Perspectives from AbiaYala and beyond

In the last episode of the first season Efraín Gomez Ton, a Tseltal-Tzotzil musician and teacher from Chiapas, shares his perspectives on inspiration and resilience during the 95th-anniversary celebrations of his school, the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos best known as the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College. Efraín shares with us three of his songs while he explains how his family and communities are at the centre of his heart, guiding his inspiration in creating lyrics and music and working as a rural teacher with children from the most excluded territories of Mexico. He explains that being a rural teacher is a role that goes beyond teaching, it involves a deep commitment to rural communities and pro-active participation to nurture these communities’ wellbeing which, in the case of Indigenous communities, involves political action against oppression and exclusion.

In this episode, we share the beautiful project 68 Voces,68 Corazones (68 voices,68 hearts), developed in Mexico to promote Indigenous languages. The content from this episode was extracted from the website: 68voces.mx. 68 voices 68 hearts is an animated series of Mexican indigenous stories, narrated in their native language. Created under the premise, "No one can love what they don't know,” it hopes to reveal the wealth of the 68 hearts that enrich Mexico through their Indigenous languages. Each language encompasses a unique vision of life and the world. When one language disappears, the worldview of entire communities is lost, and so an important part of humanity is lost as well.

In this episode we listen to three Indigenous languages: Tu’un Savi, Nahuatl from the Huasteca Veracruzana, and the Totonaco from Puebla. Most of the content of this episode was created by the initiative Descarga Cultura from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and it was originally published online at www.descargacultura.unam.mx.

This episode gathers a few poems (in xochitl, in cuicatl) from prehispanic Mexica authors translated from the Nahuatl language by Miguel Leon-Portilla in his book "Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World"

This episode gathers the voices of six professionals who work deeply immersed in Indigenous knowledges: Nahannee-Fe Schuitemaker, Christine Luckasavitch, Jason Bruce, Stephen Muntet, Lisa Milliken Catherine Davis. Facilitated by the Mohawk scholar, Gabriel Maracle, they share how they have lived through the year of the COVID-19 pandemic holding to Indigenous Knowledges as a helpful tool for resilience. This episode was recorded on March 17th, 2021, during the conference Indigenous Insights organized by Trent University as a pre-event for the Annual Elders & Traditional Peoples Gathering on March 18th-21st, 2021.