MEXICO CITY – The old Mexico met the new one Saturday at the massive Foro Sol and together, in an explosion of rhythm and light and living energy, they danced the night away. Wirikuta Fest, a lineup of nearly 20 big-name recording artists, was as much a celebration of Mexico’s indigenous roots and living heritage […]

TEOPANTLI KALPULLI, Jalisco, Mexico – I live at the corner of Earth and Fire streets, around the corner from a pyramid. I wake each morning to the crowing of roosters and the lowing of cattle. On Sundays I join my neighbors in kneeling and entering the womb of my mother in the form of a […]

MEXICO CITY, Mexico – Thanksgiving day – I awoke this morning far from home and family but filled with a profound sense of gratitude. Grateful for the sun that was just beginning to brighten the sky outside my window; grateful for the dear friends who have given me a home in this city of cities. […]

Dawn takes its time in the Chihuahuan desert. By the time the first light brushes the hills above Wirikuta, Wixárika pilgrims are already moving, with gourd bowls and candles in hand, and stories carried in footsteps along a 500-kilometer thread of sacred sites that ties mountains to springs, desert to sea, and families to their ancestors. Last month, UNESCO wove that thread into World Heritage. 

Yesterday, in an explosion of celebration, dance, music and pure love, the Peace and Dignity Journeys runners from the North — the Route of the Eagle — met their counterparts from the Route of the Condor. It was a long-awaited encounter south of Bogotá, Colombia, with runners that started their journey in Alaska in May, […]

Over 250 Indigenous representatives and allies unite to forge Sacred Covenant at Palenque’s ancient ceremonial center. It was a scene that could have played out a thousand years ago, or more. Amid a cluster of ancient Mayan temples, a rainbow-hued assemblage of Indigenous elders and young leaders formed a ceremonial circle. They looked on as […]

Author’s note: Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ruled that members of the Lipan-Apache “Hoosh Chetzel” Native American Church would be allowed space to worship at a sacred site in the headwaters of the San Antonio River within a city-owned park. However, in his preliminary ruling, he wrote that they were to be […]

By Tracy L. Barnett and Hernán Vilchezwith production by José Antonio Calfínphotos from the Esperanza Project film “Legacy of the Andes” For the Mapuche people of Chile and Argentina’s Patagonia region — or Wallmapu, as its original inhabitants know their territory —, the warnings of the pandemic began in the form of a flower. When […]

By Tracy L. Barnett and Hernán Vilchezwith production by José Antonio Calfínphotos from the Esperanza Project film “Legacy of the Andes” Deep in the otherworldly landscape of Northern Chile’s Atacama Desert – the world’s driest non-polar territory – the Atacameño or Lickanantay people managed a delicate balance for more than 12,000 years, developing a sophisticated […]

PINE RIDGE, S.D.- A global enterprise based in Spain may seem an unlikely role model for a fledging American Indian initiative. But inspired by its success, Winona’s Hemp and Heritage Farm in Anishinaabeg territory is sowing the start of an intertribal cooperative consortium. The new endeavor, called the Indigenous Hemp and Cannabis Farmers Cooperative, is […]

Editor’s Note: The U.S. eleventh-hour climate policy — to pin global greenhouse gas reduction on the proliferation of individual electric vehicles made with lithium exclusively from the American continent — appears to be having a domino effect nationally and in countries south of the border. In April, when Chile’s President Gabriel Boric announced his intention […]

“The smell was what woke us up. The green flies, the mosquitoes. The headaches. The pestilence, which at night no longer lets us sleep. Then something appeared in the fruit, as if it were smoke. The bushes looked sad and would soon dry up. When we realized it, the Kekén farm had already been running for a year.

QUITO, Ecuador— The National Strike this summer in Ecuador mobilized people from all 24 of its provinces, concentrated thousands of protesters in the city of Quito, and lasted 18 days. Although it has left as a consequence, so far, seven people dead, this new social outbreak compelled important advances in the fight for the defense […]

This summer, Hot Springs citizens scored a breakthrough: They collected enough signatures to obtain a ballot measure that would declare mining a “nuisance” in Fall River County.

We are currently living through a time of accelerated environmental collapse. What is the role of indigenous people in reversing and preventing this collapse? Is it possible to prevent further damage and begin a process of Earth restoration?   Join us for the latest conversation in a six-week journey into Indigenous Ecology, where Voices of Amerikua […]

An interview with Ivan Sawyer, founder of Voices of Amerikua, on Sacred Earth, his new series on Indigenous Ecology

I dedicate these farewell lines to Gustavo Esteva, an exemplary teacher of life, who, like his friend and contemporary philosopher Ivan Illich, dared to develop and put into practice revolutionary and comprehensive education systems. His groundbreaking work was aimed above all at “those from below:” peasants, indigenous people, young revolutionaries, and ex-guerrillas. I am not […]

On the night of March 18, 2022, a full moon rose over the Cerro del Quemado, the mountain known to the Wixárika people as the Birthplace of the Sun, to reveal an unforgettable sight. Hundreds of Wixaritari – elders, youth, children, mothers and fathers with babies in their arms – encircled the concentric rings of […]

The book Ecobarrios en América Latina: Alternativas comunitarias para la transición hacia la sustentabilidad urbana (Ecobarrios in Latin America: Community Alternatives for the Transition to Urban Sustainability) is an exploration of the committed and valuable work of a movement of people throughout the continent. One of the most outstanding has been the co-editor of the […]

Oglala Lakota citizen Maria Hazel Stands takes the microphone. Surrounded by Pine Ridge Indian Reservation community members she accepts the introduction as a “survivor” of Red Cloud Indian School, where they are gathered under a canopy of trees in the grassy yard.