Inti Wayna began in 1977, when I started following the teachings of Don
Alberto Herrera, a black healer who was my first teacher in Lima. He lived in
little adobe house in a very poor neighborhood in the outskirts of Lima. One day
I was invited to participate in a meeting to talk about how to raise funds to
build a school. I became aware that the aim of this school was to organize an
alternative education for children based on a new eco-spiritual philosophy
promoted by this teacher. I presented the idea of making our own adobe bricks
during our free weekends to construct the school, as I had experience with adobe
brickmaking. The group accepted my proposal, and I enthusiastically directed a
group of youth to do just that. Through this time of being involved in this
educational project and working with this teacher, the first "stake" of Inti
Wayna was nailed into my heart.
Next, in 1986 I met the Incan Elder Don Felipe Mormontoy Pumakawa from Cusco,
a member of the Indian Council for South America. Through him I found out about
The American Indian Movement from the USA, which got together with Incan elders
in a meeting of North and South at the beginning of 1980 in Ollantaytambo-Cusco
to found the basis for an educational program on behalf of the native
communities called the "World University of the Indigenous." This project felt
like an opportunity to provide a form of education very different from that
promoted by the Peruvian government, and it also synchronized with my previous
experience of building a school with Don Alberto Herrera. Don F. Mortontoy
Pumakawa was one of the most enthusiastic founding members involved with this
project. He had a strong, clear vision of bringing this dream into reality, and
he invited me to be part of this project.
One way to promote the World University of the Indigenous was to organize
forums to gather together people sympathetic to the goals of this project. One
of the biggest tasks the group set for itself was to organize a 1992 celebration
of the 500 year anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus on our
continent where we could present an alternative version of the history of our
society, as spoken by our native mentors. This Elder was sure this event would
serve to begin to pull into reality the old yearning of the Indigenous vision.
But reality turned out very differently, and in 1990 my relationship with this
Elder was severed due to jealousy from some of his followers. However, my
experience with him was rich in knowledge and motivated me to expand native
culture.
A very important event for me came in the Spring of 1989, when I was honored
as a traditional Incan priest in Cusco, the oldest city of the Incan empire. I
received an immediate task to make a pilgrimage to certain sacred mountains,
where we had a ceremony. That evening I had a vision of myself as director of a
little school at the foot of a mountain. I shared this experience with the Elder
leading the ceremony. He interpreted it as a future task, and I agreed with him
as building a school had already been anchored into my life purpose.
Coming back to the events of 1990 and my separation from Elder F. Mormontoy,
a group of friends heard what had happened and supported me, encouraging me to
keep working on the vision. Together we decided to celebrate the year 1992 by
working towards the goal of bringing forth ancient Incan wisdom in our own way.
We called our event "the return of the 10th Pachacuteq," referring to an Incan
prophesy about the condor and the eagle connected to the Incan calendar. The
Incans prophesied, " When the Condor and the Eagle will be seen flying together
in the sky again, that will be the sign of the rebirth of the children of the
Earth." The Incan calendar referred to a world order with changes in both
historical and cultural aspects, resulting from the intermixing of native
culture and western culture.
In 1991, I met Don Vidal Ayala and an elder from Venezuela, Domingo Diaz,
both community leaders of a continental project called "MAIS." A great
friendship formed between us, and they shared my vision of bringing forth native
culture. They helped organize the Condor-Eagle celebration in 1992. Two very
interesting developments came out of this friendship: first, an event had been
celebrated in Ollantaytambo, Cusco, on the land that had been donated in 1980 to
construct the "World University of the Indigenous" mentioned earlier. Second,
Don Vidal Ayala, a native of Huancayo, east of Lima, had arrived at this
five-day event back in 1980 organized by the American Indian Movement simply as
a participant. He made a deep connection with the project, volunteered to work
for the school, and moved to Ollantaytambo. Later, the American Indian Movement
was divided by political ambitions of some of the South American leaders, partly
because some of the leaders of the project intended to bring in European
technology, a plan the Elder leaders could not endorse. So the project was left
in suspension.
Another important piece of bringing the Inti Wayna vision into reality is my
status in the United States. In 1995, I moved to the US to learn English and
also to be able to share my Condor knowledge with the American people. I went to
a university in Chicago and earned a Master’s degree in Humanities. I now had
the academic credit necessary to receive aid and to be acknowledged by the
Peruvian state. But also, as I was teaching traditional ways, I began talking
with new friends about my project, and I have received much help and assistance
every time I touch on the theme. Inti Wayna is my way of giving thanks back to
life for all the knowledge that I have received, and also my way of preserving
the historical and cultural traditions of Native Americans.
In the year 2002, after almost 10 years of knowing Don Vidal Ayala, I
went to visit him and inform him of the "Inti Wayna" project. He was really
surprised to hear all that I had done. He noticed how similar the objectives of
Inti Wayna are to those of the World University of the Indigenous from 1980 with
his words, "The wine of five days was left waiting for 22 years to hear about
this project again." Vidal Ayala counts as one of the leaders of the Americas
who united in 1980 to pray for this opportunity. I firmly believe that the
prayer of those leaders 22 years ago has come into reality through the
educational project of the Inti Wayna Foundation, formed around the same
objectives. In other words, Inti Wayna is not my personal project and is not
carried only by my personal motivation. Moreso, it is an old collective dream
that has come to me with the opportunity to bring teaching indigenous ways into
reality.
