by DGR News Service | Jun 28, 2018 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
For Immediate Release
June 28, 2018
Activist risks arrest in front of Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Office during its final hearings to permit the Line 3 tar sands pipeline
Contact: Ethan Nuss, (218) 380-9047, stopline3mpls@gmail.com
ST PAUL, MN – A water protector ascended a 25-foot steel tripod structure erected in the street in front of the Public Utility Commission (PUC) office to demonstrate ongoing resistance against Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 tar sands pipeline. Today marks one of the final public hearings held by the PUC on its decision to grant a certificate of need to the controversial pipeline.
All five of the directly affected Objibwe Tribal Nations in Minnesota oppose the dangerous project because of the threat it poses to their fresh water, culturally significant wild rice lakes, and tribal sovereignty. Line 3 will accelerate climate change by bringing carbon-intensive tar sands bitumen from Alberta to refineries in the Midwest. Climate change disproportionately impacts Indigenous and frontline communities across the world. This deadly infrastructure project is another example of the genocidal legacy of colonialism faced by Native peoples and the ecological destruction caused by corporate greed. Water protectors, climate justice advocates, landowners, and faith leaders stand united alongside Native communities against this dangerous pipeline.
At around 7AM CST water protectors blockaded traffic by erecting 25-foot steel poles in a tripod structure on 7th Pl. in front of the PUC offices in downtown Saint Paul, MN. Ben, a 30-year-old Minneapolis resident, ascended the structure and unfurled a banner that reads, “Expect Resistance,” a clear message to Enbridge and the PUC that fierce opposition to this pipeline will continue to grow at every stage.
“If the PUC doesn’t stop Line 3, then we will,” said Ben, suspended from the 25-foot structure in the street in front the PUC. “Today’s action isn’t about me but is a demonstration of the growing resistance to Line 3. ” Ben continued, “We’re taking action in solidarity with Native people, who continue to fight for their existence on occupied land and with people all over the world who resist the desecration of nature by extractive industries.”
For photos and live updates go to: twitter.com/ResistLine3
(Update: the tripod was occupied for three years before being vacated)
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 27, 2018 | Indigenous Autonomy
Featured image: Marie Persson Njajta, Stefan Mikaelsson och Mona Persson, members of the Sami Parliament with the proposal to support the Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth
by Rights of Nature Sweden / Intercontinental Cry
During the Assembly meeting May 25th, the Sami Parliament decided to support the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. The Declaration includes the right of Mother Earth and her beings to life and existence, respect, to regenerate its biocapacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free from human disruptions. The Sami, like many other indigenous peoples, have everyday experiences of how climate change hits directly for example reindeer husbandry. Their traditional ways of life is hard-pressed between climate change and exploitative mining projects and forestry. The parliamentary motion was written by Marie Persson Njajta together with Mona Persson, members of the Sami Parliament. It was signed by several other members. Marie Persson Njajta hopes that the decision gives power to the discussion on how Rights of Nature can be implemented on local, national and global level.
This is a very important decision, says Marie Persson Njajta. We wrote it for our children and the possibilities for coming generations to live a good life. We believe a paradigm shift is needed towards a view where humans understand ourselves as part of nature, which is the way indigenous people relate to nature. We, the Sami people, believe that we belong to the land, not the other way around. Today we see how a colonial perspective, exploitation, and climate change threaten our culture. And it is not just us; it is a global issue. Governments and corporations don´t take these problems seriously, but disregard indigenous rights. The decision to support the Universal Declaration for the Rights of Mother Earth is a statement against the shortsightedness of governmental policy and the failing view that corporations have rights while nature does not.
The decision of the Sami Parliament is a vital step in strengthening the Rights of Nature framework, says Pella Larsdotter Thiel, from the Rights of Nature network in Sweden. Sweden has a high profile internationally in sustainability issues, but like other countries, we systematically deplete and impoverish our ecosystems. It is very encouraging that the Sami people in Sweden, like indigenous peoples in other parts of the world, take the lead in this necessary shift in how we view nature; from a resource for humans to a living whole we participate in.
The Declaration was first presented at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia, which in 2010 gathered more than 35,000 people from over 100 countries. It has since been presented to the UN General Assembly, and over 800,000 people have signed for the UN to adopt the declaration. Cormac Cullinan, lawyer and spokesperson for Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature who led the drafting of the Declaration, welcomes the historic decision of the Sami Parliament.
By endorsing the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, the Parliament and the Sami people have joined forces with the many indigenous peoples, local communities, organizations and people throughout the world who are working together to reawaken consumerist societies to the reality that our first duty as human beings is to recognize and respect the rights of every member of the Earth community to play their unique role in that community. The Sami have never forgotten to be grateful and respectful to Nature for giving us life – by supporting the Declaration they are signaling their commitment to reminding all who have forgotten that our future depends on giving effective legal protection to the whole Earth community.
This year sees the 10th anniversary of the first major decision on Nature’s Rights, Ecuador included Rights of Nature in its constitution in 2008. The framework is now spreading rapidly with decisions about rivers, forests and mountains as legal subjects in, among others, the New Zealand Parliament, the Supreme Court of Colombia and the Supreme Court of the Indian State of Uttarpradesh.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 23, 2018 | Indigenous Autonomy
Featured image: Indigenous inhabitants of one of the floating islands in Lake Titicaca greet a tour group from Puno, Peru. David Stanley / CC BY 2.0
Much of the world’s land is occupied and used by Indigenous Peoples and communities—about 50 percent of it, involving more than 2.5 billion people. But these groups are increasingly losing their ancestral lands—their primary source of livelihood, income and social identity.
Governments, corporations and local elites are eager to acquire land to extract natural resources; grow food, fibers and biofuels; or simply hold it for speculative purposes. Most communities hold land under customary tenure systems and lack formal titles for it. While national laws in many countries recognize customary rights, the legal protections are often weak and poorly enforced, making community land especially vulnerable to being taken by more powerful actors.
Communities, however, are not standing by idly. They’re increasingly taking action to protect their lands.
Here are five ways communities are defending their land rights:
As Indigenous Peoples and communities learn of their rights, more are turning to the courts to help realize them. In 2008, the Kenyan government began a campaign to evict the Ogiek, an indigenous group of hunters and gatherers, from their ancestral home, the Mau Forest in the Rift Valley. The following year, the Ogiek filed a complaint against the government to the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights which referred it to the African Court on Human and People’s Rights, a continental court based in neighboring Tanzania. Last month, the Court delivered its judgment, ruling that the government had violated several articles of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, of which Kenya is a signatory. It recognized the Ogiek’s indigenous status and their right to the forest, and awarded reparations for forcible evictions. The ruling from Africa’s highest institutional human rights body sends a powerful message to all African governments of the need to respect indigenous rights.
2. Demonstrations and Protests
Community members are marching to state capitals, staging protests and meeting directly with government leaders. In December 2017, following a two-week march by hundreds of indigenous people in Quito, Ecuador, President Lenin Moreno agreed to a moratorium on new auctions of oil and mining concessions without the consent of local communities. When the government then announced a new oil auction and handed out several new mining concessions in February 2018, protestors returned. In March, nearly 100 indigenous women camped out for five days in front of the government palace in Quito’s central plaza. Moreno granted them a meeting, and the women pressed him again to limit oil drilling and mining in their territories, and to combat the violence that often accompanies the industries. Moreno assured them he would heed their demands. The women vowed they would return if the matter is not addressed.
3. Monitoring and Patrolling
In the absence of government support, many communities have organized their own patrols to monitor their land and evict intruders. Brazil and other countries have long struggled to contain illegal logging. In the state of Maranhão in northeastern Brazil, only 20 percent of the original forest cover remains. Nearly all of this forest is in indigenous territories and protected nature reserves where commercial exploitation is banned, but loggers linked to criminal syndicates continue to cut trees. In 2014, after repeated calls to government went unheeded, indigenous Guajajara and Ka’apor communities organized their own patrols to rid their land of illegal loggers. They have captured loggers cutting timber or setting fire in their lands, confiscated their chainsaws and seized their trucks. The Maranhão government has praised the work of the indigenous patrols and offered to train and equip them to help enforce environmental regulations.
4. Mapping Land
Much community land is not represented on any official government maps and, as such, is essentially invisible. Many communities are therefore preparing precise maps of their land using hand-held Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and other tools. These maps are challenging official government narratives. In Indonesia’s Malinau District, East Kalimantan, loggers and palm oil companies have long sought the customary forests of the indigenous Dayak. When one palm oil company began to log the forest of Setuland village, villagers jumped into action. After threatening to force the company off their land, the company withdrew. The Dayaks realized they needed a map of their land that documented their boundaries, customary forest, homes and longhouses, as well as the damaged forests where the company had illegally cut their trees. With the help of an Indonesian geographer, villagers used drones to map and then monitor their lands. Now, if a logging or palm oil company enters onto their land, Setuland will be armed with their own map to help them confront the challenge.
5. Registering and Titling Land
Indigenous Peoples and communities are also registering their customary land rights into a government cadaster and obtaining a formal land titles or certificates. Doing so integrates their customary rights into the legal system, establishes formal land rights and helps communities protect their lands. The Higaonon, an indigenous group in the Mindanao region of the Philippines, holds its land under customary tenure systems. The lack of clear boundaries, however, has led to conflicts with neighbors who have extended their plots onto Higaonon land. In response, the Higaonon applied for a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), a formal land ownership title. Despite a 1997 law requiring the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples facilitate the demarcation and registration of ancestral lands, the agency has only issued 182 CADTs with many more applications waiting to be processed. Moreover, fewer than 50 CADTs have been formally registered, limiting their effectiveness to protect indigenous land.
While no measure can guarantee land security, these actions have helped communities protect their homes. Scaling these measures, however, has proven challenging.
Communities need help securing the appropriate technologies like GPS devices or navigating often complex land titling processes. And governments must reform and better implement the laws to better protect indigenous and community land.
Being assertive in protecting their lands has also exposed community members to new risks. Clashes between communities and those seeking their land have escalated in recent years. Last year, 197 land and environmental defenders were killed, the bloodiest year since Global Witness began keeping records on this issue. We all need to do a better job of protecting not only community land, but also land defenders.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 11, 2018 | Indigenous Autonomy
Featured image: With support from Survival, the Guajajara are able to expose illegal logging and threats to their uncontacted neighbors in real time. © Survival
by Sarah Shenker / Survival International
“We are here,” says Olimpio, looking directly into the camera, “… Monitoring the land and protecting the uncontacted Indians and the Guajajara who live here. Why? Because there are some people – anthropologists from some countries – who want, once again, to violate the rights of the uncontacted Indians in the country.”
Olimpio remains calm, but you can sense tension as he continues to speak.
“We are aware that some anthropologists have been calling for ‘controlled contact’ with the uncontacted Indians… We will not allow this to happen, because it would be another genocide.”
Olimpio is among the leaders of a group known as the “Guajajara Guardians,” men from the Guajajara tribe in Brazil’s Maranhão state who have taken it upon themselves to protect what remains of this north-eastern edge of the Amazon rainforest, the hundreds of Guajajara families who call it home, and their far less numerous neighbors: the Awá Indians, some of whom are uncontacted.
Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet, and the Guajajara are acutely aware of this. Whole populations are being wiped out by violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and by diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance. The Guajajara know that the destruction of the forest, which the Awá have been dependent on and managed for generations, spells doom for the Awá and the Guajajara alike. All uncontacted peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Without it, the Awá simply won’t survive.
The satellite imagery is startling: this territory, known as Arariboia, is an island of green amidst a sea of deforestation in this corner of the Amazon, which has been plundered for its iron ore; opened up by roads and rail; and chopped down for its valuable hardwoods.
The Awá are one of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Some of them have no contact with mainstream Brazilian society, though the majority do. © Survival International
The uncontacted nomadic Awá live on a small hill in the centre of this island, where they hunt, fish, and collect fruits and berries. Its forest cover is thicker than that below. Following centuries of invasion, the Awá’s hill has become their refuge. They now number no more than several dozen.
As we looked up towards the uncontacted Arariboia Awá’s forest, it struck me that they really are living on the edge. Following centuries of land invasion and theft, and genocidal violence, they are clinging on against all odds. Preventing their annihilation is a matter of now or never.
I was here to learn about the Guajajara Guardians’ work and to set them up with communications technology as part of Survival International’s Tribal Voice project, which allows remote tribal peoples to send video messages around the globe in real time. It is one of the ways in which we work in partnership with them, and give them a platform to speak to the world. They were very enthusiastic about the possibilities this might offer, allowing them to expose logging and other attacks on Arariboia, and share information from their expeditions to protect their Awá neighbors.
First of all, however, Olimpio decided to record a denunciation of two American academics, Kim Hill and Robert Walker, rejecting outright their calls for forced contact with uncontacted tribes.
“It would be another genocide of a people, of indigenous people, who do not want contact, either with us, or with non-indigenous people” he says. It is hard not to be impressed by his determination.
*
Much of this region of Maranhão doesn’t really feel like the Amazon. The state borders the northeastern coast of Brazil and stretches downwards into the Amazon basin, but you don’t see the thick forests that people generally imagine when they picture the world’s largest rainforest. Instead, much of the area has been given over to agriculture in the form of ranches and plantations, or abandoned after the loggers have had their way with it and moved on.
After driving through countless miles of bleached brown grass, it is refreshing to reach Arariboia. The indigenous territory is home to the Guajajara and Awá peoples. Arariboia and other indigenous territories in the region are virtually the only remaining areas of genuine forest in the state. Crossing the border into indigenous land, things don’t feel all too different at first – in fact, vast swathes of forest in the territory were destroyed by fires last year, believed to have been started by the region’s powerful logging mafia. But the further into the area you head, the more you get the sense that you are in an island of lush greenery in the middle of the destruction so common elsewhere in this part of Brazil.
Olimpio and Franciel, coordinators of the Guajajara Guardians, are determined to protect the forest for their uncontacted Awá neighbors. © Survival
Although it is strictly forbidden under Brazilian law for outsiders to fell trees in indigenous territories, here and elsewhere in the Amazon loggers constantly flaunt this with impunity. Just on the drive up to Arariboia we passed dozens of loggers, their trucks piled high with illegally felled logs. I took a photo of one truck driven by two young men looking particularly pleased with their collection, and realized very quickly that they didn’t care. They do not attempt to hide their faces or their operations as they knew that the local government – largely controlled by the mafias who run this trade – will carry on turning a blind eye.
However, it is harder than ever for bandit loggers to operate in Arariboia. The Guardians, of whom there are around fifty, patrol the forest, monitoring, keeping their eyes open, and notifying the authorities. They do it in shifts, in their own time, with only sporadic financial and logistical support from the Brazilian government, despite its formal commitment to protecting the rainforest and indigenous rights. The work is time-consuming and far too much for a small band of committed volunteers. And it’s dangerous: In recent years, several Guajajara have been assassinated.
Why then, do they do it? I found it difficult to fathom at first. It is common for loggers to intimidate and murder indigenous people, so many feel forced into silent acceptance of the loggers and their activities. Sadly in this part of Brazil, many Guajajara also collaborate with the loggers, hoping to make some money from the trade, which they see as unstoppable. Alienated, threatened, and living on the fringes of a society that barely accepts them, the Guardians’ motivation for self-imposed vigilante duty is not outwardly obvious.
*
The more time I spent with the Guajajara in Arariboia, however, the more it seemed to make sense. Members of the tribe who live in the center of their land, closest to the Awá’s hill, are less integrated into mainstream Brazilian society, and feel a stronger sense of connection to their communal ways. They thrive in the forest, knowing it intimately and practising Guajajara rituals.
While I was there I witnessed one of these – a coming of age ceremony for a Guajajara girl. The tribe considers a girl’s first menstruation to be a hugely significant time, marking the passage into adulthood, and celebrate it as a community. The girl spent a week living in a small hut with a palm frond roof, attended by female relatives who would bring her food. Rather than being a solemn isolation, however, the rite of passage is a great celebration, and the Guajajara frequently burst into song and dance, paint their faces and revel in the girl’s new maturity. The men of the village, though not allowed to enter the hut, often come and stand close to the entrance and join in the singing.
Experiencing this put the Guardians’ desire to protect their forest and fellow indigenous people into context. To them, Arariboia is not a resource to be exploited in the name of “progress” and “civilization” – it is fundamental to who they are. They take great pride in it, protect what is left of it, and feel a deep sense of connection to it.
Survival has been working with the Guardians since 2015. © Survival
“People can’t take their land away from them,” another of the Guardians said to me, outraged, as we trekked through the forest close to one of the logging hotspots, “and they can’t take them away from their land.” He was indicating the Awá’s hill, which towers over the surrounding scrubland and lighter forest and provides a focal point in the landscape. The uncontacted Awá living there have expressed their desire to remain uncontacted, and the Guajajara want to see that desire respected.
Some see the centuries-long battle for survival between the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and the colonizers who exploit and destroy it as hopeless. Some, including the American anthropologists who the Guajajara were so keen to refute, see contact as inevitable and isolated uncontacted peoples as doomed. Deforestation will continue, they claim, and so tribal people will either have to assimilate with the Brazilian mainstream, or else face annihilation.
The Guajajara Guardians see it differently. They know what contact, “development,” and “progress” can mean for tribal peoples. They have watched as more and more of the forest that their ancestors were dependent on and managed for generations has been destroyed. And they’re keen to fight back, by boosting their land protection expeditions which are succeeding in keeping loggers out of some key areas, and by sharing their concerns with the world and encouraging international support.
For any tribal people, land is the key to survival. We’re doing everything we can to secure it for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.
That’s also why Survival is giving the Guajajara, and other tribes, communications technology so they can speak to the world in real time. Their understanding of the problems they and their neighbors face is as astute as anyone’s and they have perceptive things to say about almost every aspect of life today. They are not only the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world, but are also at the forefront of the fight for human rights and self-determination. Maybe it’s time to listen.
Sarah Shenker was in conversation with Survival’s Lewis Evans
Act now to support the Guajajara Guardians
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 1, 2018 | Indigenous Autonomy
by Laura Hobson Herlihy / Cultural Survival
The Miskitu Yatama (Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka/Children of the Mother Earth) organization remained silent during last week’s violent protests in Nicaragua, ignited by the government’s April 16, 2018 approval of social security reforms. Many Miskitu people on the Nicaraguan Caribbean coast claimed the Instituto Nicaragüense de Seguridad Social (INSS) reform was not their fight, as Miskitu fisherman and lobster divers were excluded from the national system of social security and would not retire with pensions. Yet, they were supportive of the larger issue of the protests — the end of the Ortega dictatorship.
The Yatama Youth Organization released a statement on April 25, 2018, a week after the protests began, affirming their solidarity with the Nicaraguan university students now calling for President Ortega to step down. That evening by phone, the long-term Yatama Director and Nicaraguan congressman Brooklyn Rivera framed Yatama’s fight solely within the framework of Indigenous rights. Rivera stated, “We are still fighting for the same rights we have always fought for.” The Miskitu leader mentioned their right to saneamiento (the removal of mestizo colonists from Indian lands), as stipulated by Nicaraguan law 445; elections by ley consuetudinaria (customary law) in the autonomous regions, as ruled by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; and fortification of the autonomy process (law 28).
Like an elderly statesman, Brooklyn Rivera sounded hopeful that he could use his position as an opposition congressman in the National Assembly to advance Indigenous rights during the up-coming dialogue for peace with Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government, to be mediated this Sunday by the Catholic Church and headed by Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes. The interviewer suggested that Yatama is well-positioned as an opposition party to the FSLN in the up-coming regional elections in November 2018. Rivera insisted, “Yatama will not enter any elections if there is not electoral reform first.”
Fraudulent Elections: A History of Violence
Yatama broke their alliance (2006-2014) with the Sandinistas, partially due to alleged electoral fraud during the 2014 regional elections. Indeed, Yatama claimed the FSLN stole the last three elections–the 2014 regional, the 2016 general, and the 2017 municipal elections. After each election, Yatama held peaceful marches but were met with force and attacked by the police, antimotines (riot police) sent from Managua, and the Juventud Sandinista (armed Sandinista youth gangs).
In the 2017 municipal elections, Yatama lost control of its remaining municipalities in the North (RACN) and South (RACS) Caribbean Autonomous Regions. Violence erupted in three towns along the coast. In Bilwi, the capital of the RACN, the police and riot police (antimotines) stood by watching as paramilitary Sandinista turbas (youth gangs) burned Yatama headquarters and radio Yapti Tasba to the ground, toppled the Indian statue in the town center, subverted the green Yatama flag with a black and red FSLN flag, and attempted to shoot Yatama leader Brooklyn Rivera, who escaped.
Police arrested one-hundred Yatama members and detained them in jail for more than a month. Like the university students recently persecuted by the FSLN in Managua, Yatama peaceful protestors were called ‘delincuentes’ and accused of looting stores and setting fires to public property. The state criminalized both groups of protestors–Yatama sympathizers and university students– to justify using force against them. Similarly, the state attacked, detained, disappeared, and murdered university students last week in Nicaragua. Captured and shared through social media, the vivid videos of government repression served to vindicate, support, and liberate the formerly criminalized Yatama protestors.
Yatama Reaction to Protests
Yatama Director and Nicaraguan Congressman Brooklyn Rivera giving an intervention at the 2018 UNPFII
Yatama members remained glued to their smart phones and social media all week, watching university students fight and broader society organize massive protest marches in Managua. They replayed the video up-loads of the fall of Chayopalos, the metal trees of life placed across the capital that have come to symbolize the First Lady/Vice President Rosario Murillo’s overreaching power and the government’s wasteful spending of scarce resources. Like a dream come true, they envisioned the Ortega-Murillos stepping down from power.
Rivera was busy fighting for Indigenous and Afro-descendant rights at the 2018 United Nations Permanent Forum of Indigenous Issues in New York, when the protests began in Nicaragua. He commented in retrospect, “I was not surprised by the protests. The Nicaraguan people are tired of the Ortega regime.”
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 21, 2018 | Indigenous Autonomy
Featured image: Typical Bonda house in Baunsupada village. The Bondas have always led sustainable lives in the forest, but deforestation and changes in traditional farming practices now threaten their survival. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty.
by Abhijit Mohanty / Intercontinental Cry
The road to Bondaghati winds through the hills and forests of Malkangiri district, on Odisha’s southern edge. As you enter the area, the tar road fizzles out into multiple footpaths leading towards Bonda villages with thatch and clay tile huts. The area is popularly known as Bondaghati because it is home to one of India’s particularly vulnerable tribes – the Bonda. There are 32 villages covering around 130 square kilometres. According to the census 2011, there are around 12000 Bonda populations.
The Bonda houses are arranged one above the other in uneven terraces. Raibaru Sisa, of Bondapada village, explains that “before the construction of a new house, we consult with our traditional astrologer. He performs a divination to find out the suitability and auspiciousness of the proposed site. Only after the identification of an ideal site for the house by the astrologer, we start constructing our house.”
The once-dense forests of Bondaghati sustained the Bonda for centuries. The forest provided fire wood, grazing land and forest produce such as fruits, tubers, roots, honey, mushrooms, medicinal herbs that they could barter. There was an abundance of wild boar, barking deer, spotted deer, sloth bears, leopards and birds. As Bonda Sombaru Sisa says, “The forest is our home. If there will be no forest, our community will vanish in no time.”
Over the last two decades, this home has shrunk, wildlife is seldom seen and the community’s dependence on the land has become tenuous. “Now we have to cover more distance to collect firewood, forest produce, and to graze our cattle. Earlier, the forest was dense and located near our village, but now, even after walking kilometres together, we find very few resources,” Budhbari Sisa, a Bonda woman laments.
Firewood is mostly collected by the Bonda women for cooking. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty
In the Bonda community, women are everywhere – gathering forest produce, tilling the land and watching over the crops. They practice shifting cultivation on the slopes – on patches of unevenly terraced plots called birhi land – staying in one place for three to five years before moving on. They begin in December by clearing the bushes and shrubs and in February they set fire to the undergrowth. As a rule they don’t burn fruit-bearing trees like mango, tamarind and jackfruit. In the monsoon month of July, sowing by dibbling begins – millet, paddy, pulses, oilseeds and a few vegetables. “We watch the crops day and night, staying in field huts raised on shifting plots,” says Raibari Muduli, a Bonda woman of Dantipada village.
Bondas eat a range of millets and can survive a drought with traditional hardy varieties. Many of their parabs (festivals) revolve around harvests and hunting. The year begins with Magh Parab in January to mark the ceremonial eating of new rice and the selection of village functionaries.
Bonda Women at the local weekly market at Mudulipada. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty
The biggest festival is Chait Parab held through March to celebrate eating the first mango and the start of the annual hunting season. Though all the festivals are important for the Bondas, Chait Parab holds a unique place in the community.
“Men and boys go out into the forest for the annual hunt. If we come back without anything, we cannot show our faces to others. Therefore, no animal escapes from us. If we get nothing else, we even kill a jackal. Women dance and sing whole day in the streets and in village commons” Dhanurjay Sisa of Kichapada village says.
The contour of changes
The typical Bonda language–known as Remo–is now an endangered tongue because more Bondas are getting familiar with Odia as their primary language of communication. The absence of a script or text for Remo adds to the threat of its extinction. It is also assumed that their rich indigenous wisdom will become a casualty to this loss.
From 1976-77, the government of India set up a Bonda Development Agency in Khairput block. The Integrated Tribal Development Agency was also established in Malkangiri district. They did more harm than good, Jaldhar Muduli says, “Many of our traditional varieties of crops are lost and the yield has reduced. Earlier we used to cultivate a range of millets like ragi, kodo, pearl, little, barnyard along with up-land paddy and pulses on the slopes of the mountain. [The] Government is providing us saplings of fruit orchards, seeds of onion and potato. We cannot survive on these. We need millets, rice to feed our belly. This will give us the strength to work on our Birhi land.”
The Bonda also had strong traditional system for resolving conflicts. In the past, the village council seen was as cultural center of the village and the Naik or village headman would be carefully selected based on seniority and their knowledge of tradition. While performing his duties for the villagers, the Naik would be assisted by the Challan and Barika, village functionaries who were responsible for maintaining law and order in the village.
After a police station was erected at Mudulipada panchayat, the judicial role of the village receded. Now cases of assault and violence are reported directly to the police station. As a result, hundreds of Bondas now languish in jail.
Bonda women usually wear thick, durable skirts called ringa. Their jewellery is headbands made of grass, garlands of coins and colourful beads, metal bangles and rings on their necks. They also shave their heads. The older women believe that by sticking to traditional attire they appease the gods and prevent misfortune.
Laxhma Muduli is busy with her household chores. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty
Laxhma Muduli, of Baunsupada village, says, “We are careful about our attire because we do not like to break our age-old tradition.” But the cheap and easy availability of sarees is inducing younger women to switch over, and further to grow their hair. Men too are changing to shirts and shorts. Even modern cloths has been distributed by various government departments and some local NGOs.
A young Bonda girl wearing a modern gown instead of their traditional Ringa. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty
As the outsider visitors frequented the Bonda regions, this interaction and curiosity have had its disastrous effects on the culture, tradition, age-old wisdom and low carbon footprint life style of the ever-resourceful Bonda community. On the other hand, the Bonda are largely unaware of their contribution towards widening and enriching the scope of global culture.
In the words of Verrier Elwin, one of the eminent scholar of Tribal Studies in India, “Let us teach them that their (tribal’s) own culture, their own arts are the precious things, that we respect and need. When they feel that they can make a contribution to their country, they will feel part of it.”
Dambaru Sisa is the first Bonda to represent his community in the Legislative Assembly. A graduate in mathematics and law from Berhampur University, he wants to work to protect “the unique culture and tradition of our Bonda tribe while giving them access to education and everything that goes with modern civilization. I do not want framed photographs of my people decorating drawing rooms of the rich,” he says.
“I also do not want to influential people making money from government programs meant to usher in development for Bondas,” concludes Sisa.
Abhijit Mohanty is a Delhi-based development professional. He has extensively worked with the indigenous communities in India, Nepal and Cameroon especially on the issues of land, forest and water.
