Mother. Mountain’s guardian with ancient force, pure heart, and magical voice.
Medicine woman. Guardian and musician of sacred ceremony space.
My name is Waxy Yawanawá, together with my sisters Hushahu and Putanny, I am one of the very few women who completed the sacred one-year muká diet. We became the first-ever female pajés (shamans) of the Yawanawá indigenous people. My father, cacique Raimundo Luiz (Tuíkuru), authorised us, and we carried out the diet in the village Mutum, with the teachings of the legendary eldest pajé Tatá Yawanawá and the support of his other sisters.
For us, the muká diet is the most important initiation in the process of acquiring shamanic power and knowledge. For one year, I was isolated in the spiritual centre of my brother Matsini Luiz Yawanawá, the spiritual leader and chief of Aldeia Mutum. The initiation involves the parallel processes of ingesting sacred plants, the memorisation of knowledge (songs, prayers, use of sacred plants), and periods of seclusion.
I entered the spiritual path in 2009, and in 2017, I opened my own study centre at Mawa Yuxyn –the spirit of the mountain in the Yawanawá language. This jungle mountain is one of the most sacred places for the Yawanawá people, the indigenous territory of Rio Gregório in Acre.
I am the guardian of Mawa Yuxyn. Together, with my two daughters, Hukê Netê and Sanã Yawanawá, we receive people from all over the world, healing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual ailments, and opening life paths amongst other spiritual practices. A place known to be home to the spirits of children, women, and men whom people passing by with boats would hear laugh, cry, and talk, but when entering the jungle mountain, no one was ever found to be there.
We work with the ancestral medicines of the forest: uni (Ayahuasca), rumê (Rapé), kapum (Kambó), sananga and sepá. I also prepare the Yawanawá Força Feminina rapé. This traditional dried tobacco and tree ashes powder is prepared with the ashes from the Tsunu bark. The Tsunu is a long and majestic tree and is considered one of the most sacred of the Yawanawá people. It is a very special rapé since it is a medicine that represents a female conquest of Yawanawá women within our spirituality.
“Yawanawá” means “the people of the wild boar”. They are an indigenous community of around 1,500 people who live in nine villages along the Gregório River in the state of Acre, deep in the Brazilian Amazon. Unlike other Amazonian groups scattered across different locations, Yawanawá people are unique because they all live in the same territory and speak the same language. They call themselves “wild boar people” because, as a people, they are always together. They are a pack when they hunt and in life in general.
Their living is still based mainly on hunting and fishing. In the dry season, fishing trips are organised in which almost the whole community participates and transform into important social events –“food festivals”, as the Yawanawá describe them. They use various plant poisons, which, once put in the water, cause the fish to rise to the surface, making their capture easier. During the rainy season, when large animals leave clear tracks, hunting becomes one of the primary alimentation sources.
According to the Brazilian Socio-Environmental Institute, the essential foods obtained from the swiddens are yuca, corn and banana. Other produce is also cultivated through agroforest culture activities, such as rice, sweet potato, papaya, pineapple and sugarcane.
Their social organisation is based on matrilocal residency (matrilocality), a strong family structure that holds together the villages’ economies and socially supports all its members. Their traditional buildings are circular and made of wood and straw. They have no separation, and the fire is placed in the middle.
In the 16th century, the Yawanawá’s first contact with Western Society took place under the leadership of their ancestor Antonio Luís Pekuti. It was a period marked by atrocities against their people, including enslavement by rubber barons.
They only had regular contact with other Brazilians two generations ago when rubber farmers ventured north searching for land and free labour. They survived for centuries by working in plantations. When the price of rubber tanked in the mid-20th century, they started to commercialise annatto, a spiky fruit with seeds that produce red dye used in lipstick, eyeshadows and bronzers.
In the 1980s, cacique (chief) Biraci Nixiwaka Brazil led his people in the fight to recognise their native territories, and the Yawanawá became the first indigenous people to obtain the official rights to their lands in the state of Acre.
In 2006, the Yawanawá became the first tribe to consecrate a female shaman, Hushahu Yawanawá. Their leader, Raimundo Luiz (Tuíkuru), authorised it, supported by the legendary eldest pajé Tatá Yawanawá.
Although today, the most known aspect of Yawanawá shamanism is healing, in the past, the pajé’s (shaman) functions were more varied and touched upon other aspects of culture, such as warfare and hunting. The traditional healing rituals are the “uni”, their most sacred drink, most commonly known as Ayahuasca and “rumê” (Rapé), a traditional way to use tobacco mixed with ashes from the bark of the Tsunu tree.
Other relevant Yawanawá medicines are kapum (kambó), shared in traditional rituals and ceremonies of spiritual purification, regeneration, body cleansing, and healing; Sananga, made from the bark of the root of Tabernaemontana genus and used to open the third eye and inner vision and illuminate subconscious mind patterns; and Sepá, an incense made with the sap of a tree used to protect and clear the space from negative energies, usually in ceremonies.
One of the most arresting features of Yawanawá art is the diversity of body paint designs, or kênes, extensively used in the Mariri festival. The most commonly used dyes are urucum (annatto), a red pigment made from the seeds of the Bixa orellana plant, and genipapo, which produces a dark blue or black pigment. Both are derived from protecting seeds and are sometimes combined with a fragrant resin to help fix the dyes to the skin.
Yawanawás are specialists in the technique of arts and crafts, chanting, and the art of playing music, translating traditional stories into a modern interpretation. Their songs tell stories of connection to the land, reverence for the spirits, and the resilience of Indigenous communities in the face of contemporary challenges. Their music is usually composed of voice, guitars and drums.