On HAMPI by River Coello
River Coello’s new book of poetry, prose, and photography, titled HAMPI, is an important contribution to many ongoing cultural conversations around our relationships with our collective pasts and our own transgressive bodies.
While tapping into these larger conversations, the book, the title of which translates to medicine, is also an intensely personal, deeply researched exploration of River’s lifelong reckoning with how the world has attempted to silence the Indigenous medicine of their ancestors through a journey led by sacred beings from Inca spirituality.
River’s background in performance creation, public speaking, and social research all inform their creative writing, which manages to feel both immediately accessible and like someone is letting you in on their most intimate thoughts and feelings.
The Orlando-based, Ecuadorian-American storyteller speaks in conversation with their partner, Sam Stecklow, about their journey behind this book project, and shares excerpts of their recent work.
HAMPI was released by Los Angeles-based publishing house For the Birds Trapped in Airports on February 26, 2024. You can order the book at hampibook.com.
Your new book, HAMPI, was released recently. How would you describe this new project?
HAMPI chronicles a very personal journey of reconnection. Reconnection to parts of myself that I had muted and parts of my lineage that I had not completely embraced. The book is in conversation with the Andean cosmovision of my Indigenous ancestors, and that takes form in dialogue with Mother Moon, our sacred animals, and Mother Earth. It features writing in Spanish, English, and Quechua, and photography from my heart homes: Ecuador, Peru, and the States. The word hampi means medicine in Quechua and that is exactly what this book has been to me: ancestral medicine.
she brought with her a gift for me:
“are you ready to learn my medicine?
what heals your soul will heal your world.”
she brought with her an ask for me:
“you must renounce your shield to let it in.”
trajo con ella un regalo para mí:
“¿liste para aprender nuestra medicina?
lo que cura tu alma sanará tu mundo”.
trajo con ella un pedido para mí:
“para que entre, debes bajar tu armadura”.
huk rikuchikuyta quwaran:
“hampiyta yachayta munankichu?
hampiykiqa tiqsimuyuta hampinqa!”
huk khuyayta mañakuwaran:
“aqsuykita saq’iy hampiykiqa haykunanpaq!”
What is some of the wisdom you’ve been able to draw from the Andean cosmovision?
It’s in the Andean cosmovision that I found the word qhariwarmi, which means “man-woman.” Qhariwarmi people were spiritual leaders in our earliest communities. They were included, respected, loved, celebrated, and even revered. Those are things that unfortunately don’t always happen these days for people who are gender-variant like myself, especially because of the influence of Christianity in our countries. Qhariwarmi immediately captured how I navigate my gender, my sexuality, my spirituality: my essence. In the balance of “both” energies. It’s the only word that has ever felt so complete for me, and it’s thanks in part to this discovery that I kept digging. In that digging, I unearthed so much more; hence, this new book.
while excavating, my knees remembered
i had already been here before
(echo of self) to take my sleeping femme
(echo of faith) and my indulgent joy,
but there was even more to take:
there was my rage; there was my home.
al excavar, mis rodillas recordaron
que yo ya había pasado por aquí
(eco de ser) por mi ida feminidad
(eco de fe) y mi dulce felicidad,
pero había incluso más que rescatar:
estaba aquí mi ira; estaba aquí mi hogar.
hasp’inaykama, muquykunaqa yuyaranku:
kaypiñan kasqani, taripuspa:
kusikuyniyta
warmikayniytawan,
ichaqa sunquypa tutayayninpi astawan kasharan:
phiñakuyniy wasiywan kaypi kasharanku!
Why was it important for you that this book was in Spanish, English, and Quechua?
My previous books were both in Spanish and English, the official languages of my birth home and my new home, respectively. So, HAMPI had to be, too, but I have to confess: I didn’t set out to write it in Quechua. All I knew was that I didn’t want my reconnection to be shallow. I wanted to go deep and that included learning my ancestors’ language. I thought to myself, “If I’m going to do this, if I’m going to explore this spirituality, if I’m going to be in direct conversation with these sacred beings, I’m going to do it completely.” My desire to understand my family’s past has always been so strong, and this curiosity actually found room to exist in my early education, so learning Quechua felt like a very natural next step for me. And a privilege, too, that previous generations in my family simply didn’t have.
What was the process of learning and writing in Quechua like for you?
I’m still very much learning, and I think the book will reflect that. Almost as soon as I started learning Quechua, it very quickly became clear that I needed to create in it. That storytelling quality is at its very heart. Once this clicked for me, I felt like I was “downloading” this language so much faster than any of the others I’ve ever learned. That said, writing and publishing in a language that I’m not as proficient in still feels like a vulnerable practice. But I think part of what my recent life chapters have taught me is that it’s okay to live imperfectly. I do also believe that my ancestors defined excellence differently from how colonialism has long defined it. So, maybe this practice of writing “imperfectly”—not “proficiently” or “correctly”—is actually just Indigenously excellent. (And queer, too, if I may add.)
What are some of the other themes you explore in HAMPI?
Oof. This book met me at an interesting time of my life. The ancestral medicine was not only spiritual, it was also physical. I became disabled while writing this book. While preparing for it, I was not only searching for answers about my ancestry, I was also searching for answers about my body. And I think the two are connected—especially since my condition is genetic. The lessons that have come from navigating life in my disabled body are very much connected to rest. My most recent ancestors didn’t necessarily (or always) get that privilege, but I am learning it is something my earliest ancestors did honor: slowing down with intention.
body of mine,
may the voices that convince me to
neglect you grow much quieter
may the tension of hesitation
and the fear of isolation dissipate
cuerpo mío,
que los mensajes que me convencen
de descuidarte se debiliten
que la tensión de la hesitación
y el miedo a la aislación se disipen
kurkuy,
willakuykunaqa imapas hark’apaykuyta
uynichiwanku qhasñuyachinqaku
saparikuymanta manchariyqa
iskayyayqawan chinkanqaku
Another theme that came up for me in this journey was reclaiming my “anger”—my fire, really. I had been moving with such a timid energy, genuinely afraid to be angry for the ways in which I was harmed in my past. More unfolds in the book, of course, but since writing it, one thing that has been crystallizing for me is the power of alignment—of body, mind, and spirit. And the power of compassion, too, not just for others but also for ourselves, especially as we work through that very difficult and defining process.
How do you see HAMPI in relation to conversations around re-indigenization, reconnection, happening all over the world?
I hope it’s a model for it. An opportunity. Near the end of the book, I call on us “ever-searchers of home” to leap! Because what I most hope, at my core, is that whoever engages with this book feels just a little bit more confident in their own journey of reconnection. There are no easy answers in a journey such as this, but it is so very worthwhile. I understand the many reasons why folks may approach reconnection with timidity. And I wholeheartedly believe that these processes have to be mindful, responsible, but I also think they need to happen for a better world for us all. We can’t escape who we have been. I think there are keys to our power in our histories, especially those so violently erased from our consciousnesses. Reconnection also doesn’t have to start as a public practice. It can begin as a personal exploration. I say: Tend to your longing first. Grieve as you do. Keep asking and answering questions. And make a better world in the process.
to reconnect is to leap, so leap!
build your own wings or borrow kuntur’s,
who will be waiting patiently to say:
“we all have missed you. welcome home.”
poder reconectarse toma saltar, ¡así que salta!
presta de las de kuntur o construye tus propias alas.
él te estará esperando con paciencia para decirte:
“todos te hemos extrañado tanto. bienvenide a casa”.
huqtawan t’inkikuyqa p’itayta pisirichikun, chayqa p’itay!
kunturpa pharpankunata manuy, pharpankikunata kamay.
llamp’ullawan kunturqa qanta suyanqa ninanpaq:
“tukuy ñuqanchis qanta nishu llakikuranchis!”
You can order HAMPI at hampibook.com.
For appearances, please contact Heather Brown at heather@mindthebirdmedia.com.
Story by Sam Stecklow
Portrait by Jameel Bridgewater
Styling by Sal Yvat