To support the empowerment of the Yawanawa and their mission please visit www.guananshe.org and www.indigenouscelebration.org
Photo gallery from XI Yawanawa Festival.
During the yearly festival, deep in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, the Yawanawa open their doors to foreign visitors and gather for five days in celebration of their freedom; to sing to the spirit and cultural ancestry of their people.
Theirs is a story of great sorrow, but also of resistance, empowerment and of a cultural renaissance that shines bright above the threats their people have faced by colonization, evangelism and the modern world.
For days and nights the Yawanawa dance and sing, recalling the ways of their elders and partaking in their once forbid plant medicine rituals. They gather around the fire to call upon the wisdom of their elders, of Uni/Ayahuasca, their most sacred plant medicine, and of Rume snuff made of tobacco and ashes collected from the bark of the Tsunu trees.
