viernes, 25 de mayo de 2007

M i s i n i c i o s ?


Bueno que puedo decir, amo la musica, y cuando me dijeron:
- joubert, ¿no crees que podrías difundir lo que sabes? lo primero que vino a mi cabeza fue, qué mejor modo que a través de la musica, asi que ahí fue cuando empezó todo.
No puedo olvidar mis primeros temas que escribía en Mapudungún, pensando en que algún dia podría homenajear a este pueblo, y aún tengo esa idea... luego cuando comencé a darle ritmo a mis primeras frases que aprendía en idioma Selk'nam... mi pueblo
La primera vez que toqué en público tenía 14 años, y fue para el lanzamiento del libro de un miembro de un grupo literario al cual yo asistía en ese entonces, la recepción fue tan buena que me propuse continuar con estos actos, así luego toque en algunos centros culturales como el "Ainil" y el "Newen" que quedan cerca del barrio Brasil, los resultados fueron los mismos, luego en la "Estación Mapocho" después de ese día me propondría grabar mi primer disco, de un modo independiente por cierto, así tiene como un valor mas propio a mi parecer, porque tú eres el que influye completamente en toda su producción. El resultado me dejó satisfecho, se tituló "Kwanyipe... el primer Tchon" cantado en idioma Aonikenk y Selk'nam, fue lanzado en el centro cultural "caja de compensación los Andes" en el 2.005, a la edad de 15 años.
los actos siguieron, entre ellos cuenta el centro cultural de España, y varios lugares del mismo estilo. Actualmente participo en un colectivo llamado "fuego ancestral" que lo integran mucha gente que trata el mismo tema, y tiene los mismos intereses de rescate y no lucración, un tema meramente cultural, en Octubre del 2.006 lanzamos nuestra página web www. fuegoancestral.cl y dentro de una de esas cápsulas, lancé mi 2do disco titulado "Yik'wa- vuen, kwa-haspen estamos vivos" lanzado bajo mi seudónimo o nombre indígena Annekën.
Hoy seguimos trabajando en nuevos e innovadores proyectos de rescate y yo por mi parte con ideas de grabar mas discos, esta vez quizás bajo un sello, y darlo a conocer en el país vecino de Argentina, donde se halla la mayor parte d ela población descendiente Ona.

7 comentarios:

RLC dijo...

Este articulo fue publicado por el periodico canadiense THE TORONTO STAR, Junio 9 2007


The voice of spirits past
TheStar.com - living - The voice of spirits past

Extinct since the '70s, aboriginal language is spoken again by self-taught Chilean high school student

June 09, 2007
Jen Ross
Special to the Star

SANTIAGO–While most 16-year-old boys are busy playing video games or worrying about girls, Joubert Yantén spends most of his spare time reading dictionaries and singing tribal songs.

In the heart of Chile's bustling capital city, this awkward, acne-prone teen finds a place to meditate amid the plants on the patio of his family's modest home. He hums to himself, in the high-pitched tone of a pubescent boy. Minutes later, his voice deepens, and he seems to enter a sort of trance. Guttural sounds escape his mouth, and he pronounces the inflections of this native tongue with obvious ease.

Yantén is speaking Selk'nam, the language of an extinct aboriginal group that lived in the Tierra del Fuego islands of southern Chile and Argentina. They were among the last native communities in South America to be settled, in the late 19th century.

Yantén's obsession with these peoples began when he did an elementary school project on Chile's native groups.

"It frustrated me that no one really saw the magnitude of the extinction of an entire race in the south, where you used to see native women with babies in their arms," he says, with a nostalgic tone in his voice. "Now, you'll only find a couple of indigenous faces; it's really sad." Today, Yantén is the only living speaker of a language that died with the last ethnic Selk'nam in the 1970s.

He began learning the language at age 8. There was not a single surviving speaker so he had to use dictionaries and audio cassettes of interviews and shamanic chants, recorded by Jesuit missionaries.

Yantén pulls out a worn CD and plops it into his ghetto blaster. Soon, the low-pitched chant of a medicine woman fills the room. Yantén sings along in perfect harmony.

Experts say there are precedents for reviving extinct languages, and the use of songs is key to the process of learning pitch and intonation.

"Through recordings, people can understand the mechanics and grammar of a language," says Arturo Hernandez, a linguist with the Catholic University of Temuco, in southern Chile. "Listeners can imitate sounds and learn to speak in a less technical way, just like someone who learns a language using a CD or DVD....What's surprising in this case is that this is not a professional, but a boy who began learning at the age of 8."

A straight-A student, Yantén is a prodigy. Besides Selk'nam and Spanish, he speaks fluent Mapudungun, the language of Chile's largest indigenous group, the Mapuche. He considers himself only semi-versed in the native languages of Onikenk, Haush, Kaweskar, and Quechua – not to mention English.

He's also learning Yagán – a nearly extinct language from Chile's far south. He's been learning from its last living speaker, Christina Calderon, for the past three years, on the phone and by Instant Messenger.

Yantén's love affair with language doesn't end with words. After learning with recordings of tribal chants, he began inventing his own songs in Selk'nam. But he's made a point of not reproducing the shaman chants. "The singer was a shaman and those were her songs," he says. "The spirits illuminated her to sing them. I have to be inspired by other spirits."

Beyond his talk of spirits, there is something eerie about the way Yantén sings. If you close your eyes, you would think his was the voice of an elderly indigenous man.

His mother, Ivonne Gomez, believes there is a mystical element to his exceptional linguistic abilities.

"I've always believed that the spirits of his ancestors are with him," she says, almost in a whisper. "He goes through many changes of voice and of mental state."

Her great grandfather was Selk'nam, something she hid from her son when he was younger.

"I never wanted to say anything because when I was in school, kids used to tease me and call me `Indian,'" she explains, lowering her gaze. "That made me sad, so I said to myself: `Why should I tell that to my son?'"

But by the time Yantén was 12, his interest in native languages had practically become an obsession, and his abilities were confirmed by a university professor. So his mother told him about his ancestry. She started recording his singing and encouraged him to perform. He now gives performances every two or three months.

Yantén has recorded two CDs of Selk'nam music, using savings from part-time work. His father is an artisan, his mother, a housewife, and his lower-middle class family had to take out loans to help finance his unusual passion. Yantén applied for cultural preservation grants from the government of Chile, but was rejected because he's younger than the minimum age of 18.

His lack of support has been a frustration not only for his family, but for his new-found fans who work to preserve Chile's indigenous heritage. "It's unfortunate that, in our country, culture gets no support," says Juan Carlos Avilez, an anthropologist from the rural town of Curacavi who came to see a Yantén performance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago.

Supporters hope to arouse interest abroad, but Yantén has his own ideas for reaching a wider audience. He's looking to popularize traditional native music by fusing it with modern electronic beats and is already working on a demo CD with some friends. He's also working on writing a new Selk'nam dictionary and has a blog, joubert-yanten.blogspot.com.

While kids with such unusual abilities are often mocked and socially ostracized, Yantén has many friends and few insecurities.

"He's a good boy and isn't into drugs or alcohol like most kids his age," interjects his mother, who often answers for him while we speak.

Yantén agrees that he has a healthy and normal social life, going out, playing video games sometimes and listening to music. Rather than finding his interests weird, he says his friends consider him "kind of cool." "If we're walking and we see a native name on a street sign, they ask me what it means," says Yantén..

Beyond recognizing the novelty of his gift for language, Yantén says few people are interested in actually learning indigenous languages. Nevertheless, he continues trying to pick up new ones, and trying to pass on what he's learned.

Sitting down for dinner with his mother and older sister, he asks his mother to pass the salt and the juice, in Selk'nam.

"Sal qui aya, ah, jugo qui aya, ah," he says, nonchalantly. I glance over at her to see if she understands. She smiles in confirmation, admitting she is beginning to pick it up.

RLC dijo...

Este articulo fue publicado por el periodico canadiense THE TORONTO STAR, Junio 9 2007


The voice of spirits past
TheStar.com - living - The voice of spirits past

Extinct since the '70s, aboriginal language is spoken again by self-taught Chilean high school student

June 09, 2007
Jen Ross
Special to the Star

SANTIAGO–While most 16-year-old boys are busy playing video games or worrying about girls, Joubert Yantén spends most of his spare time reading dictionaries and singing tribal songs.

In the heart of Chile's bustling capital city, this awkward, acne-prone teen finds a place to meditate amid the plants on the patio of his family's modest home. He hums to himself, in the high-pitched tone of a pubescent boy. Minutes later, his voice deepens, and he seems to enter a sort of trance. Guttural sounds escape his mouth, and he pronounces the inflections of this native tongue with obvious ease.

Yantén is speaking Selk'nam, the language of an extinct aboriginal group that lived in the Tierra del Fuego islands of southern Chile and Argentina. They were among the last native communities in South America to be settled, in the late 19th century.

Yantén's obsession with these peoples began when he did an elementary school project on Chile's native groups.

"It frustrated me that no one really saw the magnitude of the extinction of an entire race in the south, where you used to see native women with babies in their arms," he says, with a nostalgic tone in his voice. "Now, you'll only find a couple of indigenous faces; it's really sad." Today, Yantén is the only living speaker of a language that died with the last ethnic Selk'nam in the 1970s.

He began learning the language at age 8. There was not a single surviving speaker so he had to use dictionaries and audio cassettes of interviews and shamanic chants, recorded by Jesuit missionaries.

Yantén pulls out a worn CD and plops it into his ghetto blaster. Soon, the low-pitched chant of a medicine woman fills the room. Yantén sings along in perfect harmony.

Experts say there are precedents for reviving extinct languages, and the use of songs is key to the process of learning pitch and intonation.

"Through recordings, people can understand the mechanics and grammar of a language," says Arturo Hernandez, a linguist with the Catholic University of Temuco, in southern Chile. "Listeners can imitate sounds and learn to speak in a less technical way, just like someone who learns a language using a CD or DVD....What's surprising in this case is that this is not a professional, but a boy who began learning at the age of 8."

A straight-A student, Yantén is a prodigy. Besides Selk'nam and Spanish, he speaks fluent Mapudungun, the language of Chile's largest indigenous group, the Mapuche. He considers himself only semi-versed in the native languages of Onikenk, Haush, Kaweskar, and Quechua – not to mention English.

He's also learning Yagán – a nearly extinct language from Chile's far south. He's been learning from its last living speaker, Christina Calderon, for the past three years, on the phone and by Instant Messenger.

Yantén's love affair with language doesn't end with words. After learning with recordings of tribal chants, he began inventing his own songs in Selk'nam. But he's made a point of not reproducing the shaman chants. "The singer was a shaman and those were her songs," he says. "The spirits illuminated her to sing them. I have to be inspired by other spirits."

Beyond his talk of spirits, there is something eerie about the way Yantén sings. If you close your eyes, you would think his was the voice of an elderly indigenous man.

His mother, Ivonne Gomez, believes there is a mystical element to his exceptional linguistic abilities.

"I've always believed that the spirits of his ancestors are with him," she says, almost in a whisper. "He goes through many changes of voice and of mental state."

Her great grandfather was Selk'nam, something she hid from her son when he was younger.

"I never wanted to say anything because when I was in school, kids used to tease me and call me `Indian,'" she explains, lowering her gaze. "That made me sad, so I said to myself: `Why should I tell that to my son?'"

But by the time Yantén was 12, his interest in native languages had practically become an obsession, and his abilities were confirmed by a university professor. So his mother told him about his ancestry. She started recording his singing and encouraged him to perform. He now gives performances every two or three months.

Yantén has recorded two CDs of Selk'nam music, using savings from part-time work. His father is an artisan, his mother, a housewife, and his lower-middle class family had to take out loans to help finance his unusual passion. Yantén applied for cultural preservation grants from the government of Chile, but was rejected because he's younger than the minimum age of 18.

His lack of support has been a frustration not only for his family, but for his new-found fans who work to preserve Chile's indigenous heritage. "It's unfortunate that, in our country, culture gets no support," says Juan Carlos Avilez, an anthropologist from the rural town of Curacavi who came to see a Yantén performance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago.

Supporters hope to arouse interest abroad, but Yantén has his own ideas for reaching a wider audience. He's looking to popularize traditional native music by fusing it with modern electronic beats and is already working on a demo CD with some friends. He's also working on writing a new Selk'nam dictionary and has a blog, joubert-yanten.blogspot.com.

While kids with such unusual abilities are often mocked and socially ostracized, Yantén has many friends and few insecurities.

"He's a good boy and isn't into drugs or alcohol like most kids his age," interjects his mother, who often answers for him while we speak.

Yantén agrees that he has a healthy and normal social life, going out, playing video games sometimes and listening to music. Rather than finding his interests weird, he says his friends consider him "kind of cool." "If we're walking and we see a native name on a street sign, they ask me what it means," says Yantén..

Beyond recognizing the novelty of his gift for language, Yantén says few people are interested in actually learning indigenous languages. Nevertheless, he continues trying to pick up new ones, and trying to pass on what he's learned.

Sitting down for dinner with his mother and older sister, he asks his mother to pass the salt and the juice, in Selk'nam.

"Sal qui aya, ah, jugo qui aya, ah," he says, nonchalantly. I glance over at her to see if she understands. She smiles in confirmation, admitting she is beginning to pick it up.

CARLOS dijo...

He intentado saber algo mas sobre tus presentaciones o algo pero como no tengo el outloock (no me gusta) no pued enviar correos. ¿cuando haran una presentacion de esta cultura en Valparaíso? pues supe que hubo hace poco en el museo naval pero era solo con invitaciones, osea no fue para la comunidad. ¿que se debe hacer pàra saber o incluso tener vuestra presencia en Valparaíso?.. Esas son mis consulatas y demas estar orgulloso saber que rescatas la memoria de los pueblos originarios que son un tesoro invaluable e incalculable..

CARLOS dijo...

He intentado saber algo mas sobre tus presentaciones o algo pero como no tengo el outloock (no me gusta) no pued enviar correos. ¿cuando haran una presentacion de esta cultura en Valparaíso? pues supe que hubo hace poco en el museo naval pero era solo con invitaciones, osea no fue para la comunidad. ¿que se debe hacer pàra saber o incluso tener vuestra presencia en Valparaíso?.. Esas son mis consulatas y demas estar orgulloso saber que rescatas la memoria de los pueblos originarios que son un tesoro invaluable e incalculable..

CARLOS dijo...

Primero que todo increwible que al fin se rescate algo de nuestros pueblos originarios, interesante y espectacular tu don,pero mi pregunta es cuando haras o haran una ptresentacion en Valpara´siso a todo el público, llamé al museo naval y me dicen que la que hiciste hace poco era solo con invitaciones,,, mmm que pena.. ¿es posible una nueva presentacion? ¿ que se debe tener para que vengas?.. Solo eso. Un saludo, un abrazo y felicitaciones por el rescate de la memoria de nuestros pueblos originarios y descubrir un tremendo tesoro de la humanidad...

Unknown dijo...

de chiripa llegué por acá y escuché tu música. Lamento que el ministerio de "Cultura" sea tan burocrático para sus decisiones..., pero por lo visto eso no te ha frustado y has seguido adelante.
Sólo felicitarte y, tal como dice el posteo de Carlos, sería muy valioso tenerte acá en Valparaíso.
Por último, ¿dónde se pueden adquirir tus discos?

JENIFER HERRERA dijo...

hola me entere de tu trabajo en una feria de arte en el sur de chile (pto.montt).

Me encanto porque te conectas a los pueblos originarios y esa verdadera esencia de la gente del sur atentamente jenifer un gusto good luck chao