GRANEROS: The leaders of 22 Indigenous peoples from five continents held prayers for nature in Chile on Sunday at the end of a 46-day pilgrimage around the world.

The “Indigenous sages” carried out an ancestral ceremony of the Anasazi people, who lived in the Chaco Canyon before European settlement in what was to become the US state of New Mexico. It was a ritual that, for the first time, brought together peoples from all over the planet — travelling together on a journey that began in Italy and passed through India, Australia, and Zimbabwe before concluding in Chile.

During their closing ceremony, representatives of peoples such as the Khalkha of Mongolia, the Noke Koi of Brazil, and the Kallawaya of Bolivia sang, danced, and prayed to the rhythm of drums, around an altar where they lit a sacred fire. “The feathers represent the continents, and today, for the first time, we have the five continents,” said Heriberto Villasenor, director of Raices de la Tierra, an NGO dedicated to the preservation of Indigenous cultures.

At the end of the event, the leaders embraced and shared a message, urging greater care for the environment. “We are part of nature. We are not separate from it. We are at a critical moment when so much destruction has taken place, much of it at human hands,” Rutendo Ngara, 49, a representative of the South African group Oba Umbuntu, said.

The leaders also shared their concerns about what is happening in their own home regions.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2025