Burning Questions Put to Shaman Rufino of Venezuela
September 20, 2024
by Chris Gilbert
The July 28 presidential elections in Venezuela have sparked especially heated disputes, with President Nicolás Maduro’s right-wing challenger, Edmundo González, and several countries refusing to recognize Maduro’s landslide victory. Even the international Left has shown some wavering and division, with softer social-democratic factions and other imperialism sympathizers lingering in a kind of agnostic limbo, despite the Venezuelan Supreme Court’s definitive ruling in favor of Maduro. Amidst this turmoil, it seems that no one has thought to turn to a very respected grassroots authority in Venezuela: the Indigenous shamans of the country’s southern Amazon region.
This oversight needed to be rectified. For that reason, when Cira Pascual Marquina and I found ourselves in Amazonas state investigating socialist communes this September, we decided to visit the internationally renowned shaman, Rufino Ponare, of the Huottüja (Piaroa) people to ask for his views on the pressing political issues of the day. The journey to see the shaman was done on foot and involved crossing several swollen rivers, all under scorching 100-degree heat. It took about an hour to reach Rufino’s secluded hamlet. There, we exchanged greetings with the 72-year-old man and presented our humble gifts of coffee, sugar, and cigarettes. Rufino then kindly invited us into a sizable thatched “churuata” (hut), where we all shared one of his homemade cigars. After explaining the reason for our visit, it was agreed that we could ask for his opinions on the Bolivarian revolution, socialism, the recent elections, and the future of the revolutionary process in the country. The shaman’s son, Rafael, would translate his answers from Huottüja, the language in which he is most comfortable.
When asked about the Bolivarian Process and socialism, Rufino responded, “We, the Huottüja people of the Catañiapu River, like our grandparents, live in socialism, sharing, and caring for the territory.” It is worth noting that these simple words from the Indigenous shaman were far from abstract. On the contrary, his statement was reflected in every aspect of the concrete reality around us. Everything in that territory—land, cassava, hunted meat, homegrown tobacco, and the few products brought in from outside—was shared equally among the community. The same applied to their lodging, as the village had large churuata huts where several family units slept under the same roof. The shaman then offered a tangible example of how socialism worked for them: “If you have, say, one tarantula to eat,” he said, “you would share it with everyone. Even if there is little, you should distribute it fairly, so that everyone gets at least one of the spider’s legs.” On a national level, when thinking about socialism for the entire country, he said that every region and every community should receive a share of the available resources.
Having established that the Huottüja people of the Catañiapu River had been living in socialism for as long as anyone could remember, the shaman next offered some thoughts on how socialist governments should conduct themselves. A socialist government, he argued, must immerse itself in the people. He particularly appreciated it when Hugo Chávez criticized one of his ministers (it was Erika Farías in the Golpe de Timón discourse) for not visiting the communities and instead staying in an office. “If you are a minister, you need to know what the people’s needs are. You have to go out there, walk through the mud, get your clothes dirty. In this way, you can come to understand things,” Rufino said. “That’s how we Huottüja from the Catañiapu River do things. We go find out what is going on, immersing ourselves in it to understand.” Planning, he added, is also important for a socialist government. It shouldn’t just improvise. Their own community and all its work activities, he noted, were highly planned.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/20/burning-questions-put-to-shaman-rufino-of-venezuela/