In this one year that I’ve been working and traveling throughout Eastern Africa (Northern Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Kenya) I’ve developed an even stronger passion for indigenous peoples around the world, and for focusing on projects that encourage biocultural diversity in the work that Ensigo does. I intend to write a blog post soon on the subject of biocultural diversity and it’s extreme importance in sustaining the world…but in a nutshell biocultural diversity is “the rich but neglected adaptive interweave of humankind and nature, cultural pluralism and ecological integrity.”
Recently I was reading through the poetry of the Saami author Paulus Utsi (The Saami people are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway). I was inspired when I cam across a brilliant poem of his entitled “As long as…” which echoes the lament of many indigenous peoples about the ravages caused by industrial development upon nature and traditional cultural values. He describes a longing to maintain traditional lifestyles close to nature and the ensuing loss of meaning when engulfed by modern economic development. Captured in the poem are underlying cultural values and definitions of what constitutes indigenous peoples’ wellbeing and sustainable development and, in its absence, indigenous peoples’ despair. Please check it out below and feel free to leave a comment on your thoughts.
As long as we have waters where the fish can swim
As long as we have land where the reindeer can graze
As long as we have woods where wild animals can hide
we are safe on this earth
When our homes are gone and our land destroyed
– then where are we to be?
Our own land, our lives’ bread, has shrunk
the mountain lakes have risen
rivers have become dry
the streams sing in sorrowful voices
the land grows dark, the grass is dying
the birds grow silent and leave
The good gifts we have received
no longer move our hearts
Things meant to make life easier
have made life less
Painful is the walk
on rough roads of stone
Silent cry the people of the mountains
While time rushes on
our blood becomes thin
our language no longer resounds
the water no longer speaks
-Paulus Utsi
Paulus Utsi was born in 1918 and died in 1975. His poem “As long as…” is translated by Roland Thorstensson and reprinted in In
the Shadow of the Midnight Sun: Contemporary Sami Prose and Poetry (1998), Harald Gaski (ed.).
