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This project seeks to understand the Amazonian relation to nature by recording Amazonian Kichwa, Achuar and Wao Tededo language narratives about the land and its species.   The links below lead to short videos of testimonies, stories, and songs about nature.  Our method is to interview knowledgeable individuals in the forest setting where their memories are activated by the plants and animals they see. The videos are edited from these longer interviews to exemplify key aspects of Kichwa thinking about nature. Although the subtitle are set to English they can be changed to Spanish or Kichwa by clicking the settings icon. Because our approach is anthropological linguistics much of our recent focuses on the Kichwa language itself as the vehicle through which the relations to nature is shaped and expressed. 

Watering the Earth with Tears:  The Social Relation to Nature

Contents

     

     Introduction 

     

 

 

      Origin stories: plants and animals as relatives who went away

      Birds

      Mammals

      Reptiles and Amphibians

      Invertebrates

      Trees and Forests

      Rain and rivers

      The Sky, Sun, Moon and Stars

A Body Shared with Land

     Childhood

     Adolescence     

     Women

     Men

     Aging, Death, and Ancestors 

     

Waranga Flower Woman

Human Beauty and the Beauty of the Land

     Connecting lines: painting the land on the body

     Ceramic art: The visualizing of patterned nature

     Perfumed Wind: the local smell of a healthy body

          Breath, Wind, and Wind sickness

Language and Forest Relations  

     Singing with the voice of birds

     Speaking to plants and animals

     Language as social relation

     Evoking the language of the land  Ideophones

     Perspective 

     Humor and the evoking of animal/human similarity 

    Plants that symbolize blood

    Food plants and wild relatives

    Drinking bitter barks

    Trees Awake at Night

Search by Species

    Plants   

    Birds

    Mammals

    Reptiles and Amphibians

    Invertebrates

    Butterflies

Thunder

Ecological destruction and the Resistance of Forests  

 

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