Al río se le vuelan

Francisco Pesquera, the last curiara (traditional canoe) artisan of Pavoni, has passed away. This event coincides with the accelerated process of mining exploitation just a few kilometers away, right in the coltan zone. His children mourn him and fear that this knowledge has nearly gone extinct with the patriarch. Nearly—because amidst the new appetites awakened by mining, a flame remains: at the very least, an intention to honor the culture of their ancestors. Pavoni is located near the Parguaza River, in the Atures municipality of Amazonas state. It is a community founded by indigenous Curripaco people who migrated from Colombia over 40 years ago, following the displacements in the Upper Guainía region. Piaroas, Houttöjas, and Curripacos—peoples who are traditionally artisans, subsistence farmers (conuqueros), and miners—share these territories. Along its banks, the Orinoco River is lined with hundreds of unregulated ports through which contraband flows; it is there that fishermen arrive to sell or trade what they pull from the river. At one of these ports, downstream from the village, Francisco left his last curiara half-finished. He was nearly ninety years old, and diabetes prevented him from completing it. Shortly before he died, he told his son José to gather his tools. Thus, just as the curiara, the batea (wooden panning tray), and the suruca (the sieve used to wash gold and coltan) are passed down from generation to generation, they remain objects whose aura preserves an inalienable cultural legacy