On June 9, 2023, the brothers Lesly Mucutuy, Soleiny Mucutuy, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy and Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy were rescued in the jungles of Guaviare after being lost for 40 days. As the months have passed, details have become known about the story that paralyzed Colombia and the operation deployed by the military and members of the Indigenous Guard, since, for example, a turtle was essential at the time in which the children were placed in amidst dense vegetation.
The story was shared in the documentary Operation Hope: The Lost Children in the Amazon of the Amazon Prime platform in which it is narrated the importance of indigenous ancestral knowledge, since members of the Indigenous Guard requested authorization to enter the jungle and help in the searchgiven that with the military technology with which the area was searched, the minors were not found.
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Among the indigenous people who entered the jungle was Eliecer Muñoz Cabrera, a member of the Indigenous Guard who felt identified with the children’s story given that he lost his mother at a very young age: “Through television media it is revealed know about that accident. That moved me, because I had a not very good childhood, my mother died at a very young age, I was 5 years old and for me it was very hard and it is something that I put myself in the shoes of those children, the situation that I lived. There were 3 adults who have already died, now we are left with the uncertainty of the 4 children, because I get that feeling that they are not dead.”
After making the decision to enter the jungle to search for the children, Eliecer Muñoz asked the wise men of the Jiri Jiri reservation of the Murui Muina people for help to help the people who would travel to the search area to protect themselves, so they carried out a ceremony in which they consume extracts from sacred plants in order to ask permission from the spirits that protect the jungle.
“We do this ritual so that Eliecer could go to other territories, perhaps populated by another ethnic group, perhaps there are other spirits that only those who are there know, so we ask permission for our companions to go in peace and through those plants. sacred, we ask the spirits, who are the guardians of the jungle, to return them to us, these children belong to us and deserve to be in the heart of the home,” explained one of the elders of the reservation.
From the moment they arrived at the search site, the members of the Indigenous Guard knew that the children were alive, but the spirits of the jungle did not allow the soldiers to find them, for this reason, They asked for permission to enter Chiribiquete, a site they consider sacred..
In this regard, Eliecer Muñoz explained that: “We have to sit down and ask spiritually that they allow us to find or give us the children because we claim them, because they are children of our blood, so we come to claim them.”
From the moment the indigenous people enter the jungle they feel that the spirits are already observing them and although they ask permission, apparently the spirits did not agree with them entering, because the indigenous people began to get sick with body pain and flu, so they couldn’t start the search from day one.
Regarding the spirit that is believed to be holding the children and not letting them locate, Eliecer Muñoz assured that: “The being that holds the children is the mother, the Mother Mount that we call heris the one that the children had, there have already been many stories in indigenous towns, even in my town there was also one and today we are realizing that all the stories are real.”
After the children were lost for 39 days in the thick jungle, Eliecer Muñoz and his companions were running out of time, as they had less than four hours in the field before being extracted by helicopter, but “suddenly, Something came that one cannot explain, that is where we found that turtle,” said Muñoz.
The importance of the turtle is that it is believed that it can fulfill wishesso it is captured, the wish is made and when it is fulfilled, the animal must be thanked and released: “This is the one that we will give to the children because in itself we always carry that she is a mysterious animal “If you ask her for a wish, she will grant it to you, but if you grant your wish, you have to free her,” explained Eliecer Muñoz, who while tying up the turtle to carry it on his back, asked her for the wish: “Turtle, you are the one who is going to give me the children, so come with me.”
The search continued with the turtle on Muñoz’s back, when, without any explanation, they managed to hear the children crying, so they found them alive: “We continued, after we picked up the turtle, we continued carrying it up hills, down “, taking the edge of a pipe and we continued climbing that climb again to the hill,” according to Eliecer Muñoz, the children were sheltered in a shelter that they themselves made, so they were given first aid since they were weak from the lack of food.
“The first thing I look at is 3 and I ask: ‘And where is the child? He was lying down, he couldn’t stand up, totally weak, we stopped him, we picked him up, in a period of about 10 minutes, maximum 20 minutes, a group of soldiers was there and we handed it over to the military there,” Muñoz added.
With the children in the hands of the military, Eliecer Muñoz remembered that he had to thank and set free the turtle that, according to his belief, was the key to finding the minors who would not have been able to last many more days in the middle of the vegetation: “At that moment, I immediately thought: ‘The turtle must be freed’ and I went to look for it, ‘Thank you turtle for granting my wish’ and I let it go, it might as well go and it was freed.”
The children were transferred to Bogotá where they were treated by doctors who checked their health and helped them recover after having lived 40 days in the sun and water in the Guaviare jungle, apparently under the supervision of the Mother Mount.
