2013 South American Saunters
April 2013
As
Autumn approaches Mapuche land (Wallmapu - what is now referred to
as central Chile), while walking beneath the groves of the beautiful, abstract
looking Pehuen or Araucaria trees one can hear the piñons
tumble off the trees almost like a rattle shaking or the sound of heavy drops
of rain hitting the ground. The ripe pine-esque cones on the female trees grow
thick and round when they are ready to deposit hundreds of super rich seeds to
the ground, seemingly intentionally sent down for every sort of animal to
consume. The entire forest, humans included, lives off this magnificent pine
nut. My timing was perfect: I arrived in Conguillio and Huerquehue National
Parks at the peak moment of piñon collecting – they were literally falling at
my feet as I hiked through the glorious landscapes that make up these two
parks.
The Mapuche people, and more specifically the Pehuenche branch of the Mapuche nation,
have lived with the Pehuen tree for
thousands of years. Mapu = land/Earth; Pehuen = Araucaria tree; Che
= people. The People of the Earth. The People of the Araucaria Tree. I like
that, your entire identity as a people linked to the trees. In these mountains
and forests of central Chile and Argentina, who controls this land it is still
very much up for debate; at times with armed conflicts. People have died
recently in this chapter of the ever-expanding “Invasion of the Americas” book.
As in the American West, the Europeans are new here, very new. Sometimes less
than 100 years. They’ve tried to make these regions into little German and
Swiss Alps spin-offs, but they are not. This land is old. This reality is
visible in the still smoking volcanoes and ever-mobile glaciers. It is in the
scrawled graffiti one sees everywhere, “Territorio Mapuche!” It is in
the murals on the walls of the cities and towns where people honor Mapuche
music and culture. It is in the underground news speaking of defending and reclaiming
their land. And it is also in the best of the rangers working in the national
parks of this region, some of who maintain ties with First Nations’ communities
and often work with them on different projects within the parks. The Mapuche,
for example, still freely come and go in these now “National Parks” to collect
their sacred Araucaria piñons.
I had the great privilege of meeting a few of these tuned in Park Rangers while
roaming Chile, at both parks. Not only did they all receive me as a sort of
“ranger brother” from the north, but I stayed in their cabins, ate and drank
with them, discussed all things national park and forest for many hours during
a wonderful week spent in La Araucanía – The Land of the
Araucaria. They taught me how to collect and cook piñons; they explained to me
that when there are this many seeds are falling (it was a very good year for
pine nuts), the Mapuche say that this means that the coming winter will be
especially severe. This impressed me greatly – the trees seem to know that they
need to drop more seeds, so that the animals will survive the coming winter.
They sense it, they understand it, and they act accordingly. How ignorant of us
to think that trees are not fully conscious of what is going on around them. In
a few months, check out how the winter of 2013 in central Chile was… I wager it
will have been harsh.
(Note – update June 2013: thick snow and
fierce cold all over the Araucania,
as predicted by the Pehuen.)
It was wonderful to meet these fellow rangers, these guardians of the southern
parks. I believe that we have to start viewing all of this conservation work as
part of a much bigger picture. I regard work in the park or forest service as
something far deeper than smiling rangers telling guests about where to camp,
or how long the park has existed, or random (European settler) trivia about the
area. Perhaps we should understand it as one of the front lines in the battle
to defend some of the last remaining “wild” places on Earth. As such, we must
develop a network of people who, working in accordance with the First Nations
of their local areas, are willing to truly stand up and fight when the
insatiable gluttony and greed of the 1% comes knocking for the last remaining
old growth forests; the last remaining minerals and resources found beneath
sacred lakes and mountains; the last remaining Indigenous communities that
stand in the way of their suicidal “progress”; the last remaining free
places in these Americas, and beyond.
Let’s be clear: the colonizers will come for these
places. They have raped and pillaged and polluted almost every corner of the
planet already. It is exceptionally naïve to believe they will intentionally
stop this madness. They will come for these places. So, if our ranger
hearts and minds are truly tuned into the land where we work, our
responsibility seems obvious. Given the tragic and long history of the
destruction of the land and the traditional communities who live with it (not
to mention the current mental state of the right wing in the US of A) what
evidence would you present that these divine wild lands are truly protected?
Forever?
Down in Pehuenche land, the Araucaria tree is viewed as a principal
component of their cosmology. The trees link the Gods and the Earth; they are
called ‘antennas’ between the spirit and earth planes, if you will. Majestic
trees such as the Araucaria and the Canelo are said to communicate messages
from the spirits above to the Earth below. I pondered this a great deal while wandering
through the jaw dropping vistas afforded by the ancient Coigue and Lenga forests
and the glacier covered mountain peaks of the central Andes. It rather makes
sense when you are out listening to the trees. Perhaps if we started to view
the things of this good Earth through this lens, our very psychological ability
to destroy them would end. Perhaps if those of us without the bones of our ancestors buried deep in these ancient
lands truly started to listen to and comprehend these so-called “primitive”
philosophies or “mythologies” (how are stories of the Earth considered “myths”
and stories of a flying bearded man in the sky not?) of the First Nations,
North and South, we might finally understand the sacredness of these lands we all
have come to inhabit.
Let's be clear: many of us are “foreigners”
here who have never truly connected to this land, whether our roots are old
English from the Mayflower or recent Italian and German in central Chile and
Argentina. Our Eurocentric thinking does not include and has never included Mother
Earth. Methinks it is this utter disconnection from the Earth that has led us
to the brink of destroying our ability to live, not on, but with Earth,
to quote a very smart friend. Perhaps if we turn our accepted mode of
thinking on its head these ideas will cease to be “primitive”, but make perfect
sense; these “mythologies” will be understood as wisdom that teaches us how to
live right. Perhaps this consciousness will guide all of our actions in
relation to Mother Earth.
How could you destroy an old growth forest when it is the telephone line between
The Creator and Earth? How could you detonate a sublime mountainside when it is
where the spirits of your ancestors reside? How could you dump toxic sludge into
the pure, clear water when it is the blood and veins of the Earth? How could
you fill the crisp, clean air with pollutants when it is the breath of the
gods? How could we allow any of this
madness to continue if we viewed the Earth – truly and profoundly – as our
Mother?
We
could not.
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