Following the stories of the Sarayaku people: A

journey in Ecuador to discover the heritage of

indigenous communities

Sophia Yacoub

Arianna Pragnya Iovine

2015

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Table of Contents

1. Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………….3

2. Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………...3

3. The authors…………………………………………………………………………………………….4

4. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………6

i. Origins………………………………………………………………………………………………………6ii. Background………………………………………………………………………………………………6iii. Objective and limitations……………………………………………………………………………………………………8

5. Structure and scope………………………………………………………………………………..9

6. Journey.…………………………………………………………………………………………………..9

7. Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………………11

8. Results………………………………………………………………………………………………….13

9. Accounting statement…………………………………………………………………………18

10. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………20

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1. Abstract

In June 2015 we travelled to Ecuador to visit the Amazonian Kichwa village of

Sarayaku. This was made possible with the aid of the Lord Rootes Memorial

Foundation at Warwick University. We decided to apply for the fund in order to

learn about the oral tradition of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku and the way in

which story-telling has become a means to undermine the constant pressures of

development imposed by the global north. We found that the Kichwa people

used modern tools, such as various media outlets, in order to disseminate their

stories, so as to be able to preserve their cultural heritage and more importantly

protect their land. We found that the very language they utilised incorporated

anecdotal schemes through which they communicated events in their lives.

2. Acknowledgements

We would like to thank The Lord Rootes memorial foundation for the

opportunity to undertake this project, and the Kichwa people of Sarayaku for

welcoming us in their homes and in their community.

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3. The authors

Arianna Pragnya Iovine

A.P.Iovine@warwick.ac.uk

Arianna is a final year studying English and Comparative literary studies at

undergraduate level at Warwick University. She has always been fascinated by

stories and their radical potential to instigate change, whether that is personal or

social. Arianna grew up in India, Finland and Italy, and therefore has been

exposed to different cultures and their different modes of communication. This

has given her the ability to interact with cultures that are different to her own.

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Sophia Yacoub

S.yacoub@warwick.ac.uk

Sophia is a final year BA Sociology student with Specialism in Cultural Studies.

Her interests lie in resistance movements and community organization. Before

coming to Warwick she attended an international boarding school in Sweden and

later travelled around Latin America learning Spanish and gaining an

understanding of some of the customs and traditions in the region. She comes

from a mixed culture family with Swedish and Assyrian-Iraqi heritage, which is

something that led her to gaining an interest the topic of cultural studies.

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4. Introduction

i. Origins

The idea for this project originated from an interaction with one of youth leaders

of the Sarayaku village, Nina Gualinga. Nina has been living both in Sarayaku and

in Sweden whilst growing up, and she went to school with one of the project

participants (Sophia). This is how we encountered her. Nina has been involved in

the land struggle of Sarayaku for most of her life. She told stories of the remote

areas of the Amazon where she grew up, of customs that were unfamiliar to us,

and of ways of living that resided outside of our conventional understanding of

social formation. We felt that her stories were charged with a radical potential to

shift social hegemonic narratives, and this in turn inspired us to travel to

Ecuador and learn about the traditions, customs and the plight of the people of

Sarayaku against industrialization and the exploitation of their land, and for the

continuation of their culture and customs.

ii. Background

The Kichwa community of Sarayaku is located in the Pastaza province of the

Amazonian region of Ecuador (see figure 1). A thirty-minute flight from the

nearest town Puyo, or 7 hours on river by canoe from Canelos, Sarayaku is home

to around a thousand indigenous people as well as a multitude of birds, insects,

animals and plants. The people of Sarayaku strive to live in a way that is in

symbiosis with their environment and with as little impact on the climate as

possible. Many of the inhabitants of the village have been involved in the struggle

against the destruction of the environment and in protecting their own land from

exploitation and degradation.

The community maintains its traditions and its culture orally from

generation to generation. Many of the indigenous people of Sarayaku see it as

their mission to preserve and protect the environment, both in their homelands

and around the world. This is particularly evident among the youth of the village;

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Sarayaku has been under threat from unsustainable practices such as oil

extraction and deforestation for many years – these untenable practices render

them particularly vulnerable as they depend on the land for their sustenance.

Due to their special emotional connection to the forest and the earth, or

Pachamama as they would call it, their struggle against oil companies has

become vital.

Sarayaku is somewhat of a paradox; their forced interaction with the

Ecuadorian state and multinational oil companies has made them rely upon new

technology tools in order to preserve their cultural integrity. When we got their

we were surprised to find that they used motorboats to transport themselves to

the nearest town, Puyo, and that they had internet in their ‘government’ building

for example. The preservation of their values has become contingent in their

communicating and retelling their stories of resistance to a global audience.

Examples of this can be found in various media outlets such as their personal

website, articles written by The Guardian, Amazon Watch, numerous videos and

documentaries, for instance their collaboration with Amnesty International, and

other media outlets in the global north.

Figure 1. Map of Ecuador with Sarayaku

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iii. Objectives and limitations

This project aimed at collecting and understanding the oral narratives of the

Kichwa people of Sarayaku, and to see how storytelling is utilised as a social tool

to promote the longevity of their cultural traditions and customs. The people of

the Sarayaku village use storytelling for a variety of purposes and their everyday

actions are laden with this narrative tool. Our project initially set out to compile

a collection of traditional stories of the Kichwa people, to translate them and

publish them for a wider public. This objective proved to be problematic in

various ways, mainly due to our false understanding of what constitutes oral

tradition and ‘’stories’’ in the context of the Kichwa language and the people of

the Village. Furthermore we realised our initial aim was perhaps superfluous as

the Kichwa people already actively engage with tools to disseminate their stories

of resistance, as pointed out earlier (see page 6). Most importantly the Sarayaku

people did not have a “set” of stories that were retold in any specifically

sequenced manner, but rather, we came to the understanding that they use an

anecdotal method of relating to one another across and between generations.

This shift in our perspective led to a more suitable approach, in which rather

than seeing ourselves as mediators of their stories and struggles, we decided to

take an ethnographic approach and recounted what we learnt from them in a

blog. We also learnt a lot of what it meant for this group of people to struggle to

exist ‘in between worlds’ – the globalized, interconnected world-society, and

their material reality, where they are immensely connected to their land.

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5. Structure and scope

This report will outline the structure of the project undertaken. It will start by

giving an account of the journey to the amazon and potential problems

encountered. It will then proceed to describe the methodology utilised and how

this deviated from the initially intended methodology. It will then provide a

summary of the results and some concluding thoughts on the project.

6. Journey

We landed in Quito after a 17-hour flight from London, and made our way to

Minka hostel that was to house us for a day. We soon learnt that we were unable

to head straight to Sarayaku, as we had to wait on a formal invitation from the

family that was to host us whilst in the village. Since we were not partaking in

‘’eco-tourism’’, we were to travel to Sarayaku with one of the members of the

Gualinga family. Access to Sarayaku is difficult and time-consuming. We had to

make some changes in our plans, as we had to wait for 10 days before the family

could collect us. Given the opportunity to be in Ecuador and carry out this

project, we decided to travel around different areas of the country inhabited by

indigenous communities to learn more about the country and the context in

which the people of Sarayaku and other indigenous people finds themselves. We

were interested in the indigenous people of the Andes, as we thought that their

experience could enrich our insight on the plight for the preservation of

indigenous cultural identity and prepare us for our stay with the Kichwa people.

Our first destination was Otavalo. The indigenous ‘Otavaleños’ are renowned for

their textiles; the Otavalo market being a place in which many sell their

handicrafts . We then travelled to Mindo, spending a few days in the Cloud Forest

after which we moved to Quilotoa which is an immense lake located within a

crater, surrounded by indigenous Andean villages (see fig. 2). Finally we were

given the green light to make our way to Sarayaku and got on the bus to Puyo.

However due to road eroion we were held up in Baños and missed the canoe that

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we were supposed to get. When arrived in Puyo we were welcomed by Juan

Gualinga, Nina’s uncle who gave us some information about what our stay in

Sarayaku would likely entail. The next day we finally got to travel to Sarayaku.

We went on a wooden canoe with a motor with a group of indigenous people; a

woman and her newborn child and husband, another woman and her son, and a

younger man about our age. We embarked on a 7 hour-long canoe journey on the

Pastaza River into the Amazon rain forest (see fig 3).

Fig 2. Lake Quilotoa

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Fig 3. On our way by Canoe to Sarayaku

7. Methodology

Our initially proposed methodology was to  

a. Live with the Kichwa people in order to establish a rapport.

b. Record stories from individuals, as well as those sung in local ceremonies

by elder women.

c. Translate the stories using Nina Gualinga as an interpreter

Given the change in our objectives (see page 8) it followed that our methodology

changed as well. Our new methodology included

a. living with the Kichwa people in order to establish a report.

i. When we first arrived in Sarayaku we lived in a Pangawasi (leaf houses

see fig 4), on the ‘plaza’. The house was inhabited of one of the communal

leaders’ families. Later on we moved to Noemi Gualinga (Nina’s mother)’s

house on the opposite side of the river from the ‘plaza’ where we first stayed.

From the outset we became involved with the various chores of the

community. The community was very much aware that we were there to

learn about their culture, and patiently answered our almost endless

questions. On the first day of our arrival we met the Gualinga family and their

neighbors and ate a traditional meal with them (Maito = usually a whole fish

cooked in a banana, or other, leaf, together with Cassava, potato or plantain).

Although initially we felt as if there was a distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’,

and that maybe we were in the way of their normal lives, we slowly started to

assimilate into their daily lives as time passed and became familiar with most

of the people who we were around, especially the Gualinga family. We

actively tried to be involved with different chores and express an interest in

following their customs and daily routine. As such, we woke up at 5 am to

drink wayusa and talk about our dreams and accepted invitations to various

ceremonies and celebrations. On one such occasion we were invited to a

community ‘work day’ where members of selected families in the area

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worked together to improve the village infrastructure. The women trimmed

the grass around pathways whilst men cut trees. This ended in a nightlong

celebration, which involved talking, dancing and drinking asswa (drink made

from fermented cassava, traditionally made by women) (see fig 5). We felt it

was necessary to take these steps in order to respect their customs and to

broaden our understanding of their cultural heritage.

Figure 4. A type of Pangawasi in the ‘plaza’

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Fig 5. Serving asswa at a local ceremony

b. Keeping a diary log in order to collect data for our mini ethnography

i. We decided to keep diary entries of our experiences that we then

transcribed in our blog. We were weary about writing during social interactions,

as we did not want to create the binary of ‘’observer’’ and ‘’observed’’.

Furthermore this would allow us to gain more out of the experience by being

present in each moment with our hosts. We normally took notes at the end of

each day.

8. Results

We produced a blog to publish our experience under the domain

https://storiesofresistanceblog.wordpress.com/.

We discovered that story telling was the way in which the people of Sarayaku

interacted between themselves and the outside world. We noticed that the

children were incredibly knowledgeable about their surroundings; about plants,

insects, animals, Ecuadorian politics, the history of the village, colonialism

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amongst other things. This seemed to be attributed to the fact that adults and

children spend a lot of time talking to each other, and knowledge is constantly

passed on from one person to another. We noticed that the way in which the

people communicated was based in sharing knowledge. Noemi for instance

commented on the fact that in her youth she spent hours every day talking to the

elders. It was a natural pastime to her. When cooking together or sitting around

in the afternoons, we noticed that talking and telling stories was very much the

central activity. The conversations were laden with anecdotes. Moreover talking

seemed to be fundamental to many ceremonies, for example the ‘work day’

ceremony, as well as in daily practices such as dream sharing in the mornings.

Our discovery was important as it debunked our previous assumptions

and exotified vision of the Sarayaku people, and how oral traditions work. We

realized it would have been ridiculous for us to ask them to tell us specific stories

or ‘folk tales’ that somehow shaped their communities, for the language they use

is mediated by an anecdotal format. We noticed that this practice of telling

stories has become a way for them to resist oil companies, as they have caught

the attention of a global audience and have been a source of inspiration to others

resisting land grabbing.

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Figure 6. Sophia and Helena making food in the Kitchen

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Figure 7. Reading in the room we stayed at

Figure 8. Handmade pots filled with asswa.

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Figure 9. Arianna learning to dance in the traditional way

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9. Accounting statement

Plan

Cost Total trip

Flights £900 per person £1800

Travel in country £240 £240

Accommodation £250 £250

Insurance £50 per person £100

Other £20 for recording devise £50

Total 2440

Actual expenditure

 

Cost for 2 people in £ TotalTravel Leamington to London Heathrow = 18,50

Bus from airport to Quito = 20

Quito to Otavalo and back = 32

Quito to Mindo = 40

Mindo to Quilotoa = 30

Quilotoa to Puyo = 30

290,5

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Puyo to Canelos = 40

Canelos to Sarayaku and back = 80Accommodation Hostel Minka = 20

Hostel Secret Garden = 30

Hostel Mindo = 5 nights, 100

Runa Wasi Quilotoa = 4 nights, 136

Hostel Colibri Puyo = 2 nights, 60

346

Food and Water Outside Sarayaku =280

Sarayaku = 300

580

Vaccinations (1 person) Yellow Fever = 75 75Other Rubber Boots = 20 20Flights 1253,22 1253, 22

2564,72

 

In our finance report we did not take into consideration the money needed to

stay in Sarayaku. These expenses included drinking water, rubber boots, food for

us and the community to last us 10 days (since they had experienced 2 floods in

the same year, were low on produce), fuel for the canoe etc. that we did not

mention in the report. In addition, it has been very hard to keep receipts as

everything is dealt in cash.

 Our main costs were accommodation. Since we could not enter the Amazon

immediately we travelled around Ecuador to areas with high population of

Indigenous people. For this reason our cost for accommodation is higher than

expected.  

 Moreover when entering the Amazon we were asked by Juan Gualinga (who

accompanied us into the forest), to provide him with £150 each for food. We

thought this a little expensive, but he explained that we would not have access to

staples such as rice and oats. He also told us there had recently been a flood in

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Sarayaku, which meant that the chakras (wild allotments) had not produced as

much food as was usual.  

 We are not completely sure what else as Juan Gualinga asked us to give him the

money to do shopping for the village and we were in no place to refuse him. We

did however believe that there was a lack of transparency as we were not

informed exactly where the money was going.

10. Conclusion

The experience was overwhelmingly positive and inspirational. We experienced

first hand the power of communal living and the ability of stories to instigate

social change. We learned of their culture and the way in which their cultural

heritage exists within their very language. The project allowed us to experience

unique forms of interaction, which lie outside of conventional forms of capitalist

modes of existence. Though we approached the project with certain expectations

and false assumptions, these were soon debunked and we were able to learn and

grow enormously.

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