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Description
I wasn’t sure if I was going to upload this because it was kind of a personal piece, but decided to share it anyway. Read more below for an explanation!

My mother is an Afro-Ecuadorian immigrant to America. On her fathers side she is a descendant of the African slaves brought to Ecuador by the Spanish. On her mothers, we are indigenous Ecuadorians descended from the oceanic Huancavilca people, who scholars theorize, crossed the Pacific on their great rafts.

I was raised by my mother, her four sisters, and my grandmother in a house that at its peak held as many as 20 people. I have never identified with my fathers culture or his family, and rarely even saw him in my upbringing. Despite only being half Ecuadorian by blood, I identify 100% as Hispanic culturally.

Until now, I have never searched deeper into what being an indigenous Ecuadorian truly meant. I was far from my culture: the only one living on the West Coast in the US, so far from my huge huge family, and the only one who hasn’t returned to Ecuador since my childhood simply because I “Didn’t feel like going there”.

I struggled being Kemetic, a child of gods from a different land and different people, when the gods and spirits of my blood and the sea called me so fiercely that it felt as though I was somehow living a lie. That the gods I call myself the children of were, in fact, my adopted family- different from my ancestral gods.

I have come a very long way this past year in searching through what it really means to have been brought up with mixed indigenous Catholic traditions as well as just what culture my family comes from pre-Spanish conquest. I have searched as many articles, books, and stories I can pry out of my grandparents to grow closer to my akhu. I have learned that down to the name of the city we come from (Guayaquil), my family are descendants of proud people. I am more adamant than ever to return as much as possible to Ecuador, at every opportunity, to remind myself that my blood and ancestors continue to live on through me.

In searching for more information about the Huancavilca through literature and my own family, I have found that so much of the culture I live every day is ingrained in stories and traditions from them, and that we have not moved far from our original voyaging oceanic traditions- simply evolved with them.

Just drew this to commemorate that. Enjoy!

Description
I wasn’t sure if I was going to upload this because it was kind of a personal piece, but decided to share it anyway. Read more below for an explanation!

My mother is an Afro-Ecuadorian immigrant to America. On her fathers side she is a descendant of the African slaves brought to Ecuador by the Spanish. On her mothers, we are indigenous Ecuadorians descended from the oceanic Huancavilca people, who scholars theorize, crossed the Pacific on their great rafts.

I was raised by my mother, her four sisters, and my grandmother in a house that at its peak held as many as 20 people. I have never identified with my fathers culture or his family, and rarely even saw him in my upbringing. Despite only being half Ecuadorian by blood, I identify 100% as Hispanic culturally.

Until now, I have never searched deeper into what being an indigenous Ecuadorian truly meant. I was far from my culture: the only one living on the West Coast in the US, so far from my huge huge family, and the only one who hasn’t returned to Ecuador since my childhood simply because I “Didn’t feel like going there”.

I struggled being Kemetic, a child of gods from a different land and different people, when the gods and spirits of my blood and the sea called me so fiercely that it felt as though I was somehow living a lie. That the gods I call myself the children of were, in fact, my adopted family- different from my ancestral gods.

I have come a very long way this past year in searching through what it really means to have been brought up with mixed indigenous Catholic traditions as well as just what culture my family comes from pre-Spanish conquest. I have searched as many articles, books, and stories I can pry out of my grandparents to grow closer to my akhu. I have learned that down to the name of the city we come from (Guayaquil), my family are descendants of proud people. I am more adamant than ever to return as much as possible to Ecuador, at every opportunity, to remind myself that my blood and ancestors continue to live on through me.

In searching for more information about the Huancavilca through literature and my own family, I have found that so much of the culture I live every day is ingrained in stories and traditions from them, and that we have not moved far from our original voyaging oceanic traditions- simply evolved with them.

Just drew this to commemorate that. Enjoy!