Forbes and Fifth

Iyarisha, Iyarisha: I’m Thinking, I’m Thinking

The fisherman sensed a pair of eyes glancing about his body, which made him itch. He stood tense and knee deep in the Rio Napo of the Ecuadorian Amazon. To keep his heart from racing, he focused on his breathing. Slowly, he pulled up his ataraya, fishing net. With it gathered, he turned around, and in the brush he saw a diamondpatterned snake’s head. He stood frozen in place once more. “There are many boas here,” he reminded himself. 

Exhaling, he returned to face the river. The shadows of the night fell as the sun slid down the horizon. Timidly, he threw his net once more and scanned his surroundings. He could not shake the itch. He was not alone. 

The river continued to pound against his rock island and swallow all other noises whole. Focusing forward once more, he crouched down to collect the ataraya. Looking up, his eyes fell into those of another before him. Her delicate shoulders penetrated the surface of the water, her blonde hair straining out across it. Her deep blue eyes sparkled without light, her skin so pale it shone in the dark. He searched her beautiful face and found lines painted across her cheekbones, and a pattern of circles spread across the rest. The net floated down river. 


“In Kichwa, they are called Yakuruna; they are water spirits. They live in a separate spirit world and have the characteristics of water animals, mostly boas and river dolphins,” Elizabeth Swanson explains. I lounge with the other undergrads around a campfire on our first night in the Amazon. Elizabeth had just finished her first year of college; she is the oldest of Tod Swanson’s four kids. Swanson created Iyarina, the Andes and Amazon Field School, as a research center on the banks of the Rio Napo, to promote and preserve the Kichwa language and Runa culture. The rain was closing in, becoming louder on its approach. “There’ve been two rumored sightings like this in recent years, one from a second cousin of mine,” Elizabeth said.

Lago Quilotoa, Ecuador. By Jason Edwards, 2015.

“So, what brought you to Ecuador?” asked Stanford. She was a small twenty-year-old equipped with a backpack and rain jacket, like the rest of us, though it did little to fight off the biting wind we were facing at 12,841 feet. There were eight of us packed into the bed of a pickup truck, a ride we had the fortune of finding after missing the bus. The company consisted of two quiet Argentinian backpackers and a family which included a mother, father and two daughters: one who went to Stanford; the other, Harvard. 

Jason responded, describing the field school we were studying at and the opportunities it provides. I stared off into the distance, my thoughts prompting legends of the Amazon, like that of the Yakuruna from just a few weeks before. 

It had been a cold and windy day spent high in the Andean Mountains wandering the small town of Quilotoa and it’s large, green, crater lake which sat 1,312 feet below. We were winding our way down the mountains to Zumbahua—a town almost nine miles from Quilotoa—the next bus stop. Commonly travelers get sucked into the area for days, hiking the trails around the Quilotoa Loop, a road that encompasses eleven small towns and rises in elevation by 3,655 feet. 

The area is rich in culture, containing many Quechua-speaking people, markets, and artisan shops. However, it is also full of the same factory-brand tourist items available around the country. We weaved around rolling mountains, draped with patchwork-quilt-like greenery— an effect produced by different farms. Large valleys scooped below, and cascades loomed above. A few trees popped in and out, but for the most part one could see for miles. Little farms scattered, towns rippled in the valleys, trees were layered in the far distance, each succeeding layer a darker blue. Clouds rolled in ominously, covering the far tree tops. The truck stopped in a field next to a pair of dirt tracks. They stretched all the way to a hill a few miles out. A little girl dressed in red jumped out from the cab and raced down the path. She squealed, “Sigame mama! Vamos,” Follow me mommy! Let’s go.

Taken by Elizabeth Holmes

The Quechua mother came around the truck bed and collected her heavy bag of food, grabbing it with ease. She chuckled at me as I tried to photograph the little girl in the distance. The truck began weaving once more, down the serpentine roads. The lower we got the more heads we saw behind tall grass. They were stern and focused on their farming, barely stirred by our passing. 

Entering Zumbahua, we were met by pastel-painted cement buildings. The people walked slowly and, for the first time in Ecuador, we drove slowly. Everyone was wrapped in shawls or ponchos. Most sat outside their shops, making little conversation. The wind rattled my rain jacket as we walked to the bus. I sat down, thankful for the heat, but cracked the window. 

I had been on a series of bus and truck rides like these during my two months in Ecuador. They took me all across the country and, while it was barely the size of Colorado, it had three distinct bio-zones: the desertlike coast, the plain and arid Andes, and the intimidating Amazon. Each was unique in its own respect, but none was as seemingly fertile and ominous as the Amazon. While we cruised down the Andes and embarked towards the forest, we passed rectangular plots bordered by brush fences. These were marked, “Se Vende,” for sale. 


Facing backwards I collected a mouthful of hair; forwards, the wind was so powerful I could not inhale. I would later learn to sit with my back against the cab. The Amazon scurried past us; my heartbeat increased and my eyes swelled to the size of a child’s. I remember sitting in the back of my grandfather’s pickup imagining the adventures it could take me on, but he always refused to drive the second I touched the truck bed. The child inside me bounced with excessive joy as the adventure grew closer. 

From the shallow second growth rainforest bloomed a small town. Painted green and yellow was a cement soccer field, fully equipped with lights, cement bleachers, soccer goals and basketball baskets. Along the side was painted “En Nueva Tena, si es Posible,” In New Tena, Anything is Possible. 

Then, the rest of the town unfolded— little cement houses painted a variety of colors, thin wire gates, and random townspeople observing us with inquisitive eyes. We drove down the one main, paved street. The scenery passed in flashes. Emergent trees poked out from the forest, tall grasses brushed the knees of women alongside the road, and kids were tugged back by their mothers as we rolled through. We then turned up a rocky incline and the receding town folded back into the forest. This same trek would be repeated many times over in the following three weeks. Each trip felt twice as long as the last, and we began to anticipate the views. A motorcycle was parked on the side of the road. Children’s screams could be heard as they battled each other in soccer. Women disappeared into their houses, and men could be seen strolling. 

While the outskirts of Tena provided slight glimpses into the Ecuadorian life, the purpose of this trek was for the rainforest. The forest was a bank of knowledge for Runa culture, and the hikes were our lecture. And while the trip to the path was repetitive, the learning never was. Every day was a new story and a new adventure brought by the forest and translated through our Runa guides and interpreters. 

One night I sat in the truck bed with my back pressed up against the cab. Students and other locals had just finished a soccer game and we were trekking back to school for dinner. Tilting my head back, I stared at the stars. Finally a clear night had arrived, no clouds to cover the sky. The Milky Way was rich. They shone brightly against the dark blue. Back in the states I could never imagine seeing this many. I paused after exiting the truck, head still tilted back, not wanting to enter the school. Tod paused by me momentarily, “Here, in Iyarina, the stars have dulled with the expansion of Tena.” 


“Iyarina means thinking.” I had asked Tod and Santi about the name of the research station. Santi is Tod Swanson’s eighteen year old son. All the Swanson children bear the strong features of their mother: bronze skin, dark and straight hair, wide smiles. With their extensive family, the Swanson’s run the school, which they named Iyarina, in respect to Runa culture. “Or something like reflection,” Tod continues, “but thinking is different in each culture. In English, reflection or speculation is where you look inside yourself and there is a mirror in your heart, because you are made in the image of god.” He motions from the sky to his chest and continues, “It reflects the divine reasoning. The reason that is logos, that is the divine mind. In thinking you can come up with answers because you are made in the image of god. That is reflection.” 

“In Kichwa, the word Iyarina has the idea that humans are not at the center, that plants and trees and animals contain memories of your parents, grandparents, and ancestors, and where they walked and what they did. If you can share these memories, learn them from plants and trees and animals, then you, too, will belong.” Tod continues, “So you go out and look and can remember these moments. The land makes you think about the past. In thinking of the past you become nostalgic and you think of a way for the future and for progress.” “Iyarina is also where you go out looking for memory. You know the area you are in, you remember it, and it provides you with memories, much like when you scroll through pictures on your computer,” Tod said. 


Samuel stood at the back of the canoe, guiding it across the river with a stick of bamboo. We were travelling to a chagra, on a desolate island in the center of the Rio Napo. Chagra is the Kichwa word for a field which has planted food. The garden here grew yuca, the Spanish word for manioc (a potato-like tuber). For yuca cultivation, floodplain soil is required for healthy growth. We cut the stalks off of the manioc and dig down into the ground to yank them out. They were brown, disfigured, and clung to the stalk in bunches. 

Later, we brought the produce back to Carmen’s House. A sister-in-law of Tod’s, she is a short woman with serious eyes whose hair is always tied back into a bun. We polished the manioc and moved them from pot to pot of water, cleaning them further with each transition. Carmen then laid them in boiling water above a fire. We took three buckets of boiled yuca into Carmen’s raised house and dumped one load into a wooden tub. It looked like a baby canoe. Using a round wood club and two wooden scraping pieces, the girls and I began to mash. The mashed yuca looked like mashed potatoes, but tasted far more bland and dry. The yuca was still boiling hot; steam fogged my glasses and thickened the already humid air. The boys sat on the sidelines, since traditionally “they were not allowed to work on the chicha.”

Chicha is a ceremonial drink in South and Central America. We were in the process of making this fermented drink for our despedida, a traditional fiesta, taking place a few days later. Once the yuca was mashed, juice from a sweet potato was mixed in to loosen the consistency, sweeten the flavor, and begin fermentation. For the next hour and a half, more yuca was added to the canoe. We took turns, giving our exhausted arms a break. Carmen took our tools several times, correcting our methods: we had to constantly scrape the inside to prevent sticking, mix the mashed mess around more to release heat, smash the chunks found, and pull out the stalks still left. Seven girls, two hours of mashing were all traditionally one woman’s job. Our stomachs gurgled and our arms burned. 

The boys left early to get lunch and we changed our method, electing to follow a more traditional route toward fermentation. We stopped using sweet potato, and we grabbed chunks of the mash and chewed them and spit them back into the mix. We added peanuts. Carmen watched over us, frustrated with our slow pace. “Men should help their women,” she said. 

During the despedida chairs were arranged into a circle, and we listened to Samuel, Raul, and Tito perform traditional Runa music with a guitar, a deer-skinned drum, and a raspachidora (a scraping instrument.) Tod and Elizabeth danced together, showing us how to stamp our feet and and dance to the music. We passed out our finished and fermented chicha, which they added peanuts to. 

It had the consistency of milk, but it smelled like foul yogurt. It tasted bitter and had hints of vegetables. The peanuts, to me, were a saving grace. Janis Nuckolls, a Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at Brigham Young University declared, “This chicha is the best I’ve ever had.” 


Carmen stood proudly in her chagra, explaining “to this day, I work in a chagra that is my life, so I’m going to sing this song to Manioc Flower Woman, Peanut Flower Woman, and Bean Flower Woman.” She sang about planting manioc, then beans, then peanuts. Her chagra was planted like a garden, containing a wide variety of plants. In a chagra, it is important to keep plants who are friends, or help each other to grow, around one another. During Carmen’s song, tears welled in her eyes as she began to remember her grandmother who had taught her the song. 

Carmen thought of her mother, and remembered how hard her mother would work. She cares for her parents now, by herself in her house by the chagra. She then thought of herself and what she had learned from her mother and how she could be a good chagraj (chagra-woman) like her. 


Belgica is a potter, and every painting on her pottery is Iyarina. Elodia, Belgica’s shorter and older sister, described many of the intricate designs on her (and Belgica’s) mucawas, the bowls used for serving chicha. The designs included two very different rivers at set locations, the crossing of three mountains from their village, Canelos, to a neighboring village, and a snake design like the one we saw on a snake we had caught the day before. With each design, she recalled a specific memory that it provoked. One particularly striking mucawa was covered in repeating zig zags shaped like S’s. This image was on her mind after a hike we had recently taken. Elodia said the vines fall in “lapu, lapu, lapu” or the zig zag “S,” and that “they often come with eggs laid within them.” 

You will hear Belgica and Elodia say “Iyarisha, Iyarisha,” I’m thinking, I’m thinking, as they enter the forest looking for memories. 


She heard the chuckles and whispers as her neighbors passed. They had large assortments of pottery proudly on display. It was such an attractive characteristic, the ability to produce quality cooking wares. She hid out in her home working day and night. From outside, rumors spread, the neighbors believing her to be lazy, though she was merely unsuccessful. It is unfortunate, being inept in an activity so fundamentally feminine. She continued to work, determined to show she was not lazy. She became close with the clay; she grew close to the point that she became one with the clay. 

The Amu. Mother of clay. To Amu now, small and elderly, Elodia sings. On the edge of a small stream, just beyond our cabins, we crowd around her. Elodia holds her black and blue floral skirt bunched in one hand as she stands calf-deep in the stream. A master potter herself, Elodia, explains to the Amu that we will respect her clay, treasure it, and make great use of her resource. The Amu accepts her request; the Amu accepts us, a group of young Americans with little knowledge of clay workings and the Runa culture. 

After singing to Amu, Elodia sinks the first two fingers of each hand deep into the clay on the bank of the stream. She twists and pushes down, beginning a hole. We each take turns shoveling into the stream bed and removing fist-sized chunks. They get tossed into a large leaf Elodia had gathered earlier. 

The clay is a delicate resource, and so is Amu. As children, both Elodia and her compatriot Delicia were not allowed to work with the clay. Their mothers wanted them to be older when they learned, so that they could understand the necessary respect. But when one is meant for something, nothing can stand in one’s way. Both ladies would sneak behind their mother’s backs, taking little bits of clay to practice forms, coiling and pinching, scraping and shaping. They now remain two of the best Runa potters of the twenty-first century. 

The undergrads and I spent the following three weeks learning the art of Runa pottery. Mixing, wedging, coiling, pinching, scraping, thinning, forming, drying—the job never feels easy. It proceeds to become more comfortable as the weeks pass, but never easy. Elodia chuckles saying that, “[we] form pots like children.” 

We learned two types of traditional vessels: the mucawa and the tinaja. The ones we made and that the ladies produce to sell are too small for tradition—they fit in the palm of one’s hand and are meant for the tourist market. The mucawa is a bowl with a flared upper lip and is used in ceremony for drinking chicha. The tinaja is a storage vessel like a vase, with a bulbous bottom and extended neck. This is where the chicha sits during fermentation. Cookware is fired without glaze to produce a black finished pot. Ceremonial pottery, like the mucawa and tinaja, is painted with black and white mineral paints that the ladies collect from the streams. The pottery begins as brown clay, a mixture of two types: one very soft; the other, harder. When the pot is formed and dried for about a day—weather dependent—a red slip is applied. When the slip dries, the pot is buffed with a curved river stone to produce a red shine. Then, brushes are made from human hair. The paintbrushes are thin and nearly two inches long, with a stick handle of equal length. It is very tricky to paint with them; the best method is to lie the brush on the pot and move the pot itself to draw designs. The pottery is then fired. 

The pots are completely hand-made. To Western culture they are covered in imperfections, results of human error. To the Runa people, the imperfection is the purest form of beauty. They work hardest to embody the random imperfection that is in every living thing. My three pots sit on a shelf across from me, in a home where I am upset by nicks in my walls and squeaky floors. They sit as a reminder to a world where imperfection is truth and push me to embrace that more often in my own world. 


The mucawa had mountains on the rim and three tadpole shaped figures painted in white. When asked about the, Elodia began to describe the Runa story of creation: 

There was once a small family, brother, sister, mother and father. The sister desperately wanted a husband, but her family was the only people she knew. One night a man came to visit her in the dark and she began to fall in love. Another night she painted his face with wituk so that she could identify her lover in the morning. To the parent’s horror, he was their son. The children argued for their love, but the parents demanded he leave. 

The brother fashioned a ladder to the sky with arrows and began climbing. The sister climbed after him, until her skirt caught on an arrow. She tried to yank it free, but it would not give. And from above the arrows began to fall. She then sunk back down to earth. 

Soon after she gave birth to two boys. With them, she followed her brother who had turned into the moon. She rested three different nights. These were the three tadpole designs upon the pot. 

In some stories the children and their mother turn into three stars that always follow the moon. This was the ending Elodia chose. In others, the sister turns into the ibuku mama, a bird who cries at each full moon. When the Runa women who make pottery hear the ibuku mama cry out in their dreams, they can see where all the rich clay is held. The ibuku mama’s children became the first humans on earth and the moon can still be seen today with its dark face paint. 


Elodia approached me with scissors. I tried to creep away slowly, after having avoided her all morning. Previously, Elodia had pointed out Vidisha and me as the students with the best hair for paintbrushes. They liked dark and straight hair, thin or thick, like theirs. Vidisha stood before Elodia, having been hunted down. A thick and long shear was heard across the patio. A chunk of hair an inch’s length was plopped into the mucawa before Vidisha. Kelly and I searched Vidisha’s hair for evidence of the abuse, but it was hard to uncover. Elodia took small bunches of hair from Vidisha’s pile. She wound them with string around a toothpick-sized piece of bark from a Shiwa palm that we had whittled earlier with machetes. Vidisha’s hair provided at least five paintbrushes for the group. I stood there relieved with the quantity of hair paintbrushes, but while I was distracted, Elodia came up behind and with one hand shoved me down to my knees. I trembled and covered my face with my hands as she giggled once more. I tried to slow my breathing as tears welled in my eyes. 

The shear rang across the patio once more. Elodia released me and I quivered to a stand. She looked at me after asking my name and said in Spanish, “The hair of Elizabeth is very beautiful.” I responded, “My hair is more beautiful on my head.”


David sat before Belgica. She used a shiwa palm paintbrush, like those used for pottery, to paint the thin, blue syrup across his face. It did not run; rather, it dried quickly. Across his forehead were the stalky branches of an arouta tree. Belgica painted this to attract birds to him. On the tree are fruits birds like to eat, and that will bring him attention, which will bring him good hunting. On his cheeks were the dotted pattern of a jaguar, for they are great hunters, and across his chin, the boney patterns of a fish. 

Most face paint for men is meant to make them great hunters and give them the skills of the forest. David’s own father was an excellent hunter, and always painted his face prior to entering the forest for protection. David is a subsistence hunter to this day, despite population challenges and the evolution of their culture. People no longer aspire for men who have strong ties to the forest, but without the forest their manhood is stripped. A student asked David about the significance of the face paint to the animals. “Well of course the birds and animals see beauty,” David responds, “They paint their own. They look at each other and discuss this sense of beauty.” Face paint, produced by the fruit called wituk, is an important element and an example of the Runa idea of shared body. 

By painting animal and plant designs, the recipient can connect with their qualities and memories, as well as attract other animals. 

Later, Kelly, Joelle and Jason were painted with different animals and plants. Belgica provided the designs. Jason’s was that of a Mountain Macaw. When Belgica was asked as to why she painted it, she responded that “the bird flies long distances, like you all did to get here.”

David with Belgica's art work.
Displays: stalky branches of an arouta tree on his forehead, a jaguar across his cheeks, and a fish pattern on the chin.
Jason Edwards, 2015.


Luisa had her hair tied up above her head, swaying as she sang. The leaves rustled with the wind spinning to the beat. Our ethnobotany Luisa had a gracious smile on her face as she gazed up the tree. She was an older woman, though you would not guess it due to her lack of grey hairs. She walked strategically when we went about the forest, typically wandering off the trail to avoid the mud our boots and the rain produced. For our ethnobotany class, the lessons we witnessed on the hikes were fairly random. They depended on the concept of Iyarina, and what memories the women happened upon. On this occasion, however, Luisa had a particular reason to be excited. She had previously run into the toucan in a dream and knew they would meet again soon. Runa thinking finds dreams to be as real as consciousness. During sleep, the soul itself journeys upon its own adventure with the souls of others. 

The anticipated bird song brought back a series of memories. Luisa described that many women can be beautiful toucan singers, but it was her mother who made the deepest impression on her. Due to the strong bond Luisa’s mother had with the toucans, her memories are shared within their bodies. Luisa’s opportunity to sing with the toucan was a way to access memories of her mother. The song was a sweet lament to the relationships between her mother, the toucans and herself.


As a child, Elizabeth Virginia Swanson walked in the forest around Iyarina. She was a little girl; tan, like all the other girls around her, though she was called “gringito.” After one walk in the forest, she fell very ill. Though her father was of missionary descent, and his wife was raised Christian, they still believe in much of the Runa faith. This belief led them to the home of a yachaj, a shaman, searching for answers. 

Josefine’s mother, Virginia, had walked that same forest in her lifetime. Her spirit became curious about this little stranger, a child who had her name. Little Elizabeth was fast, like most children, so the spirit reached up, grabbed a bit of her soul, and brought it back to the spirit world. The remedy for Elizabeth’s illness, according to the yachaj, was to go and spend time in the forest, so her grandmother could get to know her. Tradition continues to be embraced even with the inclusion of modernity in the Runa culture. 

While many people have converted to Catholicism, they share their historical stories and pass on memories of the traditional culture. Many of these stories involve spirits, who are not in heaven or hell but a more vast spirit world. The spirit world connects to the physical world. Given this, death is a tricky concept. If one were to ask Josefine and her sisters where people go, they would respond with heaven and hell, but their stories of afterlife still take place in a spirit world that hangs all around us. The spirits can retrace their old footsteps. The spirits are here.

previous | next

Volume 8, Spring 2016