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Uprooted: Amazonian Siekopai people battle for return to ancestral land
Displaced by decades of war as well as commercial and cultural intrusions, the Siekopai eke out a living doing odd jobs in rural towns bordered by oil fields, palm plantations and a network of busy roads.
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A Siekopai indigenous woman with a traditional paint design on her face holds a child during the second binational meeting of the Siekopai Nation community in the Amazon region in Lagartococha, Peru, on January 10, 2023. They call themselves “the multicolored people“ or Siekopai after the eye-catching traditional body paint and adornments they used to wear in their ancestral home in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Now, the Amazonian Siekopai people, displaced by decades of war and commercial and cultural intrusions, live scattered between villages straddling the Ecuador-Peru border. Teetering on the brink of cultural extinction, Siekopai leaders say it is a matter of survival to reclaim their ancestral land -- still largely untouched in the remote heart of the Amazon.
(AFP/Pedro Pardo )
T
hey call themselves "the multicolored people," or Siekopai, after the eye-catching traditional body paint and adornments they used to wear in their ancestral home in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
But the feathered crowns and animal tooth necklaces are now stored away for special occasions as the Siekopai live scattered between villages straddling the Ecuador-Peru border, far from their hunter-gatherer way of life and ancestral territory, which they are fighting to reclaim.
Displaced by decades of war as well as commercial and cultural intrusions, the Siekopai eke out a living doing odd jobs in rural towns bordered by oil fields, palm plantations and a network of busy roads.
The children wear jeans, T-shirts and sneakers, listen to reggaeton and -- instead of learning to fish, hunt and make traditional plant brews when not in school -- stare transfixed at cell phone or tablet screens just like teenagers anywhere else.
With the Siekopai teetering on the brink of cultural extinction, their leaders say it is a matter of survival to reclaim their ancestral land -- still largely untouched in the remote heart of the Amazon.
They call the homeland Pe'keya in the Paicoca language.
"Our big dream is to rebuild our territory -- to reunite our nation, our families along these rivers that are home to the spirits and creatures my grandfather used to tell me about," community leader Justino Piaguaje told AFP at a recent, rare Siekopai reunion in Pe'keya.
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