Lineage

Through a very sophisticated system of sciences, arts and technologies, the Amazonian communities that lived before the colonial genocide, had the ability to transit between realities and travel through different dimensions. This complex infrastructure was developed over time. Scientific and technical advances, as well as emotional and personal, were transmitted through the mother’s womb and included all members of the community. Such communities, which did not discriminate between plants, food, animals, and people, lived in harmony with the laws of nature. Thanks to this stable relationship, it was possible to connect with all forces and dimensions. Due to having a super-efficient diet, suffering from a very limited number ofbody diseases (which are understood as energetic imbalances) and living in harmony with the environment, reality manifested itself differently than it is perceived in the present. Now the world is plagued with constant and overwhelming interferences and distractions, that do not allow to bring the mind to states of consciousness that make possible the use of the interdimensional channels. The channel of communication with mother earth and her vital resources is interrupted by cultural beliefs, political positions, superficial needs, and a series of other burdens that feed on the needs intentionally and methodically imposed by the dominant powers.

Fortunately, not all knowledge has been lost despite the intensity of the colonial and patriarchal apparatus. Works such as that of Don Abel and his son Wilson, guarantee that for a while (at least) ancestral technology and sciences can be accessible. Modern medicine, specifically, has focused its violence on getting in the way of healing andreplacing it with a patriarchal idea that fragments the body into diseased sections, instead of conceiving it as a whole that is also connected to a community and the universe. While the interest of the modern rational model is to divide and decompose, for the Amazonian sages, it is impossible to disintegrate the individual, whose pathologies are related to the health of the whole culture and the health of nature. The plants possess medicinal qualities, from the nutritional to the magical ones used to travel between the dimensions and the invisible worlds; they have the capacity to communicate the living beings the thoughts of the creator being, of the nature, of the mother earth. Don Abel was given the gift of naming the plants. Each one of them with its qualities and powers. For this job, he was fed with a special diet and forced to live in the way the major laws dictate. Don Abel, born Mogaje Giju had to train his body and soul just like a Lama must travel a tortuous spiritual path to reach enlightenment. After years of dedicated sacrifice, he learned to speak the language of the natural world. Both the inhabitants of the Amazon, as well as the jungle itself, depend on the precision with which they interpret the messages between the different plans, material or invisible. The war in Colombia has had devastating consequences in multiple ways. In this case, the displacement of individuals from their communities to the cities has made it very difficult for knowledge to be transmitted and it has slowly dissolved into the daily routine of survival.

The work of Aycoobo, (Abel’s son chosen to preserve his wisdom) who has had to seek a balance between his Amazonian heritage and his contemporary circumstances, is key to understanding a symbiotic process that manifests itself in the syncretism of his pieces. The world of plants, which he knows through his father’s stories and the laws that have been transmitted to him through myths, is mixed with the revealing visions given to him by the spirit of the Jaghe plant. This exhibition is both a tribute and a call for urgency. Only through a work of decolonization is it possible to recover the resources that have been generously inherited by the wise men of the Amazon. An ecological relationship with the planet depends on the intimate balance between each of the beings that inhabit it. Context: Colombia is the country with the largest internal population displacement in the world. Colombia is in a peace process that would allow to heal the historical wounds with the violence of the last 50 years caused by drug trafficking. Coca is a sacred plant with mystical and nutritional properties fundamental to the life of Amazonian communities. Colombia is a leader in the assassination of natural resource defenders. All these crimes, which this year is one a day, remain unpunished. Don Abel is the last of the Nonuya language speakers. He was adopted by Muinane and married with a Bora.Don Abel and Aycoobo belong to the Muinane Nation. The secret of the Abuela (Don Abel’s wife) for a good marriage is that no one speaks the same language. Text: Beatriz López