COVID 19 and the indigenous people

Geografares 

32 | 2021 Varia

COVID 19 and the indigenous people

Márcia Wayna Kambeba

Electronic version

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/geografares/1484 ISSN: 2175-3709

Publisher

Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo Electronic reference

Márcia Wayna Kambeba, “COVID 19 and the indigenous people”, Geografares [Online], 32 | 2021, Online since 21 July 2021, connection on 10 September 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/

geografares/1484

This text was automatically generated on 10 September 2021.

Geografares est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d’Utilisation Commerciale 4.0 International.

COVID 19 and the indigenous people

Márcia Wayna Kambeba

1 The peoples of the forest still struggle It is from afar and shall be abiding Genocide and epidemics

Prejudice brings extermination.

2 In this path of ordeals

The great journey will be trailed knee-by-knee Facing all ailment

That came from beyond the great sea.

3 Smallpox that blighted our nations Coming from tokens we did not need Pieces from foreign lands

Tuberculosis butchered our families Malaria shattered the elderly and children Touching even those who made us bleed.

4 We counted plenty of moons We crossed rivers of grief We resist these plagues

And the carbine of dreadful « conquistador ».

5 There came twenty-twenty Bearing the wake of resistance Notwithstanding epidemic pursuing us We endured it with patience.

The virus showed its true face Deaths, sequels, more pain Uprooted so many elders And the everyday life fell apart.

6 To defy and resist

The people redraw the path

And the medicine from the ancestors

COVID 19 and the indigenous people

Geografares, 32 | 2021

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Quieted the crown of thorns Hovering above our heads And makes the heart bleed.

7 Pajé¹, our doctor, Felt into oblivion

Blew a new life to sacred wisdom The smoke staving off the arabé² The children of sun, moon and fire Found relief and deliverance.

8 It is time for Medicine from the city To weigh the guidance of the ancestors All the sciences together

Will make humankind

Respect themselves and the other in the wake of conscience For them we're still barriers In this land of great

sages... of intelligence!

NOTES

1. Pajé: Spiritual leaders of certain Brazilian indigenous tribes. Equivalent to the shaman people of Northern Asia and North America.

2. Arabé: Indigenous word from the Tupi-Guarani linguistic matrix that defines cockroach or insect in general.

AUTHOR

MÁRCIA WAYNA KAMBEBA

Artivist and Master in Geography (UFAM)

COVID 19 and the indigenous people

Geografares, 32 | 2021

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