HONDURAS-POPULATION: Tawanka Indians Feel Threatened by ‘Invaders’

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 14 1996 (IPS) - A small indigenous group in Honduras is making attempts to avoid being evicted from their homes.

Settled in the heart of the jungle region of the Mosquitia in the northwest of Honduras, the Tawanka Indians say they are threatened by invaders of the region. A delegation of the group is in the capital now in an attempt to raise their concerns with government officials.

With only 916 members, the Tawankas are one of the smallest ethnic groups in Central America, but their cultural wealth is considered a real treasure, which includes a rich history and repertoire of indigenous customs.

Settled on 233,000 hectares of a reserve known as the Tawanka Asagni Biosphere – which straddles the departments of Olancho and Mosquitia – the Tawankas use nature as their main source of livelihood.

For them, the forest is not only a source of medicine, but also an area from which they obtain their instruments of work. From the jungle they extract the material to construct the small rafts and canoes which they use to travel from one village to another.

Their houses are made of “baharque”, a mixture of mud, bamboo and palm leaves. This type of house is very common in the indigenous areas of the northern coast.

According to chief Jacinto Sanchez, of the Tawanka Council of Elders, “the ladinos (Spanish-speakers) have been trying to destroy our way of life for the past 11 years, and our culture is almost at the point of disappearing.”

A group of ladinos – mostly cattle-herders and farmers – have appropriated some 7,000 hectares in the Tawanka Asagni Biosphere, considered to be one of the most important biological strips in Central America.

With the pretext of promoting the development and modernisation of the Mosquitia, Honduras’ environmental “lung”, the “invaders” – as they are also known – have threatened to kill the Tawankas and have blocked their access to key areas of their native culture, charge representatives of the group.

Adonis Cubas, a Harvard University biologist who has been living with the Tawankas for three years, said that a team of the Office for Ethnic Groups had recently visited the Tawanka Biosphere and the Platano river in order to investigate the Indian’s complaints.

The team confirmed that the Indians were being evicted illegally from their ancestral territories, and have indeed received death threats, said Cubas, who is participating in a research project on the Tawankas’ life and knowledge, particularly in relation to medicinal plants.

“The Office confirmed those facts, and is aware that the best managers of the Biosphere are its original owners: the Tawankas, a sensitive people whose members share everything and support each other,” said the biologist.

“They (the “ladinos’) don’t allow us to build our rafts. They kick us out when they see that we want to use a tree to make one. Sometimes, they charge us 500 lempiras (50 dollars) for cutting down a tree,” said Sanchez.

“We don’t cut down the forest to destroy it, like the ladinos do. We do it respecting the customs of our ancestors who taught us how to protect it, regenerating trees and preserving nature, because nature is our main source of life,” he added.

“Nature feeds us and gives us products. We take advantage of its roots to cure our diseases. We live in peace with nature, we honour it, and it has been very generous with us,” said the chief.

A delegation of Tawankas has been in Tegucigalpa since the end of October, waiting for an interview with government officials to present its complaints and claims. But nobody has received them yet.

“Because we are a small community that does not have any electoral importance, nobody wants to receive or hear us. We will wait, because we are peaceful people and we want to avoid a war with the ladinos over our existence,” said Isidro Martinez, a Tawanka shaman.

One of the things the Tawankas want is access to bi-lingual education. The Tawanka are one of the few groups that still use their indigenous language, which is part of the macro-chibcha family.

For commercial transactions and their communications with friends, the government, and the Church, the Tawankas use Spanish and the Misquita language, a dialect of the Misquitos, with whom the Tawankas have close relations.

There are around 600,000 indigenous people in Honduras. The Tawankas for the smallest group among them.