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Crossing The RiverAuthor: More Than Human Life (MOTH)
In this podcast series, you will learn from multiple Indigenous leaders, who live on the front lines of the global climate crisis. Here they share their life experiences, knowledge, and urgent advice. They are the ones who are leading the path to a possible future. It's time to listen to them, it's time to cross the river. Crossing the River is a podcast from More Than Human Life (MOTH), based at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law and 070 Podcasts. Language: en Genres: Earth Sciences, Science Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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Bárbara Muelas: The Guardian of Language [ENG]
Episode 7
Thursday, 14 August, 2025
Bárbara Muelas (Misak Indigenous People, Colombia), the first Indigenous woman in the Colombian Academy of Language, has spent her 80 years reviving Namtrik, her mother tongue—one of 65 Indigenous languages that still survive in Colombia despite centuries of colonization. Once spoken only aloud, it is now etched in writing so it will not vanish. Born to terrajeros during a time in which colonizers forced the Misak nation to work in their own land, she saw her people reclaim their territory in the 1980s and knew that freedom also meant reclaiming their language. Mamá Bárbara translated the ethnic chapter of Colombia’s Constitution into Namtrik, believing each language holds a unique way of seeing the world—and that by learning them, we also come to know ourselves, and the threads that bind us all.
