A Song to Nature: Traditional Wiwa Music as Relational Reparation to Indigenous Communities and Their Territory

“El territorio aparece como la víctima más lastimada (por el conflicto armado) y que cada herida constituye una herida abierta en el corazón de cada niño indigena de la Sierra, de cada mujer a punto de parir, de cada hombre que levanta su casa, de cada viejo a punto de morir – The territory appears as the most wounded victim (of the armed conflict), and each wound constitutes an open wound in the heart of every indigenous child from the Sierra, of every woman about to give birth, of every man building his home, and of every old person on the verge of dying”.

In these words, the Wiwa, one of the Indigenous groups living in the Sierra Nevada of Colombia, described before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (jep) – the court in charge of dealing with the cases related to internal armed conflict – the impact of the armed conflict on their territory who is a living being, their Mother Earth and currently wounded. In September 2022, the jep decided precisely to open the macro-case 09 to investigate and prosecute the crimes committed during the armed conflict against ethnic groups and their territories, among which the Wiwa community. For the Wiwa people, the armed conflict did affect not only human beings but also their territory – Abu Senulang or Mother Earth. The jep has recently embodied those views and recognized the territory as a victim of the armed conflict, with its right to reparation. So far, reparations have always followed the human rights grammar and been designed for human beings. The recognition of the jep challenges this assumption and invites us to rethink the concept of reparation, hence contributing to the decolonizing human rights debate. Music is essential to the Wiwa people. It represents a way to communicate with their territory and to re-establish the equilibrium with nature in moments of change or transition. Based on qualitative and visual elicitation data collected through fieldwork with two Wiwa communities, Siminke and La Laguna in the south of Guajira, in Colombia, this contribution underscores the significance of music for the Wiwa and their relationship with nature and subsequently argues the potential of music as a new form of reparation to both the communities and the territory.