Oneida grew up in a small Afro-Colombian village where she learned to sing alabados, sacred chants that guide the dead on their journey to purgatory. As a child, she witnessed the songs’ power to carry grief and hope, but her life soon became marked by tragedy. After losing her leg to a snake bite and enduring the relentless violence of Colombia’s decades-long conflict, Oneida transformed her pain into artistry. She began composing alabados infused with both personal resilience and a collective yearning for peace.
Today, her voice resonates beyond her community, uniting millions in a country scarred by one of the longest wars in history. In Germán Arango Rendón‘s hypnotic documentary Songs that Flood the River, Oneida’s music becomes both a lament and a plea—a call for healing and reconciliation along Colombia’s Pacific coast, where melodies rise like a river, carrying the weight of memory and the hope for a peaceful future.
