WHO WE WORK WITH

PEOPLE OF THE COMPLAIN - YAWANAWA

Since time immemorial, the Yawanawa people have lived in harmony with nature, on the banks of the Gregório River, in the Amazon region that concentrates the greatest biodiversity on the planet. In this rich habitat, their ancestors developed a vast knowledge of the forest's healing plants and a cosmovision of great spiritual wisdom.

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Contact with western man was made a little over a hundred years ago and it took place in a very violent way, initially due to slavery practiced by the rubber barons and later due to the domination of foreign Protestant missionaries who prevented them from living their culture and spirituality. At the end of the last century, the Yawanawa regained the right to their lands and expelled the missionaries. Since then, they have been leading a process of cultural and spiritual rebirth that crossed national borders and today enchants the world.

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The main element in this process, the Yawa Festival takes place annually since 2001. Initially designed to rescue and strengthen traditional culture, it quickly attracted the attention of the entire world and represented a strong milestone in the rebirth of Amazonian ancestral cultures, serving as an example for many other indigenous peoples followed the same path.

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The traditional village where the contact took place is today a space dedicated exclusively to spirituality. Named Aldeia Sagrada, the place houses the cemetery with his ancestors, a garden with more than 2,700 varieties of medicinal plants and where the training of spiritual leaders takes place through isolation diets.

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Messengers of Yawanawa spirituality currently perform ceremonies in several capitals in Brazil and abroad, taking a little of the magic of this enchanted people through their ancestral medicines and their exceptional musicality. The group of Guardians of Rio de Janeiro is honored to serve as an important link in this people's network of connections with the world.