Miskitu with Rifle, January 2022, photo … Miskitu – upper Lakus watershed, Kipla Sait Tisbaika, Nicaragua
For nearly 20 years, Jeremy Koster, PhD, has been collaborating with the Mayangna indigenous community of Arang Dak. Arang Dak straddles the Lakus River in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve in northern Nicaragua and is part of the Kipla Sait Tisbaika semi-autonomous indigenous territory.
This Miskitu man recently moved from a nearby community on the Coco River. While the Miskitu and Mayangna share the territories of Bosawas and have mostly amicable relations, the Miskitu have historically dominated politically and numerically and have occupied the prime trading and transport territories on the Coco, while the Mayangna were pushed up into the smaller tributaries. There is some mixing, of course, between the communities, and he is welcome in the village, particularly because he is gregarious and a good hunter. His rifle is old, taken care of, but held together with wire and a hose clamp. Here, he is joining a mixed Mayangna/Miskitu guradabosque expedition up the Lakus to patrol for colonos … mestizo land grabbers.
Bosawas has in the last years been experiencing a crisis of illegal colono land theft associated with cattle ranching and organized crime. Indigenous people lose territory and are sometimes violently driven out of their homes. The Lakus watershed is the most isolated watershed in Bosawas and has until recently been spared the colono problem. However, things are rapidly changing as the illegal deforestation frontier creeps into Bosawas and has now penetrated the Lakus watershed.
For more photos from Arang Dak and information on their land struggles, visit this post.