Tilantongo – Conversations from Indigenous Mexico

Tilantongo – Conversations from Indigenous Mexico; Conversaciones desde el México indigena

In Tilantongo – Conversations from Indigenous Mexico; Conversaciones desde el México indigena, Phil and Kathy Dahl-Bredine bring perspectives and insights from Oaxaca, where they have lived with and learned from indigenous Mixtec people since 2001. This bilingual program features interviews with villagers, educators, environmental advocates, historians, and more.

TILANTONGO Nov 24th and 30th (click to listen to the episode)

Conversations from Indigenous Mexico

FALL 2025

The basic humanity of our Western societies seems to be unraveling into division, suspicion, fear and a
resurgent racism. We seem to be unable to stop the currents that drag us into war and even genocide
around the globe and to a mad consumerism that threatens the planet´s ability to sustain us. Is this
inevitable? Is it the unavoidable result of the character of the human creature?
Twenty five years living as a part of an indigenous community in the mountains of southern Oaxaca,
Mexico has convinced Kathy and Phil Dahl-Bredine that our Western created crises are not inevitable,
but rather the result of cultural choices. Here in the communities of indigenous Oaxaca people have
made a different cultural choice. The almost 500 indigenous municipalities of state, large and small,
have maintained their ancestral democracies, governed by village assemblies, charged with creating
harmony within the human community and between that community and the brother and sister
creatures that make up the richness of the Earth Mother that sustains us all.
They call this goal “communality”, and this new and ancient form of governing, “usos y costlumbres”,
uses and customs.
Today we speak with campesino leader and recipient of the Goldman Prize for the Environment, Jesus
Leon Santos. We talk about the key institutions that make this form of human community work . But we
especially concentrate on one of these practices called gueza in Mixteco and guelaguetza in Zapoteco.
Jesus explains to us how gueza or mutual aid helps build solidarity in the community and lays the
foundation for human communities that work. He also tells us why gueza strengthens the economy of
the community and makes possible the autonomy that these communities need in order to be able to
live their cosmic vision of a creation of equals in harmony with all of the human and non-human sisters
and brothers that make up the Mother Earth that sustains us.