Healers' legal defence fund nets Sudbury support

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The plight of two Ecuadoran healers awaiting trial on Manitoulin Island, has struck a sympathetic chord with some professors and students at Laurentian University in Sudbury. Juan and Edgar Uyunkar, father and son medicine men from the Upper Amazon, were recently invited to share their cultural traditions with students in the bachelor of social work program.

About 80 spectators attended the session held in Canisius Hall, said Sharon Corbiere Johnston, an instructor in Native Human Services.

Corbiere Johnston helped arrange the speaking engagement after she heard about the serious legal problems confronting the Ecuadoran visitors in her home community of Manitoulin. Some of the "negative, degrading coverage in the press" motivated her to help the defence cause in some way. In her view, "Juan and Edgar had helped many people and had done some positive things for Wiky."

The Uyunkars and their interpreter, Maria Ventura, were arrested Nov. 24, 2001 after a ceremony in which Elder Jean (Jane) Maiangowi, 71, died after ingesting a liquid made from South American plants, tobacco and water.

The practitioners of Indigenous medicine and their assistant must answer to a number of charges including criminal negligence causing death, possession, administering and trafficking in a controlled substance.

The presentation at the University of Sudbury March 21 was entirely educational in nature, Corbiere Johnston emphasized. References to the ongoing case were avoided.

Drawing upon his 36 years of experience as an uwishin or natural healer, the elder Uyunkar introduced the assembly to the cosmovision of the Shuar and Putukmai peoples. Although he guided the audience through the basic tenets of Shuar beliefs, Corbiere Johnston stressed that, in the time allotted, it was only possible to skim the surface. A return visit would be needed to delve further into the pharmacology and ethnobotany of the rich tradition in the Amazon.

In conjunction with the lecture, staff and students made donations to the Uyunkar Defence and Support Fund.

A preliminary hearing will be held on May 14 in Wikwemikong.