William Palchukán

My name is William Palchukán, and I am a Pastos indigenous with a great ancestral legacy from the Kamëntsá, Inga, and Quillacinga ancestral traditions. I was born in the Amazon Piedmont, in the Sibundoy Valley, in 1972. I am knowledgeable about traditional medicines and I dedicate myself to studying the native instruments of our original peoples. I collect music and life from the wind, the ancestral legacy of our Indians and shamans. I have participated in national and international events, and I am a builder of Andean aerophone instruments. All the wind instruments used by the Palchukán and Grupo Putumayo formats are the result of my research and work.

Ftëmay, pronounced Butmay, means drinking or a place where water is drunk. It refers to the source of the Putumayo River in the ancestral territory of Valle de Sibundoy, Putumayo, southern Colombia. The Inga, Kamëntsá, and Pastos peoples obtained their vital liquid from there. From this word comes the name “Putumayo”.

I co-founded Grupo Putumayo with my brother Jairo Palchukán in 1985 thanks to our desire to perpetuate indigenous melodies from the Amazon through ancestral instruments, part of the cultural legacy received in ritual ceremonies, traditional festivals, and from the same craftsmanship of their communities.

Our sound works are a continuous offering to Mother Earth, from whom the group has received the seeds, wood, and reeds with which our music is materialised. In this way, we have been reaffirming our deep respect for indigenous botanical, linguistic, and craft knowledge in different settings in America and Europe for more than three decades of our artistic career.