Indigenous Peoples Day

The Condor and the Eagle Gathering in Quito, 1990

“Based on these aforementioned reflections, the organizations united in the First Continental Gathering of Indigenous Peoples reaffirm: 1. Our emphatic rejection of the Quincentennial celebration, and the firm promise that we will turn that date into an occasion to strengthen our process of continental unity and struggle towards our liberation.”
Declaration of Quito, July, 1990

The Quito Encuentro of 1990, the First Continental Gathering of Indigenous Peoples, is the second watershed event in the history of Indigenous Peoples Day, after the 1977 UN Geneva Conference. Its influence on the movement for justice for the Native nations of Turtle Island (or Abya Yala, or the Americas) is as inestimable as the occupation of Alcatraz. For the first time, Indigenous peoples from the farthest north to the farthest south gathered together independently, without any government or official international body, and planned their resurgence and their future.

Around 1980 I was doing some construction for a homeowner in Oakland, California, when she offered me a box of old magazines. On top of the stack was a beautiful Kuna Indian woman with a gold ring in her nose, the cover of the November, 1975 issue of National Geographic. I opened it to a photo of a hawk with a small bell tied to its foot, in an article about Columbus’ voyages in the Caribbean. The photo caption read, in part, “His greed awakened, Columbus demanded of each adult an annual tribute: enough gold dust to fill four hawkbells. Pay or perish. Many Indians fled, but the Spaniards tracked them down with dogs. Thousands ended their lives with poison. In 1492 an estimated 300,000 Indians lived on Hispaniola. By 1496 a third of them were dead. Less than a decade later the first black slaves arrived to take over the Indians’ oppressive burdens.” [1]

That was my first contact with the truth about Columbus. The article said little more about the vicious side of Columbus's history and concentrated on his travels. I later found that to be a pattern in most of the voluminous Columbus literature up until that time: relegated to footnote status in the heroic saga of a great explorer were his leadership of the invasion of the Americas, the genocide of the Native peoples, and the founding of the transatlantic slave trade, all perpetrated with full consciousness and intent by the man we call Columbus.

I continued researching the history, and came to understand how our culture had painted over the true history and had replaced it with a series of prettified lies and myths. The truth was apparently too disturbing for many people to face, but the lies continued to eat at the heart of our society like a cancer, making us even sicker than the painful truth.

Another decade passed, and in July, 1990 I was four thousand miles away, in the mountains of Ecuador. My roommate for several days was a large, gentle Cree-Nakoda elder from Canada named Ed Burnstick, who deepened my understanding of the problems and helped direct me toward solutions.

Ed was a traditional person from a reserve in Alberta, where as a youth he lived the hunting and trapping ways of his people. He’d been a hoop dancer, and worked in construction and logging. He was also somewhat tech savvy, and helped develop one of the first native run radio stations in Canada. As an activist, he had been instrumental in the first grouping of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Canada, and the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC). He served a term as chief of his tribe, Paul First Nation band of Woodlands Crees, and later as interim president of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations. He’d been a delegate at the United Nations conference in Geneva in 1977, where the Native delegations issued the very first call to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

But all I knew about him at that time, in 1990, was that Ed Burnstick was strong, kind, humble, and wise.

Ed explained to me about Indigenous peoples, the ones who never set out to conquer the world, but stayed in their communities, cared for their land in sustainable ways, and tried to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors. For Ed, the key to life had already been passed down to us by our ancestors: the most important thing is right living, which is only possible by following true ways as part of a community. Indigenous peoples are the custodians not only of their own communities and the future generations, but of a living philosophy of respect and caring for the natural world, of Mother Earth, so the struggle for Native rights and community common land is also the struggle to protect the global environment and ensure the survival of all peoples and the planet. Indigenous people were bringing this message to the world today, according to Ed Burnstick, possibly the most important message the world needed to learn, as we teetered on the brink of self-destruction. The entire colonial enterprise, based on the genocide of the Indigenous peoples, needed to be reversed.

That was the first time I had ever heard anyone speak of the world as being divided between Indigenous people and nonIndigenous people, and it took me a while to wrap my head around the concept.

Ed and I had come to Ecuador to partake in the Encuentro, the “gathering,” the First Continental Conference of 500 Years of Indian Resistance (Primer Encuentro Continental de Pueblos Indios, 500 Años de Resistencia India), July 17-21, 1990. Indigenous Representatives from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America were in attendance. A multinational Native meeting of this scope and magnitude had never before been attempted; it was a watershed for the indigenous peoples of the Americas, or Turtle Island (as many northern Native people call it), or Abya Yala (as they call it in the Andes, which comes from the Panamanian Kuna language meaning “land in its full maturity” or “land of vital blood”). The Encuentro drew around 400 participants, with representatives from 120 different Indigenous nations, tribes, and organizations, as well as many nonIndian NGOs (non-governmental organizations).

The Encuentro had been called to examine the results of five centuries of colonial occupation, to coordinate activities around the upcoming 500th anniversary, and to plan political strategies for the future. Many governments of the world, including the USA, were sponsoring costly year-long 1992 “quincentennial” celebrations, and the Encuentro was intended to counter this from the Indigenous peoples’ point of view that Columbus’s voyage was not a “discovery,” but the vanguard of an invasion. [2]

From the plane window the lights of Quito sparkled crisply in the dark mountain air.

Just the day before on a Bay Area Spanish language radio station, I learned that a nationwide general strike was in progress in Ecuador. The English language news made no mention of it. All day I listened carefully to the Spanish news. My understanding of Spanish, like my speaking fluency, was broken and fragmented, but I picked up the gist. The general strike, called by the Ecuadorian labor federation known as FUT (United Workers’ Front) was a protest against the government’s neoliberal economic policies. Many businesses, factories, public offices, schools, utilities, and transportation facilities were shut down around the country, with some cities entirely paralyzed. But the strike was scheduled for only one day, as a show of force. All was expected to be back to normal by the time I arrived. It was July 13, 1990.

A couple of months before I vaguely knew that Ecuador is on the northwest shoulder of South America, below Columbia and above Peru, on the equator. A quick look at a map had told me that the Andes cut like a saw blade through Ecuador's heart, separating the Pacific coastal plain from the Amazon basin. According to my tour book, the Galapagos Islands, 1,000 kilometers out to sea, with their unique wildlife, were the country’s main tourist attraction. Ecuador had one of the most ethnically Indian populations on the continent with about 40% of its nine million people traditional indigenous, another 40% mixed, about 10% “white”, and the other 10% split between black and Asian. Ten different Indian languages were spoken, the most widespread being Quichua, the Ecuadorian version of Runasimi (“people’s language”), the lingua franca of the Andes under the Incas.

The Incas had dominated the Ecuadorean highlands for less than 100 years when the Spaniards arrived. Before that, indigenous civilizations known as Quitus and Caras flourished in the north, Puruhás and Cañarí in the south. Around the year 1450, the Inca army of Tupac Yupanqui, the tenth Sapa Inca (or “emperor”) of Tawaintisuyu (or Peru) marched north from Cuzco into Ecuador. Quito fell to the Incas in 1472.

According to my travel book, while periodic civil wars were a constant in much of the Andes, Ecuador had remained comparatively stable in recent times, at least by Latin American standards.

Almost as soon as I stepped off the plane I could taste the thin atmosphere, 9,350 feet above sea level. I tired quickly carrying my bags. I slipped into a cab. The only traces of the general strike were slogans painted on numerous walls. As to its significance, the taxi driver shrugged. “We have one or two general strikes in Ecuador every year. The Levantamiento last month, the Indian Uprising, now that was something unusual, something which never happened before in my lifetime.”

“The what?” I ask.

“Didn’t they report it in North America?”

“I must have missed it.”

“But nothing will come of it. Nothing ever does.”

At the hotel I discovered that I was one of the first participants to arrive. It was four days early. I’d wanted some extra time to poke around as a traveler.

I picked up a local paper. On the front page was an article about CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, sponsoring the Encuentro. But the Encuentro was not mentioned. The article talked about the Indian Uprising, how negotiations with the government had broken down, the main points of contention being the Agrarian Reform Law and the creation of a fund that would enable Indigenous communities to purchase their own traditional lands.

The next day I went down to the CONAIE building, a large structure that they had obtained by squatting several years previously, at the corner of Avenida Los Granados and Avenida 6 de Diciembre. The lobby was bustling with activity. On the floor several people were painting a huge canvas. In the center was the sun and the crescent moon joined together, circled by a rainbow. On one side was the face of an Indian man, a condor emerging from his forehead; on the other side was the face of an Indian woman, an eagle emerging from her forehead. The wing tips of the two great birds met in a circle. The painter looked up at me. “Do you like it?”

“It’s very powerful. What does it mean?”

“This is the symbol of the Encuentro. It’s based on a old story, a prophesy of the Andes.”

Poster by Higalo Abel

I introduced myself at the office. A young woman named Monica rummaged through a file, pulled out the copy of the Berkeley mayor’s statement that I had sent down, and asked me to write a translation. I fumbled with the task for a while, then noticed a stack of new books on the table, “The Indigenous Uprising in the Ecuadorian Press,” published by CONAIE. I picked one up. Most of it was a compilation of recent press clippings. I slowly pieced together the events of the previous weeks.

Beginning on June 4, the Indians of Ecuador seized land that had traditionally belonged to their communities. In the Indigenous tradition, individuals do not own land; the community owns the land and assigns it to individuals to use. But since the Spanish conquest, great haciendas claimed almost all the land, while most Native people were made landless. In 1965 a progressive military junta decreed the Agrarian Reform Law. Any land left fallow for two years could be bought by a landless person to farm, in order to put all farmable land to use. A new constitution guaranteed “to the producer the right to hold land.” But the hacienderos found ways to stall out the Agrarian Reform Law, and for 25 years it was scarcely implemented. So on June 4, 1990, the Indians went into motion. They moved onto parts of forty haciendas left fallow for two years. They demanded that the government resolve 70 long-standing land disputes and pay 90% of the cost of the lands. They blocked major roads all over Ecuador with rocks and logs. They held huge marches and rallies, with a half million people in the streets. They seized churches in Quito and Guayaquil. They demanded that the government stop foreign oil companies from destroying the Amazon, and order them out of the country. The Uprising was timed as a protest against upcoming local elections, in which everyone was required to vote but which were rigged and never changed anything. Casualties of the Levantamiento: many injured, one dead.

The CONAIE Building in Quito [Photo by John Curl] [3]

Monica gave me a booklet entitled Boletín Informativo del Encuentro Continental del Pueblo Indígena. It contained the conference schedule, most of which would actually take place up in the mountains, the list of Indigenous and other organizations invited from various countries, registration and logistics information, an introduction, and statements about the Uprising and the Prophesy.

Because the complete original texts of these documents offer understanding in the words of the Encuentro organizers, here they are:

EDITORIAL

The entire world is debating the processes of change that have put into crisis alternative social projects and have irreversibly removed the bonding elements of traditional societies. These situations are maintained by the oppression and exploitation of humans by other humans.

In America, or Indoamerica, the ever increasing political presence of the indigenous peoples constitutes the principal element of change on the continent. Even though we Indian people have not formed a continental organizational body, we have arrived at a similar political point of view supported by our historical right to self determination. This coincides with the necessity to own our own territories to guarantee our future, to maintain and recreate the societal forms that we conserve so zealously, to fortify our own leadership and to take charge of our own development.

Nevertheless, after 500 years of European invasion and internal and external colonialism, it is important to confront our experiences to search for ways to bring together indigenous as well as non-indigenous peoples and to facilitate processes of unity as well as the liberation of our people and nations.

While we have concurred in the principal political positions, we have not defined strategies to confront our common enemy: the imperialism that oppresses and annihilates our peoples. Each indigenous organization has defined its own tactics and strategies without achieving a national and international pressure powerful enough to create an important impact on the world's societies at large.

For this reason, the Continental Encounter of Indigenous Peoples, taking place in Quito, Ecuador, July 17-21, 1990, promoted by ONIC and the Self Discovery of our America Campaign of Colombia; SAIIC of the United States; CONAIE and the 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Campaign of Ecuador and other national and international organizations and institutions, takes on a transcendental importance, that of achieving a meeting of all the indigenous peoples of our continent, defining our position, not only with respect to the “celebrations of 500 years of the Discovery of America,” but also with respect to our present and future situation, and elaborating a plan of action articulated jointly with other popular sectors.

After 500 years of indigenous resistance, we must recuperate the living message of the legends inherited by our peoples. “When the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South come together, there will be no force that can hold us back.” This symbol of the eagle and the condor is the symbol of the Unity of the Encuentro and the spirit that guides our forces in the search of a free society and a sovereign people.

The Meeting of the Condor of Urin and the Eagle of Hanan

In the unfolding of the life of the Indian Nations, every five centuries produces transformations of both foundations and forms. With these changes, life does not lose its essence. It becomes covered with new skin. The old is rejuvenated. It is nourished with pure energy. This energy is transmitted by the great spirits of Allpa Mama and Pacha Mama, that is, of nature and of the Universe, in general.

Thousands of years ago, when life initiated its vital cycle, Pachakamak (God of Time) created Intl (the sun) and Quilla (the moon) out of the union of its tears and, thus, gave birth to the Runas, to the people of this continent Abya Yala and in this birth emerged the Condor and the Eagle, the Kuntur of Urin and the Anga de Hanan, their spirits continually enriching the veins of the Runas of this continent.

Their strength motivated the north and south to unite. The union of the people of the North with the South also signifies the union of the Condor and the Eagle. The Condor and the Eagle joined their tears from Jahanpacha (the sky) to Ucupacha (the under-ground). Out of this union sprang Central America. In this piece of earth was concentrated the wisdom of Hana and Urin. New nations developed, whose inhabitants had the capacity to sow the earth in the middle of a great ocean and convert it into what is today Central America.

These peoples, oriented by the laws of Allpa Mama and Pacha Mama, had to pass through difficult situations, one of which was the splitting of its nations into four parts. After this tragedy, the Willak Umus (prophets) instructed their Amautas, Curacas, Arawikus or wise men to create prophecies that would orient and guide our peoples. These prophecies would teach the Indian nations to maintain themselves solid, united and, above all, to search for the most appropriate paths for their liberation.

The beginning of the liberation of the Indian people would be symbolized by different prophecies, one of which is the union of the tears of the Condor of Urin and the Eagle of Hanan. The union of these tears would cauterize our wounds and fortify our spirit, body and thought. The great spirit would open furrows and in each furrow would water its seed, and in each step would spring battalions of men who would bare their chests to fend off the daggers of the enemy. They would reach out with their hands to erase oppression, exploitation and injustice, and they would write on the huge page of the sky the sacred word of liberty.

The union of the Condor and Eagle, according to the prophecy, should occur in this century. The fifth century will be born with a new spirit. This new spirit will unite once again the Indian nations of North, Central and South America.

INDIGENOUS UPRISING

Nearing the 500 years of the European invasion, the Indigenous peoples of this continent have firmly united to struggle to suppress all forms of neo-colonialist oppression.

Traditionally, the national states have refused to recognize our legitimate rights as a diverse people, in spite of the fact that we have been the carriers of history, culture, language and traditions that we have defended during these 500 years.

We believe that Our America, Pacha Mama (the Earth), Our Abya Yala, can be a single, united force working for the recognition of the existence of distinct peoples and the respect and guarantee for our political, social, economic and cultural development.

This has been a never ending struggle during these 500 years; and today, the Indian Uprising of Ecuador, from the 4th, 5th, and 6th of June, 1990 is a demonstration that this process is advancing. This uprising is already a historical fact because it had the strength of unity. The uprising is where a national organization has been born of our own aspirations and it takes up our traditional forms of struggle, inherited from Rumiñahui, Tupac Amaru, Tupac Katari, and Daquilema.

This uprising should oblige the governments and all of the societies to reflect and rethink their traditional forms of oppression and exploitation to which we have been submitted.

This uprising was the expression our dignity and no one can negate or deny its authenticity, its strength and the unity of Indian people that it demonstrated.

We cannot forget to recognize and appreciate the solidarity we received from important sectors of this country, all of whom have played a fundamental role in recognizing and comprehending the validity of our proposals. On the other hand, we condemn the violence unleashed against our communities and organizations by the government and sectors of the landowners.

CONAIE saw in the dialogue with the government the space to arrive at concrete and urgent solutions to immediate vindication of the resolutions proposed by the organizations; nevertheless, the government has not demonstrated the political will to respond to our petitions and the dialogue has been broken. The actions unleashed as a consequence of this rupture will be the absolute responsibility of the government.

The Indian people love peace but we are disposed to defend our rights with dignity.

"Not One Hacienda in Ecuador in 1992"

shunk shunkulla
shunk yuyailla
shunk makilla
shunk shimilla
Runa Kaspaka
Kuna Kanchik

Those final words, in Quichua, were left untranslated in the original document. They mean (my translation):

one heart
one thought
one hand
one mouth (speech)
The People’s Path
Now in Light

After I left the CONAIE building, I went off alone to the Quito zoo. It was almost empty, perhaps because of the late hour, perhaps because of its strange location inside a military academy: the cadets were the zoo keepers. I sat in front of an outdoor cage and watched four huge condors perched on a rocky crag, dark gray bodies with white necks and wings, bald purplish heads, the male with a comb on top. One condor spread its massive wings, swooped down to the ground, picked up a piece of flesh, then flew back again. I found four small feathers on the grass nearby.

Back at the hotel desk was a note to me from two SAIIC (South and Meso-American Indian Information Center) people, Peter Veilleux (staff person) and Elizabeth Bobsy Draper (volunteer), to come down to see them in another room. SAIIC, based in Oakland, California, was one of the main organizers of the Encuentro, and my primary connection.

The tiny room was filled with boxes; literature being prepared for the Encuentro was spread out on the cramped beds. But for no apparent reason (all the conference-reserved rooms were the same price), the hotel had given me a large two-room suite. The Encuentro office moved into my living room.

But Nilo Cayuqueo, the director of SAIIC, a Mapuche from Argentina, and his close associate Wara Alderete, a Calchaqui also from Argentina, hadn’t arrived. Finally word came that they’d been detained by the police in Argentina, where they’d stopped off on their way here. We’d have to proceed without them.

I soon had several roommates, including Ed Burnstick.

The English-speaking and the Spanish-speaking delegates were lodged in separate hotels, which seemed strange to me, although it did simplify the language problem. Ed said that it reflected past difficulties. He was a veteran of international Indigenous conferences, including the 1977 UN Geveva conference, and has seen many communication breakdowns between Latin American and North American Indians. He explained that the historical experiences of Indians in the Latin and Anglo colonial worlds were different in many ways, creating problems of cultural understanding. While North American Indian history is filled with hundreds of broken treaties by England and later the US, Spain never made any treaties and never recognized any sovereign Indian nations. The Spaniards conquered and enslaved, while the Anglos primarily wanted the land and removed the Indians by any means. I noticed on the list of Indian organizations invited to the Encuentro, none of the organizations were from the US or Canada. All the Northern participants had come as individuals through SAIIC, and not as delegates of their organizations.

Although at this time I did not know anything about the 1977 UN International Non-Governmental Organizations’ Conference on Indigenous Peoples of the Americas in Geneva, problematic dynamics between North-South there reflected that same friction, although other factors were also involved. At least four people who attended the 1977 conference were also here in Quito: Nilo Cayuqueo, Ed Burnstick, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and Marie-Helene Laraque.

Upon returning to their home countries from Geneva in 1977, a number of the Latin American delegates had faced serious consequences for testifying. Nilo, Mapuche delegate from Argentina, had been a key organizer for Consejo Indio de SudAmerica, connected with the international group competing with the IITC, the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. Upon his return from Geneva, he found the military looking for him, but managed to get out, travel to Peru, and eventually to Oakland, California, where he founded the South and Meso-American Indian Information Center (SAIIC). Cayuqueo and SAIIC would be instrumental in organizing the Encuentro of 1990. In this case, the Encuentro would be an independent international indigenous conference, with neither the United Nations nor any nation-state directly involved; and the past friction between Native peoples in Latin America and Anglo America resulted in no US or Canadian Indigenous organizations directly included in the organizing group.

The international group competing with the IITC, the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP), with which Nilo’s group had been affiliated, also had deep divisions between its Canadian/US and Latin American affiliates, which ultimately resulted in the WCIP dissolving several years after the Encuentro, while the International Indian Treaty Council would continue to grow and make important contributions.

Other SAIIC people soon arrived at the Quito conference, including Xihuanel Huerta (ChicanIndia), Yolanda Ronquillo, Guillermo Delgado (Quechua, Bolivia), Gina Pacaldo (San Carlos Apache/Chicana).

I quickly made other friends: Rupert Robinson, leader of a Maroon colony on Jamaica; Irvince Auguiste, from a Carib settlement on the island of Dominica. June Le Grande, Cherokee storyteller, with a radio show on KKUP Cupertino, California; Elena, a translator; Agnes, who had a Sonoma County radio show; her teenaged daughter Sunshine; Alfredo Quarto, who organized a political caravan called the Chautauqua. Besides myself, two other Alliance for Cultural Democracy (ACD) people arrived, Joe Lambert of Life on the Water Theater at Fort Mason in San Francisco, and Larry Rinder of the U.C. Berkeley Art Museum. NGOs and academics were strongly represented: Paul Haible, from the Vanguard Foundation, Juan Alista from Oxfam, Gretchen Kaapcke, Pedro Almeida, Virginia Tilley from EAFORD, Eric from Arctic to Amazon Alliance. Others from the north included Sarah James, Gwich’in from Arctic Village Alaska; Roy Crazy Horse, from the Powhatan Renape nation; Eugene Hazgood, (Diné-Navajo) involved with Big Mountain; Albert Bender (Cherokee), an attorney; Ray Williams from the Swinomish tribe in Washington; Jackie Warledo (Seminole); the poets Joy Harjo (Muskogee) and Patricia Blanco (Chicana); Luz Guerra from Boriquen (Puerto Rico); Cindi Alvitre, a California Gabrieleña; Robert Allen Warrior (Osage); Tupac Enrique Acosta (Nahua/Xicano) from Phoenix.

Altogether from the US and Canada, attending were around 70 Native people and around 30 nonNatives.

CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador), the host organization, represented all of the indigenous nationalities of the country, some organized into provincial organizations, and others not. CONAIE had been created in 1986 out of the union of two already existing regional organizations, ECUARUNARI (Confederación Kichwa del Ecuador), representing the highlands, formed over 20 years earlier, and CONFENIAE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana) representing the Ecuadorian Amazon, formed in 1980.

Among the local leaders and coordinators of Encuentro were Cristobal Tapuy (Quichua), President of CONAIE; Luis Macas (Quichua), future president of CONAIE; vice-president Rafael Pandam (Shuar); Luis Vargas (Achuar), president of CONFENIAE, Luisa Chongo, Rosa Vacacela (Sarguro), José Almeida (CONAIE); Mecho Calderón and Manuel Imbaquinga from ECUARUNARI; and Victor Hugo Jijón (CDDH-Comisión por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos).

People were pouring into Quito from all over the hemisphere. The vast variety of faces was truly amazing, over 400 people from 120 different Indian nations, tribes and organizations.

The Latin American Indian people seemed much more organized than the North Americans, or at least more represented by large organizations. According to Ed Burnstick, there was no equivalent in the US or Canada of the Ecuadorian national confederation CONAIE or the Columbian ONIC. Ed said that many North American Indians were quite frustrated with organizations; many consider their own tribal governments to be fabrications by the dominant society, and not representative of traditional ways.

At the last minute Nilo Cayuqueo, the SAIIC director, and Wara Alderete arrived. They had been harassed by authorities in Argentina, but finally managed to get to Peru and cross by land into Ecuador.

But almost simultaneously word came that a delegate from Columbia has been arrested at the border for carrying a few coca leaves, traditional among his people. Unknown men identifying themselves as CONAIE had appeared at the other hotel and taken the names and passport numbers of all the Latino delegates. At the airport arriving North American Indians had been photographed. Security measures had to be taken.

The next morning was registration then a press conference. Frantic preparations of the packets continued most of the night. I overheard Agnes say that she went to the zoo to get a condor feather, but the guard told her it was closed and didn’t let her pass. I gave her one of mine.

To better explain my and Berkeley’s role in the Encuentro, I need to step back and fill in the backstory.

Not long after I began to research Columbus’ role the early history of the European invasion of the Americas, I realized that it was almost 500 years since 1492 and, given people’s penchant for celebrating the anniversary of almost anything, this was going to be a big one.

So earlier in the year, when I first saw a little notice about the Encuentro in the SAIIC newsletter, I knew I had to go to Ecuador.

Early in May 1990 I met with Nilo Cayuqueo, a soft-spoken Mapuche man with a small mustache and gentle eyes, director of the South and Meso-American Indian Information Center (SAIIC), on East Fourteenth Street in Oakland. SAIIC was organizing the Encuentro in the US, together with Indian organizations in Ecuador and Columbia. The First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Peoples on the 500 Years of Indian Resistance was scheduled for July 17 to 21 in Quito.

I’d already been working on the 1992 project as a member of the local chapter of Alliance for Cultural Democracy (ACD), a national multi-ethnic cultural organization (founded in 1976) committed to taking part in the counter-quincentennial campaign. The Bay Area ACD group included artist Betty Kano (Salad Bar Art Group), Bill Stroud (509 Cultural Center), Tripp Mikich (Parenting Magazine), Mat Schwartzman (New College), Lincoln Cushing (Inkworks), Margo Adair (Greenletter), Larry Rinder (U.C. Berkeley Art Museum), Joe Lambert (Life on the Water Theater), Fred Hosea (Lightnet), and Brian Webster (Rock Against Racism). Betty Kano was National Coordinator.

Nilo asked me about ACD’s ideas for organizing a Bay Area-wide cultural festival for 1992. I explained that it was still in the early planning stage; we realized that although non-Indian cultural workers could play an important part by putting forth their visions, we understood that Native people would have the leading role in quincentennial projects. We expected this lead would come from the Encuentro.

I also told Nilo my idea of trying to get the City of Berkeley involved in the 1992 commemoration. San Francisco was already involved, in a reactionary way. Replicas of Columbus’ three ships were sailing from Spain, scheduled to touch fifty ports, and ultimately dock in San Francisco on October 12, 1992, in conjunction with a huge celebration focused on the Italian-American community, using ethnic pride as a cover for a celebration of the colonial/imperialist project. Given Berkeley’s history of support for progressive causes, maybe it could be a counter-weight.

Nilo said, “Let’s invite the mayor of Berkeley to come to the Encuentro.”

“It’s not very likely that she’d come,” I replied.

“Then if she can’t make it, let’s ask her to send a representative.”

Several weeks later I was on my way to the airport, as Mayor Loni Hancock’s representative to the First Continental Encuentro.

Loni, as I knew her at that time, had deep populist instincts and cared about social justice. When an issue came to the fore, her instinct was usually to use the mayor’s office as a catalyst through which the people involved could find their own solutions. I knew Loni pretty well from working in Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA), a local “progressive” political coalition. I was on the BCA steering committee and the editor of their newsletter, as well as a regular worker on Loni’s election campaigns. Her first election had been so close there was a recount, and I’d been one of the watchers during the vote recount in the basement of city hall. Later I worked closely with her and community groups for several years to rezone the Berkeley industrial zone to give protections to industries and arts and crafts against runaway gentrifying development, until the city finally codified those protections in the West Berkeley Plan.

Nilo and I wrote Mayor Hancock a letter which I handed to her. She grasped the situation immediately and came on board. Loni and I then drafted a letter to the Encuentro, which read:

City of Berkeley

July 3, 1990

Dear friends at the "First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Peoples--500 Years of Indian Resistance" Conference:

I regret not being able to attend in person, but offer all of you my warm greetings and solidarity from the City of Berkeley. I wish to use my offices to work with you because I believe we share many of the same goals.

For numerous generations, North American children have been taught the myth of a visionary European explorer, Christopher Columbus, who stumbled on a New World. There he was welcomed, the story goes, by the primitive inhabitants who were in awe of the superior cultural gifts of Europe Columbus brought. The childhood story ends with his return to Europe bringing the amazing news.

But of course the reality was far different. Historians tell us that Columbus returned to the New World with a great armada and proceeded to conquer and plunder wherever he went. His own writings clearly show this had always been his plan. Columbus, the original American Conquistador, presided over the destruction and enslavement of the Taino people of the Caribbean.

Yet generation after generation of North Americans, immigrants and their descendants, have clung to the myth and illusion, perhaps because the reality is so shockingly brutal.

We are now approaching the 500th anniversary of that fateful voyage. Governments of many nations, including the United States, are funding "Jubilee" commemorations, declaring a time of celebration. This misirected effort is based on the idea that colonization of the Americas represented a new beginning for oppressed people in a place where freedom was possible. Omitted is the price paid by indigenous people of the hemisphere, a price of oppression and genocide. This price was also paid by other peoples brought to this continent as slaves or as cheap labor; and the land itself has paid through exploitation and thoughtless environmental destruction.

Therefore, as Mayor of the City of Berkeley, California, I will call on all City agencies and the Berkeley school system to involve themselves in activities during the years 1991-1992 to educate our citizens about the historical facts of the colonization of this hemisphere and it effects on indigenous people. Our goal is to shape the future to rectify the historic injustices and create a society and natural environment that is free of oppression and exploitation.

Sincerely,

Loni Hancock, Mayor

Down at the CONAIE office the press conference began. The international media was there in force, the notable exception being the US press. I was asked to read the Berkeley mayor’s statement. Berkeley, the only city to be represented at the Encuentro, was extremely well received.

El Comercio, 17 Julio, 1990

The Encuentro was officially opened at the National Congress, in a hall next door to where the Ecuadorean legislators met. It was packed with well over a thousand people. On the wall behind the podium was a gigantic banner written partly in Quichua, partly in Spanish: “The struggle for land is the sovereignty of Latin America. 1992: not one more hacienda in Ecuador!” The proceedings were bilingual, a simultaneous English translation available on headphones. I understood Spanish pretty fluently (much better than I could speak it), so I decided to wing it without headphones. Virginia Tilley, from EAFORD, a human rights organization, told me she went to find a rest room upstairs and it was swarming with police in riot gear. A group of musicians from Ota Valo, a town in the mountains, in dark felt hats, a long braid hanging down behind, played rousing Andean music with guitars, flutes, panpipes, drums, and horns. Cristobal Tapuy, the president of CONAIE opened the proceedings, followed by leaders from many different countries, each focusing on the specific struggles for survival and self-determination in their areas. Nilo spoke for Mapuches of Argentina; María Toj of the Comite de Unidad Campesinos spoke for Highland Mayas of Guatemala; Earen Tapiz Villegas spoke for Mexico. At the end Rose Auger, Cree from Canada, performed a beautiful ceremonial prayer.

[Photos by John Curl] [3]

We rushed back to the hotel, stuffed our luggage into waiting busses, and took off for the conference center, Campamento La Merced, about an hour and a half into the mountains. We arrived at dusk. Word circulated that the surrounding hills were crawling with police.

We were encircled by mountain peaks. Scattered about were a variety of meeting rooms and facilities. In the center was a large circus-sized tent, with many rows of benches. Nearby was a lake with a few rowboats.

I was assigned to a small cabin with eight other men, all Indian, about half from the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Besides Ed Burnstick were Ray Williams (Swinomish), Mark Kremen (Yakama), and Eugene Hazgood, (Diné). I grabbed a lower in a triple-decker bunk bed. Dan, a Chicano from southern Texas, quickly found the showers in a building about halfway to the dining hall. I assumed they were going to be crowded that night, so I decided to wait and get up very early.

Someone mentioned that they were starting the sacred fire, so I headed down to the lake. Ed Burnstick was there, Rose Auger, her son Michael, and a group of others. Ed, it turned out, was one of the spiritual leaders. They lit a kindling of grasses, nurtured a small flame with twigs and sticks until it grew into a dancing blaze. Four men were honored to be firekeepers, with two alternates; they would make sure that the flames stayed healthy until the end of the Encuentro. One of the firekeepers, I believe, was Tupac Enrique Acosta. Dawn ceremonies were scheduled every morning at 6 a.m. by the fire.

I woke at 5 a.m. and staggered in the dark toward the bath building. Halfway there I met a man from my room, Tom, coming back. He told me that in the middle of his shower the lights and water suddenly went out. I fumbled my way over and watched the sad dripping faucets for myself.

I sat on my towel near the fire; the ground was damp and there was no room on the grass mats. In the sky I could see the constellation the Southern Cross. The women sat to the north of the fire, the men to the south. Ed announced that Rose, the primary spiritual leader, had received permission to break with tradition and briefly permit photographs during the pipe ceremony. The purpose of this was to show the reporters, who were there in force, that we had nothing to hide. Many people were unhappy with this decision but we continued. Smoldering sage was brought to each person; the smoke purified and blessed each face and head. The pipe was filled with ceremonial tobacco, lit with grass braids. Each took a drag, turned it once clockwise and passed it to the next in the circle. This was the first time in over twenty years that I'd smoked tobacco, the first time ever ceremonially, and it made me very high. Rose handed lengths of colored cloth, symbolizing the four directions, to different people, who circled the fire, then placed the cloths as offerings into the flames. A thin crescent moon, cupped upward, rose between two peaks, followed by a glorious sunrise.

Before we dispersed, a man in Andean clothes announced that the following morning at 5 a.m., even before the North American sunrise ceremonies, traditional Incan dawn ceremonies would be held.

Nilo Cayuqueo and Rose Auger [Unity, 8/31/1990]

15 Dias, 26 Julio, 1990

15 Dias, 26 Jullio, 1990

Hoy, 22 Julio, 1990

Sunrise Ceremony [Photo by Bobsy Draper, Crossroads, October 1990, No. 3]

At breakfast I heard that government harassment was suspected in the mysterious power outage and a delegation had gone to the Ministry of the Interior to complain.

We gathered in the big tent.

The gathering began with a discussion of who could vote on resolutions. Delegates had different statuses: official, fraternal and observer. Each Indian nation, tribe or organization could have only one “official” delegate, the others being “fraternal.” Non-Indians were almost entirely “observers,” with a couple of “fraternal” exceptions including myself. However, on the workshop resolutions each country needed to choose only one voting member, to prevent domination by the large and well-represented countries. The North Americans were not too happy with this, and thought it made more sense for each Indian nation and tribe to have a vote. We were briefly stuck on the organizational differences between north and south. The south prevailed. Each country caucused, and the US delegation chose Laurie Weahkee, a young Cochiti-Diné-Zuni woman from New Mexico as the voting official.

Everyone needed to choose one of eight simultaneous workshops to discuss different issue-areas for the next two days. Each workshop had literature to aid discussion. The topics were: the position of indigenous peoples on the 500th anniversary; Indian self-determination and political activity; education, culture and religion; indigenous organizing; women; land and natural resources; indigenous legislation; human rights and political prisoners. I chose to go to the 500th anniversary workshop.

Our workshop worked on a long list of resolutions and observations to be sorted out, refined, boiled down, and brought before the entire conference, along with the resolutions from all the other commissions, on the last day.

Only hours after the sunrise ceremony, word circulated that the morning Quito newspaper had a front page photo of the pipe ceremony with a caption saying that “pagan rituals” were being held in this Christian-owned conference center, implying some kind of defilement. Many traditional people were unhappy that photos had been permitted; some proposed extinguishing the fire. But the decision was made to continue.

Suddenly the electricity and water came back on, and there was a rush for the showers.

[Photo by John Curl] [3]

At lunch I talked with Rafael Pandam, vice-president of CONAIE and his friend Jesús, two men with long straight hair and bangs, from an area in the Amazon jungle near the town of Puyo, down the sheer eastern slope of the Andes, by the headwaters of the world’s greatest river. They explained that the entire Ecuadorian Amazon has been signed over as “concessions” to oil companies. These were destroying both the natural environment and the indigenous people who have lived in relatively untouched isolation until recently. They invited me to come down to Puyo after the conference, to provide me with documentation so I could let the outside world know what was happening there.

I had already planned to fly to the city of Cuenca in the southern highlands after the conference, and then return north slowly by bus, to see the entire country. Rafael told me I could easily turn east at the halfway point and detour down to the Amazon for a couple of days.

My next morning began again in the dark by the fire. The Andean spiritual leader explained that he would lead the group in ancient dawn ceremonies that in Inca times were performed every morning, but which had been banned by the early Spaniards. They had been preserved by a small number of people. He asked everyone to face east and quietly prayed while burning coca leaves. Then sitting on his heels, he spread his arms and brought his head slowly to the ground, loudly imploring Pacha Mama (the Earth) and Inti (the Sun). The group followed him in unison many times. Then he stretched his feet back and continued with a kind of push-up, which most people followed. It was very reminiscent of yoga dawn exercises. Tomorrow, he said, everyone should bring some unnatural article from the dominant civilization, which they would burn symbolically. Finally the moon appeared, as it did the previous morning, followed quickly by dawn. As the light spread, Rose and Ed took over and passed the ceremonial pipes. Several Guatemalan women in huipiles walked on their knees around the fire. Rose gave a pinch of the ceremonial tobacco to everyone. “Keep it in a special place.” They would also distribute ashes when the fire would finally be extinguished.

But a controversy arose between the political and spiritual leaders. Rose said that for spiritual reasons it was very important that the Encuentro end here around the sacred fire, and not disperse back to the National Congress in Quito as planned. She said that the Encuentro would be over when the fire was extinguished. The political leaders said they must return to Quito. There was a deadlock.

We returned back to the final workshop sessions, then in the afternoon to a marathon plenary, bringing all the resolutions for full discussion. This lasted well into the night.

The 500 years workshop produced 20 resolutions, the first of which was:

“The work of the Continental Campaign of 500 Years of Indian Resistance should continue to be directed at the rank and file of the organizations in order to strengthen our Continental Campaign of 500 Years of Indian and Popular Resistance. National committees will be formed with the participation of the popular sectors, thereby promoting communication, coordination and joint activities at a regional and continental level.”

The nonIndian statement of solidarity began, “we stand with you to achieve a fundamental restructuring of the social and economic order... We commit ourselves to this alliance with you, the Indigenous People of the Americas, and to work with your agreements and plans as formulated at this Continental meeting.”

During the report from the Indigenous Women’s commission, came a sudden uproar. The delegate from Nicaragua, several days late, had finally arrived, and the proceedings were interrupted for him to speak.

Finally the political-spiritual controversy was resolved. Rose would go to Quito to deliver a prayer at the final plenary, then return to La Merced and ceremonially extinguish the fire.

A number of specific proposals were agreed to. “We strongly reject the Quincentennial celebration, and firmly promise to convert it into an occasion to strengthen our process of continental unity and struggle toward our liberation.” An international Peoples’ Tribunal would be constituted to judge the 1492 invasion. Indemnification should be paid to the Indian peoples. The United Nations should declare the right of self-determination of indigenous peoples. “Our definitive liberation can only express itself as the full exercise of our self-determination...Without Indian self-government and control of our lands, autonomy cannot exist.” A campaign should be undertaken against the transnational corporations that are despoiling indigenous lands. The 500 Years Campaign should be constituted in national committees, with full participation of non-Indian “popular sectors”, and continental coordination. The US delegates should make these questions issues in the upcoming 1992 presidential election. “We demand respect for our right to life, to land, to free organization and expression of our culture... We affirm our decision to defend our culture, education and religion as fundamental to our identity as Peoples, reclaiming and maintaining our own forms of spiritual life and communal coexistence, in an intimate relationship with our Mother Nature... A new pluralist, democratic and humane society, in which peace is guaranteed, should be constructed.”

There would be future Encuentros, the next possibly in Guatemala.

The main points were put into a document called the Declaration of Quito, which everyone present could sign at the end of the conference.

* * *

Declaration of Quito

July 1990

The Continental Gathering "500 Years of Indian Resistance," with representatives from 120 Indian Nations, International and Fraternal organizations, meeting in Quito, July 17-20, 1990, declare before the world the following:

The Indians of America have never abandoned our constant struggle against the conditions of oppression, discrimination and exploitation which were imposed upon us as a result of the European invasion of our ancestral territories.

Our struggle is not a mere conjunctural reflection of the memory of 500 years of oppression which the invaders, in complicity with the "democratic" governments of our countries, want to turn into events of jubilation and celebration. Our Indian People, Nations and Nationalities are basing our struggle on our identity, which shall lead us to true liberation. We are responding aggressively, and-commit ourselves to reject this "celebration."

The struggle of our People has acquired a new quality in recent times. This struggle is less isolated and more organized. We are now completely conscious that our total liberation can only be expressed through the complete exercise of our self-determination. Our unity is based on this fundamental right. Our self-determination is not just a simple declaration.

We must guarantee the necessary conditions that permit complete exercise of our self-determination; and this, In turn must be expressed as complete autonomy for our Peoples. Without Indian self-government and without control of our territories, there can be no autonomy.

The achievement of this objective is a principal task for Indian Peoples however, through our struggles we have learned that our problems are not different, in many respects, from those of other popular sectors. We are convinced that we must march alongside the peasants, the workers, the marginalized sectors, together with intellectuals committed to our cause, In order to destroy the dominant system of oppression and construct a new society, pluralistic, democratic and humane, in which peace Is guaranteed.

The existing nation states of the Americas, their constitutions and fundamental laws are judicial/political expressions that negate our socio-economic, cultural and political rights.

From this point in our general strategy of struggle, we consider it to be a priority that we demand complete structural change; change which recognizes the inherent right to self-determination through Indian own governments and through the control of our territories.

Our problems will not be resolved through the self-serving politics of governmental entities which seek Integration and ethno-development. it is necessary to have an Integral transformation at the level of the state and national society; that is to say, the creation of a new nation.

In this Gathering It has been clear that territorial rights are a fundamental demand of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

Based on these aforementioned reflections, the organizations united in the First Continental Gathering of Indigenous Peoples reaffirm:

1. Our emphatic rejection of the Quincentennial celebration, and the firm promise that we will turn that date into an occasion to strengthen our process of continental unity and struggle towards our liberation.

2. Ratify our resolute political project of self-determination and conquest of our autonomy, In the framework of nation states, under a new popular order, respecting the appellation which each People determines for their struggle and project.

3. Affirm our decision to defend our culture, education, and religion as fundamental to our Identity as Peoples, reclaiming and maintaining our own forms of spiritual life and communal coexistence, In an Intimate relationship with our Mother Earth.

4. We reject the manipulation of organizations which are linked to the dominant sectors of society and have no Indigenous representation, who usurp our name for (their own) Imperialist interests. At the same time, we affirm our choice to strengthen our own organizations, without excluding or Isolating ourselves from other popular struggles.

5. We recognize the Important role that Indigenous women play In the struggles of our Peoples. We understand the necessity to expand women's participation In our organizations and we reaffirm that It Is one struggle, men and women together, in our liberation process, and a key question in our political practices.

6. We Indian Peoples consider It vital to defend and conserve our natural resources, which right now are being attacked by transnational corporations. We are convinced that this defense will be realized if it Is Indian People who administer and control the territories where we live, according to our own principles of organization and communal life.

7. We oppose national judicial structures which are the result of the process of colonization and neo-colonization. We seek a New Social Order that embraces our traditional exercise of Common Law, an expression of our culture and forms of organization. We demand that we be recognized as Peoples under International Law, and that this recognition be incorporated into the respective Nation States.

8. We denounce the victimization of Indian People through violence and persecution, which constitutes a flagrant violation of human rights. We demand respect for our right to life, to land, to free organization and expression of our culture. At the same time we demand the release of our leaders who are held as political prisoners, an end to repression, and restitution for the harms caused us.

The next morning at 5 a.m., Saturday, July 21st, the last fire dawn ceremony began. The Inca exercise-prayers were repeated, followed by the symbolic burning, in a separate fire, of unnatural objects such as a soda can, a plastic fork, styrofoam packing. Then Rose and Ed brought out several pipes for the final ceremony. Certain people were honored for their extraordinary contributions, and testified before the fire. The firekeepers received a special blessing. Rose asked if anyone had questions. The Latin Americans had many. They seemed to recognize that the North American ceremonies were very close to the cultural source that they were seeking to return to, without the overlay of Catholicism that permeated many Indian ceremonies of Latin America.

The final colored cloth offerings were placed on the fire, and as they burned, I searched the sky for the moon, but it was nowhere to be seen. The sun broke brilliantly over the mountain. I realized that dawn on the last day had brought the fulfillment of the symbol of the Encuentro: the sun and moon were in conjunction; the sun had swallowed the moon.

I packed hurriedly; the busses were waiting. As I left my room, an Ecuadorian Indian man in a red poncho, Manuel de la Cruz, pulled me aside. His community was on the lower slopes of the great snow-capped volcano Cotapaxi, about 100 miles away. His countryside was being devastated. Much of the Ecuadorian highlands, he explained, had been deforested. A national reforestation program, active in recent decades, had used foreign trees, eucalyptus and oregon pine, which grow rapidly, but their leaves and needles contain substances which ruin the earth so no crops will grow. He asked me if I know any North American organization that might help in replacing these destructive trees with native Ecuadorian ones.

I thought of Eric from the organization Arctic to Amazon Alliance. But he was nowhere around. I assured Manuel that I would try to find him before the day ended.

At the bus I was talking to Marie-Helene Laraque of Haiti (and Canada), who had also attended the 1977 UN Geneva conference, when I noticed that her name tag said Taino. I was stunned, as I thought that Columbus’ genocide of the Taino people of Caribbean had been complete and total. She explained that even in genocide there are survivors. We boarded the busses and headed down toward Quito.

It hadn’t hit me until now, but almost all the trees along the road were eucalyptus. I knew them so well from their domination and sterilization of much of the California hills in Berkeley and Oakland, where a century ago they replaced a redwood forest that once grew so tall it was a landmark for ships entering the Golden Gate.

Inside the National Congress filled up.

15 Dias, 26 Julio, 1990

Maria Toj at Press Conference [Huracán Vo. 1 No. 1, Fall/Winter 1990]

Just as I sat down, Adela Principe Diego, in a traditional Peruvian dress, came over to me, accompanied by Bobsy Draper. Adela had just been stopped at the entrance by an official from her embassy: “We hear you’ve been saying bad things about Peru. You will come to the embassy to talk about this.” Adela said that in her country many people and their families are “disappeared” for less cause than this. She asked if I would be part of a group she was organizing to go with her. I assured her I would.

Speeches were made, to a constant flash of bulbs. Rose took the podium and weaved in a spiritual context. Musicians brought down the house. The Declaration of Quito was read and passed around. As the president of CONAIE announced the Encuentro at an end, I signed the Declaration.

Then back on the busses for festivities at Huaycopungo, a town in the mountains near the weaving center of Ota Valo.

I was in the lead bus, flying the rainbow CONAIE flag, the ancient banner of the Incas, on a pole taped to the sideview mirror. At first the land was barren, desertlike, with occasional stands of eucalyptus. Then as we got higher, it became greener, and we were in farm country. To my disappointment I saw no llamas, only typical barnyard animals. Someone said that llamas were not used here any more but were still common in Peru.

We stopped by a gravel road, where a crowd with banners and signs welcomed us. “Is this Huaycopungo, where the fiesta is?” I asked someone. “No, this is Pijal, this is different, you’ll see.” We walked down the road, teetered on logs across a swampy stretch, across a meadow. A stallion, his eyes wild, ran toward us; the crowd broke to let him through. We crossed a recently-plowed field to a small settlement where about two hundred children, women and men were gathered.

We formed a wide circle around a volleyball court; a woman stepped forward and explained:

“This land has always belonged to the community of Pijal, as far back as anyone knows. But this land was stolen by the rich hacienderos, and the people have suffered hardships for generations. Now in the great Indigenous Uprising we the people of Pijal have taken back our land and have begun to farm it and we will never let it be stolen from us again.”

In her simple statement, in the determined expressions on the faces around me, I saw a people who had passed beyond hopelessness and rediscovered hope.

Then on to Fiesta Huaycopungo. We lined up and received our dinner of corn, salsa and beef in a small brown paper bag. Sitting on an empty lot near several pigs, in the distance I saw Lake San Pablo. Everyone drifted down to a field near the town’s center, where the entire population was gathering.

I noticed Eric and asked him about reforestation. He said that is exactly the kind of project his organization does. I glanced around, picked out the red poncho of Manuel, and brought them together.

Word arrived that two others had been called before their embassies, a Guatemalan and a Nicaraguan, both women.

As darkness set in, the horizon began to flash with heat lightning. A group of four horsemen suddenly appeared, bearing red flags, followed by masked and costumed men on foot, one with a dog face, one in a sack and carrying a chicken, one with a wheel on top of a pole, oranges and bananas tied to it. Another horseman followed, wearing a mask with strings of colored beads hanging down his face, shaded by a black umbrella. They rode once around the field, then into the center, where those on foot danced in a circle. I asked a nearby man for an explanation. He said the horsemen with the red pennants appear at the planting time fiesta, and the bead-faced man, named Corasas, appears every year after the harvest.

Then music and dancing began in earnest, one band after the other. All joined hands and danced in long chains which kept changing direction. Men carrying soda bottles full of firewater called trago plied everyone with toasts. Then traditional and choreographed dance groups came on one after another.

A man pulled me aside, introduced himself as a reporter from a newspaper in Spain, asked if he could interview me, and wanted to know why I was here. I tried to tell him but could hardly find the words. He said, “Don’t you think it’s patronizing for a North American to come down here and be part of this?”

Before I could answer, three Ecuadorian Indian men offered us a toast. The reporter asked one of them, “Wouldn’t you like to be rich?”

The man responded, “Sure.”

The Spaniard turned back to me and said, “See, all this stuff about communal land, when in reality they’re just capitalists like everybody else.” There was a touch of desperation on his face.

I realized that he had come here with the mission of returning with a story that he couldn’t find here.

The busses were leaving back to Quito. The fiesta would continue all night. Those who stayed were welcome to sleep on mats in the communal hall. At the last minute I felt very tired, and decided to return to Quito.

At the hotel I met some old friends: Rupert from the Maroon colony in Jamaica; Irvince, from the island of Dominica; Cindi Alvitre, a California Gabrieleña; Ed, Rose, Paul Haible, Nilok Butler, Eugene Hasgood from Big Mountain, so many more.

Also in the hotel hall I got into a conversation with a young woman. At first I thought she had been at the Encuentro, but then she told me no. She was part of a group of four Columbians who recently had to flee their country because they had been working for social change. In a couple of months their Ecuadorian visas would expire and they would be expelled. If they were forced to return to Columbia, they would probably be killed. They were looking for a third country to escape to. Did I know of any human rights organization that might help them?

The next day, Monday, July 23, I was scheduled to go to the Peruvian embassy with Adela and a group of others. Then on Tuesday I was due to fly south. But it turned out that Monday was a national holiday, Simon Bolívar’s birthday. I agonized over it, then decided that enough people would be going to the embassy without me.

I flew down to the southern highlands, walked around Cuenca a bit, then hit the road. An incredible two days by bus through the mountains. I traveled by pickup truck to Inga Pirca, the only complete Inca ruins in Ecuador, with an oval sun temple.

Then down, straight down, to the Amazon, following the Río Pastaza, along hairpin turns, great precipices, rope bridges, waterfalls everywhere, one cascading over the top of the bus, washed-out roads, jungle vegetation, a bad tire, a crate of chicks peeping all the way. The bus stopped at the military base in the town called Shell, once the oil center of the country. They checked my passport. What are you doing here? Tourist. Not far away was the border, and beyond that a huge area that Peru reportedly stole in a war in 1941 (while most of the world was focused on World War 2), and that Ecuador still disputed. Relations between the two countries were still not the best.

I finally arrived in Puyo and took a taxi into the jungle to the office of CONFENAIE, one of the Indian organizations making up CONAIE.

As bad luck would have it, my friends Rafael and Jesús were not there, but would be back Friday, too late for me. At first I was crestfallen, but then talked to the secretary, Luisa, and she took me into the office to speak with Luis Vargas, the president of CONFENAIE, who had been at the Encuentro. Luis and Luisa showed me a map of the area. The entire Amazon was cut up among Texaco, Conoco, Tenneco, ESSO, BP and other companies. Shell, the original perpetrator, decided that better profits were elsewhere, and was long gone.

The destruction by the oil and logging companies was mostly visible from the air, they explained. Just as in our country, the corporations left “view corridors” around highways so drivers could remain unaware of the devastation behind the thin wall of trees. It was so bad, they told me, that if it continued at the current rate, much of the Ecuadorian Amazon could be a desert in twenty years.

Back on the bus, creeping up the mountain passes. We stopped at a narrow turn; the driver’s helper got out, looked up and motioned ambiguously. The driver cautiously began again. But most of the people in the bus shouted No! and he stopped. The man next to me said, “Landslide.” Rocks were tumbling down from the hill about thirty feet in front of us. We got out to watch. A few rocks at a time fell for about ten minutes, then suddenly a large chunk of hill came loose, and six foot boulders hurdled down, completely blocking the road. A half hour later bulldozers cleared it and we hurried on.

I spent my last days back north in Ota Valo, a weaving center famous since before the Incas came to Ecuador from Peru in the 1400s. I wandered through their incredible Saturday market. In the central plaza was a statue of Rumiñahui, leader of the resistance to the Spanish invasion and Indian Ecuador’s national hero. It was a time of reflection.

For the Indian peoples, 1992 represented the culmination of 500 years of invasion and occupation. It also represented 500 years of resistance and struggle for self-determination. The former was cause to grieve and the latter cause to celebrate.

The First Continental Conference put the consciousness of American Indigenous peoples on a new and higher level. For the first time they had formed a direct network using the latest communications technology and were in constant contact on a hemispheric level. For the first time they were coordinating their common struggles for self-determination.

But what about those of us who did not come from Indian blood or culture? Modern American mass society is still based on a colonial mind set, and has not yet made its peace with this continent: we are on it but not yet of it. We have not yet learned how to live in indigenous American ways. To learn the right ways of living on Turtle Island, nonIndigenous Americans can begin by making our peace with history and with the Native peoples. Lost in the Euro-American version of liberty, has been community and sustainability. While we have gained in mobility, we have paid the heavy price of profound alienation, rootlessness, institutionalized social injustice, environmental devastation. The Native peoples’ struggle for control of their communities and respect for Mother Earth can light the way.

The U.S. government called the 1992 commemoration a “jubilee.” I looked up “jubilee” in the dictionary, and it read, “a year-long celebration held every fifty years in ancient Israel, in which all bondsmen were freed and alienated lands were restored to their original owners.”

Every society tells creation myths to its children, and the Euro-American creation myth that most of us learned as small children, is the Columbus story. I bought a children’s book recently that lays it out just as I heard it many years ago. Columbus the visionary explorer stumbles on a New World where he is welcomed by Indians who are awed by Europe’s superior cultural gifts. The children’s story ends with Columbus returning to Spain with the amazing news.

But of course the reality was far different, and did not end there. Columbus returned to the New World with a great armada, and proceeded to conquer and plunder wherever he went. His own writings clearly show that this had always been his plan. Christopher Columbus invented European imperialism, slavery, and the slave trade in the Western Hemisphere.

Yet Native peoples have survived. Over five million people in the US today are all or part American Indian, and most of the 54 million Latinos in the US today are partly or wholly of indigenous descent.

In facing the realities of the European invasion of the Americas with all its pain, in accepting an historical narrative based on truth instead of lies, in looking for new constructive origin tales to pass on to our children, where is there to turn but backwards, to the very oldest stories of our hemisphere.

Here in the Americas (or on Turtle Island, or Abya Yala, as they say in the Andes), perhaps our greatest hope for a livable future lies in the joining of the Condor’s and Eagle’s tears.

When I arrived back in California, USA, I found numerous people anxious to hear about the Quito gathering, and excitedly preparing for the counter-quincentennial in 1992. That was surely the experience of all the other Encuentro participants when they returned to their home communities. As we had all promised in Quito, we each reported back to our local compañeras and compañeros, and with them began to gear up for the coming 500 year commemoration. Over the following months almost every progressive cultural and social justice organization in the Bay Area region, Native and nonNative, would come together into the counter-quincentennial coalition known as RESISTANCE 500.

ENCUENTRO VIDEO

SAAIC made a video of the Encuentro, which you can watch on YouTube HERE.
http://youtu.be/X8_x25qC2VY

The video has a Spanish narration. Rose Auger, the spiritual leader of the Encuentro, who passed peacefully in 2006, speaks in English.

NOTES

1. An earlier version of this account, "The Dance of the Condor and the Eagle," by John Curl, was published in Terrain, Publication of the Berkeley Ecology Center, October, 1990.

2. Other first hand accounts of the Encuentro include:
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, "Christopher Columbus and 'The Stink Hiding the Sun,' an Interview with Creek Indian Poet Joy Harjo", Crossroads, October, 1990, No. 3: 16-23.
Elizabeth Bobsy Draper, ''Minga in Ecuador.'' Z Magazine, December 1990: 33–38.
Anthony Cody and Joe Lambert, "Celebrating 500 Years of Indian Resistance: Continental Meeting of Indigenous Peoples held in Ecuador," Unity, August 31, 1990: 5.
Luz Guerra, "The Encounter of the Condor and Eagle," AFSC (Texas-Arkansas-Oklahoma), News from the American Friends Service Committee, August, 1990, Vol.3, No. 3: 1-2.

3. Unless otherwise stated, all photos are by John Curl.