Universes in Universe

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Fabiano Kueva


Sound installation, 2014
Ethnic group: Siona-Zio Baim
Language: Siona
Speakers: Taita Humberto Piaguaje, Taita Pablo Maniguaje, Taita Sando Piaguaje

Location: Rio Putumayo, Amazonia Ecuador and Colombia
Recorded in the Commune Siona-Kichwa of San José de Wisuyá, Putumayo Canton, Sucumbios Province, Ecuador
Population: 400

>> Sound

 

Description:

The Zio Baim People, located for thousands of years on the banks of the Putumayo River, bases its vision of the world on the relationship between spirit and territory. Their life and relations – at every level and step – are guided by the sacred Yage plant, whose care and teaching is the responsibility of the Taitas elders of the Zio Baim people.

As in the case of many ancestral peoples of Amazonia, the Zio Baim have historically resisted settlement, displacement and cultural pressure brought to bear by states, companies and armed groups, to the extent that the Putumayo river, forms a "national boundary" between Ecuador and Colombia. The Zio Baim people share the same cultural roots, a big family which has wandered freely along the Putumayo for a long time. The total population of the Zio Baim-Siona is approximately 400 inhabitants, spread across several villages, a people highly exposed to the risk of extinction.

At the centre of its wise policies, is the cultivation and flourishing of the Siona language. In the audio extract the Taitas Humberto Piaguaje, Pablo Maniguaje and Sando Piaguaje of the Zio Baim, located between the Siona-Kichwa Commune of San José de Wisuyá (Ecuador) and the Siona Indigenous Reserve of San Buenavista (Colombia), send their message of life in the language of their ancestors.


"We want to give you this message from the Siona Zio Baim people:
We are a people of the jungle, located on the border zone between the east of Ecuador and the south of Colombia. We are a people who have survived, who have protected this Amazonia, these ancestral territories inhabited by our elders and now by us. Still on the banks of the Putumayo, our message to the world has been one of brotherhood, respect, family and that of spreading the name of our forebears, our legacy of ancestral Yaibaim [people of the tiger].In the face of all these state and diplomatic policies, the Zio Baim people shall go on living forever, throughout the millennia, because we are the owners of this territory and despite all the bad things we’ve lived through, we continue to resist. For this reason, I greet you on behalf of the Taitas, from the wise and healing forebears, in the name of the children and youth of the Siona culture because you cannot speak of the mother forest without first knowing her, without knowing how our people live. Because we possess the sacred medicine of the Yage, because it is here that we sow and are raised, where all the spiritual power is concentrated, where it is not bought or distributed like any "hallucinogenic" drink – as the scientists call it –, but for us it is our life, our teaching, our sacred remedy, like our elders called it. The gates of the Siona Zio Baim people are open to all, to cure us once and for all, because from here life shall shine forth to all parts, preserving territory, autonomy and spirituality. Many thanks."

(From the Spanish translation by Taita Sandro Piaguaje)


Credits:
© Sound, photo: Fabiano Kueva
Post production: Centro Experimental Oído Salvaje studios, Quito, Ecuador.
Production: Fabiano Kueva and the Experimental Centre for Wild Sound.
Acknowledgement: Alonso Aguinda, President of the Siona-Kichwa of San José de Wisuyá Commune and all the Taitas and Mamitas of the Putumayo Sionas-Zio Baim

Fabiano Kueva: * 1972 Quito, Ecuador; lives there.

Latin American Pavilion - IILA
Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano (IILA)

Arsenale - Isolotto
9 May - 22 November 2015

Title: Indigenous Voices

Curator: Alfons Hug
Co-curator: Alberto Saraiva
Commissioner: Sylvia Irrazábal

Participants: See the list

Partner:
Goethe-Institut, Oi Futuro (Rio de Janeiro)

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