Sarayacu jungle party 

Sunday February 24, 2013 by El Universo

The sound is penetrating: it makes its way through the cedars, guayacanes, canelos, matapalos, palm trees; it crosses the Bobonaza river again and again.

It spreads in the depths of the jungle, echoing in each house of the Sarayacu community, during the so-called Uyantza festival.

At dawn, the women stock up on chicha and leave in canoes through a large avenue of water that forms the Bobonaza to a nearby beach, waiting for the hunters, who return after spending twelve days in the jungle.

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Sarayacu versus the Ecuadorian State

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 by Alejandro Santillán

Shamuy(1) Antisana Mama!

Shamuy Mama Cotopaxi!

Shamuy Taita Capac Urcu!

Yacu Napo… Shamuy!

Yacu Pastaza Shamuy!

Come…, and protect Sarayacu from our enemies…!

This is how the old shaman Sabino Gualinga sings every Friday in his ayaguasca rite(2), asking the spirits of the mountains and rivers to protect Sarayacu, this is how the yachags of the community have sung for centuries, since the time when the one that according to its oral history, the powerful ancient shamans made rivers of corn go down the Bobonaza riverbed. In Kechua Sarayacu means River of Corn and this founding myth surely recalls his arrival in the Amazon jungle from the Andean plateau(3), escaping from the slavery to which the Spanish conquerors subjected the peoples of the entire continent and also recalls their indeclinable vocation to be free.

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