Ancestral memory as an element of identity in Hugo Jamioy Juagibioy’s poetry

Abstract

It is considered that the indigenous ancestral memory is also an element of identity reaffirmation and these memories have been transmitted for centuries, from generation to generation, through oral systems, collective education, and integration between man and nature. Based on these premises, we propose this work, which is part of the doctoral research in progress entitled: Representations, Counterpoint and Power in Brazilian Indigenous Literature and Colombian Indigenous Literature, in the Graduate Program in Contemporary Culture Studies at the Federal University of Mato Grosso - Cuiabá Campus. The central objective of this article is to highlight thematic aspects that represent memory and ancestry as latent identity elements in the poetics of the Colombian indigenous writer Hugo Jamioy Juagibioy, who calls himself Camuents?a, a people who are located in the Sibundoy Valley region in the department of Putumayo - Colombia. The methodological basis of this work is bibliographical, so some poems were selected from the book Danzantes del viento: poesía bilingüe (2010) that composed the analysis, in addition to a theoretical review on the concepts: memory, ancestry and identities. We conclude that Juagibioy’s poetics brings to light the indigenous voices that also reach non-indigenous people, showing how far they are from their ancestral time-places and how much they still deny their roots.