16th Dec 2o14
British Film Maker Sarah Begum Who Married Tribal Warrior at Ecuador
Posted on the 08 January 2015 by Sampathkumar Sampath
Kadhir (Ravi
Krishna) belongs to a lower middle class family, living with his parents and
younger sister in Rainbow Colony. He is perceived as a good for nothing person
as he skips classes, fails in exams, and gets involved in fights. Kadhir's life changes when a Hindi speaking
North Indian family moves into the same colony. Kadhir is attracted to the
daughter of that family, Anita (Sonia Agarwal) – the falling in love is the
storyline of ‘7G Rainbow Colony’.
The Huaorani, are native Amerindians from the Amazonian
Region of Ecuador who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from
Ecuador. They comprise almost 4,000 inhabitants and speak the Huaorani
language, a linguistic isolate that is not known to be related to any other
language. Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in northwestern South
America, bordered by Colombia, Peru and the Pacific Ocean. Ecuador's official
language is Spanish, which is spoken by 94% of the population; thirteen
indigenous languages are also recognized, including Quichua and Shuar. In addition to its rich history, Ecuador is
known for hosting a variety of species, many of them endemic.
Love at first
sight; love sees no class; beautiful good looking rich girls falling in love
for not at all good looking, uneducated, unemployed youths is a handy theme of
many kollywood, tollywood, bollywood cinemas.
Mail Online and many other news agencies report the real-life incident
of a British film maker who 'married' a tribal warrior says she agreed to it to
highlight the oil giants destroying his Amazon home.
Sarah Begum underwent the
symbolic ritual aged just 21 after she left London to spend two weeks with the
Huaroani tribe, which has 3,000 members in the mineral-rich Ecuadorian
rainforest. Despite historically tense relations with outsiders dating to the
1950s, when five U.S. missionaries who tried to infiltrate the tribe were
killed, she claimed she was welcomed with open arms. Sarah Begum (right), just
21 at the time, was surprised to be married off to a tribal warrior named
Ginkto who was 30 years her senior- as
a symbolic gesture to spread their plea against oil firms.She was given a crown made from macaw
feathers in the naked ceremony. She
learned how to weave with grasses and hunt with a blowpipe, and by the end of
the period she had 'married' a warrior in his 50s named Ginkto - who spoke only
the villagers' own Huaroani dialect and a few words of Spanish. It was a
symbolic gesture to spread the tribe's plea for help against oil firms, not a
legally binding marriage - but the language barrier meant things were not
obvious at the start.
'I was chosen by the elders
and I had no idea what was going to happen to me,' she said. 'I was called into
a hut and everyone inside was naked. I was told they were making me their
traditional clothes, which is a piece of string made of plant fibres worn
around the waist – not even a thong. 'I thought, "I can't get naked, this
is being filmed", and for a split second I thought about running away, but
I wanted to fully embrace and understand their traditions. Ms Begum made her
experiences into a documentary film which was screened at Cannes last year.
'I was told, "they are
going to make you Queen". I was surrounded by the women and warriors
chanting and dancing in the hut - I thought I was being initiated. 'They gave
me the chicha drink and the name Imaca, which means The Last Name, before
marrying me to my husband-to-be, the tribe's most popular warrior, Ginkto.' The
marriage was an honorary one to build
trust with the tribe. Ms Begum was one of many 'eco-tourists' and documentary
makers hosted by the tribe over the years, but insisted the wedding ceremony
was a rare occurrence. However, she was not the only Briton who Ginkto
'married'. Two years earlier the same tribal warrior 'wed' Karen Morris-Lanz, a
single mother from Milton Keynes who went to live briefly in the village. In
that case, however, it was for a BBC documentary specifically about marriage.
The journey to the Huaroani
people's village takes two days by boat
from the nearest town. Now 26, Ms Begum made her experiences into a half-hour
documentary, Amazon Souls, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival last
year. Since then it has been accepted at the Sheffield Doc/Fest and Adventure
Travel Film Festival, and this year Ms Begum was made a Fellow of the Royal
Geographical Society. She won the
5,800-mile air fare as one of ten finalists in the national Enterprising
Student Awards - the only woman that year. Other funds came from private investors
before the trip. Once in Ecuador she met her colleagues, British sound engineer
Stephen Bull and American cinematographer Frank Angelcyk, and taught English to
children in the Amazon region before venturing deeper into the jungle. Despite
not being able to swim, she traveled by boat for two days from the town of
Coca through piranha and alligator infested waters, stopping overnight at a
beach to fish for dinner.
The Huaroani people live on
top of some of South America's richest oil reserves, and campaigners say the
invasion of outsiders has increased tension in their ancestral land. Hostility
began in 1956, when five evangelical missionaries from the U.S. were killed
after trying to convert Huaroani villagers to Christianity in a
widely-publicised case. It is said to have been the first documented time the
tribe was contacted by the outside world. As well as oil there are mineral
reserves beneath the rainforest and it is a target for illegal loggers. Several
roads have been built into Huaroani territory. Tribe members told a BBC
documentary in 2011 that they could no longer grow food on river banks because
they feared contamination would wash downstream.
Strange are
the ways of people and strange things do happen ….
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
16th Dec 2o14
16th Dec 2o14