Civito Montes, collaborator with the Sa´Pan community - Paraguay

ERIKA MEZA | PARAGUAY
1968, San Pedro, Paraguay. Lives and works in Asunción, Paraguay
JAVIER LÓPEZ
1974, Havana, Cuba. Lives and works in Asunción, Paraguay

Without title, 2014, sound installation
Courtesy: the artists

Ethnic group: Sa´Pan or Enenlhit
Language: Sanapana, language family Maskoy
Speaker: Civito Montes, community leader and school teacher
Location: Paraguay. Western Region, Paraguayan Chaco, Presidente Hayes department
Population: 785 (Census 2012)

“I wish to tell a story in the Sanapana language. My name is Civito Montes and I live in the La Esperanza community, a department of Presidente Hayes. I teach young boys and girls at the local school. We have a history which begins with the ancestors of the Sanapana peoples and how they lived in former times in their ancestral homelands. Time has passed, yet we seek to bring to life, to regenerate, the history of the Sanapana language and its people. Our forefathers lived on different ranches at a time when the indigenous people knew nothing of the white-man’s food, eating such things as the meat of wild animals and fish, palm-marrows and honey. The Sanapana worked as farmhands on the ranches, riding horses, like ranchers. The place was called Estancia La Selva”.