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Writer's pictureClare Rosenfield

WHO ARE THE INDIGENOUS MAMOS? HOW I MET THEM IN NEW LEBANON, NY IN 2018

Updated: Sep 24, 2020



Many decades ago, I watched a PBS Special which featured the Mamos of Colombia, how they train specially selected children to become like them, the Wisdom Keepers of the indigenous ways of relating with great respect and honor toward Mother Earth whom they call their Madre Tierra. In that program, the adult Mamos warned the world at large that if the icecaps melt, it would spell the beginning of great problems for our Earth and our survival. These are people who live communally, honoring these wise elders, and who stay in their own sacred lands without traveling out of their country.


But because of their deep care and concern for all of humanity and for all living beings, they decided to do what they had never done: put on shoes in order to take an airplane for the first time and travel to the USA. That is how it is that I had the good fortune to meet them in person.


It was two years ago, that a small group of Mamos and their representative from the high Sierra Nevada mountains, came to NY to share their wisdom and deep dedication to the protection of Mother Earth.  They stayed at the Inn at Shaker Mill Falls run by my friend who has a non-profit CREEED, Center for Regenerative Ecological Education and Enterprise Development, because this is in alignment with their values, and from there they offered programs in a church in Kingston, NY and a Quaker meeting house in Lenox, MA. 

They also did some group healing work and blessed a spiritual community’s mountain, at the Abode of the Message in New Lebanon, NY.


During the month of May, seven months after they were already back in Colombia, they discovered that they had to bear witness to and be willing to defend a particular sacred land comprising 80 hectares or 197,684 acres with their lives.  The land which they needed to defend from development is in the Sierra Nevada, Colombia, and is called by its spiritual name, Ezuama Mukui, in the municipality of Dibulla, under the sovereignty of Palomino, near the city of Santa Marta. The whole area of indigenous lands beyond this one and including this one is in the Sierra Nevada.


So before the Spaniards came, this land was the sacred land of the indigenous pueblos Taironas Iku Wintukwas, which has a symbolic meaning of those whose minds and thoughts are clear and who are deeply connected to the Sun and consider themselves as children of Mother Earth.  These are cosmic names of power, and they wear white garments symbolizing that  they are the protectors of the high mountains.


There are four tribes and each is blessed with the presence of wisdom keepers, also known as shamans, called Mamos. The Mamos live among the four tribes whose names are the Kogui, the Arhuaco, the Wiwa and the Kankauamo..

There were 40 of them, all camping out to bear peaceful witness to 60 trees being felled and plans underway by a company intending to buy this land to make a coal mine.


The days that these tribes were at risk, they vowed not to budge though they had no protection against pounding rain, no food, and no water to drink except what they could get from the rain.  I therefore wired them $1800 to help them pay for food, water, and a make-shift shelter to put up for 40 of them for three weeks.  A day later, I sent them $1600 to pay for a team of four lawyers whom they hired from Santa Marta.  I am in touch with their main representative whose name means one who is the protector of ancient trees and of ancient wisdom, whom we all met a year ago September.

Now we are in touch via what’s app and thankfully, I speak Spanish.


Thanks to a message from Jacques Tombazian, our beloved late founder of the Global Healing Foundation, he advised us to send White Light to protect them. When we did, these brave men were both protected, able to go to the landowner and convince him to sell the land to them and not to the coal company, and also to successfully make peace with a potential adversary.  So these brave men were indeed protected, and it felt like a miracle, a blessing, a God-given gift. 


Here is a photo of one part of the land we are buying for them:


Our www.globalhealingfoundation.org website is now connected with Paypal so that donating will be easy and our org lawyer said that our mission is in keeping with the mission of these Earth protectors and so is legal for us to send to their non-profit Fundacion Social Gunnekun our donations from our non-profit Global Healing Foundation. The direct link to our Paypal is: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/GHF1



Checks may be written to: Global Healing Foundation c/o Clare Rosenfield P.O.Box 334 Hartsdale, NY 10530 and I will wire more donations to the Fundacion Social Gunnekun non-profit account of the Mamos as they come in.


Many thanks for opening your big hearts to this important way to help our Colombian brothers and sisters to help our Mother Earth!.

Warmly,

Clare

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