Women Healing Earth

1
Women Healing Earth

• Third World Woman on Ecology, Feminism, and
  Religion
• by Rosemary Radford Ruether

2
Women Healing Earth

• This presentation explores the interconnections
  between the domination of women and the
  domination of nature, or eco-feminism, and how
  religion interplays with this connection in both
  positive and negative ways (1).
• This presentation will focus on essays from Latin
  and Central America.

3
Women Healing Earth

• What connects these essays is a complex
  reality of how women and nature have been
  exploited both by their own societies as well as
  by colonizing powers, how women function as the
  mediators of natures benefits for their
  families, and in this context, as caretakers of
  nature (2).

4
Women Healing Earth

• Things to keep our eyes on include
• A less visible relationship between oppression
  of women and poverty, (especially women and
  children) impoverishment of the soil, pollution
  of the air and water-these shrinking means of
  basic survival for those struggling to live in a
  subsistence economy (7).

5
Women Healing Earth

• Second, we can learn to be less dogmatic and
  more creative about what is good and bad usable
  and problematic, in our own cultural legacies.
  We too might look back to our indigenous roots
  in Celtic Nordic, or Slavic Europe and find
  similar patterns of spirituality to that found in
  Latin America. We can also mine our Greek,
  Hebrew, and Christian heritages, as well as our
  modern emancipatory traditions for usable
  insights (7).

6
Women Healing Earth

• Lastly, we need to free ourselves from both our
  chauvinism and our escapism to play with what is
  liberating in our heritages (7).
• In short we need to deal modestly and truthfully
  but also transformatively with who we are,
  culturally and economically (8).

7
Women Healing Earth

• This presentation will look at
• The Trinity
• Latin America
• In Us Life Grows
• Latin Americas Poor Women
• What has caused the exploitation.
• How these women live.
• Foreigners
• After Five Centuries of Mixing, Who Are We?

8
Trinity

• 1) Human beings are a fruit of a long process,
  the evolution of life itself (14).
• 2) We are creative beings.
• 3) We have learned many things.
• 4) Our extraordinary creativity acquired the
  ability to produce meanings capable of helping us
  live out this or that situation(15).

9
Trinity

• Throughout history we have constructed our
  interpretations of science, wisdom, knowledge
  (15).
• We have affirmed one thing today and changed it
  tomorrow (15).
• We have affirmed the image of God as
  warrior-avenger or as tender and compassionate
  (15).

10
Trinity

• We have also constructed the Trinity of three
  distinct persons in one God so too we can change
  our way of portraying it as we develop new
  perceptions (15).

11
The Trinity is not

• Three separate persons living in a heaven we
  cannot locate
• Three persons different from one another the way
  we differ as persons.
• The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not of
  divine stuff as opposed to our human stuff (16).

12
Rather the Trinity is

• Relationships (16).
• Within Christian experience, Father, Son, and
  Holy Spirit are symbolic express-ions we use to
  speak of the profound intuition that all of us
  share (16).

13
Reconstructing the Meaning of the Trinity

• What is reconstruction?
• We speak of reconstruction when a human
  relationship, a piece of land, a city, or even a
  society needs to remake itself, re-create itself,
  renew its relational life. (16).

14
Five proposals of reconstructing relationships.

• The Trinity in the Cosmos
• The Trinity on Earth
• The Trinity in Relationships among People and
  Cultures
• The Trinity in Human Relationships
• The Trinity in Every Person

15
Trinity of the Cosmos

• Stars, galaxies, heavenly bodies, planets,
  satellites, the atmosphere, the seas, rivers,
  winds, rain, snow, mountains, volcanoes-all are
  expressions of the multiple creativity of the
  universe they are profoundly interdependent and
  interrelated (16).

16
The Trinity on Earth

• The Trinitarian earth is a movement of
  continuous creativity, unfolding processes of
  creation and destruction that are expressions of
  a single vital process (17).

17
The Trinity in Relationships among Peoples and
Cultures

• Whites, blacks, indigenous peoples, Asiatics and
  mestizos, all with different languages and
  customs, statures, and sexes, make up an awesome
  and diverse human symphony in which, once again
  the multiplicity and unity are constitutive
  expressions of the single vital process that
  sustains us allIf we accept this diversity as
  part of the Trinitarian structure itself and take
  it seriously as the basic make-up of all beings,
  there is no way to justify the idea of any
  beings superiority or inferiority (17).

18
The Trinity in Human Relationship

• We are the mystery of our stories, our
  traditions, our questions. We are I, thou, and
  mystery, and therefore Trinity, in closeness and
  allure of a profound relationship that leads us
  to a deeper level of intimacy, of desire to know
  one another.For this reason, knowing one another
  requires not only time, patience, and dialogue
  but a constant and challenging investment of
  ourselves(18).

19
Trinity in Every Person

• Our own person being is Trinitarian it is
  mysteriously multiple at the same time that it is
  one. And most important , this extraordinary
  reality can be seen in the lives of all peoples
  it is present in all biological functions, in all
  cultural and religious processes (18).

20
The Celebration of Life

• By trying to understand the Trinity as a human
  experience we are able to celebrate life in a new
  way (18).
• We experience a broader oneness with the life
  processes that are beyond our own boundaries. We
  praise ourselves, we praise the earth we praise
  all beings as we raise our voices in praise of
  the Trinity(18-19).

21
Advantages of Reconstructing the Trinity.

• We leave behind the evil of unbalanced
  situations (21) between genders, sexes, classes,
  religions, and good and evil.
• And we create a balance between I and thou, I
  and we, we and they, ourselves and the earth, as
  well as plants and animals and all creative
  energies of the earth (22).

22
Latin America

• In Us Life Grows-
• Mercedes Canas/ El Salvador
• Latin Americas Poor Women
• Gladys Parentelli/ Venezuala
• Foreigners
• Janet W. May/ Costa Rica
• After Five Centuries of Mixings Who Are We?
• Mary Judith Ress/ Chile

23
Latin America

• We are the root from which the whole people
  sustains itself and grows
• Words from a peasant woman in a workshop on the
  Rights of Women Santa Ana, El Salvador

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Latin America In Us Life Grows

• Feminists, coming from different places and by
  different routes, are coming to the same
  conclusion The ecological problem is not an
  unsolvable problem. Rather there are hopeful
  signs that ecological deterioration can be
  reversedOur country has sufficient resources to
  satisfy the needs of all Salvadoreans, but not
  sufficient to satisfy the ambition of some, nor
  to do it in the face of irrationality of others(
  24).

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In Us Life Grows The Relation of Women and the
Environment

• When one speaks of a parallel between women and
  the environment, almost always the reference
  involves two aspects for which women are
  considered responsible population growth and
  education in environmental protection.Both
  conclusions which we do not intend to invalidate
  but to make relative, can result in serious
  ideological, political, and ethical errors (25).

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Environmental Degradation and Population
Explosion.

• A) 80 of the natural vegetation of El Salvador
  has been destroyed only 6 of the original
  forests remain.
• B) Of the 120,000 hectares of mangroves, only
  30,000 remain, thanks to uncontrolled expansion
  of cotton plantations and the use of pesticides.
• C) The surface and subterranean waters are
  contaminated and constitute sources for the
  proliferation of diseases (25).

27
Environmental Degradation and Population
Explosion (continued)

• D) 80 of the national territory shows serious
  signs of erosion, decreased fertility, high
  contamination due to agrochemicals, and loss of
  plant cover
• E) Three species to trees, ten species of birds,
  and three species of mammals have become extinct
  in our country
• F) The loss of ecological balance each year
  causes more drought, more floods, more erosion,
  more hunger, and more deaths (25).

28
Environmental Degradation and Population Explosion

• Who are really responsible? Is it the majority
  population or the power elites(26)?

29
Women as Educators in the Care of the Environment

• No one can deny that the majority of women learn
  to protect that which they respect and recognize
  as vital to life water, forests, soil, plants,
  animals. Women are not to blame. Those who
  abuse and degrade are others, not our starving
  children (26).

30
The Eco-feminist Response

• When one defines ecology as the study of the
  interrelationships between the components that
  make up the natural world, then one must include
  as an object of study the relationships between
  human beings. Therefore, to seek to break the
  domination of men over women should be considered
  an ecological issue (27).

31
The Ecofeminist Response

• Ecofeminism promotes a global movement founded
  on common interests and respect for diversity, in
  opposition to all forms of domination and
  violence. The continuation of life on this
  planet demands a new understanding of our
  relation with nature, with other human beings and
  with our own bodies (27).

32
The Ecofeminist Response

• In rural areas moreover, women fetch and use
  water for the household, and women gather the
  wood for heating and cooking. Women, therefore,
  are the most affected by the deterioration of
  quality water systems and tree conservation.

33
Ecofeminist Response

• Therefore it has been shown that one must see how
  the woman is most vulnerable than the man in
  respect to environmental pollutants. Numerous
  studies have established a link between defects
  in the newborn and environmental contaminants
  such as lead

34
Ecofeminist Response

• Studies in regard to such effects on women show,
  moreover, that contaminated substances are even
  found in the mothers milk. It is known for
  example that some chemical products such as
  pesticides, organic fertilizers and herbicides
  become concentrated in mothers milk

35
Latin Americas Poor Women Inherent Guardians of
Life by Gladys Parentelli from Venezuela

• Ecofeminism suggests putting aside a paradigm
  imposed by an andocentric vision linked to
  Western religions and patriarchal civilization.
  In this paradigm both the earth and women, as
  well as all powerless people, are exploited and
  have no recourse to their rights. Feminist
  ethics offers a new paradigm where the earth and
  all the life she nurtures is held to be sacred as
  human life (29).

36
Latin Americas Poor Women By Gladys Parentelli
How has Western religions and patriarchal
civilization exploited women?

• In 1992 Pope John Paul II came to Latin America
  to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus
  arrival to America to celebrate the supposed
  beginning of this continents evangelization.but
  the vast majority of Latin Americans felt there
  was nothing to celebrate when it came to
  so-called evangelization of America or the
  Spanish conquest (29).

37
Latin Americas Poor Women By Gladys Parentelli,
Since that time The conquerors, with
approval-and frequently the collaboration of the
Catholic hierarchy, denied the validity of the
cultures of Americas primal people(29).
Therefore

• A) Denying the validity of the cultures of
  Americas primal people
• B) Not taking into account the wisdom of the
  indigenous people (29).
• C) They forcibly changed their ancient
  agriculture systems (29).

38
Latin Americas Poor WomenBy Gladys Parentelli
Result Ecological disasters that have become
apparent in the last half of this century.

• Soil erosion, desertification as a result of
  over-grazing and monoculture, the felling of the
  continents vast forests are all catastrophes
  that do not correspond to the natural evolution
  of our environment (30).

It was only when we stopped using fertilizer
that we realized something bad with the soil.
39
Latin Americas Poor Women By Gladys
ParentelliThe conquerors did not only rape the
land

• Some contemporary scholars speak of the
  mixture of the Spanish and indigenous
  populations as one of the positive results of the
  Conquest, positing that from this union a new
  man was born. But we must never forget that
  this mix was brought about through the violent
  rape of indigenous women (30).

40
Latin Americas Poor WomenBy Gladys Parentelli.
The Spanish conquerors were not the only ones to
exploit these women

• In Latin America, the political patriarchs
  control and consume the bulk of the resources and
  financial pool of each nation, which belong to
  its citizens, embezzling unimaginable sums for
  purposes that the majorities neither understand
  nor approve (30).

41
Latin Americas Poor Women By Gladys
ParentelliExamples of this exploitation

• For example from February to October, 1994 the
  government invested 9 billion to bail our
  eighteen private banks that were in danger of
  bankruptcy because of corrupt dealings while
  insisting that there were no funds available
• For Public Hospitals, which are so short of
  supplies that they are barely able to function
  (30).
• Nor for workers pensions which had been frozen
  for 30 years by Venezuelan Social Security
  Institute(31).
• Nor for schools for rural and indigenous
  children (31).

42
Latin Americas Poor WomenBy Gladys Parentelli
Also

• 80 percent of the total population of Latin
  American countries is made up of women, their
  children, and of recently arrived immigrant yet
  the state systematically excludes them from their
  legitimate right to a job and to basic services,
  such as health, education, and welfare (31).

43
Latin Americas Poor WomenBy Gladys Parentelli
Why this treatment when the poor women are the
regions greatest resource (31).

• Since they bear and raise children, their
  countrys future
• Furthermore, they protect and preserve the local
  environment and its resources (31).

44
Latin Americas Poor Women By Gladys Parentelli
The Vatican is, without a doubt, part and parcel
of the same patriarchal system as its economic
and political counterparts (31).

• Too frequently the Vatican speaks of defending
  moral or ethical standardshowever, that for the
  churchs hierarchy the priority is not merely to
  proclaim the truth of Christ, but also to
  dominate (31).
• Second Although the hierarchyrecognizes women
  as subjectsin practice women are considered as
  objects with assigned roles-as wives, mothers
  or virginsat the service of the patriarchal
  system in general (31).

45
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• But although they are exploited by many
  injustices, women make ethical decisions as a
  part of life (31). Gladys Parentelli refers
  specifically the poor women indigenous and
  black women. (These) women may have no honoring
  status in patriarchal society, but they still
  know how to care for life (31).

46
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• Ethics supposes an all encompassing
• respect for life. It demands a continual
• Reflection with regard to the consequences
• of my love or my aggression, my
• responsibility or my irresponsibility, my
• respect of lack of respect, my options, my
• decisions, my words, my actions, my
• omissions, what I consume, what I save,
• what spend, what I throw away, what I
• preserve (32).

47
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• Traditionally women have been seen as the
  protectors of life and lovers of peace.
  Generally speaking, women do not tolerate
  violence, nor do they provoke it (32).
• In general, women love life so much that it is
  very unusual for them to chose to abort it (32).

48
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• Women take advantage of the tiniest piece of
  earth, an empty can or jar to plant vegetables,
  spices, beans even a fruit tree so that there are
  always sweet smelling herbs and fresh, medicinal
  spices to give flavor to soups and salads (33).

49
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• In preparing food, poor women buy what is least
  expensive in order to get the most from their
  meager funds (33).
• From fruit they use skins and pits to make
  juices, jams, and jellies or as food for their
  egg-laying hen, or a rabbit or pig that will be,
  often enough, the only meat the family will eat
  during the year (33).

50
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• In preparing food they use methods that in the
  long run have proven to be much healthier. If
  food is left over, they invent ways to present it
  differently so that it doesnt get boring. In
  especially difficult circumstances, women from
  poor neighborhoods put together their few food
  resources and make soups together with onions or
  rice that one or another throws in.

51
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• In countries which have
• four seasons, when
• autumn arrives women
• salvage the best seeds
• from corn, beans, and peas in
• the family gardenWomen
• also pass down their
• knowledgewhich they
• themselves have learned from
• their mothers and
• grandmothers.

52
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• Rather would poor women throw away a coat, a
  dress, a pair of shoes. What belonged to an
  older brother or sister who has outgrown it, is
  now passed on to the younger children Neither do
  poor women throw away a piece of cloth when a
  dress or suit no longer can be used, the best
  parts of the cloth can be used to make a dress of
  skirt for a pair of pants for smaller children
  (34).

53
Latin Americas Poor Womenby Gladys Parentelli

• While the wealthy are in a hurry to buy new
  furniture and imported stereos, televisions, or
  new appliances, indigenous women collect pumpkins
  and squashes, using the shells as gourds. If
  they are small, the gourds are used as cups if
  large they become serving bowls, water jugs or
  jars for saving seeds.

54
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• Water is essential for life,
• but it is not always available.
• Using rudimentary systems,
• women collect rain water
• that falls on their roofs. They
• know that if they wash with rain
• water, hair is softer if they use
• rain water for washing clothes ,
• theyll need less soap.

55
Latin Americas Poor Womenby Gladys Parentelli

• In the countryside or in the shantytowns that
  circle the cities, nothing is considered garbage.
  Vegetable and fruit skins and pits, if not
  recycled back into soups, juices or jams or to
  feed domestic animals, are used as fertilizers
  for plants, just as excrement from chickens and
  rabbits are used. Branches from a dry tree will
  make a wonderful fence or pen. A truck tire,
  filled with earth, becomes a flower bed or stops
  erosion on an unlevel part of land (35).

56
Latin Americas Poor Womenby Gladys Parentelli

• Gladys Parentelli the author of this essay wanted
  to remind us of two things.
• The first is that poor and middle-class women can
  at times consume and throw away as easily as the
  wealthy (35).
• The second is that when I speak of the poor
  women I am not idealizing their situation.
  However in this article Ive given priority to
  describing practices that reveal a profound
  attitude of a significant majority of them (35).
  

57
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• What is the difference between poverty and
  misery?
• Women who live in a state of misery are those
  who do not have any love for the earth and who do
  not know how to take advantage of the few
  resources they have at their disposal. Perhaps
  they are in this sad state because they have not
  been able to learn how to benefit from the
  Pachamas treasures (35).

58
Latin Americas Poor Women by Gladys Parentelli

• Ordinary women who suffer the injustice of being
  on the periphery of society, are found to be
  carrying out committed practices that are guided
  by an ecofeminist ethicthey reveal a response
  that runs very deep in women who reach out to
  care for and protect all manifestations of life.

59
Foreigners A Multicultural Dialogue edited by
Janet May

• Eve, Rachel, Sarah, Hagar, Ruth, Naomi, and
  Jezebel. Besides being women from the Old
  Testament, They are also women who lived as
  foreigners, outside their countries of origin,
  struggling to preserve their identities and their
  faith.

60
Foreigners A Multicultural Dialogue edited by
Janet May

• For each of these women, there is today a sister
  who walks in a similar path. The political
  refuges, those who follow their husbands, those
  who seek new opportunities, the victims of famine
  who emigrate from the rural areas to the city,
  the women tricked into enslaving prostitution-
  all of them have predecessors in the Bible (39).

61
Foreigners A Multicultural Dialogue edited by
Janet May

• In this essay Janet May says that because she
  drew from five women who have been foreigners and
  they have edited this paper prior to submission
  the real authors are

62
Foreigners A Multicultural Dialogue edited by
Janet May

• In this Essay the following things will be
  discussed.
• Spirituality and Marginalization
• The Affirmation of Our Christian Roots.
• The Limitations of Traditional Spirituality
• Integrity and Traditional Religion
• Spirituality and Solidarity

63
Spirituality and Marginalization edited by Janet
May

• One experience which we all share is that we
  live in Costa Rica as foreigners.This is an
  experience which has brought each of us to
  reflect deeply, even to confront a personal
  identity crisis.

64
Spirituality and Marginalization edited by Janet
May

• This crisis has many possible resolutions. Some
  try to resolve the crisis by
• rejecting the new culture (41), (like Jezebel)
  or
• submerging themselves in the new culture and
  trying to integrate it completely, renouncing
  their culture of origin (41) (like Ruth) are a
  few resolutions.
• But the women who participated in this dialogue
  discovered that this was not an acceptable
  solution (41).

65
Spirituality and Marginalization edited by
Janet May

• Regardless of ones attitude toward the new
  culture, sooner or later, foreigners are
  confronted with the reality of difference.

66
Spirituality and Marginalization edited by Janet
May

• Not only were these women foreigners who
  experienced cultural marginalization they also
  experienced gender discrimination (41).
• Twenty years ago Elena expressed her own desire
  to study theology, she was told not to waste her
  time doing that. So, she studied nursing
  instead (41).

67
The Affirmation of Our Christian Roots A common
element of our spiritual journeys is an
appreciation for our Christian roots (43).
Edited by Janet May

• Silvia especially appreciates the incarnation of
  Jesus.
• Elena stated that Her Christian faith is the
  foundation that strengthens her social commitment
  to the poor and the marginalized.
• For Esther Camac, the discovery of the changes
  undergone by Gods people in biblical times has
  provided her with tools to interpret her own
  peoples changing history in context of time and
  territory (43).

68
The Affirmation of Our Christian Roots A common
element of our spiritual journeys is an
appreciation for our Christian Roots (43).

• Janet W. May said, Methodism has given me a rich
  doctrinal heritage that helps me to confront
  different experiences of spirituality with
  openness and acceptance
• Ecumenically, it helps me understand other
  expressions of Christian beliefs
• At the same time, the experience within Methodism
  of wide liturgical flexibility taught me that
  faith does not require any particular form of
  expression to be Correct.

69
The Affirmation of Our Christian Roots Lastly
another inheritance that Janet W. May values from
her Methodist heritage is the doctrine of

• Prevenient grace This doctrine affirms that
  even though Jesus of Nazareth is the maximum
  expression of God incarnate, the Holy Spirit is
  present in all creation. Therefore, holiness can
  be manifest in non-Christian cultures and
  religions (44).

70
The Limitations of Traditional Christian
Spirituality

• Even though we appreciate our Christian
  heritages and we give them great importance in
  our lives and spirituality, what we have received
  from our churches has not been sufficient (44).
• Elena observes that the Moravian Church is very
  rich in its traditions but very rigid in its
  doctrines, discriminating against anyone who asks
  questions (44).

71
The Limitations of Traditional Christian
Spirituality

• Perhaps the greatest area of insufficiency in
  Christianity has been in the area of human
  sexuality (45). (see notes)
• For each of the participant in the dialogue,
  affirmation of themselves as women has included
  an affirmation of their body and of their
  sexuality as a part of their identity (45).

72
The Limitations of Traditional Christian
Spirituality

• Overcoming the prejudices toward sexuality has
  facilitated self-affirmation, improved
  self-esteem and made it possible for each one to
  assume autonomy in the control of their
  sexuality.
• It doesnt mean that each one feels pressured to
  assume a sexually active life, nor is it
  necessary to have a child in order to affirm
  oneself as female
• Rather it is an affirmation of their bodies and
  of their sexual desires as healthy, good, and
  normal.
• It is the affirmation that a sexually active
  life, far from being sinful, is one of the most
  profound expressions of pleasure and human
  intimacy (45).

73
Integrity and Traditional Religions

• As women, each one has gradually become aware of
  the contradictions which they confront in
  society, but also of many which they carry
  insidethere is a growing realization of the need
  to reconstruct the link between their cultural
  identity and their integral relationship with the
  environment.

74
Integrity and Traditional Religion

• Esther comments that she experienced three
  awakenings the importance of faith in her life,
  the affirmation of her identity as an indigenous
  person, and the affirmation of herself as a
  woman. When she left her Andean village in which
  she was born, she took work with Quechua-speaking
  women .She says that there she began to realize
  that she did not have to apologize for being
  indigenous(46).

75
Integrity and Traditional Religions

• For Esther the practice of traditional religion
  has been a way of overcoming the dualism of
  Christianity, of affirming her identity as an
  indigenous and as a woman.

76
Integrity and Traditional Religion

• Anastasia decided to leave her Christian
  tradition because this religion did not make
  sense. For her Maya Kiche made more sense
  (46). She is now a spiritual leader in her
  community, something which her parents approve
  of. She says that She lives the hope of my
  ancestors, who said keep the memory of our
  people share it with those who can see and live
  (47).

77
Integrity and Traditional Religions

• Silvia participates in both Christian and
  Afro-Brazilian celebrations.She tells us I am in
  a sacred space with other men and women. I hear
  the voice of God/ess as both male and female.
  For this God/ess my desires are not sinful they
  are integral and important aspects of life (47).
  (see notes)

78
Integrity and Traditional Religions

• Esther and Silvia have incorporated both
  Christian and non-Christian traditions into their
  lives. For them the participation in their
  cultural traditions and in Christianity is not
  seen as a form of syncretism nor as a dualism.
  The two religious practices have a complementary
  relationship that facilitates the integration of
  their identities as peoples from ancient cultures
  who live in a world dominated by Christianity
  (48).

79
Conclusion

• For all of us spirituality is a fundamental
  expression of our identity as women, as members
  of a specific cultural group, and of communities
  that accept one another. Integral spirituality
  strengthens or identification and commitment to
  healing the breach between our human relationship
  to one another and to the environment.

80
After Five Centuries of Mixing Who Are We?
Walking with Our Dark Grandmothers Feet by
Mary Judith Ross

• Have you ever imagined of how it would have been
  to walk in you mothers feet, grandmothers, great
  grandmothers and so on.
• What would have the landscape looked like going
  back in time 500, 600, 700, even 1000 years ago.
  (see notes)

81
After Five Centuries of Mixing Who are We?

• How about the Chilean women?
• Were they in Spain or were they here in Chile?
  And even further back were they Mapuche? Aymara?
  Part of the extinct Ona tribe?...
• While they were more clear about their European
  roots their indigenous roots were foggy.

82
After five centuries of mixings, who are we?

• Who are we? A partial answer is that we are a
  mix. a new race, a new synthesis.
• While these terms .may sound upbeat, the almost
  universally violent union of European men with
  indigenous women has left deep scars on the Latin
  America psyche.

83
After Five Centuries of Mixings, Who Are We?

• Children born in this union mestizo feel that
  they are disloyal children who, although we are
  rejected by our fathers because we are impure,
  have never identified with the race of our
  mothers,
• But although mestizo children feel out of place,
  when asked why Latin American women ignore the
  indigenous roots in the mix in favor of the white
  European ones. Their answer Because whiteness is
  synonymous with power Indigenous on the other
  hand, has meant oppression, poverty, and a life
  of abnegation.

84
After Five Centuries of Mixings, Who Are We?

• These women were encouraged to reclaim their
  indigenous heritage because these are times of
  great paradigm shifts and there is a need for a
  new synthesis, new energies, symbols, and
  initiatives. And so we return to our dark
  grandmothers (53)? (see notes)

85
Mapuche Roots

• In Chile, there are one-half million Mapuches
  living in some 2000 rural communities and in
  citiesforming one o the larges ethnic groupings
  still existing inn the Americas (54).
• Mapuche means people (che) of the land (mapu)
  (54).
• One woman shared the earth is always faithful,
  giving us its fruits year in and year out. It is
  the one constant we rely on (54).

86
Mapuche Roots

• Machi, the Mapuche shamanic figure is called to
  her vocation through a dream or vision. It is a
  call one cannot refuse, and although anyone from
  the community can be called, most frequently it
  is a woman.

87
Mapuche Roots

• The machi is the link between the local Mapuche
  community and the Divine
• Standing upon the rewe, a tree trunk which serves
  as an altar, and beating the kultrun, the Mapuche
  drum, the machi chants, dances and prays to the
  ancestors, the ancient ones to bless the
  community (54).

88
Mapuche Roots

• The high point for Mapuche religious life is the
  Nguillatun, celebrated once a year in the open
  plains. For three days, the entire community
  dances around the rewe to the beat of the
  kultrun, convinced that Ngenechen (their Holy One
  who is both Father and Mother) will hear what the
  people of the land ask (54).

89
Mapuche Roots

• Time according to the Mapuche, is cyclical.
  There are two great seasons wakun, the time of
  the earths blossoming and puken, the time of
  the earths rest, of dreaming. The Mapuche
  follow the earths lead, working during planting
  and harvesting time resting n winter, when the
  earth rests- a time of contemplation and
  dreaming (55).

90
Mapuche Roots

• The earth is important to them.
• Each tree is an altar, an antenna linking earth
  and heaven some are 50 meters tall, some more
  than 2000 years old (55).
• When theyve cut down the last tree an
  contaminated the last river, when there are no
  longer any fish left, only then will humans
  realize that you cant eat money (55).

91
Mapuche Roots

• Mapuche belief is earth-based there is no need
  for churches, for a personal god or for
  revelation other than that which comes fro
  dreams. Jesus Christ, whom most Mapuches dont
  know much about other than that he died and went
  to heaven, is seen as an important and historical
  figure. But next to an ancient Araucaria tree,
  Christ and his message seem very recent indeed
  (56).

92
Aymara Roots

• Like that of other indigenous peoples, the
  spirituality of the Aymara is marked by their
  surroundings. The majestic snow capped mountain
  ranges sheltering the vast plateau of the
  altimplano are deeply imbedded in the Aymaran
  psyche.

93
Aymara Roots

• But the greatest mystery is the steadfast
  reverence for the Pachamama
• The Pachamama is not the mother Goddess, or the
  female principle she is life itself, the source
  of life.
• Pacha refers to all living space and time. Mama
  means woman, but woman with family. The Pachamama
  therefore contains all that exists.

94
Aymara Roots

• We are part of her and our relationship with her
  is all engulfing because she is as limitless as
  life itself, she is pure goodness and
  indescribable mystery. And because of her
  goodness, the Aymara are called to experience
  life as goodness.

95
Aymara Roots

• The Pachamama can be understood as the earth,
  which is physical, social, and spiritual (57).
• In terms of time, the Pachamama is the present,
  but is also related to the past through the
  ancestors who now lay to rest within her. For
  instance, it is very important that ones
  parents and grandparents are buried in ones own
  field (57). Understandably,
• There is tremendous resistance to selling these
  fields because they hold a persons future
  indeed an Aymara without land looses something
  fundamental as a person (57).

96
Aymara Roots.

• The Key to understanding the Aymara is their
  interconnection to the land (57).
• The curandero/ a or healer, is in charge of the
  spiritual and psychological health of the
  community, as well as their physical health,
  and like the Mapuche a healer is chosen by God
  (57)

97
Aymara Roots womens roles

• They are midwives who receive the newborn and
  present them to the Pachamama. (Women give birth
  in a squatting position, so that the baby falls
  to the earth and is received by her.)
• Women are marriage brokers.
• They accompany a family at the time of the death
  of a loved one.
• For centuries women have been village curanderas,
  counselors, local-political leaders, and
  priestesses (57).

98
Aymara Roots

• But even though women play all these roles,
  there is still an inequality between the sexes,
  Irarrazaval admitted, there are subtle
  manifestations that she wouldnt call a machismo
  exactly, but a certain hierarchical ordering that
  places men first.

99
Aymara Roots

• Women who participate in Con-spirandos rituals
  and workshops incorporate ceremonies surrounding
  the Pachamama into their daily lives before
  drinking a glass of wine, a first drop is given
  as a libation to the Pachamama organic garbage
  goes back to the Pachamama as compost at
  solemn moments of commitment, one puts her hand
  on the earth and pledges her word by the
  Pachama (58).

100
Relativizing Christianity

• What do we do with this theologically?
• It is much more than syncretism, of adapting
  elements of Mapuche or Aymara belief and practice
  into Christianity (58).
• Ivonne Gebara suggests .that the Jesus
  movement offers a response to humankinds search
  for meaning, but it is only one response not THE
  response (58).

101
Relativizing Christianity

• Our white grandmother has had the defining word
  about who we are for too long. It is time we
  listened to our dark grandmother-without
  rejecting our other ancestors (58).

102
Relativizing Christianity

• We are just beginning this process of recovering
  our origins, of walking in our dark grandmothers
  feet.Women in other parts of Latin America are
  also engaged in recovering the wisdom of their
  dark grandmothers (58-59).

103
Relativizing Christianity

• Rebecca Sherkenbach, a religious siters who has
  lived in Peru for thirty years, works in the
  small Quechua community of Jesus in northern
  Andes. While learning callua, an ancient form of
  weaving from an elderly weaver (59).

104
Relativizing Christianity

• In Venezuela, feminist theologian and historian
  Gladys Parentelli is studying the legend of Maria
  Lionza, the countrys most popular cult figure
  revered by millions of poor people (59).

105
Relativizing Christianity

• Women in Guatemala are reclaiming the teaching
  of their sacred book, Pop Wuj, and showing how
  the ancient Mayan vision of the unity of all
  things can offer solutions to save our planet
  (59).

106
Relativizing Christianity

• Women in Mexico are pondering the secrets of the
  recently unearthed mood goddess, Coyolzauhqui
  (59).

107
Relativizing Christianity

• Others are examining the relationship between
  Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Aztec Creator
  goddess, Tonantzin, over whose temple the
  Guadalupe shrine was built (59).

108
Relativizing Christianity

• And still other Mexican women are rehabilitating
  the figure of Malinche, the Aztec princess who
  supposedly betrayed her people to Hernan Cortex
  by being his interpreter (59).

• And all over Latin America women are taking a
  new look at the regions persistent and
  overwhelming devotion to Mary.

109
Relativizing Christianity

• Is Mary the Mother of God or Mother Goddess?
  Why is she, rather than Christ, the principal
  source of prayer and devotion? What relationship
  does she have to indigenous cosmologies? Here at
  Con-spirando we are also grappling with this dear
  and ancient mother, who may be a source for our
  oppression as well as our liberation. Much to be
  done, But weve begun (59-60).

110
Bibliography

• Rosemary Radford Ruether, ed., Women Healing
  Earth Third World on Ecology, Feminism, and
  Religion (Maryknoll, New York Orbis Books,
  1996 (fourth printing, June 2002)), p.1-60.
• Images by slide Numbers

111
Bibliography Continued