In early August this summer I received an invitation to join a group of activists, foundation representatives and academics to visit the Huni Kui people (population of about 16,450 people) in the Brazilian state of Acre, Amazon region. The invitation came from the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF) collective whom I have known since 2020, when I donated some funds to the Huni Kui people so that they in turn could purchase an ancestral piece of land that was threatened by occupation from local ranchers. The trip was the culmination of years of work by the collective bringing together key collaborators and working in partnership / collaboration with Indigenous peoples first and foremost Chief Ninawa Huni Kui (Chief of the Huni Kui Indigenous people and the elected president of the Huni Kui Federation of the State of Acre), who was our host during the trip. I was proud to be invited to this journey and confirmed my participation with excitement.
In early October the moment had finally arrived. I boarded my plane from Munich to Lisbon and then to Brasilia where I had a 5 hour layover, which allowed me to do a sightseeing tour of the main attractions. In many ways, Brasilia is the antithesis to an Indigenous village. It is a testament to man’s quest for domination over nature (and on a side note, quite frankly a city with terrible bike infrastructure) and reminded me a bit of a ghost town. When I arrived in the evening at my final airport, Rio Branco, I was picked up by the lovely Dino Siwek, who together with his partner Camilla Cardoso form an integral part of the GTDF collective. Directly from the airport, Dino and I drove to Huni Kui Youth and Women Gathering for which the collective had provided funds and helped with the organization. It was the first time since the pandemic that the Huni Kui had organized such a large gathering. There we witnessed some beautiful live music by the Huni Kui and dance performances. I also met some other people from our travel group for the first time.
The next day we traveled about 6 hours by car to the provincial city of Fejó from where we took a large boat to travel to an “aldeia” (Indigenous village) called Mâe Txanayá (Hêne Bariá Namakiá territory) . Because of the high temperatures, the water levels in the river were very low and killing droves of Amazon river dolphins, which I only found out after the trip. Suddenly the effects of climate change (for which of course the global North is chiefly responsible) became very real. Also deforestation is rampant along the rivers of the Amazon, adding to the already low water temperatures. The low water levels slowed down our trip and we were forced to sleep the first night on the boat in our hammocks. During the night fireflies showed up, making me feel like I was in a Studio Ghibli movie (probably Princess Mononoke). Our quest to reach the aldeia had begun.
View of the “hive”. We used every square centimeter for our hammocks!
Shortly before we arrived at the aldeia the next day, our guide Chief Ninawa shot several small fireworks into the air to let the his aldeia know we were arriving. When we finally did arrive we received a welcome second to none. All the villagers had come to greet us. When we descended from the boat, the children and the women took everyone by the hand. We formed a large line and walked a long way together until we finally reached the center of the aldeia and danced into the “Xubuã”, the sacred village hall where the community gathers for discussions, ceremonies, singing and much more. During the opening ceremony each member of the aldeia (including of course the shaman, the so-called Pajé) and our visiting group introduced themselves. That evening a large pig was slaughtered and cooked, symbolizing the importance of the event for the community. We ate in the communal kitchen, but mostly sitting on the ground, as we did in the following days. In the Huni Kui culture, the guests receive their food before the village community, hence being too late might have delayed the dinner of the entire community. Our group slept in the village school that had to close for 4 days because of our visit. We slept amidst paintings of kids and drawing boards. My hammock was right next to a window so I had a beautiful view of the forest but was also closest to the rooster who would tyrannize me all of the following nights.
Our home for three nights. The school of the aldeia.
The next day, most of our group went on a six hour hike to visit the piece of ancestral land that was purchased in 2020. The trek was one of the most intense of my life, mainly because of the heat (about 31 degrees celsius). During the hike, we witnessed a deadly mix of climate change and deforestation. When we were walking on the open pasture (where we saw hundreds and hundreds of cows) the sun was literally hammering down on us. When we were underneath the canopy of the rainforest, the temperatures dropped significantly (which scientific studies have proven). Eventually, with the help of the Indigenous plant medicine from the forest that was administered to us we made it to the land where we sat in a large circle. Chief Ninawa began talking about the importance of this land for his people. His cousin, who was present while he spoke, was born on this land and he is very relieved and happy that this land could be saved by literal land grabbing by rogue cattle ranchers. As you can see in this video, for the Huni Kui, their territory means life itself to them.
On the way to the purchased land plot.
Until this trip, it had never dawned on me how important Indigenous people are for protecting biodiversity (the Amazon rainforest holds 10 percent of the world’s biodiversity). Indeed Indigenous native peoples represent only four percent of the global population but protect 80 percent of the planet's biodiversity. To add to this, the Amazon rainforest is nearing its tipping point where it can turn from an important carbon sink, to a carbon bomb. This is something I saw very clearly when transitioning from pasture to rainforest. The ground on the pasture was becoming dusty, almost like a desert, whereas in the forest the ground was thick, moist and fertile. Similarly the deforestation along to river contributed to the low water level.
During the trek we saw some very large and old trees.
During our trek we also learned how serious the threat from the agribusiness, mining and other extractive industries is. Many Indigenous leaders have been assassinated in the last years. In the case of the Huni Kui territory we visited, there is the case of a cattle rancher who puts animal traps into the territory, which of course is extremely dangerous and potentially lethal. The government of Jair Bolsonaro had emboldened the invaders of the Indigenous lands essentially telling them to “finish the job” of the Portuguese colonizers. Adding to this, was the case of Marco Temporal, an important court case, which can be explained as follows:
“The Marco Temporal is a legal thesis that argues that Indigenous Peoples are only entitled to the demarcation of their traditional lands if they were occupying those lands on October 5, 1988, the date of the publication of Brazil’s Federal Constitution. According to this thesis, lands that were unoccupied or occupied by other people on that date cannot be demarcated as Indigenous lands. These territories can be considered the property of private individuals or of the State, and no longer of the original peoples who inhabit them.”
-Source here (if you want to dig deeper into this topic visit the Last Warning website)
A bit more than one month prior to our arrival, on the 30th of August 2023, Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court ruled that the Marco Temporal is not valid, marking a win for Indigenous people in Brazil many of which had been trying to prove their claims to their ancestral lands in the Brazilian courts. As a result of this new ruling, the Lula government has started expelling non-Indigenous illegal settlers from certain Indigenous territories. But the decision by the supreme court proved to be a Pyrrhic victory, since following the ruling, Brazilian lawmakers recently approved legislation that would make Marco Temporal legal anyway, putting Indigenous lands and communities at risk again. It is now up to president Lula to veto this bill by the congress, who is heavily undermined by the agribusiness influence.
The village hall called “Xubuã”
The next day I got myself a (temporary) body painting. Our group also gifted some guitars, ukuleles and other instruments to the community, which were accepted with great joy, as playing music is central in the Huni Kui culture, their spirituality and their political resistance (in the village there is always at least one guitar playing at any given time). In return, our group was given individual jewelry pieces. Chief Ninawa explained how for the Huni Kui reciprocity plays a key role. To underline this further, two people from our group who were from North American Indigenous communities had brought with them beautiful jewelry pieces as gifts. Gifts in all directions, it was beautiful. It weaved a bond between everyone that helped us feel less invasive to their everyday lives and strengthened our responsibility towards not only them but to the amazon forest and Indigenous struggles and fights.
Our exchanging of gifts. Happy to report: the aldeia loved the musical instruments we brought.
During my stay in the aldeia, I met many extraordinary people and witnessed so many fascinating things of which I want to list a few.
1. The Huni Kui diet is very balanced. They eat very little sugar (only in their juices - otherwise no desserts with processed sugars, only fresh fruit) and consume no alcohol and no cigarettes.
2. Furthermore, the kids have no phones and… look so happy!
3. Stress levels are generally very low (were it not for the land invaders).
4. Consequently, people get very old. There was even an old lady that died recently who was supposed to have been older than 120 years! And generally speaking, elders are treated with great respect in the community.
5. The things that you thought you can’t live without are an illusion. You get used to the new reality in the Amazon very quickly! I for my part discovered showering with a bucket is not that bad at all!
6. The amazon has an insane amount of insects. When we were driving with our car for several hours, our windshield was full of insects. Likewise when there was a light turned on at night in the aldeia, the insects would gather around it in droves.
7. Walking in the forest, I have never been so happy and alive in my life. It gave me an intense sense of belonging and purpose filled my body.
8. While walking in the rainforest it also dawned on me that this was one of the very few forests I ever walked in that are definitely untouched by modern-colonial ways of being. Also in the global north we see documentaries about the rainforest and believe that on every second tree there is a deadly snake that will kill us. The truth is the forest (that I saw) is for the most part quite gentle and welcoming (that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful). And taking the Indigenous medicines makes the forest literally be part of you and have your back.
9. To those that may be thinking about visiting Indigenous communities, these visits have to be done with a lot of care - centring relationships built on trust, respect, reciprocity and accountability, as it is very common that folk from the Global North engage in consumptive and extractive relationships with Indigenous communities, seeing them as responsible for their learning, and using the communities to point out their own virtuosity. Furthermore, ideally, you should be invited (directly or indirectly) by the communities. Also, I’m not saying everyone should live in an aldeia but everyone from the Global North should at least have some kind of experience in that direction, ideally for 2-3 weeks. We in the global north (in particular investors, philanthropists, high ranking politicians, everyone with power) need to sit down AND LEARN FROM THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE. They have the millenia-old knowledge of how to live in peace with nature. We have the knowledge of colonizing everything and believing that we can fix all problems with our technocratic Western-capitalist mindset. We need a back to the aldeia movement- a new connection with the earth and the forest.
In short, while being the most physically demanding trip of my life, spiritually this was probably the most rewarding trip of my life. The trip was like a chiropractor performing a vertebral adjustment, finding the affected points in my mind and soul and releasing the pressure making me whole again.
Remains only for me to thank our host Chief Ninawa, the people of the aldeia, the organizers of the trip, the GTDF collective (in particular Dino, Camilla, Azul), my fellow travelers (who had to put up with my weird attitude at times) for this unforgettable experience. I will certainly be back to the Txanaiá aldeia and hopefully to more similar communities.
Something beautiful has been born. Let’s see what grows out of it.
Haux Haux.