Aug. 11, 2020
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Image by El Desconcierto
We publish here the farewell words that, after 100 days on hunger strike, were pronounced by Machi Celestino Cordova, Chilean indigenous leader, who indicates his resolution to go back to his dry strike in order to accelerate the process of his departure:
“Nation and native peoples, all non-native societies in the world, all peoples who fight for their spiritual belief, for their territory, for their freedom, for their rights in dignifying their people, always in search of the full balance of the natural order of our mother earth, ñuke mapu, which has supernaturally privileged us all as humanity and which sadly has not yet been more conscious of valuing it as it deserves.
I am very sorry that I have to give you my last messages within my last days left for my sacrifice in a definitive way, so for me it will be a honor to give my life for my Mapuche people, for our spiritual belief that is sacred above all things, so it should never be renounced and above all because of my condition as a machi, it is my supernaturally mandatory duty in the spiritual world, so in order to make my death quicker, I have placed myself at the disposition of returning to a dry strike at any time, and so my end will not be slow as the actors of all the powers of the State expect.
And in what the government of the moment and all the business sectors in general dictate, until my last day I will remind the State of Chile that for it is not enough to massacre our ancestors, it is not enough to forcefully impoverish our Mapuche nation spiritually, culturally and socio-economically, since the arrival of the invasion and in the present time since January 2013, the Chilean State through its police institution stripped me of my rewe, my family, my community, my territory, all my patients whom I guided in life and health, being a Mapuche spiritual authority, but the time is coming to have justice favorable to all the native peoples in the world, and to all the oppressed peoples, so it is supernaturally predestined that we are already living the new renewal in the world.
Finally, I would like to tell you that along with thanking life deeply for having given me a family, the opportunity to be a small contribution to the struggle of our people and to be at the service of humanity, I am also grateful for having opened the hearts of many people in the different territories of the world.
Finally, I only hope that the State of Chile will continue to be demanded in every way to return our ancestral Mapuche territory and all the historical debts of all the original peoples and to demand that no autopsy be carried out on me after my death.
Chaltumay, thank you very much”.
