How do you reawake a river mill?
Shared by PABLO ARANGUIZ
“The mill is there but it’s asleep, it’s not doing its job. Our wish is that we could make it live again so that, in a while, it will start doing its job and then we can eat our own food again” an elder of the Williche community said.
The Indigenous Williche community of Chiloé Island came together to reawaken Old Grandfather Juan’s Mill which, for more than 30 years, had not grounded the seeds that had fed the community for two generations. After several mingas (collective work), much newen (good energy) and kimün (wisdom), seeds were sown and crops harvested, the river ran, the stones turned and the grain grounded. and The community, once again, was fed.
In Williche cosmovision all living and non-living beings are children of Ñuke Mapu (Mother earth). The recognition of the Mill as a living being, an “ other one” that needed to be reawakened, translates into a feeling of affection (Morales, 2019) towards the materials, the ecosystem, the biodiversity, the ancestors and the territory for their survival/existance. As a metaphor, it taught us that there are many human and more-than-human “others” who need our collaboration, in order to bring back the küme mogen orgood living (Villalba, 2013) to our common world.
References
Morales, Angel L.González. 2019. “Affective Sustainability. The Creation and Transmission of Affect through an Educative Process: An Instrument for the Construction of More Sustainable Citizens.” Sustainability (Switzerland) 11 (15). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11154125.
Villalba, Unai. 2013. Buen Vivir vs Development: a paradigm shift in the Andes?, Third World Quarterly, 34:8, 1427-1442, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2013.831594