WHO WE WORK WITH
HUNI KUIN - THE TRUE PEOPLE
The Huni Kuin people, or “true people,” as they call themselves, live mostly in the Brazilian Amazon Basin, but their lands extend to the foot of the Andes in eastern Peru. The Huni Kuin are the largest indigenous population in the Brazilian state of Acre, currently living on twelve Indigenous reservations along seven different rivers: Purus, Envira, Murú, Humaitá, Tarauacá, Breu and Jordão.
They had relatively late contact with the Western world, and despite decades of persecution during the rubber extraction years, they managed to maintain their traditional ways. The native language is “hatxa kuin” (true language), but today they live in a bilingual reality in which most of the Huni Kuin communicate in Portuguese as well. They continue to practice their sacred rituals and “pajelanças” (healing sessions) with their plant medicines, perform traditional baptisms of their children and celebrate the “katxanawa” (fertility rituals). The traditional medicines of the Huni Kuin are of immense importance to their worldview, and the collective use of ayahuasca (“Nixi Pae”) has a prominent place in their spiritual practice.
Today Huni Kuin spirituality echoes throughout the world. This movement began just over a decade ago, with the arrival of three young Huni Kuin leaders in Rio de Janeiro, to conduct ceremonies outside their villages for the first time. Nowadays, many Huni Kuin spiritual leaders travel regularly through the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.
There have been numerous exhibitions on this rich culture in some of the major museums in the world, as well as award-winning films and books. These messengers of the forest have an important and positive message that suggests a new era, a time of reconciliation between mankind and Mother Nature.
“I HAVE BEEN TRANSFORMED”
PAJÉ AGOSTINHO IKA MURU
WHO WE WORK WITH
YAWANAWA - WILD BOAR PEOPLE
Since time immemorial, the Yawanawa people have lived on the banks of the Gregorio river, in the Amazon rainforest, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. In this rich habitat, their ancestors developed a vast knowledge of the medicinal plants of the forest, as well as a deep spiritual wisdom. Contact with the western world occurred little more than a hundred years ago, under violent circumstances, initially through enslavement to the rubber industry, and later through the domination of foreign protestant missionaries who forbid their traditional culture and spirituality. At the end of the last century, the Yawanawa regained the rights to their lands and sent away the missionaries. Since then, they have been leading their own process of cultural and spiritual revival, which has crossed national boundaries and today enchants the world.
Fundamental in this process, the Yawa Festival has been held every year since 2001. Initially designed to reclaim and strengthen their traditional culture, the festival quickly attracted worldwide attention, representing an important milestone in the revival of ancestral Amazonian cultures, serving as an example other Brazilian tribes would later follow.
The traditional village where the first contact with western man ocurred, is nowadays a space dedicated exclusively to Yawanawa spirituality. Known as the Sacred Village, it houses the ancient burial grounds of their ancestors, a garden with more than 2,700 varieties of medicinal plants, as well as serving as the principal venue for the formation of spiritual leaders by strict (plant) diets and isolation in silence.
Today, messengers of Yawanawa spirituality perform regular ceremonies in many cities around Brazil and the world, sharing the magic of the forest through their ancestral medicines and exceptional musicality. The group of Guardians from Rio de Janeiro have the honor to serve as an important link in the network between these people and the world.