Joined Through the Umbilical Cord: Tale of Mother Earth (Jocabed R. Solano Miselis)
Joined through the umbilical cord
Tale of Nana Ologwadule (Mother Earth)
Jocabed R. Solano Miselis[i]
“Ai ye, degi ye, Nana burba, bala midewe neggi, Nue iddo malo, Degi” - Brother, sister, the sacred knowledge is in Mother Earth, it is in the cosmos. Listen well. It is so.
In the ancestral language of the Gunadule people, one of the hundreds of peoples in Abya Yala,[ii] the saglais heard singing the above phrase, which frames the heart of Gunadule spirituality: its relationship with Mother Earth, Nabgwana, nourished by the way in which the people “cosmolive”[iii] with Nana and Baba (God).
It is the movement of the Ruach that has been blowing for thousands of years among the Gunadule, showing us from their life ethic what it means to live recognizing that we are part of Mother Earth and that our union allows us to live in balance and harmony. It is through the sacred songs that we receive the teachings of the path of Nana and Baba (God) to live a life ethic of care, defense and recognition of Mother Earth in everyday life.
In this writing, through the sung Tale of Nana Ologwadule, I would like to make a brief analysis of the way in which the Gunadule people live their relationship with Mother Earth and then ask what their theology proposes to the church and to society.
Nana Ologwadule[iv]
The Tale of Ologwadule
At first everything was dark. A darkness so dense, as if two hands were squeezing one's eyes. There was no sun, there was no moon, the stars were not born. Then Babdummad (Great Father) set out to create the earth, Nandummad (Great Mother) set out to create the earth. When Baba formed Nabgwana, he also lit the sun, moon and stars. Baba radiated the earth, Baba illuminated the face of the mother. The earth was an image and a trace that spoke of the presence of Baba, of the presence of Nana.
Mother Earth took the following names: Ologwadule, Oloiiddirdili, Nabgwana, Olobibbirgunyai, Olowainasob. Baba made it like this, Nanamade it like this: Babdummad spread the mass of gold at the root of Ologwaduleand fixed to it columns and trunks of gold vigorously tied with solid gold reeds. Baba knew that she would carry a heavy burden and provided her with a solid foundation. Baba and Nana worked together. When he had spread the layer of gold, Babdummad planted all kinds of flowers on it; she planted countless species of basil, red, blue, yellow; and made them all open their blades, and it was Oloduddagibi. Everything was gold, everything was silver; and they rejoiced. It was all one big celebration. Baba and Nana brought the flowers to life and they moved.
When we say this, it means that they were our own images; they embodied our lives. As Nana Ologwadule, mother earth, was completed, our spirits were also taking her form, defining themselves according to her rhythm. Because, thanks to her, we would be human beings; from her we define ourselves. Baba then spread out another layer of gold. Baba and Nana worked in unison. This time Baba used the blue gold. Nanaused the blue silver. They wrapped Nana Ologwadule's face again. Baba reattached the blue gold columns and arches with solid blue gold reeds. Baba scattered the seeds and made the range of flowers and mint bloom. The flowers rejoiced; So it was a big celebration. And Nana Ologwadule gradually took her final form. Babdummadworked and formed the contours of mother earth, flooding her with joy, covering her with gold.
Nandummadworked with Babdummad and together they covered Ologwadule with fine gold, with fine silver. The second layer was done. Baba proceeded to cover Ologwadule with the third layer of gold. He took yellow gold for this coat. He did the same process as the previous ones and Ologwadule was hardened like this yellow gold, yellow silver.
For the fourth layer Baba used red gold. Ologwadule was clothed in red gold. In all its breadth the flowers danced, the basils of red gold danced. Baba thus strengthened the great nanny Ologwadule. He tied the pillars of gold to her. Then the river was born. And Ologwadule slowly came to her fullness. It was no longer formless, but solid and compact: Abiayala, Oloburganyala.
Nana Ologwadule, poured out the stream of waters. The current of the river emitted its moan in the entrails of the mother and in her bark the seeds, the vines, sprouted. Greenery arose and the mother's body was filled with beautiful and robust trees with their varied colors. And that's why we call her mother. Mother Earth, Nana Olobibbirgunyai, Baba constituted her as the protector and defender of everything that rocks, moves, lives and rests on her. The sun itself is under her care, the moon, the stars, the winds, the rain, the abysses, the large and small animals. Baba and Nana left with her, from her inception, flower seeds of all kinds, but only when the time was right, and in the due course of their development, they sprouted, invigorating and blushing Nana Ologwadule's cheeks.
Analysis of the text
The story we have just reproduced develops a narrative full of metaphors. To understand it, one must understand the thought forms of the Gunadule nation. For the Guna people, everything that exists on Earth has life. Therefore, the Earth is a living being that feels and thinks. That is why the stories about its origin are narrated through characters, as if they were human beings.
The text begins by pointing out that at the beginning everything was dark. This tells us that we do not know how the birth of the Earth and the Sun happened. What we do know is that Mom and Dad created them. And that in this process Ologwadule has been maturing.
When Ologwadule is spoken of in other narrations, it is pointed out that she was Mago's partner and this may confuse many. Since the use of metaphor and symbols are a fundamental part of the stories of the ancestral peoples. In them, poetry, art, images and beings are brought into play in order to “reveal” enigmas of culture and the cosmo-existence of the peoples. It is not easy for the Western mentality —for which even spiritual knowledge assumes a “linear” character— to understand this, at least initially. In ancestral peoples, such knowledge attends to non-linear, complex perspectives.
In the guna stories Mago is the Sun and Ologwadule is the Earth. We do not know the mystery of this process, but Mago, before being Sun, when he was a boy, was the birth that became Sun. And in the case of Ologwadule, she was the Earth that, in her beginning process, was a girl. Both complemented each other, Mago and Ologwadule, that is, the Sun and the Earth. Although we do not know how the Sun and the Earth came to be, we do know that the Great Father and the Great Mother (Babdummad-Nandummad) are their origin.
In Gunadule theology, the manifestation of the Divinity is understood as Mother and Father. And both complement each other. In the words of theologian Aiban Wagua:
Everything subsists from a system of complementarity. Guna complementarity emerges from their own credibility motives: Baba-Nana, co-creators of the universe. That is to say that the spirituality supported by its understanding of God as Mother and Father, sustains in practice the relationships between men and women as beings that complement each other and that community cannot be created without understanding this sense of complementarity. The relationship with the Earth and the Sun is understood in the same way.[v]
A comment that helps us better understand this sense of complementarity is expressed by the Igwanabiginya sagla (1897-1989): “In this sense, the universe has not been created, but co-created from a parity of forces: man/woman, female /male.”[vi] Therefore, the creation of the Earth comes from Baba and Nana. From the creation of the Earth and the Sun, the other stars were also born.
In Ologwadule's story, the emphasis falls on the creation of Mother Earth, where we are also told that human beings are an image of her. That is to say, we are little Mother Earth, because we carry in us the elements of the Mother. This makes a difference in relation to the concept of the “common home” that others point out to refer to the Earth. Theologian Marilú Salazar says:
The Greek term has traditionally been interpreted as a common house, only this concept, in my opinion, has two underlying epistemic problems. On the one hand, it evokes the patriarchal house and the hierarchical relationships that are established in it from the stratified kyriocentric model even to the slaves. On the other hand, the house is an object that can be sold or bought through the logic of the market, that is, it also functioned as an economic-social unit in ancient Greece. In this model, the pater familias, a white, rich, Hellenic and free man, exercised his sovereign authority as owner of the oikos, thus generating a patrilineal line from the oldest man to the youngest, always establishing patriarchal hierarchies. Women, children, slaves were a kind of “goods” or belongings of the pater familias.[vii]
The indigenous peoples of Abya Yala have understood it since ancient times through their spirituality and, as we delve into their wisdom, we are getting to know this richness present in the midst of the different nations of Abya Yala. The God of life breathed out their breath and has been present in these lands. That is to say, the nega (house) has a “hearting” of a living being and, therefore, constitutes a multiunit in itself, where human beings participate in the cosmic community. Life, as a sacred text, enlightens us to live in harmony with others in our nega. The latter is presented as a different concept from the western one of house-oikos. The nega is interpreted in relation to Mother Earth and, from there, it constitutes another fabric.
Memory of the Earth and its influence on the daily life of the Gunadule people
From the whistling of birds, from the moaning of wild animals, from the sob of trees (dumbirgessu), from the whisper of Ologwadule, we learn to live in harmony. We learn with the senses. Each story, each dance, the language, the food, the relationships, the silence and much more, form or deform a nation. This is well known to the grandparents in the Gunadule nation. So, since ancient times, they have worked so that the new generations can continue singing, and not die.
The great importance of spirituality lies in the fact that our political actions emanate from it. We do not separate public life from private. And we do not disintegrate the life of the sacred from the life of the secular. The whole of life is sacred. Every act, no matter how small, is a political act.
The highest ethic of the Gunadule nation is community life. Without that community we are beings alienated by our selfishness. In the songs we are reminded of this so that we do not forget and do not repeat the stories of regret that we have lived when we have not been able to recognize the importance that one has for the others and of the others for one.
Therefore, when we go to one of the sacred places of the Gunadule people, which is called the ommagenednegga, we know that it is important to pay attention. We listen to the sualibgan-Suwaribga[viii]when they warn us: Gabidamalarggenueiddomalargge (Pay attention! Do not fall asleep!). Because it depends on this song for the community to understand well what our behavior should be. Thus, we join the heart of the Great Father, the Great Mother, the heart of Ologwadule and we remember the memories of the Earth, of our grandmothers and grandfathers, their celebrations, struggles, laments, hopes, and cries of resistance.
It is a moment that we live in community, where coexistence is not only passive, because we actively listen to the voice of God, of Mother Earth, of the cosmic community and we recognize that Mom and Dad have been there. There we are invited to listen to what Mom and Dad tell us through the Memory of the Earth. The secret of the Gunadule people has been that we listen to God (Nana and Baba) through the voice of Mama (Mother Earth) as an invitation to live in harmony.
That is why we see the influence of the memory of the Earth in everything we do: from the birds, we learned to dance. One day, the children who were looking at the sky noticed that the birds were circling and they began to do the same. But they also learned to walk as birds walked, mimicking their steps and jumping, and they saw that the birds looked united as if they were holding each other by linking arms. So they also did the same. From the birds we also learned to defend ourselves against the threats that we experienced. In the Gwibloni[ix]season, which is the time of the warrior birds, they defend the territory with their own lives, they fly in flocks. And we, the Gunadule, learned from them to defend ourselves, we know that we must live as a family, that we have to defend ourselves from the threats that want to dismantle our identity. In ancient times we defended ourselves from the genocide carried out by the conquerors; In February 1925 we rose up against the Panamanian state that wanted to “civilize” us.[x] The hegemonic systems have tried to impose their ideologies, both economically and politically, religiously and culturally. It has been hundreds of years resisting and uprising, loving the Earth, defending the autonomy of the territory.
The birds taught us the best strategy, but they also taught us and showed us the dangers. Through their gurgles and whistles they heralded good times or warned to prepare to face an extremely dry season. When gigga[xi] flew very low and almost brushed against a person and with desperate shrieks, it presaged something very unpleasant, a surprise that could be violent; but if it gurgled with slow and deliberate whistles, it was a sign of a pleasant message, maybe there was a herd of peccaries a short distance away.[xii] We, the Gunadule, relate the combat and the message as signals to be alert.
The Earth is sacred and is inhabited by other living beings with which we maintain a harmonious relationship. This is how we plant timber trees such as binnuwar (wild cashew), gaobanwar (mahogany), urwar (cedar), nugnuwar (ceiba). The canoes, for the Gunadule people, are a sign of autonomy because they are used for work and daily transportation. Trees have been among us and interacting with them gives us life. Therefore, most of the territories in the Gunadule nation are not inhabited by the Gunadule, as they are full of trees and medicinal plants.
Medicinal plants are sacred texts that tell us about health, strength, energy, vital air that we can breathe to live. Medicinal plants are female and are our great protectors. Memory tells that Inabundorgan went down late at night, while the evil spirits slept. And when they woke up, they heard thousands of female voices singing beautiful melodies and they were the plants. That is why, before uprooting the medicinal plants, we converse with them, and Mom and Dad are invoked along with them.[xiii]
Indigenous knowledge about medicines is ancestral, it has been transmitted from generation to generation. An inaduled claims to be "a duleina dreamer" and recalls that "I learned everything from my ancestors and for 20, 30 years and I continue to learn other treatises, and I did not study for 10 years, as happens in wagas universities.[xiv] Our forest is a true university, there we practice and extract ina (medicine).” Another inaduledcomments that “ancestral knowledge in our ina does not exist, the ancestral is the present, it always exists (...) because our ina is an entire health system that has been kept alive thanks to the effort and defense that we have made through the centuries.” It is a timeless wisdom, it is a wisdom that comes from Nabgwana – Mother Earth.[xv]
Some Implications for the church
Gunadule hermeneutics is a proposal from the heart of Mother Earth. Their theology invites us to know from their stories how God's path has been in their memories. This leads us to know them, and from this knowledge, to know ourselves, to recognize ourselves, and to know the indigenous face of God. From missiology and in the pastoral care of the churches, Gunadule theology challenges us to ask ourselves how much of this tells us about the specificity and particularity of indigenous peoples as the people of God, who have special gifts that allow us to learn to live in harmony with all created beings, including human beings.
The importance of the voice of Mother Earth in daily life and the revelation of Nana and Baba to Mother Earth and in Mother Earth, lies precisely in the fact that God is not only revealed on Earth, but to her. And this propitiates a decolonizing turn, because it conceives the Earth as a living being, which receives the gift of life, co-creates with God, produces, regenerates, renews, and provokes. For she is ancestor, prophet, healer and body of God. This body of God expresses love, compassion, community, reciprocity, the relationship between the cosmic community, the power, the strength, the energy of the Ruach in it. Through cyclical and spiraling time, it is immanent and transcendent, but it also encompasses life at all times, at all times, transcending the dimensions of life and the cosmos.
From this perspective, Gunadule theology opens up other possibilities for us to understand Christology, pneumatology, creation stories; and invites us to walk in the mystery of God, which has no beginning or end, because its rhythm unfolds in a spiral. The interpretation of God in the Gunadule people is not articulated from a patriarchal system, since each person is important in the Gunadule community. For example, the house of the Gunadule people is one of the strongest structures from a political and spiritual point of view. As it expresses the complementary, integral and holistic conception that characterizes the Gunadule people. In this framework, each act, however small it may seem, affects the harmony of life. Therefore, the task of Gunadulelife is relevant and significant when doing Gunadule theology.
Hence, the invitation to Christians is to continue knowing, listening, recognizing, dialoguing, to continue the path of a profound quest by those who embrace the faith of Jesus from their identity. And, in the case of the Gunadules as guna, to do it from the narrative that feeds the life of the people, which enhances and enriches their maturation as the image and likeness of God.
It is essential to value the narrative contribution of indigenous peoples and respect their theologies about the memory of the Earth. They allow us to have a broader picture of the grace and diversity of God in the world, inviting us to dialogue on the path of encounter and mediation. A path oriented towards world experience, which allows us to open ourselves to other worlds of possibilities in the understanding of biblical texts, which enrich and ferment an intercultural church.
It is necessary to recognize this liberating reading from the indigenous peoples. And the sacred texts of the indigenous peoples as a space of experience of these indigenous peoples in their relationship with the memory of the Divinity and of the Earth. This implies opening a path to deepen the faith of the indigenous ancestors as a meeting for dialogue, which allows recognizing the indigenous face of the Divinity.
This should provoke in the global church an attitude of listening, of humility, to dialogue as peers and not seeking to impose submission, believing that there is only one truth about God. It is the invitation of the communities that allows us to dialogue and not the other way around. It allows us to walk with the indigenous peoples, being aware that they are the main actors in their own struggles. This includes the current agendas for the vindication of their territories against systems of death —such as extractivism, megaprojects, mining, monocultures, among other phenomena that cause the climate emergency—, which are realities that affect the Earth, the crops.
The indigenous faces of God speak to us of the gift of community vocation that indigenous peoples have, given and revealed to each people in a specific way. They propose their own way of walking united, in the same way that the baby is joined through the umbilical cord with his mother. In this way we can live the healing process of our body-territories, being healed by Nana and Baba on Mother Earth.
Quoted and Recommended Resources for Further Reading
Congreso General Kuna. Anmar igar (Normas Kunas). Panamá: Congreso General Kuna, 2001.
“La Palabra se hizo India.” Revista de Interpretación Bíblica Latinoamericana 26 (1997).
Green, Abadio. Interviewed by Jocabed Solano Michelis. Ocyober 5, 2019 and March 20, 2020.
Guerrero Arias, Patricio. “Corazonar desde el calor de las sabidurías insurgentes, la frialdad de la teoría y la metodología.” Sophia 13 (2012): 199-228.
Guerrero Arias, Patricio. La chakana del corazonar. Quito, Ecuador: Editorial Abya Yala, 2018.
López, Sagla Belisariro. Interviewed by Jocabed Solano Michelis. September 1, 2020.
Martínez, Atilio. El legado de los abuelos. Panamá: Equipo EBI Guna, 2012.
Memoria Indígena. “Conclusiones del encuentro Lima 2015.” Accessed December 10, 2020. https://memoriaindigena.org/conclusiones-del-encuentro-lima-2015/.
Rojas Salazar, Marilú. “Diversidad eroecosofiánica como categoría epistémica decolonial de los cuerpos abyectos ante los fundamentalismos religiosos.” In Las teologías feministas frente al fundamentalismo religioso. Edited by the Comisión ‘Saberes’ of the Red TEPALI, 269-280. Vitória, Brasil: Editorial Unida, 2020.
Solano Miselis, Jocabed. “Las narrativas como resistencia política. La experiencia de la nación guna.” In Juventudes: Otras voces, nuevos espacios. Confrontando la teología y la misión. Edited by Priscila Barredo Pantí and Nicolás Panotto. México: FTL, 2018.
Solano Miselis, Jocabed. “Voces indígenas: Fortaleza espiritual de los pueblos de Abya Yala. Dulamar gagga: anmar burba gangued Abya Yalagi.” The Global Church Project (2018). https://theglobalchurchproject.com/jocabed-spanish/
El sueño de Dios en la creación humana y en el cosmos. Memory of the IV Simposio Latinoamericano de Teología India, Lima (Perú), March 28 through Abril 2, 2011. Bogotá, Colombia: CELAM, 2013.
Ventocilla, José, Heraclio Herrera and Valerio Núñez. El Espíritu de la tierra: Plantas y animales en la vida del pueblo Kuna. Quito: Abya Yala, 1999.
Wagua, Aiban. Así lo vi y así me lo contaron. Panamá: Fondo Mixto Hispano-Panameño de Cooperación, 2007.
Wagua, Aiban. En defensa de la vida y su armonía. Panamá: Proyecto EBI Guna y Fondo Mixto Hispano Panameño, 2011.
Wagua, Aiban. Interviewed by Jocabed Solano Michelis. September 25, 2020.
Wagua, Aiban. Los gunas entre dos sistemas educativos. Panamá: Proyecto EBI Guna; Fondo Mixto Hispano Panameño, 2005.
Citations
[i] Jocabed R. Solano Miselis (playerjrsm@gmail.com) belongs to the Gunadule nation of Panama. She was born in the time of medicinal plants, she is the director of Memoria Indígena and completed a master's degree in interdisciplinary theology at the Community of Interdisciplinary Theological Studies (CETI) and at Carey Theological College of Canada.
[ii] TN: Abya Yala is the Guna term for “land in its full maturity” (see “Abiayala” below near the end of the Tale of Ologwadule). It is one of the most ancient ancestral terms recorded that refers to the lands that have become the Americas. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it has become a commonly used term amongst many indigenous rights movements of this continent.
[iii] The concept describes the intrinsic relationship of the Gunadule people from their wisdom and relationship with Nana and Baba, Mother Earth, and the communities of living beings. It is used in contrast to “cosmovision,” or “world view”, which is a Western term that determines the source of knowledge from what is observed, while indigenous peoples posit cosmoliving, or world experience. See Patricio Guerrero Arias, “Corazonar desde el calor de las sabidurías insurgentes, la frialdad de la teoría y la metodología,” Sophia 13 (2012): 208. See, by the same author, La chakana del corazonar (Quito: Editorial Universitaria Abya Yala, 2018).
[iv] Nana Ologwadule is one of the ancient sung stories of the Gunadule nation. Here, an excerpt from the song is presented.
[v] Aiban Wagua, interview by Jocabed Solano Michelis, September 25, 2020.
[vi] Aiban Wagua, Los gunas entre dos sistemas educativos (Panamá: Proyecto EBI Guna; Fondo Mixto Hispano Panameño, 2005), 9.
[vii] Marilú Rojas Salazar, “Diversidad eroecosofiánica como categoría epistémica decolonial de los cuerpos abyectos ante los fundamentalismos religiosos,” in Las teologías feministas frente al fundamentalismo religioso, edited by the Comisión ‘Saberes’ of the Red TEPALI (Vitória, Brasil: Editorial Unida, 2020), 273-274.
[viii] Suwaribgan, custodians or guardians of the community, people in charge of putting order in the communities and warning the people who listen to the saglagan in the gunadule general house of congress.
[ix] Gwiblonii: in this month, due to the abundance of butterflies, the birds (gwiblo) come down. They fly in flocks. In the Gregorian calendar it would be October.
[x] The Revolution of 1925, undertaken by the Gunas against the Panamian state.
[xi] Gigga: messenger bird that, for the Gunadule people, warns about danger.
[xii] Atilio Martínez, El legado de los abuelos (Panamá: Equipo EBI Guna, 2012), 71
[xiii] Martínez, El legado.
[xiv] Wagas: foreigner, ladino, not-guna, not-indigenous.
[xv] Martínez, El legado.
###
Jocabed Reina Solano Miselis is a daughter of the Gunadule nation, from the country of Panama. She is currently director of Memoria Indígena and PhD student of Theological Studies at NAIITS. Jocabed has written several articles in the area of identity, indigeneity, Guna spirituality, on their relationship with the land. She has been a delegate of Panama, at COP26 and COP27.
This article was first published in: International Handbook on Creation Care and Eco-Diakonia, Concepts and Theological Perspectives of Churches from the Global South, Editors: Daniel Beros, Eale Bosela, Lesmore Ezekiel, Kambale Kahongya, Ruomin Liu, Grace Moon, Marisa Strizzi, Dietrich Werner, Ediciones La Aurora, 2022. Special thanks to editor Daniel Beros for allowing us to share both the English and Spanish versions of this article.
