By HH Mohrmen
The unfortunate accident which shocked the world but was not adequately reported in Meghalaya was the plane crash in Columbia which killed all the adult passengers of the ill-fated aircraft. This incident was however much discussed over social media. It was on May 1, 2023 that a 6-passenger single-engine Cessna plane crashed in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. The rescue operation was able to locate the plane two weeks after the incident and to recover only the adult bodies from the crashed site. The children who were passengers on the plane were nowhere to be found. The rescue team used their flair and the sound box to play the children’s grandmother’s voice with the hope that they would hear her voice and respond to the rescue team. But the efforts went futile. Forty days after the plane crash, the four siblings, the eldest aged 13 years and the youngest who was only eleven months old were found hungry, dehydrated but alive.
A different kind of miracle
Rathindra Roy, a friend shared in a WhatsApp group, a Facebook post by Vithal Rajan about how Elira Arazi, an anthropologist who had worked with the indigenous community in the area had his own interpretation of the entire incident. Eliran Arazi stated that the discovery and rescue of four young Indigenous children, 40 days after the aircraft they were traveling in crashed in the remote Colombian rainforest, was hailed in the international media as a “miracle in the jungle”. It is unbelievable how the kids survived all by themselves in those forty days’ ordeal in the dense Amazon rainforest. But as an anthropologist who has spent more than a year living among the Andoque people in the region, conducting ethnographic fieldwork, he said that one cannot simply label this as a miraculous event. At least not a miracle in the conventional sense of the term, he said. After reading the piece I agree with the interpretation and can see how the explanation connects and also resonates with customs and practices in our society.
It is not just pure luck
Rajan believes that the survival of these children can be attributed to their profound knowledge of the intricate forest and the adaptive skills passed down through generations by Indigenous people. He said that during the search operations, he was in contact with the sister of the children’s great-grandmother who expressed her unwavering belief that the children would be found alive. She illustrated the example of the natural astuteness and physical resilience of children in the region. It is a common practice like anywhere else in the indigenous community that children in the area would accompany their parents and elder relatives in various activities such as gardening, fishing, navigating rivers, hunting, and gathering honey and wild fruits. In this way, the children acquire practical knowledge and skills, such as those demonstrated by Lesly, Soleiny, Tien, and Cristin during their 40-day ordeal.
Nature the mother of all Teachers
Indigenous children all over the world learn from an early age how to open paths through thick foliage and dense vegetation, and how to differentiate edible from non-edible fruits. They know how and where to find potable water, build rain shelters, and even set up animal traps. They can identify animal footprints and scents and they even know how to avoid predators on the prowl in the forest. They may not have toys and games that children in the cities have, and they have only stuff from nature as their playthings, but that is what is important. Nature is their playground which helps them become adept tree climbers and make any kind of tools from natural materials available in the vicinity. They know which plants can be used for what purposes and are taught skills such as handling, skinning, and butchering game animals, which has certainly helped them in the entire episode.
It is also a common practice in the indigenous communities for the parents and relatives to take their kids while they traverse through the jungles which would then help children learn how to navigate a forest’s dense vegetation by following the location of the sun, the moon or the stars in the sky. Such trips also help them understand the interrelationship between plants; they know the kinds of trees under which edible mushrooms grow, small animals that can be trapped and eaten, and how to catch fish.
Nature the keeper and the Caretaker
Indigenous cultures around the world weave stories; compose songs and create myths about what they see around them in nature. These are not just stories, songs, or myths, but they are mediums by which indigenous knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. Among the First Nation peoples’ cultures, natural phenomena and animals were depicted as fully sentient beings, engaging in normal human activities, or even saving each other’s lives. Non-Indigenous audiences may not be able to comprehend these kinds of beliefs and some may even discard them as superstition but these customs that can only be found in the tribal community depict the complex and profound relations that the people have with the forest’s countless non-human inhabitants. It is the indigenous understanding of the interrelationships between humans, plants, and animals that helps people preserve the environment and prevent irreversible ecological harm. Through songs and stories, indigenous children are taught from early childhood this knowledge that becomes second nature to them.
Nature’s spirits and their domain
In my previous article, I wrote about the indigenous people and their beliefs in nature deities. Every indigenous community believes in the spirit of nature they are called by different names and in our community although some nature deities have their names, they are generally known as “ki ryngkaw ki basa.” They are believed to be the caretakers and the protectors of the people and in the area where the plane crashed, Eliran Arazi said that they are known as dueños (owners) in Spanish and by various names in native languages (such as i’bo ño̰ e, meaning “persons of there” in Andoque). They are believed to be the protective spirits of the plants and animals that live in the forests. Children are introduced to these deities and spirits when elders conduct sacrifices to pay obeisance to them. They are not only made aware of the presence of the spirit but the idea is embedded in their psyche.
During the entire 40 days grueling episode, the elders and the shamans mediated with the spirits and gave offerings for them to partake and to leave the kids alone. They tried to persuade the sacred deities that the children do not belong to them, and prayed that they take the offerings and give the kids back to their relatives.
As Eliran Arazi said, it may be a challenging task for non-Indigenous people to embrace these beliefs and practices but the Amazonians attributed the children’s survival to these spirits. It is the belief in these traditional ideas which had instilled in the children the faith and emotional fortitude crucial for persevering in the struggle for survival he said. The children knew that their fate was not to die in the forest and that their grandparents and shamans would move heaven and earth to bring them back home alive. It is also the same belief that encouraged the Indigenous people to search for them and not to give up hope but to continue searching even when it took them more than a month to find them.
Caring and looking after each other
Non-indigenous people may wonder in amazement how, after the death of the children’s mother, her 13-year-old daughter Lesly was able to take care of her younger siblings, including Cristin, who was only 11 months old then. But this comes as no surprise to the indigenous people as elder siblings and sisters in particular are expected to act as stand-in for their mothers in their absence. Till today an image of a boy or a girl playing with their friends with their baby brother or sister piggy-backing on their backs is a common sight in the villages. Till the early nineties when I was teaching in a School at Puriang, LP schools started at 7 in the morning and had to be over by 10 am. If the school hours extend beyond 10 am then parents who are ready to attend their fields will line up in front of the schools with young kids toeing along. It is also believed that this practice has toughened Lesly which enabled her to provide what her brothers including the 11-month-old baby needs. Sadly, this traditional knowledge that has enabled Indigenous people to not only survive but thrive in the forest is gradually dying.