austraLasia #3477
Salesian consecrated life & indigenous culturesSUMBA (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.
Salesian consecrated life & indigenous cultures
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.
