TATA NOAH
He was not very high, but was considered more indigenous that other people from our country. His skin was almost white like a creoles and his eyes were the color of the sky. Some of his children took out the same eye's color. He was my Tata Noah, the grandfather of my father, chief of indigenous communities of Mollepata and Mollebamba. Always working, whether in the fields, that the villagers had dedicated to Him, as well as at home around our machine to make ice cream with fruit. It was I liked best ! I liked the frozen fruit - so diverse and delicious - in my few years of life.
The favorite from all the children that had my Tata Noah, was my Grandfather, his eldest son who followed the tradition of our ancestors and married his first cousin and they had birth to my father. As I was his favorite when I was born.
I heard my Mamacona Herlinda to said that Tata Noah cried when I was born bleeding in the eye. He gone several days into the hills to make our ancestral ceremony to the ancestors and to ask our Apus to heal me of what I had at birth. He did not come in a month and when He arrived He was very emaciated by fasting for his dear and beloved grandson, but happy because the coca's leaf had indicated to Him that it was a sign: The beginning of the era of the condor, this knowlege is a legacy, that only knows the elect people of panakas, and that was transmitted from generation to generation as a duty.
I always remember my grandfather Noah in the largest room of the house, with his ice cream maker, it was took for him, by my ayita. This ayita who was also my friend's play, although he was older from me. I remember his name or nickname: Yume it means in culli: "He who keeps the sacred." I took him another name: Tachito, because of his gait stooped and silent, and He was saying: "- Child, this and that."
I did not know why - all the people told me: "the Child" . Why not call me, by my name, like everyone else.
When we gone down to the communities, where my Mamacona Herlinda had her fields: all the people there called me "The Child". The attendants told me "The Child" for there, "The Child" for here. Always in the morning Eulalia brought me milk from alpacas to drink I it still warm. He also told my Mamacona: "My daughter Herlinda I brought his milk for the Child." And then took us to the kitchen, where we was invited to eat the cushalito: a potato soup with spices.
Tata Noah always visited the mountain by the ice, even after my father's death. My Tata Noah was old, but always was traveling to the apus of the Cordillera Blanca to bring the stone from ice-pack for make the ice cream.
He was leaving the town of Santiago with his herd of llamas, donkeys and horses to their destination to bring the ice as I knew him. It was so beautiful a show: when my Tata with his particular attire, with his poncho brown with gold edging out, hurriedly towards the snowcapped mountains.
All the people from the town are sitting towards Cabracay to see him off and send him off and say him a good bye with their hand. I was very young at the foot of my mamacona, I enjoyed the show. My grandfather walking with a stick very long and adorned with many allegories. Tata Noah told me - so much time - that it represented our true nation.
The true nation that was all unknown, because even much of those who already living in the village, they had given the viciousness of the white people and did not follow the customs of our fathers.
That hurt my Tata, and so when I arrived, He ever and ever told me many things and stories of our nations, which were not recognized by the "Whites". He made me grab the big stick of authority as chief apu, reminding him as the only legacy we had for our nations, and He spoke to me that I had to realize their dreams because his body will turned to dust again feel that our will re-emerging and our nations will impose to "the escutcheons".
His wife who was my great grandmother - she makes me happy and if I wanted guinea pigs, she quick went to the kitchen to say of the woman - aya cook it for me, all a whole for me.
Many times they sent me to the shoemaker Don Gerardo, because He repairs my shoes. And He had the same name as my grandfather and that was to grace by my Tata Noah.
It hurts so much to Me the day he left this world. His body always claimed: whit the smell of flowers and He had a big smile. I did not get the big stick of our nations, because in those moments I thought it should remain in his hands of mine great grandfather because our nations were still slaves in the Western world. I only said: Goodbye Tata Noah.
Juan Esteban Yupanqui Villalobos
Tupac Isaac II
http://juanestebanyupanqui.blogspot.com/
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/peru/tata-noah-peruvian-family-tale
