes. These forests have provided us with much of the air we breathe as well as foods and medicines, including tomatoes, peppers, corn, coconut, banana, coffee, cocoa, cassava and sweet potatoes. Cassava is the plant used to make tapioca pudding and Boba, the marble-sized balls part of bubble tea, a now famous Asian drink circling the world.
South America is home to acres of tropical rainforests as well as another kind of diversity. It is the continent with the highest proportion of language isolates. More than ten percent of South American languages, in other words, 65 out of 574 languages are isolates or languages that are unique and unrelated to other languages. Each of these languages holds within its words a unique set of customs and ways of looking at the world.
In the coming months, we will continue to circle the globe with our words, perspectives, and poetry.
Enjoy the diversity in this volume focused on South America.
Peace With Less Stuff
There is a saying in Yauyos Quechua
an endangered language
spoken in the Peruvian Andes
in the Province of Yauyos
where peace or peaceful is called by the name “hawka”
“Mana vakanchik imanchik kaptin
hawka ir tiyakuchuwan”
literally “no cow what be tranquil sit could”
in other words
“without our cows and our stuff
we could sit and live
or be in peace”
This makes sense to me
the ease and peace of less stuff
Peaceful at the Center
The Bora
the indigenous people of Peru, Brazil and Colombia
call themselves “Piinemuna”
and call to peace
by the name “meíjcyane”
“Piine” means central place
half between the middle
in the thick of things
the universe revolving around us
“Múnaa” means people
humans or relatives
it tells us our place in the universe
with our family
reminding us to treat each other humanely
Peace Between a Dress and a Cougar
In Mapudungun peace is found between
a comfortable old dress
and a young cougar
“pachama” is old dress in this indigenous language
of Argentina and Chile
“Paiguen” or “paihuen” are verbs that mean
being at peace
“paila” is to be with your back to someone
knowing they have your back
feeling safe enough
to turn and look into the future
sometimes leading often following
supported and at peace
“Paillalco” is quiet water
like a fish-filled stream.
and a nearby “palguin” or medicinal bush
in the distance a “panguipulli” or cougar hill
with a pride of “panqui” or young cougars
sleeping after a large meal as the sun sets
in the cool of the evening
moonlight guiding us as we walk
at peace with the land
comfortable in our own skin
Originally published in The Year of The Poet (Vol 62) at http://www.innerchildpress.com/the-year-of-the-poet.php on February 1, 2019.
