June is the month of Inti Raymi, and its supposed meaning is beginning to circulate. The most widespread idea is that this party-ritual is a “thanks to Pachamama”. The background of this claim suggests that the indigenous people, both in the past and in the present, live in communion with nature, in a balance in which they do not take more than what is necessary, what nature gives them.

They have turned us into a kind of guardians of nature, they never exploit it or transform it, they just adapt without leaving an impact. Likewise, environmental militants have positioned the idea that the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon have not touched it, protecting the untouched and virgin paradise, preserving the primordial balance, where their actions are almost non-existent. How true is that?

In 2006, Charles C. Mann published the book 1491 New Rebellions of the Americas before Columbus, in which he debunks a number of myths about indigenous people, especially about their technical knowledge to solve problems. In its pages we find examples of how the Indians’ relationship with nature was more complex than a relationship of simple balance without influence. This thesis was formulated by the first Europeans who arrived in America. He quotes a passage from Michel de Montaigne from 1580 that says that we natives live in a “blessed state” where we want nothing more than what nature can provide, without “superfluous” excesses. He pointed out that the products were obtained without work and effort, since they were given by mother nature.

The colonial image of the “noble savage” of the nature preserver serves only certain political and civil figures who profit…

Charles Mann provides three interesting examples that discuss these ideas: 1) The Maya, according to his research, caused their social collapse by indiscriminately using their natural resources, causing famine and drought; 2) The Indians used to set fire to huge areas of land. He points out that the great plains and prairies of the Midwest are constantly on fire, causing transformations in the ecosystem; and 3) most controversially, Mann claims, at least 10% of the Amazonian forest, which is not submerged in water, was created by humans. In addition, the colonizers introduced the much exalted practice of “slash and burn.” On the other hand, the success of the Incas was based on the improvement of agricultural techniques such as turning numerous hillsides and mountains into terraces for cultivation, with the intention that they could be stored and have large reserves. All this shows that indigenous peoples do not necessarily, like any other people in the world, cause ecological disasters, that they do not necessarily have ecological practices, and that they definitely transformed their environment for human benefit, without any regard for it. Environment.

The colonial image of the “noble savage” of the nature guardian serves only certain political and civil figures who profit by this discourse to obtain international resources and stay in the international ecological “lobby”. (OR)