Photographer Ovidio Gonzalez Soler is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the ongoing project ‘Neoticuna’. To see Ovidio’s body of work, click on any image.

The rivers, in high water season, come loaded with fish, it is a favorable time for fishing. Only practiced by the most mature.

A monkey head that came out of a soup was cooked by Jaime, one of the leaders of the community, evidences the generational barrier, since the youngest have a very different diet from that of the most adults.

Ronie, the hunter, is a young Indigenous married to the young Eline. He is the only hunter in the community and preserves the tradition and the 16 caliber rifle of his father, who taught him the art of hunting from a very young age. That afternoon I hunt a Borugo for dinner.

When a Ticuna girl develops, the community prepares a ceremony called the Appellation. In this ceremony, the girl becomes a lady, for this reason, her girl’s hair is cut, so that a new hair arrives with her adulthood. Nadia, recently passed through the Alezón, that’s why her short hair. She is no longer a girl, and is now treated as a woman.

There is a mystical connection between man and nature, for some reason that I do not understand, once a Ticuna man is born, a tree is born, which generates a magical connection that is beyond understanding and reason, – his blood streams seem connect in an incredible way with the roots of the trees. Life and death have another meaning, the religion and beliefs of the white man come to the background in the depths of the jungle. The Amazon jungle – the pacha mama – provides food, gives her children what they need to survive, it is a direct but intangible communication full of love and respect. The Ticuna people, with a history marked by the violent entry of the rubber tappers, fishermen and loggers into their territories, a race of more than fifty years of resilience that has inhabited the Peruvian, Colombian and Brazilian territory, adopting it as their own being, taking care of it and preserving life in Him.

I have been addressing the behavior of the Ticuna indigenous people, from everyday life I try to go deeper into their intimacy, I am interested in indigenous young people —generational change is evident in Ticuna communities—, and the contrast that exists between the older. Writing and orality are vital in all the Indigenous communities of and I have evidenced that they are threatened by said change, evolution, westernization. Young people are less and less interested in learning Ticuna writing, concentrating efforts on higher education or learning professions that sometimes they exercise outside the communities. Some young people leave the community and return to streamline processes in their community, but others obtain a career and leave the community to make their life outside of it. This is the importance of this project, although all the communities are westernized, it is vital for them to preserve their culture – something that is increasingly difficult among the new generations of Indigenous people. ‘Neoticunas’ seeks to deepen the intimacy of the Ticuna communities of the Amazon, seeks to show the generational barriers between young and old, although there are many things that are preserved, on the other hand some others are fading over time, the time in this series is frozen thanks to the camera and seeks to leave a reflection to the indigenous people and each viewer on the importance of writing, orality and their culture in general. The young Ticuna are the seeds of the jungle, children of beings connected to the earth full of a spiritual power that goes beyond life and death.