When I was seven years old, an aunt came by my house to tell us about a murder that had taken place in the community. It happened during a rodeo, a community event where men ride large bulls and compete against each other. This activity takes place during the town’s patron saint festivities. In short,…
FROM THE EDITORS: The COVID pandemic has exposed an urgent global need to generate fundamental changes that reject the unlimited accumulation of capital through the exploitation of our bodies and Mother Earth. In April, indigenous, Afro-descendants people and popular organizations of Latin America already made a call to change “the economic inertia of the neoliberal…
In 2009, right in the middle of the Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the United States, and as part of the government’s strategy to bypass the legislative branch, the president of Peru Alan Garcia, issued a series of decrees that “facilitated” mining and oil extraction in indigenous territories. This, in fact, led to the cancellation…
FROM THE EDITORS: The United States is the only country in the Americas that designated October 12 as Christopher Columbus Day. The image of Columbus as a “heroic” figure for “discovering” America continues to be taught in many schools as an incontrovertible truth. Talking about the Spanish and English conquests in genocidal terms—the root of…
From the Editors: The Yanomani and Ye’kwana are indigenous people living in the Roraima e Amazonas states, in the northeastern region of the Amazon under control of the Brazilian government. Under the umbrella of the Fórum de Lideranças Yanomami e Ye’kwana [Yanomami and Ye’kwana Leadership Forum], they have launched a campaign #ForaGarimpoForaCovid and are asking…
The world is reeling. The indignation of people in the United States is a desperate cry for justice in a society that has finally revealed historical systemic racism and inequity. The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor under the hands of the police force, is proof of the ongoing social and economic…
There is the old adage of the elegant deer—perhaps white-tailed, perhaps antlered—who the scientist kills for study, to hold the crimson heart, to peel back eyelids and see the earth reflected in orbs of night. Once dead, gone. No more spirited flight, deft movement, dainty leaps through tall grass, lightness alert. This metaphor is not…
Ideas to adapt our cultural practices and love our people in new ways Native people have cared for one another through greetings, food, dance, ceremony, and much more. These cultural practices have sustained our people through many hardships and joyful moments. We value and care about our families and communities and have always adapted to…
Indigenous knowledge has a lot to teach us about global pandemics. By now, it’s clear the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most serious collective events most of us alive today have ever faced. The spread of the virus has been a massive wake-up call for humankind, and not just in a scientific, logistical or…