Ramón Piaguaje

Last updated May 04, 2019

Ramón Piaguaje (born 1962 in the [Cuyabeno Reserve] in the Amazon rainforest, Ecuador), is the son of Cecilio Piaguaje, the Chief of the Secoya Indians. He lives with his wife and four children deep in the rainforest in Secoya territory, close to the Aguarico River. From an early age, he drew the rainforest with his fingers in the sand and later worked with black ink on paper. The young man who has captured the attention of the art world was first encouraged in his efforts by Orville and Mary Johnson, Wycliffe Bible Translators working in his village.^[1] The discovery of colored pencils at the evangelical missionary school he later attended enabled him to further develop his talent.^[2]

The Amazon rainforest, also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km² (2,700,000 sq mi), of which 5,500,000 km² (2,100,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and France. States or departments in four nations contain "Amazonas" in their names. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world, with an estimated 390 billion individual trees divided into 16,000 species.

Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Ecuador also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) west of the mainland. The capital city is Quito, which is also the largest city.

The Aguarico River is a river in northeastern Ecuador. It is the main river of the Sucumbíos province. In the last part of its course it is the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border. It empties into the Napo River. It has a length of 390 km (240 mi), of which the last 50 km (31 mi) of its course extend along the natural border between Ecuador and Peru. The lower course of the Aguarico River was finalized and legally fixed as part of the long-disputed Ecuador-Peru frontier according to The Rio de Janeiro Protocol of 1942. Ecuador unilaterally denounced the protocol in 1960, however a new agreement was signed in 1999 validating the pre-existing protocol.

In 1993, an American anthropologist, William Vickers, who had been studying the Secoya Indians for many years, spotted him drawing and recognised the quality of his work. He gave him some tubes of oil paints and encouraged him to paint in colour, something which Ramón Piaguaje had been unaware it was possible to do. He spent months experimenting with the colours he had, attempting to replicate the extraordinary range of colours to be found in the trees, flowers, and wildlife around him. Within a year he had developed an astonishing eye and memory for colour. William Vickers helped to organise an exhibition of his work at the Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador.

Quito is the capital and the largest city of Ecuador, and at an elevation of 2,850 metres (9,350 ft) above sea level, it is the second-highest official capital city in the world, after La Paz, and the one which is closest to the equator. It is located in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains.

His painting "Eternal Amazon" was selected from over 22,000 entries by professionals and amateur artists from 51 countries won the first prize of the United Nations Millennium Art Exhibition in aid of UNICEF - "Our World in the Year 2000."^[3]

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), originally known as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, was created by the United Nations General Assembly on 11 December 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children and mothers in countries that had been devastated by World War II. The Polish physician Ludwik Rajchman is widely regarded as the founder of UNICEF and served as its first chairman from 1946 to 1950, when he had to flee the United States in the wake of McCarthyism. Rajchman is to this day the only person that served as UNICEF's Chairman for longer than 2 years. On Rajchman's suggestion, the American Maurice Pate was appointed its first executive director, serving from 1947 until his death in 1965. In 1950, UNICEF's mandate was extended to address the long-term needs of children and women in developing countries everywhere. In 1953 it became a permanent part of the United Nations System, and the words "international" and "emergency" were dropped from the organization's name, though it retained the original acronym, "UNICEF".

When the elderly missionary couple, Orville and Mary Johnson, heard about the exhibit at the United Nations, they decided to surprise the South American artist. They entered the exhibition hall and found Ramon surrounded by many people. As he looked beyond his admiring fans, he saw the Johnsons and began to cry. They hugged and wept for several moments. In Secoya, Ramon repeated over and over to Orville and Mary, "You are the ones that should be honored, not me…for you came to give us the gospel, and I believe that is why I now can be here." ^[4]

Since then, he has met the Prince of Wales, who was patron of the event, and the secretary general of the United Nations Kofi Annan, and "Eternal Amazon" has been viewed by ambassadors, artists, dignitaries, and members of the press and public from around the world.

Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent to the British throne as the eldest child of Queen Elizabeth II. He has been Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay since 1952, and is the oldest and longest-serving heir apparent in British history. He is also the longest-serving Prince of Wales, having held that title since 1958.

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization that was tasked to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international co-operation and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, and is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna and The Hague. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development and upholding international law. The UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. In 24 October 1945, at the end of World War II, the organization was established with the aim of preventing future wars. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The UN is the successor of the ineffective League of Nations.

Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.

When he won he commented: ‘I entered the competition because I wanted to deliver a message to the rest of the world about the importance of keeping this “lung of the world” free from pollution and destruction. I paint what I see and where I live. It is a beautiful, positive, and peaceful way of showing my world. The forest is all we have. I hope that when people see my picture, they do not just look at my art, but realise that it is their obligation to help to preserve the Amazon rainforest. My tribe, the Secoyas, have lived in these forests for thousands of years and to see a tree fall is like seeing a loved one die. We need the world to help us to protect the rainforest’.^[5]

Related Research Articles

Jan Hus, sometimes Anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, also referred to in historical texts as Iohannes Hus or Johannes Huss, was a Czech theologian, philosopher, master, dean, and rector of the Charles University in Prague who became a church reformer, an inspirer of Hussitism, a key predecessor to Protestantism and a seminal figure in the Bohemian Reformation.

John Wycliffe, was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, Biblical translator, reformer, English priest, and a seminary professor at the University of Oxford. He became an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century and is considered an important predecessor to Protestantism.

Kenneth Lee Pike was an American linguist and anthropologist. He was the originator of the theory of tagmemics, the coiner of the terms "emic" and "etic" and the developer of the constructed language Kalaba-X for use in teaching the theory and practice of translation.

William Tyndale was an English scholar who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known for his translation of the Bible into English.

This timeline of Christian missions chronicles the global expansion of Christianity through a listing of the most significant missionary outreach events.

The Douay–Rheims Bible is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by members of the English College, Douai, in the service of the Catholic Church. The New Testament portion was published in Reims, France, in 1582, in one volume with extensive commentary and notes. The Old Testament portion was published in two volumes twenty-seven years later in 1609 and 1610 by the University of Douai. The first volume, covering Genesis through Job, was published in 1609; the second, covering Psalms to 2 Machabees plus the apocrypha of the Vulgate was published in 1610. Marginal notes took up the bulk of the volumes and had a strong polemical and patristic character. They offered insights on issues of translation, and on the Hebrew and Greek source texts of the Vulgate.

Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. In the early Middle Ages, most Western Christian people encountered the Bible only in the form of oral versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin. Though relatively few people could read at this time, Wycliffe’s idea was to translate the Bible into the vernacular, saying "it helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ's sentence".

Young's Literal Translation (YLT) is a translation of the Bible into English, published in 1862. The translation was made by Robert Young, compiler of Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible and Concise Critical Comments on the New Testament. Young used the Textus Receptus (TR) and the Majority Text (MT) as the basis for his translation. He wrote in the preface to the first edition, "It has been no part of the Translator's plan to attempt to form a New Hebrew or Greek Text—he has therefore somewhat rigidly adhered to the received ones." Young produced a “Revised Version” of his translation in 1887, but he stuck with the Received Text. He wrote in the preface to the Revised Edition, "The Greek Text followed is that generally recognized as the 'Received Text,' not because it is thought perfect, but because the department of Translation is quite distinct from that of textual criticism, and few are qualified for both. If the original text be altered by a translator, the reader is left in uncertainty whether the translation given is to be considered as that of the old or of the new reading." A new Revised Edition was released ten years after Robert Young's death on October 14, 1888. The 1898 version was based on the TR, easily confirmed by the word "bathe" in Rev. 1:5 and the word "again" in Rev 20:5. The "Publishers' Note to the Third Edition" explains, "The work has been subjected to a fresh revision, making no alteration on the principles on which the Translation proceeds, but endeavouring to make it as nearly perfect in point of accuracy on its present lines as possible."

Jim Elliot Martyred Christian missionary to Ecuador

Philip James Elliot was an evangelical Christian who was one of five missionaries killed while participating in Operation Auca, an attempt to evangelize the Huaorani people of Ecuador.

William Cameron Townsend American missionary

William Cameron Townsend was a prominent twentieth-century American Christian missionary-linguist who founded Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics, both of which have long had as primary emphases the translation of the Bible into minority languages and the development of literacy and bilingual education programs in those languages. They have also been involved in developing medical and other services among minority language groups.

The Secoya are an indigenous peoples living in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon. They speak the Secoya language Pai Coca, which is part of the Western Tucanoan language group. In Ecuador the Secoya number about 400 people who for the most part are located in three settlements, Eno, San Pablo de Katitsiaya and Siecoya Remolino, all found on the banks of the Aguarico river. Their Ecuadorian territory covers 40.000 hectares along the Shushufindi, Aguarico, and Cuyabeno river in the state of Sucumbios. Until recently they shared territory with the Siona people, with whom they are sometimes considered a single population, although both peoples have independent governance. In Peru the Secoya population numbers about 700.

Rachel Saint was an evangelical Christian missionary from the United States who worked in Ecuador.

Tio Tjay was an Indonesian painter who for a long time has reside in Brazil. At a very young age, young Tio Tjay enjoy studying Chinese painting and calligraphy. His talent for art was already sensed by people at youth.

A portion of the Bible, Matthew's gospel, was first translated into Tlingit of Alaska by Ivan Nadezhdin of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1859. Although used in Churches, this was never published. According to Dr. Michael Krauss it is "a hardly readable, slavishly literal translation, and with a writing system so faulty that the spread of literacy would have been severely impeded even if there had been good translations". Nadezhdin also translated the sections from John's gospel that were used for Orthodox Easter liturgy.

John Theodore Bendor-Samuel was an evangelical Christian missionary and linguist who furthered Bible translation work into African languages, as well as making significant contributions to the study of African linguistics. Amongst his friends and colleagues he was widely known by his initials, JBS.

Henry Knighton was an Augustinian canon at the abbey of St Mary of the Meadows, Leicester, England, and an ecclesiastical historian (chronicler). who wrote a history of England from the Norman conquest until 1396, thought to be the year he died.

Biblical translations into the indigenous languages of North and South America have been produced since the 16th century.

The Athabaskan language family is divided into the Northern Athabaskan, Pacific Coast Athabaskan and Southern Athabaskan groups. The full Bible has been translated into two Athabaskan languages, and the complete New Testament in five more. Another five have portions of the Bible translated into them. There are no Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages with portions of the Bible translated into them.

Harold Ray Watson is a retired missionary and pioneer in the field of agronomy. He is world recognized for developing a method of cultivating denuded mountain slopes, and for encouraging utilization of the method to help the poorest, small scale, tropical farmers, specifically in the Philippines. He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1985.

<i>In Loving Memories: The Jerry Lee Lewis Gospel Album</i> 1971 studio album by Jerry Lee Lewis

In Loving Memories: The Jerry Lee Lewis Gospel Album is an album by Jerry Lee Lewis that was released on Mercury Records in 1971.

References

↑ Hugh Steven, biographer for Wycliffe Bible Translators
↑ Ramón Piaguaje: "La selva es un buen sitio para el arte"
↑ Our World in the Year 2000: The Winsor & Newton Worldwide Millennium Painting Competition
↑ Hugh Steven, biographer for Wycliffe Bible Translators
↑ World 2000 Events

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Hugh Steven, biographer for Wycliffe Bible Translators

[2] Ramón Piaguaje: "La selva es un buen sitio para el arte"

[3] Our World in the Year 2000: The Winsor & Newton Worldwide Millennium Painting Competition

[4] Hugh Steven, biographer for Wycliffe Bible Translators

[5] World 2000 Events