The Ancestral Call Project

Ancestral Call is a social-awareness project of original music based on the ancestral knowledge and life's philosophy of the Costa Rican indigenous community "Bribri." The Bribri's culture and language are in danger of extinction due to the dominant Costa Rican culture's ongoing cultural and ideological colonization. This project seeks to share and create awareness about this community's ancestral teachings, which in addition to surviving colonization, have remained resistant for centuries, being an example of a society in social and environmental balance.  

The project's inspiration is based on the Bribri language word "Ttök," which means speaking in the ritual language. In the Bribri community, the ritual language is not spoken, it is sung, and it is the way the community communicates with its ancestors and the spiritual world who live in what we call nature. Thus, the word nature does not exist in the Bribri language since it is represented in what it means to them, "to be," which is why the Bribris take care of nature as if they took care of themselves. This project is unique because it is supported and guided by people from the Bribri society. Furthermore, the Ancestral Call is based on this indigenous community's life philosophy, which is very different from our society and gives new angles on life's challenges we all share. These circumstances foster an exceptional musical creation space, new sound possibilities, experimentation, and communication through improvisation. This project is supported by the Boston Foundation Lab program grant 2021.