Hi again! This time, I would like to show you a short documentary film about some indigenous peoples in Chile. We often speak about cutural diversity and its big importance in our lives. But, do you know how many indigenous peoples dwelt Chile a long time ago?
Here you have the choice to see some aspects of four of them at present. "Lenguas Indigenas de Chile" was produced by Visualarte, in collaboration with UNESCO Santiago and USACH. Its purpose is to create awareness of the importance of the indigenous heritage in our society.
Some people relate important aspects of its culture while we see a lot images of nature, landscapes which are simply beautiful. The music is also very different from what we hear daily, it seems to take part of the harmony that nature gives us.
Through the six segments, we can see some activities they realize daily and they explain the troubles their cultures face, too, because of the presumable loss of their heritage.
We see how, indigenous people, ligated to some art, constantly make efforts to keep alive the knowledge that has been spreading during years. Some cases are very alarming, like the last Yaghan-Speaker woman.
Here is shown a beautiful life, but we don’t see in any video something about the Mapuche conflict. We only see them in conferences about how important is saving their heritage. Maybe someone who doesn’t know about the conflicts could think that here in Chile, there’s a perfect harmony with Indigenous peoples.
Since hundreds of years ago, this conflict has been marked by peaceful times, but also, hard times. Sadly, we can’t see the whole dimension because it is limited to show the prettiest face of this situation.
I think integration goes further than showing us the different lifestyles in our country. I have the impression they are just showing a postcard to export. Our country has some commitments with these peoples, but there's still some differences between what the Government and the peoples want. We can take these videos as a starting point, but we can't stay there for ever. I hope someday these languages will be teached at schools. Not for being a succesful businessman, no. Just to keep safe a legacy that makes some people to feel ashamed, just to keep safe a legacy that makes to other people feel proud.
Do you think this kind of strategies is effective to create awareness about the importance of cultural diversity?
I think these videos don't represent a complete view of the whole indigenous culture and that is not the best strategy to begin to consider indigenous cultures, but at the same time is a good start for a change in this area and give them the real importance they deserve our indigenous roots, that is what I think Moyra of the 8
ReplyDeleteI agree, like you said, we need a point to start from there. I remember when we worked about education and its access for all the people. Our country still doesn't recognize the importance of indigenous people, and just a little percentage of them has the chance to take part of programs of insertion that combinate their culture with ours. I think they're seen -most of the times- like people to be proud of, but the Government stil doesn't consider them as much as they want. Like you said, if we want to know what peoples are nowadays in Chile, we can start here. But we must remember, these videos can give us as much information as a tourist office can.
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ReplyDeleteDear Moyra, i enjoyed your blog, but i think that the government does many thinks for indigenous people , but most of this people sometimes fight for the wrong rights.
ReplyDeletei also think that there are more important priorities than the proud of a group in this country , priorities like health , emploed , economy , ancients and the middle class . You said that our country still doesn't recognize the importance of indigenous people, i think that it's up to each other, may be for some people is an important think , but for the others , they dont' care about .