The Tikuna ethnic group
The first European who had contact with the Tikuna ethnic group was Francisco de Orellana, on his mythical trip of 1542. When, sailing in the brig San Pedro, he left the camp of his commander Gonzalo Pizarro, on the banks of the Coca River (today belonging to Ecuador), Orellana had not the slightest idea that he was going to face one of the largest explorations of all time, an adventure that can be compared with the epic undertaking of Alexander the Great, with the legendary voyage of Marco Polo in China or with the Atlantic crossing of Christopher Columbus.
On January 3, 1542, already on the banks of the Napo River, one of the great tributaries of the Amazon River, the Spaniards of Orellana had contact with some friendly indigenous people, whose chief was Aparia the young.
Initially, the natives fled in terror, as perhaps the sight of the Westerners wearing torn clothes and their faces eaten away by hunger was too impressive for them.
After a few hours, the indigenous people returned, cautious, to the town. They approached smiling, trying to understand where these strange travelers could come from. Orellana ordered the weapons to be lowered. Then, he approached them and, speaking in Quechua, told them not to worry, since they would not pose a threat. Furthermore, he apologized for having consumed his food. The natives were timid and peaceful, and Captain Orellana tried to obtain valuable information from them.
In this way, the Spanish knew that they were in the kingdom of Aparia the Younger, a day's sail from the Curacay River (current department of Loreto, Peru). The foreigners were welcomed with kindness and allowed to sleep in the village.
The natives of Aparia were probably of the Tikuna ethnic group and spoke an Amazonian language that Orellana immediately tried to learn.
Orellana decided to stop for some time in the town, both to regain strength and to organize again and begin the construction of the components to later form a new ship.
Orellana's men, meanwhile, continued with the arduous work of manufacturing the parts that would later be used to build a new and larger ship. Initially they produced nails, with ovens dug into the ground. Then, they cut down the firewood and began to shape the keel, which was more robust and longer than that of the San Pedro.
Meanwhile, other indigenous chiefs arrived in the town of Aparia: Hirimara, Parayta, Guaricota, Macuyana. They taught the Spanish to recognize many jungle herbs, to distinguish poisonous ones from healthy ones. In addition, they explained how to recognize the silhouettes of jungle animals: armadillos, anteaters and sloths, jaguars and tapirs.
Although the natives had finely crafted gold jewelry with them, Orellana ordered his men not to try to appropriate those jewelry, nor to exchange them for mirrors or other odds and ends. He always maintained an attitude of respect towards the tribal people and warned the young Aparia that other foreigners, on the contrary, could come to that town with not so friendly intentions.
The jungle stopped being a hostile and unknown environment and became a place rich in food and full of mysteries to discover.
When the components of the new ship were ready, they decided to continue sailing.
Once they weighed anchor, the San Pedro was lost in the meanders of the Napo, descending the current. In the lands of Aparia the young, seven of his companions had died and there were only fifty who were discovering new territories.
The first day of sailing passed in silence. They were aware that they could never return against the current again. They could advance only to the east, in the direction of dawn.
They thought about stopping in the town of Hirimara, one of the chief friends of Aparia the young, but they were forced to move away from the banks of the Río de la Canela, finding themselves trapped in whirlpools of water caused by the confluence with another river, the Curacay.
A few days later, they met some Yagua indigenous people, who invited them to their village and welcomed them very generously, offering them food and lodging. Orellana studied his language and was already able to express himself in the most widespread languages among the Amazonian natives. The Yagua informed Orellana that the main river was very close. The navigation continued and the Cinnamon River seemed to lengthen excessively. There were several islands along its course, some of them floating, made up of tangled trunks and masses of decaying vegetation. On the banks of the river there were large palm groves and robust trees. For several days the horizon had become flat, green, unreal.
On February 12, the San Pedro arrived at the confluence of the Napo with theAmazon River. It was the first time that Western eyes had seen the union of two such large rivers.
The Napo, which was also enormous, was nothing compared to the great river that came from the right. The Spaniards, confused, thanked the Lord for having protected them until then, and began to think about what to call that large amount of water. Was that the Santa María de la Mar Dulce, as Pinzón had baptized it, or the Marañón, as Diego de Lepe had named it? Initially, that river was called Río de San Francisco de Quito and also Río de Orellana.
However, later the same captain called it the Amazon River, remembering the indigenous story that spoke of warrior women.
Orellana thought that such a huge body of water could not be more than the main river and he was right. However, what he did not know was the distance that separated him from the ocean, about 750 leagues (3,700 kilometers).
When the San Pedro began to navigate that colossal watercourse, the sailors felt small in the face of such immensity. Furthermore, the environmental conditions were difficult: the hot sun, with temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius in the shade, strong storms that lasted a couple of hours, during which the temperature dropped to 18 degrees Celsius. Water entered the deck through cracks in the keel, and Orellana's men were forced to constantly remove it, using improvised wooden buckets.
It was necessary to stop as soon as possible to repair the San Pedro and begin construction work on a new, more robust ship, but the sailors had difficulty finding an area suitable for stopping.
It took about two weeks of sailing to reach a small tributary called Amacayacu. In that place they had contact with some canoes driven by friendly indigenous people, who offered them ape meat, huangana (a type of jungle pig), turtle and roasted fish.
They were in the land of Aparia the great, who had been informed by Aparia the younger, with the sound of drums, of the arrival of the strangers.
The next day, they were taken to the town of Aparia the Great, about 18 leagues below. Probably, this tribal settlement was located at the confluence of the Javarí with the Amazon River, near modern-day Leticia, a city located on the border between Colombia and Brazil.
This tribal group belonged to the Tikuna.
The Spaniards were invited to enter a huge maloca, a typical wooden construction, used by various Amazonian ethnic groups as a residential, commercial and spiritual unit.
Usually, these houses, supported by four large poles, could house two or more families united by parental ties. In its center was a fire constantly burning. During the night, the maloca was transformed into a center of knowledge, where myths, legends and traditions were transmitted orally.
They offered the foreigners fish, grilled turtle meat, juicy fruits such as copuassú and succulent honey cakes.
Aparia the great explained to Orellana that navigation along the river could bring some dangers and described the land of the fearsome Machiparo. He told her about the Omagua people, who lived even further down, and about the warrior women, whose queen was Conorí. According to Aparia, these women, called Coniapuyaras, were numerous and brave. The chief added that entering his land could be extremely dangerous, because they were used to fighting and had no scruples. Furthermore, he explained to her the exact path to reach the ocean without getting lost among the thousands of islands that were in the way.
The captain replied that he could not choose another route: he was obliged to go down the river. One of the chiefs present asked for more information about the foreigners: where they came from and why they were traveling. Orellana responded to them, speaking of faith in Christ and fidelity to King Emperor Charles V.
The chaplain of the trip, Gaspar Carvajal, recounted this encounter in a curious passage from his 1542 book, Relation of the new discovery of the famous Río Grande that Captain Francisco de Orellana discovered by very great fortune:
Captain Francisco Orellana, seeing that the Aparia were docile and peaceful, explained to them that we were Christians and that we worshiped and believed in the only true God, who created heaven and earth, and that we are vassals of the Emperor of the Christians, the great and powerful King of Spain, called Don Carlos. When the Captain finished speaking, the natives, who seemed happy, looked at us smiling. His Chief asked us who we really were and where we were going. Then the Captain responded that we were children of the Sun and that we followed the course of the river, and that this was our destiny. The indigenous people showed great joy and considered us saints and celestial beings, since all those people worshiped the Sun, which they called “Chisse”. Then they brought us plenty of food and showed us the right path to continue the journey.
Orellana began to think that perhaps the entire navigation from the river to the sea would take much longer than expected.
The great aparia had mentioned the possible dangers, but he had not specified how far the sea was, whether weeks or months of sailing. However, there was no other alternative for the explorers, who, if they wanted to leave that green ocean alive, had to arm themselves with courage and patience, and continue the journey.
Orellana's dream was finally coming true. No one like him had discovered such extensive territories, unknown to Europeans.
From Gaspar de Carvajal's story it is deduced that the Tikuna lived in a total symbiosis with nature and that they knew in depth the secrets of the plants and animals of the jungle, which they respected and worshiped in a shamanic-totemic key.
Today, the Tikuna, who number in total approximately 30,000 individuals, live in an extensive area of the Amazon rainforest, both in the so-called “Amazonian triangle”, belonging to Colombia, as well as in Brazil and Peru.
In Colombia they live in the communities of Santa Lucía, Buenos Aires, San Antonio de los Lagos, San Sebastián, Macedonia, Nazareth, Mocagua and in the Cotuhé River (a tributary of the Putumayo). In Brazil they live in the large indigenous areas called Evare I, II, III, San Leopoldo, Feijoal and Betania (near the mouth of the Ica River, or Putumayo, in the Amazon River).
According to some researchers of the history of the Tikuna, it is thought that in ancient times they lived near the Loreto-Yacu, Marinacu and Atacuarí rivers (current Peru-Colombia border). Both the Colombian-Peruvian war and the insane intensive exploitation of rubber caused the population to decline.
In the Tikuna cosmogonic vision, the symbol of good is Yoi, who transformed the fish into a man at the beginning of time. Indeed, also according to the theory of evolution, fish transformed, over the course of millions of years, until they became amphibians, reptiles, mammals and humans. The symbol of evil is, however, Ipi, emblem of chaos, disobedience and darkness.
Legend narrates that Yoi and Ipi originated from Nutapa. When some bees stung Nutapa's legs, the wounds, rotting, generated new life. From the right knee Yoi was born, with his sister Mowacha, while from the left knee Ipi was born, with his sister Aikia.
Currently, many Tikuna follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, but many associate him with Yoi, demonstrating, in this way, having syncretized old and new traditions.
The concept of Yoi and Ipi's birth is wonderful. The fact that life is born from decomposed wounds means that the spiritual conception of the Tikuna contemplates pantheism, or the idea that life is spontaneous and that it develops from anything, even what at first glance seems inert, like stones.
The Tikuna speak an isolated language that does not belong to either the Arawak group or the Tupi-Guaraní, which is widespread in the Amazon.
The study of the Tikuna culture, their way of life and their eating habits can teach us a lot.
The thoughtless destruction of the forest with the aim of selling firewood valued in rich countries is not a sustainable process, since a few are enriched at the cost of enormous environmental damage. First of all, most of the deforested lands are used for cattle ranching, but, since the soil that was once jungle is poor in nutrients, the pastures deteriorate rapidly and the economic cycle stops, leaving entire tribes, which previously lived off forest resources, adrift.
The alternative could be a moderate and balanced exploitation of the forest, just as the Tikuna did for centuries. The wood can be used, provided a tree of the same species is immediately planted; Fruits, seeds and medicinal plants generally unknown in the West are obtained, so that an economic development can begin that does not enrich a few in a short time, but, on the contrary, can offer constant and indefinite support to millions of people, in order to maintain a balanced and balanced use of the immense Amazonian resources over time.
YURI LEVERATTO
