Abya Yala

Abya Yala is a post-colonial name for the American continent before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the Europeans , derived from the Kuna language in Panamá and northwestern Colombia . Literally translated from the Kuna language , it means land in full maturity or land of vital blood . Originally the name must have referred to the land mass known to the Kuna (to distinguish it from their own territory in the narrower sense, the Dule Nega "home of the people, ie Kuna"), since the Kuna did not know anything about the existence of other continents in pre-Columbian times and the extent of the American double continent could not be clear to them either.

Since the 1990s the term has been used by various organizations, associations and institutions of the indigenous peoples of South America , for example the publishing house Editorial Abya Yala in Quito , Ecuador . Using the term Abya Yala expresses a critical attitude towards the terms New World or America .

Others

In the northwest of Panama there is the administrative district Guna Yala which is the home of the Kuna / Guna living in Panamá.

Web links

Abya Yala Net (en.)
Argentinian folklore group (es.) ( Memento from July 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

↑ Muyolema, A .: De la 'cuestión indígena' a lo 'indígena' como cuestionamiento. Hacia una crítica del latinoamericanismo, el indigenismo y el mestiz (o) aje. In: Rodríguez, I. (Ed.): Convergencia de tiempos. Estudios subalternos / contextos latinoamericanos estado, cultura, subalternidad. Rodopi, Amsterdam 2001, p. 329 .

[1] Muyolema, A .: De la 'cuestión indígena' a lo 'indígena' como cuestionamiento. Hacia una crítica del latinoamericanismo, el indigenismo y el mestiz (o) aje. In: Rodríguez, I. (Ed.): Convergencia de tiempos. Estudios subalternos / contextos latinoamericanos estado, cultura, subalternidad. Rodopi, Amsterdam 2001, p. 329 .