Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Indigenous groups have come together in a caravan to speak out against destructive mega-projects and mining across 8 states in Mexico. EcoJustice Radio spoke with Victorino Torres Nava and Marcos Aguilar on the month-long demonstrations and the massive projects that inspired them.
Here we re-tell the creation myth of Ch’ujtiat from the Ch’ol People. Stories director Gabriela Badillo’s 68 Voices, 68 Hearts, a series of one-minute animations that preserve indigenous Mexican stories with narration provided by native speakers.
In this EcoJustice Radio episode, we discuss the struggle to protect the sacred lands and culture of the Wixárika people, also known popularly as the Huichol, an indigenous group inhabiting the remote reaches of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico. Our guests are Andrea Perez, Indigenous Environmental Justice Advocate, and Susana Valadez Director of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts. Jessica Aldridge did the interview.
In Aztec cosmology, the soul’s journey to the Underworld after death leaves them with four destinations: the Sacred Orchard of the Gods, the Place of Darkness, the Kingdom of the Sun, and a paradise called the Mansion of the Moon. The most common deaths end up on their way to Mictlán with its nine levels, crashing mountains and rushing rivers, and four years of struggle. This pantheon of gods and goddesses and the expanse of the 13 Heavens provides the cultural basis for the Day of the Dead customs and celebrations.
The film ‘Corazón Vaquero: The Heart of the Cowboy’, documents the rural “Californios,” raising livestock in the way of their Spanish ancestors in the Southern Baja California mountains. Facing tourism development, road building, and cultural changes, the isolated ranchos still persist with their self-sustaining subsistence-based way of life.
Here we re-tell the story of Takutzi Nakawe, Grandmother Rain, and how the world was created, according to the Wixaritari (Huicholes) of the Western Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico.
The traditional Yaqui story of the Sorcerer Cricket, made into a video short by Gabriela Badillo, tells how he saved the people from a serpent monster, only to face the prophesied coming of the Spanish conquistadores.