The Flowering Word

Using indigenous language and Spanish, Mexico's Native writers are sounding a new note that is impacting the nation and the world. Inés Hernández-Avila reports.

For the last ten years, a contemporary movement of Native writers in Mexico has been steadily growing. The writers are holding local, regional, national, and international gatherings and workshops; publishing their works in bilingual editions, in their Native languages and Spanish; generating funds to support writing projects and centers throughout the country; and traveling around the world to present their work and represent their communities.

Inspired by the vision of one Native intellectual in particular, Natalio Hernández, this contemporary movement seeks the re-vindication and re-vitalization of indigenous languages and cultures. Hernández used his position in the federal government (first in indigenous education, then in popular culture) to encourage emerging Native writers throughout the country to meet each other. They went from working in isolation to contributing collectively and systematically to a new national consciousness that values Native languages. A parallel goal is an insistence that Mexico discard the traditional anthropological and ethnographic concepts in favor of an image of Native peoples as protagonists of their own destiny, as agents of creative change.

In 1993, the movement officially became the Asociación de Escritores en Lenguas Indígenas [Association of Writers in Indigenous Languages], sending a message to the Mexican nation that the time had come for it to manifest itself as the multilingual and pluricultural society it purports to be. This goal, as articulated in Article 4 of the national Constitution, stipulates that the state will protect and promote the development of indigenous languages, cultures, practices, customs, resources and specific forms of social organization. It would also guarantee Native peoples effective access to government services. But, in spite of the ostensible guarantees, the law has proved to be ineffective.

For this reason, in April 1999, the Association sent to the national House of Representatives a "Legislative Initiative on the Recognition of the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Communities of Mexico."
Through this initiative, the Association is proposing to:

• Promote the preservation and development of the indigenous languages of Mexico;
  
• Define a linguistic policy that guaran tees that the languages of each indigenous people and community become official within and outside of their territories;
  
• Articulate the linguistic and cultural projects of indigenous peoples and communities on a national level;
  
• Transcend the present linguistic inequity as a means of assisting in the reconstruction of indigenous peoples and communities.
  

According to Juan Gregorio Regino (a Mazatec and past President of the Association), this initiative implies a total revision of the concept of nation that prevails in Mexico today. To insure that there is a broad-based consensus for the initiative, the Association is circulating the document amongst indigenous organizations, academic specialists, and especially indigenous communities, through regional workshops dedicated to the careful reading and analysis of the initiative's contents.

The legislative initiative is a bold move on the part of this relatively young but representative association.
According to the Secretaria de Educa-ción Pública [Department of Education] and the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes [National Foundation of Culture and the Arts], Mexico has 6.7 million speakers of Native languages: 1l2 million are children less than four years of age (there are another 4 million Native people who do not speak their languages). Of the 170 distinct languages alive before colonization, there are 62 indigenous languages spoken in the country today, 24 of which are in danger of extinction. The largest indigenous populations include the Nahuatl (2,563,000); the Maya (1,490,000); the Zapotec or diidzaj (785,000); the Mixtec or ñuu savi (764,000); the Otomí or ñahñú (566,000); the Tzeltal or k'op (547,000); and the Tzotzil or batzil k'op (514,000).
The recent Zapatista uprising in Chiapas has impacted these significant populations, the consciousness of Mexico and the world. In a 1997 Declaration, the Writers in Indigenous Languages cited the Accords of San Andrés (negotiated by the Zapatistas with the federal government in 1996), affirming that their efforts join those of the Zapatistas to make the federal government comply with the agreements reached on behalf of indigenous rights and cultures.

In the years prior to 1990, many of the Association members were working as bilingual teachers in rural areas, having been trained from assimilationist perspectives to teach children and young people to readily assume a "modern" approach to society, which meant leaving their "outmoded ways and languages" behind (a story all too familiar to Native communities throughout the hemisphere). However, many of the teachers who became founding members of the Association went on to become ethnolinguists, specialists in their own languages; as they worked on dictionaries and grammars, and began collecting the oral tradition within their own communities, recording the songs, coming back to the elders, they were consistently inspired to write their own works in their languages.

Many of the members were also community organizers, working for social betterment in a variety of ways, often through creative expression, like music and theater. Some, like Mayan writer Feliciano Sanchez Chan, began writing theater pieces as children, culling from the rich oral tradition stories which could be dramatically adapted to address issues pertinent to the community. Sanchez Chan echoes the feelings of many of the Association's members when he says:

"I don't know if we can speak of a "resurgence" [of creativity] because there is continuity, . . . now we're only proposing a new way to present [our forms of expression] before the eyes of the world, and that's through written literature, which existed before just in different forms among the Maya."

In xochitl in cuicatl, a Nahuatl pre-Colombian expression and legacy of contemporary Nahuatl speakers, means "floricanto," or "flower-and-song"; it is the term for poetry, and in the ancient and contemporary tradition, poetry was (and is) the way to arrive at truth, by talking to God in your heart. The Association sponsors monthly recitals called "The Festival of the Word: Song to Diversity" at its national center in Mexico City.

In one of his poems, "Yancuic Cuicatl/ Canto Nuevo," published in a 1994 bilingual (Nahuatl/Spanish) collection by the same name, Hernández portrays a people who come from the different directions to meet, to greet each other, to verify they are still alive and to confirm each other's existence. Their hearts are happy to see each other; they feel strengthened to hear each other; they tell of their sadness and joys. The elders speak to the gathering, pronouncing the ancient teachings; everyone listens with respect to the wisdom of the old ones. At the close of the gathering the people return to their communities, with the enriching words and their thoughts flourishing. The men, women, and children of the villages came together to receive them, their hearts and thoughts uniting into one. The drums were heard again; there were flowers and songs; poetry came alive once more. This, the poem concludes, is how the new song was created, this is how the Indian song was revived. The voices could be heard for long distances and the mountains responded.

Ayoc aca quicotonas ni tlahtoli
Ayoc aca quicotonas ni cuicatl
Yancuic cuicatl, yancuic tlacatl
Now no one can stop these words
Now no one can interrupt this song:
New song, new human being.

And so Hernández captures what is happening with this movement that he helped to start.
Consistently, the writers say their communities never thought they would hear, or read, literature written in their own languages. They never thought they would see works in their languages published, sold at bookstores, winning literary prizes, being translated into other world languages. The writers are giving the example of the need to work with the elders, to cherish their knowledge and their stories, to learn the "old languages," the "big words," as my Aunt Tillie (who was Nez Perce) used to say. For most of these writers, it is not enough to write in the language of daily use; the profundity lies in the ceremonial language, the language that knows the intimacy of the earth and of the cosmos. The children are also involved in workshops, learning to read and write creatively in their languages; special prizes for literature written by children have been instituted, to encourage them to continue.

As the writers delve more deeply into the roots of their languages, they integrate other sources of inspiration into their works, recreating ancient songs for new contexts. Tojolobal Maya writer Roselia Jimenez Perez (Chiapas) wrote a song that has become a call for the Association; it begins, "Laik laik petsanil kumal petsanil kumal laik" ["Come voices, all, all, come"], to work in unity, to join hearts, to sow the seeds of change and to reap the harvest. The new time has come.

Inés Hernández-Avila is Associate Professor of Native American Studies, at the University of California, Davis. This article is based on her research project, "The Power of Native Language(s) and the Performance of Indigenous Autonomy: The Case of Mexico." She is supported in this work by UC MEXUS, the Davis Humanities Institute, and UCD Committee on Research. Pictures provided by Inés Hernández-Avila