The Gold Machine (2022) Movie Script
Firstly, how long do you want?
Ten minutes?
So do you want me to tell you the history?
If I talk for longer, it will cost more.
If I tell you everything,
from then, how it was
until they arrived, I can
charge you 200 soles, right.
The first colonisers arrived
and invaded our lands in the Perene valley
at the time of the Peruvian Corporation.
They took 500 thousand hectares of land.
From our hands flow resources
that make the country greater.
From our lands, riches used
for export.
Our precious voices are determined.
We are working people
who aim for progress.
I know we will continue to follow
such arduous roads without resting.
Pursuing secure goals
without hesitating.
Our strength drives us
to carry on.
Our wishes and aspirations...
should not be held back.
We will continue writing history.
Together we can change our path.
When the company Doe Run started here
it started to produce
with low grade minerals.
Minerals that had very high
levels of acid contamination.
The minerals they bought
from Chile, from India,
low grade minerals that arrived in Peru.
They were transported in
trucks and trailers from Callao.
And those minerals,
once the minerals were roasted
large amounts of gas were released;
sulphurous gas
gas with sulphurous acid
that we were breathing in.
The whole population.
This extremely polluting gas
burned our eyes,
our nose, our throat,
even our skin got burned and itched.
We even had problems moving around.
And some of the vegetation here
in La Oroya was destroyed as well.
But the company said that was because of
melting ice and climate change.
That was the cause of all the destruction.
But that is just a lie.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Huancayo.
There was a fellow woman
who was hassled
by gnats and wasps, which
would sting her incessantly.
Then she said to her husband, Pantyo,
"Take me to those little rocks."
That's why she named
these places "The Waterfall"
She went toward the Pampa Michi area.
She passed it and named the river "Salt
River" because she entered the area.
She settled down there, and the river was
called after her because she lived there.
When the salt woman lived there, she turned
into salt, tiny stones, and she stayed put.
She said to her husband, "Bring me
balsawood and crush me with it."
He pounded her head with the wood, but
she kept getting up. He couldn't kill her.
It was getting late.
Pantyo got angry and
said, What's the matter?
He got his brother-in-law Woodpecker to
pick a stone and crush his sister's head.
That's why salt is heavy.
Her husband pitied her, so he cleaned her
with the bark of the balsa tree.
Balsa tree, they say, contains the blood
the woman shed when she was killed.
Pantyo's brother-in-law Woodpecker
returned in his canoe downriver.
He pitied his sister, because she sank
among the pebbles where salt is found.
Someone carefully named the streams.
That's why they have these names.
Another stream is called
the "Split Open One".
The first colonisers arrived
and invaded our lands in the Perene valley
at the time of the Peruvian Corporation.
They took 500 thousand hectares of land.
They made them work
and the bosses did not allow them to rest.
They told them this is how you
are going to plant coffee, like this.
Then there were also
cattle, where they bred.
They did not even give
the Ashninkas any water.
I want to request, as I am
proud that you come here,
that you build my tourist centre,
in La Merced too, a civic centre with
departments for our secretary, for all.
A hall for intercultural activities.
That is what I want, just as we were once
stepped on by the colonisers,
there has to be compensation
for us too as native peoples,
because we are the first native
community near the capital.
Close to the province of Chancha.
This is its first native community,
the district of Chanchamayo,
in the province of Chanchamayo.
We are forgotten brothers,
I wish with all my heart that you come.
I want you to make my civic
centre and my community.
Bring me ayahuasca
ayahuasca, ayahuasca
It intoxicated me
Bring me ayahuasca
ayahuasca, ayahuasca
She gave it to me, and I'm out of my mind.
I saw in my vision what
looked like a jaguar.
There were healers and those
who use tobacco, ayahuasca,
and coca leaves for medicinal
and spiritual purposes.
They would suck on
tobacco and see visions.
And they would drink ayahuasca.
They saw visions and were transformed.
The Ashninkas said
"Now you're going to go
go to Vaqueria, you will take control
of the hill, so that nobody can pass".
But what did the disobedient Ashninka do?
He took along his masato drink, his
ayahuasca, his coca leaves, his shoulder bag
and climbed that hill.
And instead of making sure nobody
passed him, he got drunk and fell asleep.
So people kept invading them,
because of this Ashninka.
I am a bilingual teacher
and I teach the language too.
As well as teaching them to write in
their own language so they can learn.
Few children were learning the language, because
in the past we were not allowed to teach it.
For example, this government emphasises learning
the language, but more so, on learning the culture.
You are welcome here this morning.
Now, we shall learn a song.
It is called Tsiirishi. You
will see. Pay attention to me.
I came from downriver
I pushed with a pole upriver
I push my canoe with a pole upriver
I came from downriver
I pushed with a pole upriver
I came from downriver
I was accompanied by a young girl
I was playing a little flute
I was accompanied by a young girl
I was playing a little flute
I passed through upriver
I arrived in Tsiirishi
I passed through upriver
I reached Tsiirishi
There are things we are able to explain.
Some words are appearing
with new technology
that we can't express in our language.
For example 'computers'
or 'mobile phones'.
We can't say them in Ashninka, we just...
We borrow Spanish words and
adapt them to Ashninka grammar.
Some things, there are small things
like 'love', 'patience', 'humility',
which we can't translate in Spanish.
I have a radio.
I have a mobile phone.
I have a radio.
I have a mobile phone.
We have channel 7 on the Peruvian TV.
On Saturdays at 6:30
we have this channel where
you can watch Ashninka.
Now we have communities
that are tourist centres.
For example, in Marankiari, almost
all the tourists come to Marankiari
and young people and children are speaking
the language correctly thanks to tourism
And they practise our dance too.
All the ritual dances that
we practiced in the old days.
Yes, my parents were both Ashninka.
They are also from here, from Perene.
They were born here and they worked for
the Peruvian Corporation.
I have, for example, my
children, who are also teachers,
who did not speak the language at first.
At times, they were
embarrassed to speak it.
But now they are bilingual
teachers, they are working
at encouraging the children.
When one would die they would say
"Let's set him adrift in the river."
They would make a raft.
They would make it using nails.
They truss him up, wrap him up in his
clothes, tie him to the raft
and set him adrift in the river
until it arrives at wherever
there's a big whirlpool.
There the vultures would eat him.
This is what the founders,
our fellow men, did in the past.
They would drown the corpse
in the river or would burn it.
Burn it.
So that no one is afflicted, so that
his soul does not return to his house
and make his family
members and his children sick.
That's why they would drown him
so that he goes downriver.
I have to be careful lest he beat me.
Oh, crab...
You will look for me.
I have my husband here.
I have to be careful lest he beat me.
You think I don't have
a little adopted child...
I have my husband here.
I have to be careful lest he beat me.
Oh, crab...
You will look for me.
Yeah.
Everything here is okay,
COVID has reached us
but we are prepared
with our natural medicines.
Some people in our family have it
but they have been taking the medicines
and everything is warm.
To take care of them
everything has to be warm,
it's forbidden to take it cold.
But the river has provided us with food.
The only place we went to was to the river
to find carachama
and anything else there
is to find in the river.
The only thing we've done is to prepare
to cultivate beans, peanuts, and manioc.
There is nothing to do
The only thing we have done is prepare
to be able to eat beans, corn, yuca.
We haven't had any
tourism for eight months now
there hasn't been anything.
Since April everything has been closed.
Various people have come
to ask for the medicines
because we have a radio station and
we use it to communicate with everyone.
So they come here from
where they heard about it
to take the medicine that
I have here by the river
to prevent this COVID disease.
A lot of people came already.
Even police officers
come to take medicines.
They stop here and bring their own bottles
because they don't want to get COVID.
I give them medicine,
something warm for the throat.
That's it.
Also, what we have seen
in various places,
is that when it's quiet
and there's no movement
the animals come back
from their habitats into the town.
It has been very quiet,
just like in the old days
when there was nothing here.
Just like in our grandparents' times.
They learned to work, when the Peruvian
Corporation planted its crops here.
They planted a lot of coffee
and my fellow men worked like slaves.
There was a traditional way of life
until the Peruvian
Corporation entered the area.
Then it ended and nobody worked at
the forge and the young men were alone.
When I was ten years old, I saw
my dad working for the Corporation.
Every three months they called him in,
called him in, called him in, like that.
They wouldn't let him work.
There is a farm here, there
is always yuca, pituca, corn.
When I was twenty years
old, I started working.
Cleaning and cutting.
First cut, clean, wipe the coffee,
and after, remove the
weeds that grow on the coffee
to clean it.
But they controlled us.
When you rested they
would say, "Come on, work!"
"Why are you sitting there?"
We have suffered greatly.
If you do not obey.
If you do not do your job
the foreman has to punish you.
There was... what do you call it?
A leather belt.
They punished you with it.
I was punished. They
punished me many times.
There were rumours that certain people,
"gringos"...
the majority of the Ashninka
call them that, "gringos"
came to deliver a message of hope.
This message made the brothers aware
that they had to be united,
but also obedient in every field.
That mission, or that idea,
was brought here by Seor Fernando Stahl.
They called out all fellow
men from downriver.
A lot of people gathered here.
The one who brought the word, a white
person, one of your people, was called
Pastor Stahl.
He brought the word here. That's why we
have religion here and know how to read.
He said, "Now we will have a school"
to teach the Ashninka.
When he lived here, the
old god was abandoned.
They no longer worshipped the stone,
the fire. They abandoned them.
There was another god they called Pachaka.
Pachakama, who was also worshipped
by my fellow men in the past.
They saw the pastor and said,
"This is the true god, he has arrived!"
They came, they all came,
saw him, and settled in Metraro.
The pastor made them
construct a mission in Metraro.
She says they started to believe the
pastor and abandoned their own beliefs.
They stop believing,
and they believed him.
He told them the stone and the fire did
not listen to them, nothing, and nothing...
Me, I am god, I am god, now
you have god, now you will follow me.
And they all believed
him. All, all, many of them.
They built a church,
and they all prayed there.
That is what she believes.
Perene said to me...
"Come back again, come back again."
Perene said to me...
"Come back again, come back again."
I said to her...
"I will never come back."
"I will grow used to my own village."
Perene said to me...
"Come back again, come
back again, come back again."
I said to her, "I will never come back."
"As I will grow used to my own village."
"I will go upriver in
sadness, in sadness."
"I will go back to my village,
I will go back to my village."
You said to me, "You will be sad when
you get to your village, to your village."
Ten minutes?
So do you want me to tell you the history?
If I talk for longer, it will cost more.
If I tell you everything,
from then, how it was
until they arrived, I can
charge you 200 soles, right.
The first colonisers arrived
and invaded our lands in the Perene valley
at the time of the Peruvian Corporation.
They took 500 thousand hectares of land.
From our hands flow resources
that make the country greater.
From our lands, riches used
for export.
Our precious voices are determined.
We are working people
who aim for progress.
I know we will continue to follow
such arduous roads without resting.
Pursuing secure goals
without hesitating.
Our strength drives us
to carry on.
Our wishes and aspirations...
should not be held back.
We will continue writing history.
Together we can change our path.
When the company Doe Run started here
it started to produce
with low grade minerals.
Minerals that had very high
levels of acid contamination.
The minerals they bought
from Chile, from India,
low grade minerals that arrived in Peru.
They were transported in
trucks and trailers from Callao.
And those minerals,
once the minerals were roasted
large amounts of gas were released;
sulphurous gas
gas with sulphurous acid
that we were breathing in.
The whole population.
This extremely polluting gas
burned our eyes,
our nose, our throat,
even our skin got burned and itched.
We even had problems moving around.
And some of the vegetation here
in La Oroya was destroyed as well.
But the company said that was because of
melting ice and climate change.
That was the cause of all the destruction.
But that is just a lie.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Huancayo.
There was a fellow woman
who was hassled
by gnats and wasps, which
would sting her incessantly.
Then she said to her husband, Pantyo,
"Take me to those little rocks."
That's why she named
these places "The Waterfall"
She went toward the Pampa Michi area.
She passed it and named the river "Salt
River" because she entered the area.
She settled down there, and the river was
called after her because she lived there.
When the salt woman lived there, she turned
into salt, tiny stones, and she stayed put.
She said to her husband, "Bring me
balsawood and crush me with it."
He pounded her head with the wood, but
she kept getting up. He couldn't kill her.
It was getting late.
Pantyo got angry and
said, What's the matter?
He got his brother-in-law Woodpecker to
pick a stone and crush his sister's head.
That's why salt is heavy.
Her husband pitied her, so he cleaned her
with the bark of the balsa tree.
Balsa tree, they say, contains the blood
the woman shed when she was killed.
Pantyo's brother-in-law Woodpecker
returned in his canoe downriver.
He pitied his sister, because she sank
among the pebbles where salt is found.
Someone carefully named the streams.
That's why they have these names.
Another stream is called
the "Split Open One".
The first colonisers arrived
and invaded our lands in the Perene valley
at the time of the Peruvian Corporation.
They took 500 thousand hectares of land.
They made them work
and the bosses did not allow them to rest.
They told them this is how you
are going to plant coffee, like this.
Then there were also
cattle, where they bred.
They did not even give
the Ashninkas any water.
I want to request, as I am
proud that you come here,
that you build my tourist centre,
in La Merced too, a civic centre with
departments for our secretary, for all.
A hall for intercultural activities.
That is what I want, just as we were once
stepped on by the colonisers,
there has to be compensation
for us too as native peoples,
because we are the first native
community near the capital.
Close to the province of Chancha.
This is its first native community,
the district of Chanchamayo,
in the province of Chanchamayo.
We are forgotten brothers,
I wish with all my heart that you come.
I want you to make my civic
centre and my community.
Bring me ayahuasca
ayahuasca, ayahuasca
It intoxicated me
Bring me ayahuasca
ayahuasca, ayahuasca
She gave it to me, and I'm out of my mind.
I saw in my vision what
looked like a jaguar.
There were healers and those
who use tobacco, ayahuasca,
and coca leaves for medicinal
and spiritual purposes.
They would suck on
tobacco and see visions.
And they would drink ayahuasca.
They saw visions and were transformed.
The Ashninkas said
"Now you're going to go
go to Vaqueria, you will take control
of the hill, so that nobody can pass".
But what did the disobedient Ashninka do?
He took along his masato drink, his
ayahuasca, his coca leaves, his shoulder bag
and climbed that hill.
And instead of making sure nobody
passed him, he got drunk and fell asleep.
So people kept invading them,
because of this Ashninka.
I am a bilingual teacher
and I teach the language too.
As well as teaching them to write in
their own language so they can learn.
Few children were learning the language, because
in the past we were not allowed to teach it.
For example, this government emphasises learning
the language, but more so, on learning the culture.
You are welcome here this morning.
Now, we shall learn a song.
It is called Tsiirishi. You
will see. Pay attention to me.
I came from downriver
I pushed with a pole upriver
I push my canoe with a pole upriver
I came from downriver
I pushed with a pole upriver
I came from downriver
I was accompanied by a young girl
I was playing a little flute
I was accompanied by a young girl
I was playing a little flute
I passed through upriver
I arrived in Tsiirishi
I passed through upriver
I reached Tsiirishi
There are things we are able to explain.
Some words are appearing
with new technology
that we can't express in our language.
For example 'computers'
or 'mobile phones'.
We can't say them in Ashninka, we just...
We borrow Spanish words and
adapt them to Ashninka grammar.
Some things, there are small things
like 'love', 'patience', 'humility',
which we can't translate in Spanish.
I have a radio.
I have a mobile phone.
I have a radio.
I have a mobile phone.
We have channel 7 on the Peruvian TV.
On Saturdays at 6:30
we have this channel where
you can watch Ashninka.
Now we have communities
that are tourist centres.
For example, in Marankiari, almost
all the tourists come to Marankiari
and young people and children are speaking
the language correctly thanks to tourism
And they practise our dance too.
All the ritual dances that
we practiced in the old days.
Yes, my parents were both Ashninka.
They are also from here, from Perene.
They were born here and they worked for
the Peruvian Corporation.
I have, for example, my
children, who are also teachers,
who did not speak the language at first.
At times, they were
embarrassed to speak it.
But now they are bilingual
teachers, they are working
at encouraging the children.
When one would die they would say
"Let's set him adrift in the river."
They would make a raft.
They would make it using nails.
They truss him up, wrap him up in his
clothes, tie him to the raft
and set him adrift in the river
until it arrives at wherever
there's a big whirlpool.
There the vultures would eat him.
This is what the founders,
our fellow men, did in the past.
They would drown the corpse
in the river or would burn it.
Burn it.
So that no one is afflicted, so that
his soul does not return to his house
and make his family
members and his children sick.
That's why they would drown him
so that he goes downriver.
I have to be careful lest he beat me.
Oh, crab...
You will look for me.
I have my husband here.
I have to be careful lest he beat me.
You think I don't have
a little adopted child...
I have my husband here.
I have to be careful lest he beat me.
Oh, crab...
You will look for me.
Yeah.
Everything here is okay,
COVID has reached us
but we are prepared
with our natural medicines.
Some people in our family have it
but they have been taking the medicines
and everything is warm.
To take care of them
everything has to be warm,
it's forbidden to take it cold.
But the river has provided us with food.
The only place we went to was to the river
to find carachama
and anything else there
is to find in the river.
The only thing we've done is to prepare
to cultivate beans, peanuts, and manioc.
There is nothing to do
The only thing we have done is prepare
to be able to eat beans, corn, yuca.
We haven't had any
tourism for eight months now
there hasn't been anything.
Since April everything has been closed.
Various people have come
to ask for the medicines
because we have a radio station and
we use it to communicate with everyone.
So they come here from
where they heard about it
to take the medicine that
I have here by the river
to prevent this COVID disease.
A lot of people came already.
Even police officers
come to take medicines.
They stop here and bring their own bottles
because they don't want to get COVID.
I give them medicine,
something warm for the throat.
That's it.
Also, what we have seen
in various places,
is that when it's quiet
and there's no movement
the animals come back
from their habitats into the town.
It has been very quiet,
just like in the old days
when there was nothing here.
Just like in our grandparents' times.
They learned to work, when the Peruvian
Corporation planted its crops here.
They planted a lot of coffee
and my fellow men worked like slaves.
There was a traditional way of life
until the Peruvian
Corporation entered the area.
Then it ended and nobody worked at
the forge and the young men were alone.
When I was ten years old, I saw
my dad working for the Corporation.
Every three months they called him in,
called him in, called him in, like that.
They wouldn't let him work.
There is a farm here, there
is always yuca, pituca, corn.
When I was twenty years
old, I started working.
Cleaning and cutting.
First cut, clean, wipe the coffee,
and after, remove the
weeds that grow on the coffee
to clean it.
But they controlled us.
When you rested they
would say, "Come on, work!"
"Why are you sitting there?"
We have suffered greatly.
If you do not obey.
If you do not do your job
the foreman has to punish you.
There was... what do you call it?
A leather belt.
They punished you with it.
I was punished. They
punished me many times.
There were rumours that certain people,
"gringos"...
the majority of the Ashninka
call them that, "gringos"
came to deliver a message of hope.
This message made the brothers aware
that they had to be united,
but also obedient in every field.
That mission, or that idea,
was brought here by Seor Fernando Stahl.
They called out all fellow
men from downriver.
A lot of people gathered here.
The one who brought the word, a white
person, one of your people, was called
Pastor Stahl.
He brought the word here. That's why we
have religion here and know how to read.
He said, "Now we will have a school"
to teach the Ashninka.
When he lived here, the
old god was abandoned.
They no longer worshipped the stone,
the fire. They abandoned them.
There was another god they called Pachaka.
Pachakama, who was also worshipped
by my fellow men in the past.
They saw the pastor and said,
"This is the true god, he has arrived!"
They came, they all came,
saw him, and settled in Metraro.
The pastor made them
construct a mission in Metraro.
She says they started to believe the
pastor and abandoned their own beliefs.
They stop believing,
and they believed him.
He told them the stone and the fire did
not listen to them, nothing, and nothing...
Me, I am god, I am god, now
you have god, now you will follow me.
And they all believed
him. All, all, many of them.
They built a church,
and they all prayed there.
That is what she believes.
Perene said to me...
"Come back again, come back again."
Perene said to me...
"Come back again, come back again."
I said to her...
"I will never come back."
"I will grow used to my own village."
Perene said to me...
"Come back again, come
back again, come back again."
I said to her, "I will never come back."
"As I will grow used to my own village."
"I will go upriver in
sadness, in sadness."
"I will go back to my village,
I will go back to my village."
You said to me, "You will be sad when
you get to your village, to your village."