Hubert Matiúwàa, Xtámbaa / Landskin / Piel de Tierra

Girasol Press, 2024

ISBN 978-1-9160786-5-9

“Let us raise the word to the ear of the wind,” writes Hubert Matiúwàa in the first poem of Xtámbaa (Landskin). The word comes first and must be cared for because the Mè’phàà language has a word for everything, living and dead, and the work of looking after those words also means looking after the relations with the living world and with the ancestors that they contain and enact. Raising the word to the wind’s ear addresses the elements of the world, but does not assume they will listen or respond; reciprocity is always possible but never assured.

Xtámbaa refers to the ceremony that is performed on a newly born child, in order to determine their animal sibling and entrust them to the land, to the forests and the rivers, so they will care for the child. The literal translation of “xtámbaa” is “landskin”; the root of the word “xtá” refers to the skin, whose role within Mè’phàà philosophy is to care for what it covers.