Traditional School Of Huni Kuin People of Igarape Do Caucho, Rio Muru, Acre Brasil

Intro

Credit: Guilherme Meneghelli — FlorestaTV

Background

With the colonization by the Syringalists in 1930, the indigenous Huni Kuin communities suffered the loss of their traditional knowledge, practices, and fundamentals due to the prohibition of for example speaking their mother tongue and practicing their ceremonies.                        

After the demarcation of the indigenous land in 1985, Igarapé do Caucho began the struggle to recover indigenous rights and customs. Since that year Igarapé do Caucho has had a public school, but so far it is the first time in the history of the Caucho that a traditional school is being built. 

                       

Since 2004, analyzing and reflecting on the real cultural situation of our people despite the fact that it is a land that is very close to the municipality, and contact with non-Indians is very extensive. 

                       

From that date, the community, through our Cacique Chief Ninawa Naço, made a decision not to let our mother tongue disappear. We created a cultural meeting bringing together young people, women, men from the villages and groups to participate in the festivity that lasted three days, with performances of dances, singing, body painting, history, games, and our traditional medicines and the presence of our elders' medicine women and men. 

                       

In 2019, the first Huni kuĩ Cultural and Spiritual Experience was implemented and named, which aims to bring together the families of the villages and groups, especially the youth and elders. In the beginning, we did it in a very simple space, and now the traditional school will be the right space to continue this event yearly celebrating our culture and traditions of the Huni Kuin people. 

                       

Since 2020, public school classes have stopped and the community has recognized the importance of strengthening its indigenous education and not depending on the public education system to develop. We are looking into bringing the traditional school into proper existence, in building all info structures needed as well as the internal organization of teachers and spaces. 

Credit: Guilherme Meneghelli — FlorestaTV

First phase :  

• The renovation of the central Shubua space, some of the existing infrastructure will be renovated and several new buildings constructed, like bathrooms and housing, containing the main space for cultural practices, meetings and seminars, providing a research center, a traditional library, and a living museum, among other things workshop space for women & men's cooperative to gather and practice and study medicinal plants and traditional crafts                                

Second Phase : 

                               

The traditional school is made up of these villages and groups, so each is a need of:

• a sacred Maloca that are called Shubuã where the community comes together to learn 
• the native language, dances and cultural activities,
• the planting and maintenance of medicines in the shunuã parks (samauma tree parks, the native living pharmacies), this includes documentation to create material, books, and archives 

                               

Third Phase : 

• the building of the sacred village “Paje pae Nawa”, for deeper studies and diets, where medicine men and women will receive their teaching and preparation..                                

Credit: Jorge Zavala & Sarahi Carillo - @cocozvala

Justification: 

We see the importance of bringing the traditional school alive to strengthen the traditional knowledge of all our families in the Igarapé do Caucho Indigenous Land.

Giving an opportunity to those who are seeking the ancestral knowledge of our Huni Kuin people to teach our young people the native mother tongue language, the traditional cuisine of healthy, food preparation, to study our traditional & sacred medicines and their right use and to become “Txanas” messengers of the forest, talented musicians and artisans, by knowing sacred body painting, dances of the different activities our culture celebrates throughout the year, learning well the history through the storytelling of the elders that passed in from generations to generations.                                

So our mission is to defend and pursue our rights in the areas of health, education, housing, food security, the environment, and culture. 

                               

Goal & potential Result: