First Voices
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The Cedar
The First Father brought the earth into this world from the very tip of his cane and covered it over with down. From the down rose up the cedar, the sacred tree from which words flow. Then, The First Father told the Mbyá Guaraní people to dig up the trunk of this tree, and to listen for what it contained. He said that whoever knows how to listen to the cedar, the source of all words, would know where to place his campfires in the future. Those who did not know how to listen would go back to being no more than dumb dirt.
Translation ©2023. Terence Clarke. All rights reserved.
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About Eduardo Galeano? click here. For a selection of Galeano’s books, click here. For my recent Substack piece that tells of Galeano, click here.
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