I slept in a deep slumber, the kind only a child does when safe in the family cocoon. Was I dreaming, or immersed in the story that my father read? The dense black clouds surrounded above. Any other day they would have scared me. But tonight, I marvelled in awe. The dreamy voice of my father narrating our story grew fainter and fainter… The Black cloud was my mother, of my parents, my grandparents, you know, the mother of our people.
The Diné, as the North American Navajo call themselves, have a collective myth of origin. Nature is a close part of their lives, a cherished member of their family. Sacred beings emerge from mother earth. Their myth of origin associates the four directions with respective colours, east-white, south-blue, west-yellow, and north-black. First, the world was like thick black wool, formless yet with four corners, where four cloud-like formations appeared, black, white, blue, and yellow. Each contained within the elements of this First World. A colour palette that would translate to paintings thereafter.
The Black cloud represented the Feminine ability to create. Just as a child sleeps while being nursed, life slept in the darkness of the feminine energy. It awaited the white cloud from the east, was it dawn, the light that awakens from sleep. This Male aspect would complete the magic for birth to occur. This is how the first World was born from the two opposite aspects. Both contributing to the creation of beings, that slowly took form as trees, animals, birds, a man, and a woman.
Tribal communities of India, Gond, Bhuiya & Juang from the central plateau, or the Madiga from the south have a similar story of how life began.
Mythology narrates "where east is its head, west the tail, south and north flank the mighty beast. It contains the entire Universe in its belly. The sky is held on its back. From its nostrils is wind-powered, from its eyes the Sun, from its heart the Moon, the navel represents birth and death, waterspouts from its sexual organ".
Natural elements have a significant place in the understanding of human birth and the Universe. It is a deep belief that each person was created in an image of the vast universe. Each one is inseparable from all other creations, all, flora, fauna. Harmony of life...
The Batak an indigenous tribe of north-eastern Palawan, believe that a unique energy ignites natural world, animate or inanimate. It is the same energy as their natural surroundings that is their consciousness. To them, the earth, sea, sky and nature’s elements belong to no one. Their social ethic is one of sharing.
On opposite ends of the earth, in prehistoric times, different indigenous cultures came with similar stories of creations. An emphatic and organic link to the Universe, oneness with nature.
There was a ginormous baobab tree in the middle of our village. We used to all sit around it, our feet touching as we formed a circle around the tree. He was the grandfather that had withstood time. My parents came below the tree with the desire to conceive my birth. The villagers came together to name me under the tree. I grew to believe the tree was my family.
Ubuntu, President Obama used the word in eulogy for late Nelson Mandela: a popular Zulu saying from Africa: ubuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, I am because we are, I am human because I belong. The collective identity of the tribe, the willingness to help each other, the ability to think of the 'other' person before self. Each individual is a collective player in the social web. Ubuntu brings an attitude of gratitude, for I am because of who you are. A life in harmonious mutual aid, man nature, and animal together with the elements.
Aboriginal people in Australia trace their history as a mirror of the sky above. They find a parallel between the stars and constellations that guide their cultural trajectories on earth. Their songlines are an expression of an ancient memory code. An oral history etched on walls of ancient caves, their collective memory, and in our times painted on canvas.
Ever since my memory goes, to thousands of years, I remember the Songs etched in lines. The songlines trace the journeys of my ancestral people. Ancient spirits who created land, its inhabitants, the plants, animals, and humans. My ancestors painted the songs in lines that became our way to communicate.
Indigenous Peoples constitute distinct cultural groups with their specific social structures that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they have lived through time. Their identities are intrinsically linked to the natural resource of the land they inhabit. It forms the cradle for their cultural lore, provides their livelihoods, as well as their physical and spiritual well-being. 'Indigenous' or 'autochthonous' is often characterised as people:
- Having a strong self-identification to their community individually and accepted by their communities as a member.
- With a historical continuity with pre-colonial or pre-settler societies
- Having a strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources
- Who maintain and develop their ancestral environments
- Have their own distinctive social, economic, or political systems
- Have a distinct language, culture, and beliefs.
The term 'indigenous' has become the politically correct generic term over the last many years. In some countries, there may be a preference for other terms including tribes, first peoples or first nations, natives, aboriginals, ethnic groups, adivasi, janajati... Occupational and geographical terms like hunter-gatherers, nomads, peasants, hill people, have also coexisted, which are perhaps more descriptive. For all practical purposes, these can be used interchangeably with 'indigenous'. In many instances, the notion of being designated 'indigenous' has negative connotations. Over time and social ostracization, some communities dislike these appellations and may choose not to reveal their origin.
There are approximately 476 million Indigenous Peoples worldwide, in over 90 countries. "Although they make up over 6 percent of the global population, they account for about 15 percent of the extreme poor… While Indigenous Peoples own, occupy, or use a quarter of the world's surface area, they safeguard 80 percent of the world's remaining biodiversity. They hold vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks." (World Bank Report, 2020)
People after people, indigenous communities have an indelible and organic bridge between the myth of their creation and the harmony that infuses them on earth. Plants and animals are close cousins. These cultures are natural safeguards of the environment that they have sustainably used over the last so many centuries from as far as historical memory goes.
These communities have lived their lands harmoniously since times immemorial, from the landmass of Australia, across Asia, in Europe, Africa, and in the deep recesses of the Amazonian forests to the tundra of poles. Living in the most inaccessible parts, perhaps a factor responsible for their survival.
So, who am I? I am an indigenous artist, born and raised in one of these communities. I am Diné, Gond, Arawak, Maasai and so many others. These are our histories, that I narrate. Come back often as I unfold our tales, our stories in paintings and sculptures. Stories of our ancestral people who sat under the night sky. They looked up at the stars and narrated them. I slept to these as my father recounted, as did his father and for generations before. Or when grandmothers made us sit around the warm hearth, we thanked our ancestors as we dined.
There were stories of forests and their inhabitants, of the Sun and the Moon and voyages through mountains… but that is for later. We are just starting here.
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