Yawanawa

In about fifty years, the Yawanawa went from absolute invisibility to cultural exuberance. In 1970, the community had only 120 members and was going through a serious episode: a very high rate of alcoholism, linked to the breakdown of social ties, the evangelical mission had imposed Christian worship and the abandonment of their traditional indigenous rites. In the early 1990s, the new leader Biraci Brasil Yawanawa quickly expelled the religious mission, eliminated the Bibles, reestablished the teaching of the traditional language, of the Pano linguistic family, and began to encourage the study of myths and stories of the past in order to reconnect new generations to the knowledge and memory of the elders. The Yawanawa have become living proof that Indian peoples, by controlling their lands, can make traditional culture and entrepreneurship coexist. While working to reconnect with traditional rituals and ancestral language, they are connected to the contemporary world by smartphones and computers, thanks to Wi-Fi antennas installed in the villages. One of the most remarkable aspects of these ancient traditions is the feather art: the Yawanawa create some of the most elegant feather works in the entire Amazon, most often made from white eagle feathers, a sacred animal for them.