Final Words of Machi Celestino Córdova as He Faces Impending Death
To the Mapuche nation, to the Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples of the world. To all of those who struggle for their spiritual beliefs, their territory, their freedom, their rights in dignifying their people. Always in search of the complete balance of the natural order of our Mother Earth, Ñuke Mapu, who has supernaturally privileged all of us as human beings—human beings who sadly still do not have the consciousness to value our Mother Earth as she deserves.
I deeply regret that I have to give you my last message, during my final remaining days. My sacrifice is definite. It will be an honor give my life for the Mapuche people, for our spiritual belief which is sacred above all else. Thus, it should never be renounced.
And more than anything else, because my condition as Machi is my duty. It is mandated supernaturally, in the spiritual world.
So that my death may be quicker, I have placed myself at the disposition to retake the thirst strike at whatever moment. Thus, my end will not be slow as expected by state powers and the business sectors.
Until my final day, I will remind the Chilean state that I do not agree with the massacre of our ancestors. I do not agree with the spiritual, cultural and socioeconomic impoverishment cruelly enforced upon our Mapuche people-nation since the arrival of the invasion. In the present times, since January of 2013, the Chilean State has dispossessed me from my rewe, my family, my community and my territory, and all my patients to whom I gave life and health, being a Mapuche spiritual authority.
Yet the time for justice is coming for all Indigenous people in the world and for all the oppressed peoples. It is supernaturally predestined. We are already living the renewal of the world.
Finally, I would like to say that I am deeply grateful to life for having given me a family, the opportunity to be a small contribution to the struggle of our people and to be at the service of humanity. I am also thankful for having opened the hearts of many people from different territories of the world.
Lastly, I only hope that everyone continues demanding that the Chilean state return our ancestral Mapuche territory and make good on all of the historical debt with Indigenous peoples. Furthermore, I demand that no autopsy be carried out after my death.
Chaltumay. Many thanks.
This translation comes from anticarcelaria.org and the orginal can be found in Spanish here.