JOINT SEPARATE OPINION OF JUDGES A.A. CANÇADO TRINDADE, M. PACHECO GÓMEZ AND A. ABREU BURELLI 1. We, the undersigned Judges, vote in favour of the adoption of the present Judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the merits in the case of the Community Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni versus Nicaragua. Given the importance of the matter raised in the present case, we feel obliged to add the brief reflections that follow, about one of its central aspects, namely, the intertemporal dimension of the communal form of property prevailing among the members of the indigenous communities. 2. At the public hearing held in the headquarters of the Inter-American Court on 16, 17 and 18 November 2000, two members and representatives of the Community Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni pointed out the vital importance of the relationship of the members of the Community with the lands they occupy, not only for their own subsistence, but also for their family, cultural and religious development. Hence their characterization of the territory as sacred, for encompassing not only the members of the Community who are alive,, but also the mortal remains of their ancestors, as well as their divinities. Hence, for example, the great religious significance of the hills, inhabited by those divinities. 3. As one of the members of the Community referred to pointed out in his testimony in the public hearing before the Court, "(...) Cerro Urus Asang is a sacred hill since our ancestors because therein we have buried our grandparents and therefore we call it sacred. Thus, Kiamak is also a sacred hill because there we have (...) the arrows of our grandparents. Then comes Caño Kuru Was, it is an old village. Every name we have mentioned in this framework is sacred.(...)"1. 4. And he then added that "(...) Our grandparents lived in this hill, they then had had as their small animals (...) the monkeys. The utensils of war of our ancestors, our grandparents, were the arrows. There they are stored. (...) We maintain our history, since our grandparents. That is why we have [it] as Sacred Hill. (...) Asangpas Muigeni is spirit of the hill, is of equal form to a human [being], but is a spirit [who] always lives under the hills. (...)"2. 5. As an anthropologist observed in his testimony in the public hearing before the Court, there are two types of sacred places of the members of the Mayagna Community: a) the hills, where the "spirits of the hill" stay, with whom one "ought to have a special relation"; and b) in the frontier zones, the cemeteries, where they bury their dead "within the Community", along the river Wawa, "visited frequently until nowadays by members of the Community", above all when they "go hunting", up to a 1. Testimony of Mr. Charlie Webster Mclean Cornelio, in: Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), Case of the Community Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni - Transcripción de la Audiencia Pública sobre el Fondo Celebrada los Días 16, 17 y 18 de Noviembre de 2000 en la Sede de la Corte, p. 26 (mimeographed, internal circulation). 2. Ibid., pp. 41-43.