SUMBA (Indonesia), and MANAUS
(Brazil): July 28, 2014 --You may wonder about the connection between
Indonesia and the Rio Negro near Manaus, Brazil. The
connection is consecrated life, inculturation of the Salesian
charism. Of course, it goes far beyond the 'habit' or lack
thereof that maketh the man and touches more on his habits!
A meeting took place at Manaus from 14-17 July 2014. The main
speaker was Fr Justino Sarmento Rendeze sdb, a Tuyuka tribal
member from along the Rio Negro. He was speaking in
Portuguese, but the comments were interesting enough to merit
translation. The meeting participants were indigenous 'Indios'
Salesians, since there are now many of them, and was a
reflection on how Salesian consecrated life and their native
cultures can nurture one another.
It raises interesting
questions for any Salesian region, methinks. What is the level
of reflection on inculturated Salesian and Religious Life? How
are the challenges being addressed?
You will find Justino's reflection in English
translation
here.
If you can cope with Portuguese, you will find two other items
by Justino on inculturation in his indigenous context. Click
on the Manaus-based pics to give you his 'Venham comer
quinhapira' and a reflection on indigenous education. If you
were deeply interested in either of these latter and do not
have Portuguese, just ask and we can put them into English for
you
A native of the Tuyuka tribe, Fr Rezende has been a Salesian
since 1984 and a priest since 1994. He is highly regarded in
Brazil for his contributions to indigenous education and in
particular to the Federação
das Organizações Indígenas do Rio Negro. But of
special interest is what he had to say to his own provincial
community of Salesians whose origins are from the many tribes
along the Rio Negro and other tributaries of the mighty
Amazon.
This is a mere four pages, so one cannot expect a thorough
exploration of all the issues - this can be found elsewhere,
since he has been a prolific student and 'explorer' of the
issues. One quite fascinating case is his article entitled
'Venham comer quinhapira', the invitation to come and eat
'quinhapira' (a pepperpot dish with fish - recall the feared
flesh-eating piranhas?), where he demonstrates how this
invitation is very much at the heart of Tuyukan society,
education, life. In that article he is quite critical of the
early missionaries who were forever inviting people to 'break
bread together' around the table of the Lord, but then headed
off to their own little refectories to eat and not share, at
least not in the deep way that 'Venham come quinhapira' would
do for the tribals.
Fr Rezende breaks his reflection on elements of indigenous
cultures and consecrated life into 7 parts, 7 foundations for
exploring matters: philosophical, sociological,
anthropological, theological, pedagogical, political and
Salesian. Most receive just a paragraph and no doubt the
meeting had the task of unpacking what might seem to be simple
enough statements on the surface: The fact that we belong to a particular tribe
guarantees our identity and our difference. These identities
show who we are and how our history has been constructed.
The differences within our indigenous cultures help us to
strengthen our identities. Or: We have our theologians and
masters of spirituality within our cultures who meditate,
reflect, bless, heal, dance, carry out rituals, ceremonies
... They sing about life, our stories! They ritualise these
stories, perform ceremonies and rituals to look after health
and cure diseases. These powers come from divine beings at
the origin of our lives.
By contrast the final 'Salesian' foundation has some seven
paragraphs. One particularly beautiful one which deserves
being presented in full:
It is these places
[he is referring to the places of indigenous spiritualities -
their tribal communities] we
need to visit and revisit. The roots of our vocation also lie there, in our
communities of origin. It was there that God looked upon us kindly and
invited us to follow Him. Our communities are places where
we fell in love with the Invisible who spoke to us in our
hearts, to our ears. We heard God's voice and we savoured it
without much human interference. We left behind our
families, our cultures, our people and the places we were
born and grew up in. But our very nativeness demands that we
return to our places of origin to drink of the wealth of our
cultures, live with our relatives who come and go from the
fields every day; eat quinhapira (a fish and pepper pot
dish) and cassava, take mingau (maize drink) and chibé
(mushy soup made from cassava flour mixed with river water).
There we can sit in the evening with our relatives, move
around the homes and look on things with the love of a
Salesian. We can go out to the fields there with our
families. We can bathe with our cousins, enjoy pleasant
moments, etc. There we can listen to our families, touch
them, converse with them. Many of us really do not know them
any more.
At the end, in a brief paragraph 'concluding the conversation'
he says: If we indigenous
Salesians do not deepen our understanding of our Salesian
identity and its challenges for our cultural contexts, youth
and family contexts, we will never come closer to find
answers to those challenges. It is important to continue our
work of studying our cultures and the Salesian culture that
we ourselves have decided to embrace.
