Keeping Culture Alive through Music & Community-led Tourism: A Conversation with Tupac Guatemal
“Karanki is my culture and I am really happy to share and be a part of this culture because it is something that my grandfathers, my father, passed down to us, and we have the responsibility to keep our culture, our music, our language alive.”
—Tupac Guatemal
The music represents the resistance and history of Tupac’s community and his Kichwa Karanki people.
Being part of a community means forming part of something bigger than yourself. It is about creating shared experiences and supporting one another. Community-building and the act of sharing were exemplified by our conversation with Tupac Guatemal, a Kichwa Karanki Original Peoples man who is part of the Indigenous community of San Clemente in the Andes mountains of Ecuador. Tupac taught the importance of keeping communities alive, especially Indigenous cultures, and used the example of community-led tourism as the work he does to keep his culture alive. Keeping cultures alive, especially Indigenous ones, is of vital importance today, as the history of colonialism has in many ways created a loss of connection to culture, but what community and culture can teach us is the beauty and possibility of revitalizing and respecting diverse ways of living.
On January 22nd the YVC had the pleasure of hearing from Tupac who plays many roles in his community, including a guide and instructor with Nahual Adventure and Sustainability. Getting out into the Andes mountains can be extremely risky, and it is important to be with somebody who knows the way and can teach you local ways of respecting the volcanoes that populate Ecuadorian landscapes.
Tupac is also a practicing musician in the band Amaru Canto y Vida (Check out their YouTube to hear their music, or find more on their Instagram). Music for Tupac has become a tool for expressing the value of family and community roots. During our conversation, we learned about his Indigenous roots and the significance of the younger generation to keeping the Kichwa Karanki culture alive. Through Tupac’s passion for music and preserving his culture, we learned how to engage in sustainable community-led tourism.
Although Tupac is passionate about preserving his culture, it doesn't come without struggle. Tupac shared the difficulty of continuing Indigenous traditions in his community. He made clear the importance of keeping his culture alive— the power it can give to those in his community and what others can learn about interdisciplinary approaches to development. This motivation for ensuring his culture is kept alive comes from his love for his children, and the importance of them knowing their heritage.
“My responsibility is to educate and teach my son Piuke to live with harmony, respect, and love towards plants, animals, and Pachamama.” —Tupac Guatemal
As mentioned in the video below, when sharing his work with newer generations Tupac noticed that many young people don't feel connected with the culture and language, and have distanced themselves from their Indigenous roots. Tupac explained that the younger generation in his community has “decided to say ‘no, I’m not from the community, and nope I am not Indigenous,’ because they think saying that they might have better opportunities.” But Tupac doesn’t see it that way, rather he wants to emphasize to his community that there is more to this life than just working. Their Indigenous identities should be celebrated and they do not need to minimize themselves to fit into the corporate world.
Tupac shared with the YVC a story about his community that exemplified moving tradition back into spaces where it had been lost. When Covid-19 hit and the schools closed, children from the community were no longer able to go to school. So Tupac and other community members took matters into their own hands and gave lessons to the local youth in traditional cooking, music, and farming. They also taught them their language, Kichwa, and some English as well.
Initially, there was pushback from the minister of San Clemente on allowing this style of teaching, especially when it came to incorporating these lessons into modern Westernized schooling. Luckily, the minister saw how engaged the students were, and offered to add Indigenous ways of teaching into the curriculum. The kids were supportive of this addition saying “We don’t want to go back to the normal school, because we really enjoy the music, or spending time in the garden and with the animals.”
Tupac’s message to the YVC in this story resonates with Roots and Routes’ vision for our Pluriversity. R&R recognizes the shortcomings of mainstream education, and Tupac also shares this disappointment, saying “To me, it’s kind of sad the classes that they are learning. It is important, but there are other things they need to know because we are living in this community in the mountains.” Many all over the world criticize this way of teaching as only preparing kids for more school, and not for life lessons critical to the areas in which they live.
The education system, no matter the community, needs to adapt by incorporating more classes to complement the lives of the people living there. The idea of this self-sufficient individual, who is driven to create a name for themselves and climb the job-market ladder has become what is expected to be everyone's goal. However, this ideal loses the meaning of community, and diverse lives of arts and cultures become muddled down.
Tupac recognizes that culture is a culmination of beliefs and actions that bind people together. There is a great significance to keeping one’s culture alive, whether it be through music, art, food, or language, to stay connected to the landscape of where one is from. “I think that is my motivation, to be part of Pachamama (Mother Earth),” explained Tupac. Being part of Nature and embracing it is a celebration of life, a combination of the present and past; the love of one's traditions, and the creation, and sharing of the present space. Tupac’s work lies in his community and there is joy when he gets to share his culture with others, helping to keep it alive.
“Community living. That’s what our culture is. So we keep our language, our music, and our food alive. All of these things we are doing for us. We are keeping it for us. And it’s really nice when someone from outside comes to be part of that experience.”
Tupac is part of the community tourism project in San Clemente where he works to create a healthy and ecological space to be able to live in harmony with plants and animals and to enjoy life with his family. His purpose with community-led tourism is to move ecotourism onto a more sustainable path. Where, instead of capitalizing on Indigenous knowledge, to paint where it can lose its meaning, community-led tourism promotes the conservation of cultural heritage and natural landscapes.
Ecotourism often gets a bad rep for being unsustainable as its profits can be disproportional and if it grows large enough, it can ultimately cause more environmental harm than good. When Ecotourism becomes centered on profit, it becomes unsustainable for the local people and land. Community-led tourism recognizes the negative impacts of commercial tourism, and instead aims at tourists leaving a low impact on the area and its people and creating a positive and beneficially active social and economic development.
“It’s very pleasing for me to be able to give people of other cultural communities the gift of knowing our culture, our traditions, and our community.” —Tupac Guatemal
Making community-led tourism sustainable means it has to be rooted in sharing and preserving the identity of the local community. Direct participation with Indigenous peoples provides the opportunity for place-based learning. Stepping outside of one's known and comfortable world to see other realms and ways of doing can position visitors in a place for curiosity and collective thought to expand their perspectives. The opportunity for collaboration and cultural exchange between the tourist and local people should build on mutual respect. In community-led tourism, Indigenous peoples can share their respect for and understanding of the land with visitors, who in turn learn of other approaches and values in a way that respects Indigenous peoples, rather than exploits them.
The community-led tourist group Tupac is part of, Tradiciones San Clemente, coincides with the city of San Clemente’s focus on education and environmentalism. Their tours highlight harmonic development—a way of moving forward without losing ancestral knowledge, cultural identities, and language. They are creating a future with both Indigenous and mainstream ideas. This reflects the community’s practice of environmental awareness and respect for Earth as being essential for the survival of humanity. Working to conserve and restore sites, Tupac’s San Clemente community-led tours notice this need to protect natural resources, saying “in the Indigenous world, respect for Pacha Mama is more than a slogan; we practice it in our everyday lives.”
Tupac Guatemal taught the YVC the meaning of “keeping culture alive.” For him, sharing his music with us and others is a message of a well-meaning life, based on a love for art and community. Sustainable community-led tourism shares traditional knowledge in a way that connects people of all backgrounds to the significance of local land and its people. Being able to accept and discern the various ways of life is important for human progression toward a sustainable future. Being part of a community provides an opportunity to share ideas and feelings of similarity, while also accepting differences. Understanding the communities you are a part of allows for a safe space to grow, and the ability to hold respect to communities you aren’t part of. What do you value in your life that can help you connect to your community? How do you stay connected with your culture?