“The most important and sacred thing for us is to prevent diseases and control nature itself,” says Indigenous Yurutí Nelson Rodriguez, whose traditional name, Neñú, means leader of the elders. “This is because the nature surrounding communities gives a person their daily sustenance.”
Speaking from Mitú, the capital of the far-flung Vaupés department in Colombia’s Amazon, Rodriguez wears a red golf shirt, his hands painted black up to the wrists, part of a dabakuri abundance ceremony. As a traditional healer, he says these ceremonies are fundamental for his community’s physical and spiritual health and a part of living in harmony with nature – which has become an ever more significant challenge year after year.
