{"id":60065457,"date":"2024-12-19T18:57:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T18:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/?post_type=photo_story&p=60065457"},"modified":"2025-10-15T15:02:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:02:45","slug":"the-cure-is-in-the-forest-a-shamans-journey-in-the-brazilian-amazon","status":"publish","type":"photo_story","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/nature\/the-cure-is-in-the-forest-a-shamans-journey-in-the-brazilian-amazon\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The cure is in the forest\u2019: A shaman\u2019s journey in the Brazilian Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In September, Victor Moriyama, a Brazilian photojournalist whose work focuses on environmental issues and the Amazon rainforest, spent five days alongside Xin\u00e3 Yura, a young man undergoing his initiation as a shaman of the Yawanaw\u00e1 Indigenous people. Here, Moriyama shares a diary of this journey and the traditions of the group from their territory in Brazil\u2019s northern state of Acre.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is midday when we set off from the town of S\u00e3o Vicente for the Rio Greg\u00f3rio Indigenous territory, in the northern state of Acre, and deep in the Brazilian Amazon. In a metal canoe powered by a tail motor, I am travelling to the village of Macu\u00e3 with Xin\u00e3 Yura, a young Yawanaw\u00e1 Indigenous man, and his wife \u00c9rica Txiv\u00e3 Roni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scenery is apocalyptic: during the five-hour journey, we travel up the Rio Greg\u00f3rio that gives this territory its name, encircled by thick smoke. It is September \u2013 the dry season \u2013 which this year exacerbated<\/a> the fires around us by drastically lowering the level of the waterways in Earth\u2019s largest rainforest. Only a foot of water separates the hull of our boat from the riverbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we arrive at Macu\u00e3, the smoke hovers in the distance. Established three years ago, the village is comprised of a trio of wooden houses. At the back, banana and cassava plantations provide subsistence, while an artesian water well is about to be built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"woman<\/div>
A woman carries bananas and cassava, the main sources of sustenance of the Macu\u00e3 community, in Brazil\u2019s northern state of Acre, located in the Amazon rainforest. The village, consisting of just three wooden houses, a few solar panels and small plots for food crops, is where Xin\u00e3 Yura, a 33-year-old man from the Yawanaw\u00e1 Indigenous territory, will undergo his initiation as a shaman (Image: Victor Moriyama \/ Dialogue Earth)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"indigenous<\/div>
Xin\u00e3 Yura stands at the base of a kapok tree, sacred to the Yawanaw\u00e1 and Noke Kuin peoples of Acre, as he prepares to become a spiritual leader and healer \u2013 a shaman guardian of ancient traditions, also responsible for the preservation of the forest (Image: Victor Moriyama \/ Dialogue Earth)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Although remote, the village already has solar panels and an antenna for internet access via satellite, like many other Amazonian communities<\/a> beginning to adopt these technologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xin\u00e3, \u00c9rica and I tied our hammocks under a thatched gazebo near a stream and an imposing kapok tree. These trees are sacred to the Yawanaw\u00e1 and Noke Kuin peoples who inhabit this territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, 33-year-old Xin\u00e3 was to undergo an important ritual to become a spiritual leader and Indigenous healer \u2013 a shaman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shamans are guardians of ancient Indigenous traditions. They are also intrinsically linked to the preservation of the forest, through their use of medicinal herbs and their connection with its spirits. Living between this territory and the city of S\u00e3o Paulo, Xin\u00e3 sees the ritual as a return to his ancestral origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"8<\/div>
Upper row, left to right: reflections on the Greg\u00f3rio river; cassava to be boiled for kaissuma<\/em>, a porridge used for spiritual cleansing; medicinal herbs for Xin\u00e3\u2019s cleansing bath; oni<\/em> (ayahuasca) vine. Lower row, left to right: straws of buriti<\/em>, or moriche palm, used as protection and to invoke vin\u00f6 ron\u00f6<\/em>, <\/em>a sacred anaconda; copaiba sap used as medicinal oil; sparks from a campfire; more buriti<\/em> straws (Images: Victor Moriyama \/ Dialogue Earth)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A history of violence and exploitation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Xin\u00e3 was born in the Rio Greg\u00f3rio Indigenous territory in 1991, the same year it was demarcated<\/a> by the federal government. This moment marked a turning point in the destiny of the Yawanaw\u00e1 and Noke Kuin peoples, who had suffered from the impacts of extractive industries, infrastructure works and religious intolerance for decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1970s, Xin\u00e3\u2019s parents and many of his other relatives worked in semi-slavery<\/a> to extract latex from rubber trees, native to the Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cXin\u00e3\u2019s father started working in the rubber plantation when he was 12 years old,\u201d says Xin\u00e3\u2019s mother, Shaneini, as she prepares a breakfast of green bananas and eggs. \u201cHe would leave at two in the morning with his lamp and return at four in the afternoon.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latex pieces were dried at the family\u2019s home and exchanged for goods such as oil, coffee, salt, sugar and soap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Xin\u00e3<\/div>
Xin\u00e3 (left) and his paternal grandmother Yskuruni Yawanaw\u00e1. In the 1970s, Xin\u00e3\u2019s parents and other relatives in the Yawanaw\u00e1 Indigenous territory worked in semi-slavery to extract latex from rubber trees, in exchange for basic goods (Image: Victor Moriyama \/ Dialogue Earth)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Amazonian rubber industry, which emerged<\/a> around 1880, peaked during the following three decades as it supplied the growing North American car industry as the Industrial Revolution continued. Facing persecution and disease \u2013 introduced by rubber tappers from beyond the territory \u2013 the Noke Kuin and Yawanaw\u00e1 joined forces<\/a> during this period to guarantee escape routes and survive attacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1970s, Brazil\u2019s military government employed<\/a> Indigenous labour to build the Acre stretch of the BR-364 motorway. In return, the Noke Kuin received a piece of land on the banks of the road, which led to the formation<\/a> of another Indigenous territory.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the BR-364 links Acre\u2019s state capital, Rio Branco, to Cruzeiro do Sul, more than 600 kilometres to the north. Like other highways opened during the military dictatorship, the road was intended to boost the industrialisation of the Amazonian states<\/a>. However, it led to intense deforestation, and defined a logic of colonising and occupying the rainforest that persists to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tarmac on the road had barely dried when evangelical missionaries from the New Tribes of Brazil Mission (MNTB) settled<\/a> in Yawanaw\u00e1 and Noke Kuin villages. The Indigenous people complained that MNTB representatives banned the local language and demonised the shamanic practices that these peoples had preserved for centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this period in the region, forest medicine \u2013 based on the trio of oni <\/em>(ayahuasca; a drink made from an Amazonian vine), kapum <\/em>(poison from the kamb\u00f4 frog) and rome <\/em>(snuff; a powder made from medicinal plants and tobacco) \u2013 fell out of practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"8<\/div>
Upper row, left to right: A shaman\u2019s cup for drinking oni<\/em>; a rome<\/em> (snuff) pot for storing medicinal plants and tobacco; a tepi<\/em> horn made with armadillo tail, used to blow rome<\/em>; xumu<\/em>, a sacred clay pot used for herbal medicine. Lower row, left to right: a pot of concentrated oni<\/em> gel; a kuripe<\/em>, made of paca rib, also used to blow rome<\/em>; a bottle containing oni<\/em> drink; a jar of annatto, worn as body paint (Images: Victor Moriyama \/ Dialogue Earth)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe people stopped taking forest medicine,\u201d says Shaneini. \u201cWhen we got sick, they wouldn\u2019t give us medicine until we asked for it in Portuguese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the missionary occupation, elders say the transformation of local life was overwhelming. The conversion to the evangelical faith in the villages was concerted \u2013 even today, the elders keep bibles and rosaries \u2013 and traditional cultural, food and spiritual habits came close to extinction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When contacted by Dialogue Earth, the MNTB vehemently denied \u201cany accusation of ethnocide\u201d. The mission also said it respects the culture, free will and self-determination of the peoples who receive them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Xin\u00e3 says this violent process only took another turn due to internal resistance. During the 1980s, one of the region\u2019s foremost leaders, the chief Nixiwaka Yawanaw\u00e1, went to study in urban areas and returned with ideas of his people\u2019s emancipation. With the support<\/a> of the now-defunct Pro-Indian Commission, the MNTB was expelled at the end of the decade and the land demarcated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n