🏵 Documentation
Session 12: Knowledge keeping, oral histories and knowledge production for advocacy and CN building
In this final SPACE session, we have Nicacia and Elizabeth speaking about the importance of documentation for advocacy, local advocacy and community knowledge, and community resilience and sustainability.
Nicacia (Niki) and Elizabeth presented stories based on their own separate stories on conservations of knowledge history and the production of knowledge for the promotion and construction of community networks. According to Elizabeth, the territory she is in does not even have electricity, so it can be not very easy when they want to discuss building community networks and safeguarding knowledge and language. In what the indigenous people call the ‘defence of the territory’ indigenous people would work together to preserve the knowledge, wisdom and ancient traditions to pass on to the next generation.
Sharing a few pictures from her territory, Elizabeth showed a scene inside a cone-shaped house where communities gather and discuss. The cone-shaped building does not only house their millenary knowledge, but it is also the centre where they concentrate their energies, and share and teach people about different topics. Niki then shared a similar space in her territory in Cuetzalan - an auditorium where the community have assemblies every few months. They also meet to protect the youth through many feedback sessions, as unfortunately in the area they have problems with substance misuse among young people. They also set up space in the area to barter goods with other communities.
The cone-shaped houses also are representative of the wider world. They show a series of concentric circles where it symbolises the underworld, and whoever passed on would return as another person or animal if the greater being decides so. This space is also sacred where they share millenary knowledge, and where they dance, teach how things are done, tell stories among the communities, and share everything related to ancestral knowledge, oral knowledge, chants, as well as contemporary knowledge. This construction, unfortunately, has begun to be abandoned due to a lack of raw materials, and hard to find people to build it. What the communities do is they start disseminating seeds of the trees for the raw materials to be planted in empty lands so they can begin collecting the materials to build the buildings again.
Elizabeth also showed an ancient communication artefact called ‘caracola’ (sic). It looks like a drum and once it is played, people would know the message depending on the rhythm and sounds. The territory also has several sacred places, where people will go there to have conversations with older people in a respectful manner. Elizabeth mentioned that kids in the area would often say they have no technology - she insisted this drum is a technology far ahead in its time as it was used to communicate among communities for years. They planned to conserve this kind of knowledge and safeguard it for future use.
Niki then showed how her community sends messages - through fireworks. Communities would light fireworks in time for sacred or important activities, and it signals to the nearby communities that something is going on and they would come to visit. For example, in one of the events of the patron saint, they light up fireworks and the nearby communities come in droves to visit the patron saint. This communication technique and knowledge have been generational and have been going on for years.
Niki also showed the community’s traditional dress. Niki said that the dress is important and sacred to the community, and they would wear it with pride and dignity. It was often sewn by grandmothers and elderly people. It is not something the tourists could buy, put on, and take pictures of, which was something that was often done now that the tourist board had designated the village as a magical town as they still bear strong traditions.
Elizabeth and Niki said they have also been talking about technology among the communities, and how to use them to preserve their ancestral wisdom rather than just absorbing the impact of the technology and not making use of them.
The communities also cross the river using a small bridge to get to the other side. In some seasons, the water would reach higher than the bridge so it was hard for them to cross and meet at the meeting point to discuss the internet and the community network. So what they do is they worked with Sula Batsu and brought radio communication to disseminate messages and updates about community networks. They also work with girls and young women and empower them through education and awareness, and uphold their rights through knowledge and wisdom. They also incorporate arts and crafts to teach children to be more appreciative of ancient knowledge and traditions.