This past weekend we visited the Bribri tribe in Talamanca.  It is always touching how these indigenous groups, poor in material wealth, but rich in human spirit, receive us so warmly and openly.  A group of young Bribris put on a theatrical presentation for us entitled “Donde Esta Pablo Presbere?”  Pablo Presbere, or Pa-Blu, was a cacique who lived in the area in the early 1700’s.  He led an indigenous uprising against the Spanish and was hunted down and captured.  He was then taken to Cartago and executed, with his head raised on a pole to serve as a warning to other Indians who might consider further insurrection.  The young Bribris put much emotion into the presentation and I was likewise emotionally impacted.  The scene where Presbere and others returned from a hunting trip and found a young Indian girl, perhaps Presbere’s daughter, lying dead from a Spanish gunshot was particularly moving.  The young actors adequately captured the anguish and despair that their ancestors must have felt.  They also displayed the rage that prompted Presbere to lead an insurrection that cost the Spanish many lives.  While watching it dawned on me that the human race is infected with the ability to subject itself to irrational cruelty for the sake of material things, like land, gold and other natural resources.  Just like in the U.S., the indigenous peoples had been living in harmony with nature long before the colonists and the conquistadors arrived.  They could not be satisfied with what their native land provided for them, so they set out to take what was not theirs.  To make matters worse they tried to subject the native inhabitants to their ways of thinking and believing, thus wiping out thousands of years of ingrained culture.  The Bribris of Costa Rica are holding fast to the last remnants of that culture and this young theatrical group is an inspiring example of that noble attempt.  The closing song they sang spoke of the pride they felt to carry Bribri blood in their veins.  Costa Rica should stop turning a blind eye to them and take steps to assure that their culture does not become a forgotten relic of the past.  Young ticos should know who Pablo Presbere was and what his memory means to a group of people who called Costa Rica home long before Juan Santamaria set fire to the Mesón.

Video of Our Bribri Visit

Yesterday I spent the day at the Maleku Indigenous Reserve in Guatuso.  My guide for this adventure was a Maleku Indian with the Spanish name of Elias Elizondo Castro, but whose Maleku name is Jaquima, which means lover of nature.  And Jaquima really did love nature.  He took me on a walk through a nature preserve that the Malekus are trying to reforest and restore to the condition that their ancestors enjoyed.  Jaquima was able to explain the medicinal and dietary qualities of a whole host of plants.  The Malekus are a tribe known for their love of nature.  There are only about 650 left in Costa Rica.  They are extraordinary artisans.  At the end of the visit, Jaquima and other members of his family put on a ancient ceremonial demonstration.  It was a ceremony in homage to the natural world that sustains them.  At the end Jaquima made a little speech, in Spanish, that basically points out that all humans are basically the same…the only difference is what we hold in our hearts and heads.  The truth in that simple statement startled me and made me think.  All the destruction that takes place in this world at the hands of human beings really does come down to differences in the way we think, doesn’t it?  The way we think about politics, or religion, or our different customs, habits and traditions.  We don’t like people who think differently and often that dislike manifests in an attempt to either change those thoughts, by force or persuasion, to be in conformity with our own, or to just eliminate the difference altogether.  The fact that there were once thousands of Malekus and now only a few hundred is a testimony to that.  The fact that the virgin forest they once hunted and gathered in is now gone, is a testimony to that.  A pattern of thought and action that is both in harmony with what we all have in common and in harmony with the natural world that sustains our very existence, may be a better way than a competitive pattern that proclaims “fall in line, or be defeated.”  For the truth is when one group of humans suffer defeat at the hands of this Draconian drama of life that we impose upon ourselves unnecessarily, we all suffer.  In the little village near Guatuso, the prophet Jaquima speaks words of wisdom and harmony that should resound in the hearts and minds of a divided and defeated humanity.

Maleku Video from CostaRicanArtisans.com