Yucuna Women: Beekeeping for the Planet
By Kirthi Jayakumar
Bee researchers. Image courtesy of Conservation International Colombia.
Generations before Albert Einstein talked of the price the planet will pay for the disappearance of bees, Indigenous women in Colombia’s Amazon have held and actioned age-old knowledge of bees. Keeping that legacy alive, a team of Indigenous Yucuna women in the Colombian Amazon continue to rescue and document the remaining oral knowledge on bees and the roles they play in the ecosystem. By bringing to fore the traditional classification of diverse bee species, these women are also spreading knowledge in their communities and beyond, to drive home the importance of protecting bees.
Bee-ing in community
Drawing from their spiritual testament which says that Je’chu, a god, first created bees for their wax to cure the world, the Yucuna Indigenous peoples of Colombia are committed to protecting the winged creatures and enabling their sustained existence on the planet. During their rituals, elders take a very small piece of a beehive. With the permission of the bees within, they conjure an invocation and set it on fire. The smoke emerging from it blows in the wind, and they intend for it to reach all of humanity.
The Yucuna peoples’ traditional knowledge demonstrates that beehives are essential to regulate the climate, keeping sickness at bay, and creating food gardens on the principles of agroforestry. They are intricately involved in every day life, too: Households with food gardens called chakras depend on pollination by bees for the healthy growth of their crops.
The role of women
In order to preserve their longstanding oral knowledge of the origin of bees, 36 women from 12 communities within the Indigenous reserve are engaged in research and documentation.
They speak to elders in their communities, gather rich histories – replete with stories, songs, and tales – on the origin of the bees. The women document these oral histories. They also make drawings of the bees. They follow the cultural system of the Yucuna-Matapi, Tanimuca-Letuama, and Tuyuca-Macuna peoples, and classify the bees accordingly, making note of their names and characteristics, and sites for beehive construction. Bees are classified into those that produce honey, those that produce wax for healing and rituals, those that guarantee crop productivity, and the more aggressive species.
Through this effort, these women are not only documenting age-old knowledge, but also bringing to fore the value of bees for the larger ecosystem. They educate children in their communities to not harm bees – and alongside prioritizing their protection for their sacred symbolism, they also sustain the environment. The information they document are disseminated in their communities in Spanish and Yucuna language brochures.
They have also made profound discoveries in the process: As many as 23 species of native stingless bees have been detected through this endeavour. Some are seed dispersers. The women also share their knowledge with biologists in the region, comparing each other’s findings, and sharing scientific and indigenous names for each bee.
Women are also working toward creating technical boxes for honey production, to transfer small parts of the nests from forests to create long-term use for what bees produce.
Lessons for Feminist Foreign Policy
The work of the Yucuna women in both preserving their age-old knowledge and in sustaining the environment by protecting bees is a powerful site of learning for feminist foreign policies. By preserving their traditional practices, they bring to fore long-held and long-practiced knowledge that is non-violent and inherently in alignment with nature. This flies in the face of modern beekeeping practices that are more harmful to bees than imagined. A second powerful lesson to draw for feminist foreign policy is the emphasis on community stewardship of resources, rather than to impose external frameworks for resource management and conservation that do not align with the specific, contextual needs of each region. A third significant learning to draw from the Yucuna peoples is non-extractivism in engaging with bees, in particular. They work with bees to protect their species and to enable the environment to thrive – and only excess honey produced is put to trade, to sustain their engagement.
References:
Meet 3 Indigenous women fighting for the future of the Amazon https://www.conservation.org/blog/meet-3-indigenous-women-fighting-for-the-future-of-the-amazon
Indigenous women record age-old knowledge of bees in Colombia’s Amazon https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/indigenous-women-record-age-old-knowledge-of-bees-in-colombias-amazon/
Amazonia Indigenous Women’s Fellowship Supporting The Far-Reaching Roles Of Indigenous Women https://cicloud.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/default-source/s3-library/publication-pdfs/aiwf-2023-report.pdf?sfvrsn=bec25a53_4
