"You have to know how to see the forest": Mapping the lands of the San Martin Kichwa and their ancestral heritage in 3D

But what about tomorrow? Will the young people of today remember the paths as their parents and grandparents do? Little by little it is becoming more difficult for children and young people to walk in the forest. Year after year, Western culture has greater dominance. Successive governments impose their boundaries on indigenous lands, without consultation, and customs are gradually forgotten – such as in the 1990s, when the consumption of salt from the salt mines was banned. So, what can we do?

The Indigenous communities represented by the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA) and the Federation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bajo Huallaga in San Martín (FEPIKBHSAM) are no longer content to simply carry their ancestors’ stories in their own minds and bodies. They have therefore envisaged a way to give their knowledge physical form through a technical project that will stand the test of time. With the support of Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) and the Amazonian Centre for Anthropology and Practical Application (CAAAP), the Kichwa communities have designed a 3D land-use map of the area now covered by the Cordillera Escalera Regional Conservation Area (ACR-CE), the first of its kind in the country. So – how did we begin our journey to design a map of lands walked, lived and memorised by generation after generation?

The blank canvas, stretching more than two metres, was daunting. Even more so considering that our only example of a similar 3D mapping project was the work of a single community – while 15 communities would be participating in the San Martin project. A key part of the work involved deciding which types of activities we would focus on, given the impracticality of depicting the minutiae of Kichwa cultural uses on the map. We therefore decided to focus only on the ancestral cultural use of resources for consumption by the communities themselves: hunting, gathering, farming and salt collection.

And so, we began to sketch an outline, marking out the district boundaries of the geographic area and then the major waterways based on a national map. We had made a start, a sort of framework on which the elders could capture the details relevant to this new project, drawing on their knowledge of the territory.

The most renowned elders were invited to participate, and they laid down the main hills that roll across the San Martin region. We were astonished at the level of detail they could recall: which mountain is higher than the other, which direction its peaks face, which streams branch off from the main rivers that the technical team had to painstakingly draw out using the maps as a reference. I could never have done it, recalled so many place names, shapes and directions in such detail, even though I have walked them many times. It was as though they had a map in their heads, passed down from one generation to the next.

And as with any great work, no less so because we are talking about the recreation of the Kichwa territory, there were disagreements, ultimately resolved through dialogue and discussion. Hills were shifted from here to there, rivers, streams and waterfalls painted and reworked. "You're like Kichwa gods!" we told the elders jokingly.

As the days passed, elders came and went, each adding little labels to the collpas (clay licks), gullies, purmas (forest fallows), tambos (shelters) and hills. Others were left off because there were just too many and it was hard to distinguish one from the next. "Look, ultimately, it's all Kichwa territory," said one of the volunteers on the technical team as he added some final touches to the Cachi Yaku, the river that runs through the foothills where the salt mine is located. Of course, we were captivated to hear about the imposing Waman Wasi, a mountain whose foothills encircle a lake that only the elders could visit; so powerful is its energy that it could knock you off your feet. Or to learn about the Wayra Purina, the "Path of the Wind", along which the grandparents had to walk with great care because of the fierce winds; and the story of Puma Brincana – “where the puma leaps” – close to the Indigenous community of Mishkiyaquillu, remembered because once a puma made a great leap from one rock face to another, and so many more. So many experiences. 

We finished for the day, taking care to cover the map so the rain would not damage it, since no one had thought to bring any mapacho Amazonian tobacco to ward off the clouds.

We tidied up and continued to chat as we walked home, hoping that Waman Wasi was not angered that we had recreated him without asking his permission, and that his power would stay with us as it did with those who knew his slopes so well. It was time to go home. Even Kichwa "gods" need their rest.

Translated from Spanish by Holly-Anne Whyte