Cotopaxi Pilgrimage

PRX

Cotopaxi Pilgrimage

Series: Worlds of Difference
From: Homelands Productions
Length: 00:05:44

Native artists in the Ecuadorean Andes return to their people's sacred mountain. Read the full description.

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Piece Description

A sound-rich feature following a family of Tigua Indians, renowned for their meticulous landscape paintings on sheepskin, on a pilgrimage to Cotopaxi, the world's highest active volcano. Cotopaxi is the Tiguas' sacred mountain, and an inspiration for their art, but they haven't visited since the 1970s, when the government declared it a national park and began charging admission. Two brothers take very different messages from their visit.

Broadcast History

First aired on Living on Earth in December 2004

Transcript

[DRUM AND FLUTE MUSIC IN GALLERY]

HAND: In the village of Tigua, in the folds of Ecuador's highland moors, Julio Toaquiza and his son, Alfonso, stand in a long room, serenading visitors with a wooden flute and sheepskin drum.

[DRUM AND FLUTE MUSIC]

HAND: The walls surrounding them are hung with dozens of brightly colored paintings. They show hills quilted with fields of potatoes, beans and barley, and condors circling over grazing sheep and llamas. Within this painted landscape hovers the great white cone of their holy mountain, Cotopaxi.

TOAQUIZA: (VOICE OF TRANSLATOR) My name is Julio Toaquiza. I learned to paint from a dream.

HAND: Julio Toaquiza was the first Tigua painter. Now 57 years old, he stands barely five feet tall, his skin weathered by cold and wind. Julio married at 14 and had 12 children. Then one day a shaman told him he would have an important dream.

T...
Read the full transcript

Timing and Cues

INTRO: Over the past 30 years, the Tigua [TEE-gwa] Indians of Ecuador have become known for their meticulously detailed paintings on sheepskin. The work depicts daily life in the Andes mountains. A recurring image is the nearly perfect snow-capped cone of their sacred mountain, Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano in the world. The Tiguas stopped visiting the mountain after it was declared a national park in the 1970s. Recently a family of Tigua artists decided the time had come to return to the mountain that has protected and inspired their people for centuries. Producers Nancy Hand and Alan Weisman went with them.

OUTRO: That piece was produced by Nancy Hand with help from Alan Weisman of Homelands Productions. It's part of the Worlds of Difference series on cultural change. For more information, visit www.homelands.org.