Indigenous creolisation in the Sierra Nevada, Colombia

Indigenous creolisation in the Sierra Nevada, Colombia

by Juliette Gautron

This article stems from a couple of months I spent conducting fieldwork in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia) from July to September 2019, thanks to LSE’s Summer Ethnography funding and The Explorer’s Club grant.

Context

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the world’s highest coastal mountainous region, which comprises a wide variety of climates and a unique biodiversity. “It is actually a mini version of the Earth, where nearly every ecosystem on the planet is found: glaciers, tundra, alpine lakes, deserts, tropical rainforests, wetlands, and coral reefs” (Soltani & Arce 2014). Also called The Heart of the World, it is the ancestral land of the Tayronas, from which the four indigenous groups living in the Sierra Nevada today descend. Together, the Wiwa, Kogi, Arhuaco and Kankuamo form the “Four Peoples” (Cuatro Pueblos) of the Sierra. Central to their cosmology is the belief that the Sierra Nevada is a living, nourishing entity that they must protect and nurture, in a form of reciprocity. Today, the Wiwa, Kogi, Arhuaco and Kankuamo inhabit the Sierra Nevada, and promote this ancestral connection to their “sacred mountain” (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1990) in their claims for land rights and protection.

The 1991 Colombian Constitution guarantees the most rights for indigenous populations, within Latin America, stressing the importance of preserving their culture and knowledge. Indigeneity has been defined by the Colombian state as those who “[spoke] indigenous languages and resided in rural areas, and whose mores responded to traditional usos y costumbres (uses and customs)” (Chavez & Zambrano 2006: 13). Furthermore, indigenous groups must have “a common history as well as group cohesion, a deep-rooted affiliation with the ancestral territory, worldview, traditional medicine, kinship ties and characteristic normative system that makes them different from the rest of the Colombian population” (2006: 18). With these definitions of indigeneity, the Colombian government has promoted an indigenous identity which “authorises” the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta to exist within a framework set out by the state. Hale’s concept of the Indio Permitido is enlightening in understanding the effects of an “authorised culture”. “The indio permitido has passed the test of modernity, substituted “protest” with “proposal”, and learned to be both authentic and fully conversant with the dominant milieu” (2004: 19). He is hence more governable, as he exists within a framework set out by the neoliberal state, which ensures that indigenous organisation “does not amass enough power to call basic state prerogatives into question”. Authorised indigenous identity is created and enhanced by the state, and indigenous peoples are encouraged and enticed to adhere to it, through the rewards or political rights they are afforded if they fit in this particular category.

Hybrids?

The boundaries set out by the Colombian state which define indigeneity create the representation of a Hyperreal Indian (Ramos 1994), which turns a blind eye to the different forms of indigeneity which emerge on Colombian soil. Such understandings of indigeneity portray identity and culture as monolithic and static entities, rather than porous, evolving, and subject to change. Instead of these essentialising portrayals such as the Indio Permitido (Hale 2004), Hyperreal Indian (Ramos 1994), or Ecological Native (Ulloa 2004) which push those who do not fit within these categories to be hypermarginalised (Bessire 2014), indigenous reality involves the creation of hybrids and processes of creolisation, in order to navigate the world they live in. Such processes of hybridisation and creolisation involve the creative agency of indigenous peoples, to reinvent and reinterpret themselves in light of their environment.

Simplistic notions of hybridity run the risk of simplifying and essentialising the creative processes which take place when one reinterprets one’s own culture or practices in light of a particular environment. This type of simplification can be found in Killick’s work (2019) on hybrid houses in Peruvian Amazonia, in which he draws from a basic concept of hybrid, as a simple middle-ground between “the traditional” and “the modern”.

I turn to my fieldwork in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia to highlight in which ways hybrids are not a simple juxtaposition between “the traditional” and “the modern” (which are questionable terms themselves), but how hybrids are in fact anchored in embedded creative processes. Hybrids are created by indigenous who wish to reinterpret themselves in light of their changing environment, often in liminal spaces.

Wiwa uraca

Ushui

Umguma

Both genders

My interest in looking specifically at the creation of hybrids came from a particular discovery on house construction. Wiwa houses, or uraca ("house" in Damana, the language spoken by the Wiwa) are traditionally built with natural materials, and are spiritually cleansed by the Mamo. (The Mamo is the spiritual leader of the community. He has great power and influence over the lives of his fellow villagers. The Mamo is one of the three powerful individuals in a Wiwa village, forming the political configuration of a Wiwa community : Mamo, Autoridad, Clavo.) There are two types of uraca : Umguma, for men, and Ushui, for women. Umguma are bigger in terms of size than Ushui, and the walls of these two types of houses are woven differently. Umguma walls are woven vertically while Ushui walls are woven horizontally. It is a strict rule in Wiwa culture that one cannot enter the house of the opposite sex. However, this rule was not applied in Awindia. Each house retained the characteristics of either Umguma or Ushui, but included a small portion of the other gender woven into the wall near the door (see pictures below). For example, the walls of Umguma were woven vertically, according to the male gender, but also included approximately 1 meter of wall woven horizontally, thus accounting for women. Similarly, Ushui walls were woven horizontally, but contained a portion which were woven vertically. According to my friends, by including of both genders on the walls, both men and women were allowed to enter or live in any of the houses, regardless of the house’s dominant gender. Indeed, in Awindia, 3 houses were inhabited by members of the opposite sex : the father and two sons (15 and 14 years old) lived in Ushui ; the mother, three daughters (19, 12 and 4 years old) and one son (2 years old) lived in Umguma ; one of the older sons (28 years old) lived in Ushui. I, a woman, lived in Umguma. I was told by the eldest son that this strict gender rule didn’t matter much in this particular setting, because they were a family, and could thus share the houses amongst themselves. However, he explained that this rule was much more strict in the main community, even within a family, and never had a man entered the house of the opposite gender, and vice-versa.

This particular example shows how the houses in Awindia are a hybrid, which emerged from a creative process of adaptation of one lifestyle to another. Although men and women still lived separately, some changes were made to the traditional house, in order to accommodate for life near the city, and for life in collaboration with a small-scale permaculture project nearby. During periods when most of the family returns to the main community, some of the houses had been inhabited by the project’s staff of different genders, or reallocated in a different way to different members of the family. Awindia as a temporary residence had to adapt to the practicalities of local life. This instance of hybridity cannot be reduced to a simple collage of “the traditional” and “the modern”. As Cohen and Toninato (2010: 9) state, hybridity or creolisation is “not to simply be understood merely as a synonym for cultural mixture, as it also entails a process of internal restructuring, inventiveness and reflexivity”. It is “a highly creative and continuous process”, “grounded in a well-defined socio-historical context characterised by a specific configuration of power relations” (ibid.). Here, the weaving of both genders onto the wall is a creative process to allow what has become the new norm (i.e. both genders being able to inhabit a given house), in a way which is neither reducible to “modernity” or “tradition”, nor to a collage of both.

Creolisation

The concept of creolisation helps understand how hybridity can be an identity itself, rather than a middle-ground between two distinct identities. “The processes of cultural mixing (creolization with a small c)” may be “associated with non-Creoles (with a capital C)” (Diaz 2006: 577). Halbmayer’s work on indigenous modernities and their processes of creolisation in the Sierra de Perijá, near the Sierra Nevada (just on the other side of Valledupar) rings true in the context of my fieldwork. “Forms of indigenous modernities that are neither reducible to continuing Amerindian conceptions grounded in preconquest ways of life nor a mere product of Western influence” (2013: 65). Indigenous creolisation is distinct from classical creolisation which focused on foreigners becoming natives in a settler context. Instead, this concept refers to the transformation of indigenous groups, from sustained contact with non-indigenous groups and structures, closely tied to “global or transnational cultural interconnectedness” (Hannerz 2006: 563). These transformations not only reproduce patterns of indigenous hybridity and openness to the Other, “but create a specific form of indigenous creolization that is an integral part of contemporary indigenous modernities and their typical complexities” (Halbmayer 2013: 66). This understanding of indigenous creolisation in the context of the Sierra Nevada recognises indigenous agency in bringing about cultural transformations. Another example of creolisation in Wiwa culture may be one of its most obvious instances. Most of the time, Wiwa wear traditional white clothing : simple tunics for children, more elaborate dresses for women, and tunics with trousers for men. Yet, men quite often wear Wellington boots and jeans with their white tunic, especially when working. In public settings, young men sometimes wear white jeans and white t-shirts instead of their traditional clothes, thus conserving the traditional colour, but not the fabric. This instance of creolisation in clothing is mostly a common occurrence for men, while it is rarer for women.

Both cases of house construction and clothing quite clearly exemplify how indigenous creolisations are “processes of transformation of indigenous groups resulting from contact with non-indigenous power structures, knowledge, tools, and technologies” (Halbmayer 2013: 66), in a context of cultural interconnectedness. Indigenous creolisation is not strictly a middle-ground between “the traditional” and “the non-indigenous”, and cannot be reduced to either one. Indigenous creolisation implies a new re-articulation in which “these elements, though never equal, can no longer be disaggregated or restored to their originary forms, since they no longer exist in a ‘pure’ state but have been permanently ‘translated’” (Hall 2003: 30). Indigeneity is re-articulated in “social, cultural, and biological contexts marked by the introduction of new and formerly unknown elements” (Halbmayer 2013: 67). Visual creolisation often surprises and unsettles people external to indigenous communities, as it is not in accordance with the overarching state discourse, of indigenous peoples as “the other”. An interesting example from my fieldwork is that of the 15 year old son’s clothing. He often wore a kaki cap, which he was one day told to take off by a policeman who wanted to take a picture of him, as he was passing through the village. The man’s desire to take a picture of the teenager in his traditional clothing without a cap, highlights the misconception that Wiwa and non-indigenous culture are a dichotomy which cannot, or rather should not, be bridged, hybridised or creolised. In the eyes of the policeman, this process of creolisation which I illustrate here by the cap, is out of place. The cap becomes “matter out of place”, “dirt”, or “pollution” (Douglas 1966). Final reflexions on a non-reciprocal approach to creolisation

Awindia village

Final reflexions on a non-reciprocal approach to creolisation

Ironically, indigenous crafts such as mochilas (types of indigenous bags), are owned by an overwhelming number of non-indigenous, and are sold in every street, if not every shop in the nearby city of Santa Marta. Creolisation, or integration of indigenous culture into non-indigenous culture poses no problem to non-indigenous people, while the opposite sparks critique and debate. It is interesting to note that what is now considered as traditional indigenous knowledge, practices, or crafts in the Sierra, has often been influenced by Spanish colonisers in the 16th century. As reported by Ereira (2012) and Lopez (2018), the sugar cane press actioned by a horse in the Kogi village they both documented was introduced with the arrival of the Spanish in Colombia. Both the press and the horse were not used by the Kogi beforehand. Yet, panela (unrefined cane sugar) made by the Sierra Nevada’s indigenous peoples, which requires the use of the sugar cane press, is often considered and sold as an indigenous craft. This indigenous product is thus itself a result of ancient processes of hybridisation and creolisation, which integrated new ways of living into the Kogi’s lives. ◆

References

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