ABSTRACT
The state in which I was born is officially known by the name ‘Ecuador’, a country with ten million inhabitants, of which Indigenous peoples make up the great majority. It is situated in the continent which the Europeans named Latin America. But the nation my people belong to carries a different name. It is one of the nine Indigenous nations of the Equatorial Amazon, each of which has its own customs, religious beliefs and ways of life. These nations consist of more than four hundred communities. The language of my community is Quechua, which is spoken by the majority of Indigenous people in Ecuador.
