Essential Afro-Latino/ Caribbean Current Events

[Yehuda]

Bolivia’s African King Speaks For Coca Growers

“People don’t understand that it is not a drug.”

By Bill Weinberg

Among the coca-growing peasants of Bolivia’s Yungas region (the country’s prime legal cultivation zone) is a substantial Afro-Bolivian population—descendants of slaves who were brought in by the Spanish colonialists to work in the silver mines and haciendas centuries ago. Some have inter-married with the indigenous Aymara people of the Yungas, forming a distinctive Afro-Aymara culture.

The Guardian recently noted the 10th anniversary of the coronation of the “King of the Afro-Bolivians,” Julio I—said to be South America’s last reigning monarch, although he lives as a cocalero and grocery-shop keeper in the little village of Mururata. His dominion—recognized by the Bolivian government—extends to a few dozen rural villages, as well as some city dwellers who together make up the 25,000-strong Afro-Bolivian community.

A profile last year in Guatemala’s Prensa Libre noted wryly that Julio Pinedo, 75, “is probably the poorest king in the world,” and that he works eight hours a day in his coca fields. Although already regarded as the king of the Afro-Bolivians in the Yungas, he was formally crowned on December 3, 2007, in a ceremony recognized by the national authorities in La Paz.

The African Kingdom In The Coca Zone

Julio was declared king by virtue of his descent from Prince Uchicho, who established an autonomous zone of freed slaves in the Yungas when Bolivia won its freedom from Spain.

This legendary figure arrived in Bolivia from Senegal in 1820, after crossing the ocean on one of the last slave ships to leave West Africa. He was sold to a hacienda in the Yungas.

Bolivia was then in the midst of its war of independence, which was won five years later. Slavery was abolished in the country’s 1826 constitution. Because he had been the son of a Kikongo tribal king in Africa, Uchicho became the leader of liberated slaves of the Yungas and was declared their king in 1832. The community grew as freed slaves from the silver mines of Potosí began joining their kin in the more fertile lands of the Yungas. They learned to grow coca from their Aymara neighbors.

Julio received family lore about his royal descent from his father, a community leader named Bonifacio who in 1932 (the centenary of Uchicho’s coronation) established the Royal House of Afrobolivia and was named the first monarch of the revived kingdom. Bonifacio died in 1954, and Julio succeded him upon reaching adulthood.

“Without doubt the king’s role is important,” Zenaida Pérez of the Afro-Bolivian Language and Culture Institute told The Guardian. “He represents much of what our Mother Africa has left us.”

Bolivia’s 2008 constitution recognizes the autonomy of African descendants, and recent years have seen the first Afro-Bolivian legislators and civil servants. Over the past decade, an Afro-Bolivian cultural renaissance has flowered, with a re-awakening of the people’s identity. In 2016, Julio, his wife Angela and their grandson and crown prince Rolando visited Senegal, Congo and other African countries to try to re-establish contact with their long-lost relatives.

Coca Leaf & Cultural Survival: Bolivia’s African King Speaks For Coca Growers

The coca leaf that is indigenous to the Yungas is now an integral part of Afro-Bolivian culture.

Their people have been growing it for generations, and they are today very much a part of the effort to expand the legal internal market for the leaf in Bolivia, where it is widely used for chewing and máte (herbal tea)—and to decouple the plant from the narco stigma.

As Julio wrote in an autobiographical essay for The Guardian: “We grew citrus, coffee and most of all coca—the ‘sacred’ leaf, as this is what gives us life. Without coca there would be nothing in the Yungas. Coca is our means of support; it allows our children to go to school; it feeds us, dresses us and gives us life. People don’t understand that it is not a drug. We don’t even know how to make cocaine; we have never touched it, seen it or tasted it.”

Bolivia’s African King Speaks For Coca Growers

 

[Jammer22]

after emancipation, i knew Jamaicans went to Central/Latin America but i thought they only went to Panama and Cuba. They pretty much when all the way down the Central American coast from Belize to Colombia to work on sugar and banana plantations. Black Ticos are basically Spanish speaking Jamaicans apparently.

I got a grand uncle in Cuba. Dude was trapped out there when the revolution happened. No one heard from him again. If I ever get money, I want to track the guy down.

 

[BigMan]

I finally figured out why Oklahoma has the (second) highest Dutch West Indian population in the US
all these years i was like

 

[Yehuda]

In Colombia, Marxist Rebels Hold the Oil Industry Hostage

Guerrillas have resumed attacks on critical energy infrastructure, threatening the government’s pursuit of foreign investors.

By Maximo Anderson | January 10 2018

An ELN combatant walks through a village in northwest Colombia.
PHOTOGRAPHER: RAMÓN CAMPOS IRIARTE

From a distance, the muffled sounds of laughter could be heard along with the loud crackle of a microphone. Marxist guerrillas from the National Liberation Army were hosting an event for residents of Noanamá, a village in the rainforest in northwestern Colombia. After updating the audience on the latest developments in peace negotiations with the government, rebels took turns at the mic taunting each other with rhyming ditties that were met with raucous laughter and applause.

Among those trying out their wit that evening was an Afro-Colombian rebel whose nom de guerre is Negro Primero. He joined the group, which is best known by its Spanish initials, ELN, when he was 15 years old, he said, but would not share his current age or where he was from. He did concede that he’d previously been stationed in Arauca, an oil-rich province that’s been the group’s stronghold for the past 35 years. Asked what kept him and his comrades in the bush—more than a year after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had agreed to lay down its arms—he responded: “Let me ask you something, my little gringo. What would you do if you were born here, amid this misery and injustice?”

An ELN flag marks the limit of the rebels’ territory along the Atrato River.
PHOTOGRAPHER: RAMÓN CAMPOS IRIARTE

A three-month cease-fire—the first in three years of negotiations between the ELN and the government—expired on Jan. 9. While the group’s leadership, which claims around 4,000 fighters, had pledged to carry on with talks, rebels resumed attacks on a vital oil pipeline that runs through Arauca just hours after the deadline expired.

Since it was inaugurated in 1986, the 485-mile conduit, which connects the Caño Limón oil field operated by Occidental Petroleum Corp. to the port of Coveñas on the Caribbean Sea, has been dynamited about a thousand times—or once a week, on average. There have been so many holes made in it some locals refer to it as la flauta (the flute).

The attacks have claimed 167 lives and put the pipeline out of commission for 3,800 days, or 10.4 years, according to the state oil company, Ecopetrol SA, depriving it and its private-sector partners of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Some 1.5 million gallons of crude have been spilled since 2000 alone, which hasn’t endeared the ELN to environmentalists.

The group was founded in 1964 by students inspired by the Cuban revolution and Catholic priests steeped in liberation theology. Unlike the FARC, which relied heavily on drug trafficking to fund itself, the ELN has supported itself through a combination of kidnapping, extortion, and voluntary contributions. Victor de Currea-Lugo, a professor at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá and a leading expert on the group, points out that Arauca is virtually the only place in the country with little to no coca crops, thanks to an eradication campaign carried out by the ELN.

The distinction never made much difference in Washington, which designated both the ELN and the FARC as terrorist organizations in 1997. Under President George W. Bush, Washington sharply ramped up military aid to Colombia, with just shy of $100 million earmarked for training and equipping a Colombian brigade dedicated to protecting the pipeline.

The resumption of attacks in Arauca complicates matters for President Juan Manuel Santos, who’s been working to lure foreign companies to Colombia to explore for oil and minerals. The Colombian Petroleum Association, an industry group, expects investment by private oil companies to jump as much as 45 percent in 2018, to $4.9 billion, spurred by an improvement in security and the introduction last year of tax breaks for those investing in former conflict zones. Yet in a meeting with reporters in December, the association’s president, Francisco José Lloreda, said that’s still too little to replenish crude reserves, which have dipped to the equivalent of five years of production. Colombia’s neighbors, Ecuador and Venezuela, have about 40 years and 340 years of reserves, respectively.

“We have used the pipeline as a strategy to influence government [policy] and to pressure multinationals,” says Negro Primero. “But we are not using it as a tool to influence the negotiations.” After more than 40 attacks in the first nine months of 2017, including one that shut down the pipeline for seven weeks—the longest it’s been non-operational in 30 years—there were no incidents during the cease-fire. The show of goodwill didn’t mollify Juan Carlos Echeverry, who stepped down as president of Ecopetrol in August. He calls the ELN “an anachronism” and says the group “needs to stop its irrational violence.”

It’s common to see indigenous and Afro-Colombian youth among the guerrilla ranks.
PHOTOGRAPHER: RAMÓN CAMPOS IRIARTE

Bruce Bagley, a professor at the University of Miami who’s an expert on the conflict, says he feels optimistic about negotiations. While the rebels are often portrayed as intransigent, Bagley says “the ELN is serious about peace.” And so is the government: “Peace could attract lots of foreign investment, which Santos needs ASAP.”

Negro Primero says a treaty like the one struck with the FARC in 2016 will amount to surrender or, even worse, could lead to the ELN’s annihilation. Since laying down arms, 11 former FARC fighters have been assassinated, presumably by right-wing paramilitaries or paid hitmen working for landowners or politicians who would prefer to see the rebels behind bars or dead rather than reintegrated into society. The ELN rebels are demanding guarantees of their safety if they disarm.

Bagley acknowledges that Santos hasn’t fulfilled many of the pledges made in the peace process with the FARC. In particular, the government has dragged its feet implementing land reform and ensuring security. The ELN argues its struggle is necessary to help bring about racial and environmental justice and fairer land distribution, and to resist exploitation by foreign corporations.

In an end-of-year address posted online, the ELN’s jefe máximo, who goes by the alias Gabino, promised to continue negotiations even if hostilities resumed. Meanwhile, Colombia’s defense minister, Luis Carlos Villegas, said in a speech in December that the army would “confront [the ELN] with full force” if the cease-fire isn’t extended. For his part, Negro Primero seems less than eager to lay down the U.S.-made M16 rifle that lies by his side during our conversation. “We’re proud to be the last armed insurgency on the continent,” he says. “We’ll fight to the end if we have to.”

(Updates throughout to reflect renewal of rebel attacks hours after the ceasefire expired.)

BOTTOM LINE - Colombia’s National Liberation Army has spent more than three decades targeting oil companies. The government needs peace to lure investment to the country.

In Colombia, Marxist Rebels Hold the Oil Industry Hostage

 

[BigMan]

Marxism in 2018

 

[Yehuda]

What's facepalm worthy is how the government deliberately neglects their part of the country I'm all for them to blow these pipes up until they get whatever they want.

 

[BigMan]

What's facepalm worthy is how the government deliberately neglects their part of the country I'm all for them to blow these pipes up until they get whatever they want.

meanwhile indigenous people and their communities suffer directly from these attacks

 

[Yehuda]

Bahamas contemplates decriminalising marijuana

Saturday, January 13, 2018

NASSAU, Bahamas (CMC) – A movement is building in the Bahamas to decriminalise marijuana.

This follows a town hall meeting held here by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Regional Commission on Marijuana last week.

The initiative is one of several in Caribbean countries, with some stakeholders eager to join other international communities and embrace the region's marijuana culture.

The meeting was part of Caricom's mandate to ascertain public opinion in member-countries on the issue.

The commission was established by regional leaders in 2014 with the objective of conducting a rigorous enquiry into the social, economic, health and legal issues surrounding marijuana use in the Caribbean.

The commission also seeks to determine whether there should be a change in the current drug classification of marijuana, thereby making the drug more accessible for all types of usage and to recommend, if there is to be a re-classification, the legal and administrative conditions that shall apply.to address the issues identified.

The Bahamas was the latest stop for the commission with the most recent public consultations taking place in Guyana in November and Antigua and Barbuda last year.

The Bahamas meeting follows initiatives in Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis and other Caribbean countries to explore marijuana decriminalisation.

Last year, the Jamaican Government and tourism officials established the first official links to surging weed tourism, nearly two years after the country enacted legislation to ease penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

“Cannabis-infused tourism has a place in Jamaica's product mix, alongside all-inclusive resorts and mass tourism,” said Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica's tourism minister.

In a recent radio interview, Prime Minister of St Kitts Nevis Dr Timothy Harris said his Government was “ready for open dialogue with the relevant stakeholders on the issue of the decriminalisation of marijuana“.

Bahamas contemplates decriminalising marijuana

 

[Yehuda]

Tu Pum Pum: As Reggaeton Goes Pop, Never Forget the Genre’s Black Roots

By Eddie Cepeda | 2 hours ago

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

Reggaeton began organically as a transformation of dancehall, hip-hop, and reggae en español. As an Afro-diasporic movement, Panama, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and New York are all pivotal landscapes in the style’s musical evolution. Through Tu Pum Pum: The Story of Reggaeton, a new column by Eddie Cepeda, we’ll explore reggaeton’s history, sociopolitical struggles, and its impact as a global force in music and culture.

In 2017, “Despacito” became a global pop culture phenomenon. It was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 2018 Grammys, the first mostly Spanish-language track to hold that honor in both categories.

But its success last year was complicated. Some fans and critics viewed reggaeton’s re-entry to the top of the U.S. charts as a come-up for Latinxs in the music industry – a cathartic affirmation of our place not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The fact that a Spanish-language song reached no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the era of Donald Trump’s raging vitriol can be framed as a testament to the enduring legacy of our cultures. Yet others view it not as a triumph, but reggaeton’s blanqueamiento – an affront to the Afro-diasporic pioneers who literally had to fight for their right to dembow.

As a new wave of highly marketable pop-reggaeton has taken hold of the music industry, the artists at the forefront of the movement have started to look less and less like the genre’s pioneers. Many see these stars are purposely palatable to white, North American audiences – and light-skinned and white Latinos, whose class privilege helped shape negative attitudes towards reggaeton during its commercial explosion. But it wasn’t long ago that the genre now proudly touted as “Reggaeton Latino” existed within a subculture shunned by mainstream society.

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

Before Justin Bieber talked his way into reggaeton history, and before Luis Fonsi was named Puerto Rico’s tourism ambassador in the whirlwind of “Despacito’s” success, reggaeton had to battle for acceptance. It existed as a lowbrow, stigmatized genre, shackled to a legacy of racism and colorism, first in Panama, and then in Puerto Rico once it was consolidated as the music we recognize today.

Proto-reggaeton, or “underground,” began in part when Vico C and DJ Negro met in the mid-80s. Their mutual affinity for Afro-diasporic music included hip-hop, dancehall, the plena of Panama, and beyond. They’re viewed as the godfathers of reggaeton, although the sampled beats on their early underground mixtapes came mostly from mainland hip-hop records. These early tapes have few signs of the dembow riddim, but they opened the door for Spanish-language rappers in Puerto Rico to have a platform. Initially only producing about 20 copies (according to scholar Raquel Z. Rivera), the music spread through informal distribution networks, with fans sharing and copying the tapes mostly within caseríos, public housing projects in Puerto Rico.

At first, the underground movement went largely unnoticed by those outside the projects, considering the caseríos were (and to a large extent still are) some of the most neglected and marginalized communities of Puerto Rico. But the organic growth of the genre via the bootleg tapes and CDs eventually captured the attention of local audiences.

Then, reggae en español, pioneered by Panamanian descendants of West Indians who migrated to the isthmus to work on the Panama Canal, began circulating in Puerto Rico. Panamanian plena from artists like El General, Nando Boom, and Renato influenced underground artists on the island. “Reggae” or dembow riddims started dominating the scene as underground grew. The danceability of the dembow riddim, with the addition of timbal accents on the backbeat, fueled early reggaeton’s popularity. By the time DJ Playero’s wildly successful Playero 38 was released in 1994, dembow drove the sound of underground. Featuring performances from Daddy Yankee (Yankee’s debut was on Playero’s Playero 34 in 1992), Frankie Boy and Yaviah, Playero 38 helped catapult underground into the bedrooms, clubs, and Walkmans of Puerto Rico’s youth. The 1994 release of Wiso G’s Sin Parar, the first underground album on an official record label (NRT Inc.), brought the kind of attention and notoriety that sent mainstream Puerto Rican culture into a full hysteria against the genre.

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

During the anti-crime initiative Mano Dura Contra el Crimen, championed by then newly elected governor Pedro Rosselló, and lasting from 1993-1999, government officials targeted reggaeton fans by raiding caseríos where the genre was flourishing. The music incensed the Puerto Rican government to the extent that raids included record stores that sold mixtapes. This censorship – justified by writers and politicians with a profound disdain for reggaeton – bore a striking resemblance to the censorship faced by the bomba of the previous generation. In February of 1995, Puerto Rico’s police department, in conjunction with the National Guard, raided six record stores in and around San Juan. The raids were part of Operation Centurion, which fell under the Mano Dura Contra el Crimen, and sought to control the marginalized communities of Puerto Rico’s population in the caseríos. As Petra Rivera-Rideau writes in her book Remixing Reggaeton, Operation Centurion marked these poor, mostly black neighborhoods as key sites for violence, hypersexuality, and drug use.

The raids weren’t meant to seize drugs, weapons, or even to stop prostitution. The targets were cassettes. The demand for underground tapes had spread out of the urban core and into the suburbs of Puerto Rico, where the children of well-to-do business people and politicians had perreo fever. Fueled by the conservative watch group Morality in Media, the anti-reggaeton campaign raged on. Citing violent and hypersexualized lyrics, Morality in Media argued that Puerto Rico’s youth was being led to indulge in rampant sex, drugs, and violence against others. Subsequent raids on public schools focused on the confiscation of weapons, drug paraphernalia, alcohol, and underground music. Reggaeton was officially contraband.

There’s no denying that reggaeton’s subject matter did often highlight violence, sexuality, and misogyny – though Afro Puerto Rican artists like Tego Calderón used the platform early on to voice their issues with classism and racism. But the thought of criminalizing free speech was absurd, as history showed time and time again that it was bound to fail. Many reggaetoneros chose to refocus their lyrical content, a move that only brought more attention to the embattled genre and its proponents.

Aside from the temporary inconvenience of lost merchandise and frivolous arrests, the raids on the stores did little to curb reggaeton’s ascent. But the op-eds, press conferences, and raids persisted – and with them came a groundswell in reggaeton’s popularity. More and more of the population embraced the genre, as elements of Puerto Rico’s folkloric identity seeped into the music. Though dembow – a riddim read as “black” – remained at the center, the sound shifted to include instrumentation traditionally associated with Latin music, like timbales and the tres. Luny Tunes’ Mas Flow and Tego Calderón’s El Abayarde (both released in 2003) used more obvious cultural signifiers of Latinidad with their heavy bachata guitar riffs and bomba influences. These inherited musical legacies melded with reggaeton’s identity, taking the genre – as Wayne Marshall said in a 2009 anthology about reggaeton’s commercialization – “from música negra” to “reggaeton Latino,” which meant heightened acceptance among Puerto Rico’s white population.

Art by Alan Lopez for Remezcla

But the government wasn’t ready to give up the fight. The next target of their ire was the alleged pornography and objectification of women in music videos. Like the Mano Dura era, this attack also fell flat, as many of the women in the videos praised the opportunities they carved out as a result of their appearances. Some, like Jenny la Sexy Voz and Glory, used their sexuality to game a fundamentally patriarchal and oppressive system, crafting important roles as backup up singers or eventually branching out into solo careers.

Reggaeton wouldn’t be stopped; its popularity grew exponentially with each passing political condemnation. As we all know, Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” and N.O.R.E.’s “Oye Mi Canto” catapulted reggaeton into the international lexicon in the mid-aughts. Don Omar declared the genre “Reggaeton Latino,” while Luny Tunes familiarized the world with bachata-style requintos. Artists like Shakira and Alejandro Sanz jumped on the trend, pushing reggaeton towards a more widely acceptable, “whitened” iteration.

As the success of “Despacito” shows, reggaeton is now pop music. “Despacito” holds a similar historical significance as the “Macarena;” both are the only mostly Spanish-language songs to reach no. 1 on the American charts since “La Bamba.” Both are pasteurized versions of genres that were once black and marginalized, but gained mainstream visibility, and thus white acceptance: “Macarena” with its faux-techno foundation, “Despacito,” a standard pop number with a dembow-derived rhythm. And both are songs about sexual gratification that have surely tricked more than their fair share of church-going suburbanites into dancing on a cruise ship.

But no matter how many records a reggaeton single breaks, some will continue to attack the genre they perceive as low-class and crude – like Aleks Syntek, who recently suggested the genre comes from apes, a snide and racist reference to its black roots.

Colorism is alive and strong, and people like Syntek seemingly face little backlash for their contemptuous views on black culture. Nevermind the fact that Syntek is deeply indebted to the Afro-diasporic genres of hip-hop and house in many of his endeavors, including the unintentionally comical project Calo.

Reggaeton has come a long way from the besieged “música negra” of the caseríos. And it’s more important now than ever to tell the story of how it got here. Reggaeton’s increased visibility will undoubtedly lead to further dilution of the genre, which purists say is already coming in the form of the “sanded-down” new wave of Colombian artists leading the genre’s charge over the charts. The gradual blanqueamiento of a genre is nothing new. Jazz, blues, and disco have all suffered from similar battles – both from attempted regulation and from industry sanitization. The Larry Levans of yesteryear are replaced by the Diplos of today.

Musical commodification is never monolithic. There’s complex nuance in a genre’s growth. Reggaeton’s domination is important for Latinx visibility on a global scale, but at what price? As the genre increases in acceptance and popularity, it’s key to remember that it was considered low-class and dangerous when it was predominantly read as black. The image that reggaeton’s new wave of marketable, light-skinned stars portray sweeps its origins as “música negra” under the rug, and affirms colorism’s strong grip on Latin American culture. That’s not to say that the artists leading reggaeton’s pop surge shouldn’t be allowed to the party. But a truly inclusive understanding of Latinidad and its diverse, complex communities should represent all facets of it – especially the Afro-diasporic communities who created it.

Tu Pum Pum: As Reggaeton Goes Pop, Never Forget the Genre’s Black Roots

 

[BigMan]

And I hope those spanish nikkas give Rvssian his credit too

 

[PerrinN]

Jamaica bans anti-gay Arizona pastor from visiting country


getting there slowly

 

[Yehuda]

Black Tourism: Pioneer project needs community support to take an important step forward

By Silvia Nascimento - January 17 2018

There is no better way to enjoy freedom than traveling. The afro-tourism market is seldom explored, but it has a huge potential as the demand among black travelers for places that remind them of their culture is is rapidly expanding.

The Diáspora.Black project brings together hosts and travelers, black or non-black, that want to indulge in afrocentered tourism or simply want to stay at black-owned houses or apartments. It already covers 12 countries and most of the clients are black women.

In big platforms such as Airbnb, for instance, there are many accounts of racism, like guests being denied for the color of their skin or even people who don't want to book a stay at a black-owned house. See the startup's CEO Carlos Humberto's testimony.



In spite of this strong sociocultural appeal, Diáspora Black is a business, a startup and it needs support in order to grow. The project was the only black-owned company selected for the growth acceleration program at Estação Haack, Facebook's first business accelerator and it will last 6 months. The scheduling was done in partnership with Artemísia, the main social impact business supporter in the country.

This is a big step forward for the company, but the three partners live in Rio de Janeiro and Estação is in São Paulo. In order to support themselves during the program, they started a campaign at the Catarse financing platform. The goal is R$ 35 thousand reais. The money will be used for accomodation, transport and food.



The donations start from R$ 15 and the rewards go from breakfasts to daily rates at houses located in Brazilian tourist attractions.

Black Tourism: Pioneer project needs community support to take an important step forward

 

[frush11]

def want to visti Colombia, specifically Cali, Cartegena (blackest cities), San Andres (apparently the indigenous are Jamaican descendants) and Medellin

Don't forget Buenaventura on the West, over 90 percent Black.

 

[Yehuda]

Black Ancestral Medicine in Ecuador’s Pacific Coast

by Raul Ceballos
February 1, 2018

Every tincture solution contains plants that grow in the northern forests of Esmeraldas. Photo: Raul Ceballos

Ecuador is home to some of the richest biodiversity and cultural diversity in the world, attracting more than 700,000 foreign nationals in 2017 alone. But while the world knows much about the heritage of the Kichwas in the mountains or the Shuar in the Amazon, the public profile of the country downplays its very deep Black history. The coastal province of Esmeraldas is much more than a hotbed for the most savory seafood dishes Ecuador has to offer. It is also home to the Afro-Ecuadorian community and a rich variety of distinct medicinal practices, cultural traditions and ceremonial festivals, such as the Marimba now recognized by UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The Esmeraldas region originated as a series of Maroon settlements made up of people escaping from the Colombian slave trade. Fleeing the brutal conditions of the metal mines in Colombia, many people sought refuge in the forests of the Choco region on the Pacific coast; a zone that ranges from Panama all the way to the northern coast of Ecuador. Despite initial conflicts with coastal Indigenous nations (the Chachi, Awá, Epera, and Cayapas), the escaped slaves would soon develop a long, complex, and intertwining history spanning more than 400 years of cultural and communal exchange. Along with music and cuisine, Black and Indigenous communities on the coast share some of the same cosmological qualities of traditional medicine and healing.

In Esmeraldas province, there are two main regions to take note of: the ancestral North and the touristy South. The differences between the two are striking. The South of Esmeraldas can be described as a much hotter region that is characterized by a chain of beaches. It also has a close relationship with public and private capital investments in tourism and oil production. The North, however, is primarily jungle and it is comprised of a network of rivers that stretch all the way into Colombia, with rich, fertile lands dominated by gold deposits and the African Palm industry. The region, which is made up of the counties San Lorenzo and Eloy Alfaro, has also been described as “Nobody’s Land” for its recent history of wanton gold extraction at the expense of the pollution of its rivers. San Lorenzo is the northernmost point of the province, sharing a border with Colombia. It is considered a key ancestral center of the Black community in Ecuador.

Women as the Stewards of Healing

The best way to describe Esmeraldas in regards to its ancestral medicine is that it is a “hybrid community,” a place in which people seek multiple forms of healing for conditions that affect them throughout their lives. We can say it is a way to cover one’s bases. In San Lorenzo, people often seek out ancestral medicines as a first aid, only resorting to hospitals when all other remedies fail or during emergencies. Throughout my time here, most people are reactionary when seeking care, so regular visits to a doctor for physicals are only done when it is an institutional requirement (such as enrollment for school).

A noteworthy quality of Afro-Ecuadorian traditional medicine in Northern Esmeraldas is that women are often the carriers and purveyors of these practices, a striking difference from their Indigenous counterparts. Benita Angulo (colloquially known as Venus) is from San Lorenzo and is a partera (a midwife) and a comadrona (a role that functions much like a doula). She is also a licensed auxiliary nurse and worked in the Public Health Ministry for 18 years, only having recently retired. Before her career in the public sector, Venus practiced medicine for more than 30 years as an attendant for her now-deceased mother, one of the only parteras in San Lorenzo. Although she is now retired from formal employment, Benita still attends to pregnant women who seek her services; “and I give them a great price at $20,” she would often say with a smile.

Venus stands in her back patio, which is a garden of all of the plants she utilizes for her work. Photo: Raul Ceballos

“So much has changed since those times with my mother.” It is clear that the presence and reach of the state public healthcare system has really weakened the practice and maintenance of ancestral medicine. Through former president Rafael Correa’s “Citizen’s Revolution,” medical services are provided free-of-charge and people in San Lorenzo, which is one of the poorest regions of the country, often take up this option. In addition, the national government refuses to economically integrate parteras into the state healthcare system, so the parteras that would’ve otherwise charged for their services in older times now remain outpriced by a bloated healthcare system. Today, comadronas can hardly live off of their craft alone and must make ends meet by participating in more formal economies such as gold mining in the rivers (playando) and hunting for concha (black shell clams) in the mangroves.

Venus shows me one of the bins of cultivated herbs she uses to treat her patients. Photo: Raul Ceballos

For much of Ecuador’s history, Esmeraldas was often neglected and marginalized from the national political spotlight. Western trained doctors and nurses were rarely a presence, and when they did find themselves in the region they often collaborated with local healers and the parteras. Venus reflected fondly of a doctor from Quito, Dr. Aurelio Fuentes, whom was particularly interested in the endemic plants of the region and their curative properties. He often collaborated with local healers to better streamline the care people received and make sure they had all ends covered. For the better part of 30 years, he was the only Western-trained doctor in San Lorenzo until he retired in the 1990s. In this context of scarcity, parteras were the first line of defense for expecting mothers–and they often employed many elements of nature such as river currents, plants, and even wild weeds in the forest.

When evaluating any healthcare system, it is important to analyze how that “universal public health system” modifies itself based on each regional context to better meet the needs of the community. Under Correa, a couple new hospitals were built in Northern Esmeraldas and the increased access to Western medicine was hailed as a milestone for the Black community. The quality of that care, however, leaves much to be desired. “Modern” obstetrics and prenatal care, Venus laments, has automated the relationship between woman and healer, centralizing the experience around the time/comfort of the doctor as opposed to the well-being of the person. She had stressed to me that during her time in the public health system, she had seen lines of pregnant women waiting to give birth, some of which were even left naked at the hospital. “That’s not how we did things as parteras. We gave individual care to each woman, covered her in a blanket. It was all so personal, we bathed her in plant solutions to soothe her. It isn’t like that now… now there are assembly lines.”

 

[Yehuda]

Plants and Nature are the Most Effective Medicines

Walking through her small ranch of about 6 hectares, Yenny Nazareno points out which plants/weeds can be used to season food and which have medicinal applications— they were often one in the same. Chillangua (Eryngium foetidum) is a staple in Afro-Ecuadorian cuisine that is often used to season fish and meats. As a tea however, it can soothe and calm an upset stomach. Chiraran (Ocimum basilicum, or Wild Basil) is also a delicious condiment for seasoning food and it, too, can be prepared as a tea to cleanse the liver.

In addition to the plants in the forest, the rivers are an important factor in healing and childbirth. Both Venus and Yenny indicated that, in combination with massages to the stomach, the flow of the river could be used to help a woman give birth as the currents would orient the baby in her body.

Yenny points out to me the plant called Nacedera, which is often prepared for various ailments in a women’s pregnancy. Photo: Raul Ceballos

While pills and pharmaceuticals dominate women’s pregnancy in other areas of Ecuador, plant preparations still make up the first line of defense in San Lorenzo. In medicinal preparations called tragos, different plants, fruits, and spices can be mixed together with sugar cane alcohol for a variety of applications. Nacedera is a plant that grows in the forests of northern Esmeraldas; it is often used as a tea to treat inflammation in pregnant women. After giving birth, it can also be prepared as a beberizo, often mixed with sulfur, brown sugar, and fermented sugar cane to help women shrink their bellies and prevent wrinkling. Unfortunately, due to the wide and concentrated use of pesticides in the monoculture of the northern forests of Esmeraldas, many of the wild plants/weeds that were used for generations to cure sickness are now disappearing.

Yenny picks some wild weeds from the ground to prepare our lunch for the day. These same weeds are also used as medicines for various stomach ailments. Photo: Raul Ceballos

In addition to plants, song and prayer can be effective tools in healing a person, especially in cases where a disease is more spiritual. Like most places in the world, Afro-Ecuadorian culture in Esmeraldas carries its own history of ethno-diseases such as El Ojo (The Eye), Mal Aire (Bad Air), and El Espanto (The Fright). In addition to plant preparations and baths, different kinds of prayers and songs are invoked to complete the healing process for these ailments. Songs and lullabies are mostly used to lull sick children into a state of tranquility and rest so they won’t have to think about their conditions. “There is an intangible magic when it comes to these cantos (songs),” Yenny told me, affirming the psychological and vibrational effects these practices have on the healing process. It is already well-established that sleep heals our bodies tremendously, and so invoking rest on children to stimulate this healing is a very powerful process in traditional medicine.

Developments in Medicinal Science in the Afro-Ecuadorian Community

Marco Vernaza is what one might call a maverick in the realm of health in San Lorenzo. He is part of a small group of medicinal workers, many of which are also Western trained, whom aim to restore some of the traditional values of healing that once existed in the region. Like Venus, he is also formally educated (he has a degree in Nutrition), but he is informed by his experiences and culture. His aunt, whom he followed closely during his childhood, was a curandera (female traditional healer) who primarily used plant medicines to treat patients in San Lorenzo. This stayed with him throughout his life and his career.

Today, he treats patients using the principles he learned at university and the ones that he grew up with in San Lorenzo. Interestingly, he is currently experimenting with the usage of tinctures as treatment for chronic illness using plants in the area (including some of the plants mentioned previously). He told me that tinctures and the alcohol used to extract the molecules from each plant are concentrated doses that, at small frequencies, can provide tremendous benefits to his patients. He has treated people with diabetes and chronic pain, and is currently treating a woman suffering from cancer who has grown tired of chemotherapy. When asked about what drove her to this decision, he replied: “it really has to do with the quality of how you want your life or your death.”

Marco with his set of tinctures. Each bottle is filled with a solution of alcohol and ancestral plants that grow in the region. Photo: Raul Ceballos

Alcohol as a catalyst for treatment is not something new either. In addition to the beberizo mentioned earlier, there are a variety of other alcohol preparations that help people medicinally. The gloriado, for example, is a staple ancestral drink here in San Lorenzo made with a variety of plants, sulfur, aguardiente (sugar cane alcohol) and different spices. For stomach problems, it works like a charm (it has my testimony) and certain preparations can help with fertility problems. There are some people that even come from the cities to seek the perfect gloriado to help them conceive a child.

The Ecuadorian State: Gatekeepers of Medical Diversity

The constitution of Ecuador has a fairly progressive stance in regards to the practice and recognition of the territory’s traditional medicines. Despite these symbolic inclusions to the state, however, traditional practitioners cannot legally prescribe or diagnose sickness. Under “Acuerdo 037,” a law passed in 2016, ancestral medicines are legally grouped together with “alternative medicines” and subject to the same legal penalties/conditions. “This was a low blow, another form of killing a medicine,” Marco stressed to me upon explaining the law. The second-class status of traditional medicines was echoed by Venus as well, “parteras are not even allowed to enter the emergency room of their patients. They are restricting our very movements as healers.”

Although recognized by some as a Leftist country, Ecuador goes only so far as to recognize ancestral knowledge. No concrete effort has been made to integrate that knowledge and the people whom practice it with the state’s health initiatives. In other parts of the country, mainly the Sierra (the region of the Andes Mountains), local pressure has obligated more resources to partially include Indigenous midwives in the wider health network or at the very least create spaces for them. The medical revolution is far from sight, however; in Esmeraldas, all efforts to institutionally protect both Indigenous and Black medicine have been met with corruption by state and local actors. Yenny recounted that the few efforts funded by NGO’s and grants to create spaces for Black curanderas and parteras failed due to San Lorenzo’s particularly corrupt political climate.

Diversity in the Evolution of Medicine

Latin America isn’t a place where communities search for only one form of healing. It has historically been a melting pot of ancestral knowledge stemming from Indigenous communities and the Africans brought over through slavery. These “hybrid communities” are made up of people who seek multiple sources of healing to cover their bases. In San Lorenzo, folks often go to their local curandera or curandero (male traditional healer) and a Western-trained medical doctor at the state hospital in the same week—and it never creates any sense of contradiction. This complex relationship is not lost on the people either, as Marco explained: “the act of healing is never an absolute practice. We as healers basically practice art and therefore can never promise results.” Every patient that Marco sees he also treats as a case for investigation and experimentation to optimize which combinations of tinctures and plant remedies work best for some conditions over others.

Marco demonstrates to me his tincture kit. Each vial contains about a month’s worth of tincture extract for his patients. Photo: Raul Ceballos

And even with all of his knowledge and insistence in the practice of botanical and ancestral medical interventions, Marco never refuted the merits of Western medicine: “it is very useful for emergencies.” His philosophy stresses casting a wider net into our health so that we may live more fully and holistically. “We all have unique cosmic distinctions… Every person is different and requires their health care be catered to their individual needs.” In addition, he argues, everyone should have the right to access these treatments at fair prices, free, or at the very least with support from their state medical system. Calling them “Medicinas Libres” (Free Medicines), Marco stresses that treatments for chronic conditions should be accessible so that “people can learn and apply ancestral medicine at home and in their communities for as little cost as possible.”

The Future of Wellness?

We are currently in the third year of the International Decade for People of African Descent, a recognition that indicates and highlights another branch of collective contributions to our human patrimony. One of the more insidious legacies of colonialism was the minimization and extermination of Indigenous and African trajectories of science, medicine, and engineering. It did not just attack practitioners but also created a system that would siphon off space and resources so that only certain kinds of medicine would evolve and flourish at the expense of others.

As exemplified in San Lorenzo, there will always be individuals whom are ecstatic about developing medicines that cater to the needs of their communities. It is telling how even in the “plurinational state” of Ecuador, which revolutionized the state’s relationship with its citizens, the institutional and legal impediments that stifle the development of traditional healing must be reconciled. Now more than ever in the 21st century, we are at risk of losing entire lineages of knowledge and healing, languages, and music, and every piece that we lose is a piece of human patrimony lost forever. The context in Ecuador, as well as for the rest of the world, begs the important question: how will we structure our state’s institutions to integrate other forms of medicine so that we can build a dynamic and flourishing diversity of wellness? As Marco candidly observed: “each form of medicine is just a piece of the same cake. The art of healing is figuring out the pieces that work best in our lives.”

Notes

¹ Beberizo is a mixture of the nacedera plant with other condiments for treating pregnant women and women whom have just given birth.

Black Ancestral Medicine in Ecuador’s Pacific Coast