One of the most beautiful things about master craftsmen is their lack of vanity. It’s seeing them able to tell their story with surprise and gratitude, and the infinite joy of knowing they’re an example for others. This is the case of Ángel Marino Jacanamejoy, the man with the sweet voice who knows he owes himself to his parents and grandparents and strives to be a worthy transmitter of his Putumayo heritage. Although he arrived late to the craft world, at the age of 23, something awakened in him at that moment, reminding him of everything Justo, his father, used to tell him about his hallucinatory encounters in the early mornings, with the guidance of the taitas. It also made him understand that the stories of his paternal grandparents, Miguel and Antonia, and maternal grandparents, Bautista and Concepción, sitting around the tulpa on their thought benches, would be the foundation of his kamentsá world. This is the world he has dedicated himself to rescuing and sharing through the masks he creates.

As the saying goes, so many twists and turns before coming back home, because Ángel left, precisely, home, quietly, as he wanted to study. He silently packed his belongings and went to the capital to seek his future. But it found him painted with the colors of the past. The director of the Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions asked him, and other young kamentsá who visited her, for their traditional masks with which to represent the Great Day in Bogotá. She offered to invite them to do an exhibition if they did. The memory of the celebration he attended hand in hand with his father since he was a child, where he marveled at the matachines and san juanes masks, came to his mind and brought a smile to his face. He wondered how something so deeply ingrained in his heart could reconnect him with his roots and offer him the long-awaited future. However, this impulse came loaded with pain; his father died and one of his brothers was killed. That’s when he decided to return to his territory, Sibundoy, in the Upper Putumayo.

He started carving without guidance, but with his own enthusiasm, which showed him the way. Master Basilio Jojibioi was his inspiration. His observation of his surroundings sharpened, and listening to his myths ceased to be scenery and became evident. And so, he formed a work group with several young people like him who embraced the idea of ​​exhibiting in the Bogota museum. They created twelve masks, including the traditional New Year kamentsá ones, and the ones representing various characters from town, such as the affectionate mute who greeted and gave peace to all the faithful in the church. They also invented several masks celebrating the sun, the moon, and the rainbow. That’s how it started, and after much work and a strong determination to become a craftsman – as his group disbanded in the face of promises of easy money scraping coca in the Lower Putumayo – he was awarded the Traditional Craftsmanship Mastery Medal in 2001. This tribute was repeated in 2013, but as a Contemporary Master.

And this was because, with his investigative spirit and disposition to innovation and design, he began to veneer masks, first with seeds like achirilla, then combining them with beads and finally covering them completely with these colorful beads in a work of infinite precision. Today, these masks are a hallmark of the craftsmanship of the Sibundoy Valley, an innovation where he was one of the first artisans to consolidate the technique. Hence the Medal.

To complete a life dedicated to honoring his roots, he married a wonderful woman. Lilia Concepcion Juajibioy, a brave teacher at the bilingual school in Sibundoy, responsible for transmitting the profound sense of being kamentsá to the new generations, starting with love for the language. Together, they have dedicated themselves to cultivating the traditions of their people through all the existing symbolic expressions: stories, textiles, carving, music, and their powerful spiritual dimension. Thanks to this, he can proudly say that he has heirs to the trade in his children. Although professionals in different fields, each of them carries the knowledge in their blood and celebrates it.