GUAINIA ¿Pon manó, apewe? - The day of the...

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen. Hail, O Mary, highly favored one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, requests now for us the sinners and in the hour of our death, amen. BACK | COVER | INDEX | SPANISH ORIGINAL | CONTINUE

The day of the...
May 15 *, the Peasant's Day, they arrived to Inírida indigenous from almost all the departamento communities.

All they were organized under the roof of the school court, in a tumult of people and animals. They came to sell and to show what they had taken out from the earth or handmade. The government gave "incentives" to those that they presented better their products, but everybody knew that they were prizes and they assumed them as such. It was supposed that the name change was "for not generating competitiveness among the participants", but each one arrived was for selling. Only the agriculture secretary lifted a "stand", there they sold all class of mango derivates. The rich colonists came to exhibit their horses and to learn how to exhibit them in front of expert judges. Everything was a fair exhibition try-out, but more seemed an indigenous gallery, as bio-diverse as few. There I met the paujiles, birds big as a hen, with red beak and the whole plumage black. I saw very big roosters and hens, raided to tip of food, without hormones. I also tried manaca, chontaduro mañoco, caimarona grape, cocorito and other fruits from the region that I didn't know that they existed. I saw gigantic cassava, bananas and platano banana ^e24 in big quantity. Crafts and fabrics, Brazil stick ^e25 carved in symbols of the region: Christes, little canoes, little princesses Inírida, birds. These products would stand out in any part of the world, and even of Colombia.
The peasant's day in the Guainía is the native's day. That day the whole departamento appears just like it is. The colonists are seen as the minority that they are, small and rich. The one playing peasant is the native from the corregimientos. I find healthy not to mark ethnic differences, but are the natives recognized as such, or do they already consider themselves peasants? To sell that day it is necessary to speak Spanish, to manage something of the life of the capital, for not to lag behind. Competitions made that day were to rope a stick with horns, the oiled pig and the stick of prizes, all typical from the Plain and the interior. Is the loss of native culture the price of equality?

This was the way the Custodio García Rovira School court was left after the peasant's day.

But what I know is so little. The natives are very different and I don't know them. I had small sporadic contacts with them, with their religiosity and their humility, with their communities, with their language, so different to ours, with their green world there in the east...
NOTES
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*
Approximated dates. Each region and each municipality defines when they carry out the holyday; it is usually by the same time, but the day is not always fixed.
The jury of the university did not approve this subsection, but I found important to include it, its images and content continues effective.

^e24
All this fruit are exotic even for Colombians, with the exception of chontaduro, cassava and bananas. The chontaduro is a palm fruit, small with a hard bone, but I only have seen it as mañoco in Guainía. People from outside Colombia an its neighboring countries only know one variety of banana. In the whole country everybody know the plátano, the kind of banana indispensable for cooking sancocho, the Colombian typical soup. But there are almost five more varieties, guineo, bocadillo, maduro and two more unknown to me.

^e25 This is the wood that gave Brazil its name. The conquerors found it very similar to the braze for its lighten red color. It is hard wood, excellent for kitchen tools and decoration.

BACK | TITLE | COVER | INDEX | CONTINUE Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, Amen. Hail, O Mary, highly favored one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, requests now for us the sinners and in the hour of our death, amen.

*	Approximated dates. Each region and each municipality defines when they carry out the holyday; it is usually by the same time, but the day is not always fixed. The jury of the university did not approve this subsection, but I found important to include it, its images and content continues effective.
^e24	All this fruit are exotic even for Colombians, with the exception of chontaduro, cassava and bananas. The chontaduro is a palm fruit, small with a hard bone, but I only have seen it as mañoco in Guainía. People from outside Colombia an its neighboring countries only know one variety of banana. In the whole country everybody know the plátano, the kind of banana indispensable for cooking sancocho, the Colombian typical soup. But there are almost five more varieties, guineo, bocadillo, maduro and two more unknown to me.
^e25	This is the wood that gave Brazil its name. The conquerors found it very similar to the braze for its lighten red color. It is hard wood, excellent for kitchen tools and decoration.