The film presents the research developed by professor-researcher Ibã Sales of the Huni Kuin people around the Huni Meka, as the songs of the vine (ayahuasca) are known. The emergence of the Huni Kuin Artists’ Movement — MAHKU is witnessed at the 1st Huni Kuin Artists-Designers Meeting of the Jordan River (2011) and the preparation of the collective for participation in the exhibition Histoires de Voir in 2012 at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, France.

Direction and editing: Amilton Pelegrino de Mattos
Search and execution of corners: Ibã Sales Huni Kuin
Visual art: Mahku — Huni Kuin Artists Movement
Production: LABI — Forest (UFAC-Floresta)
Year: 2012
Duration: 43 min.

Musician of the Fulkaxó people, Wakay was born in the village Kariri-Xocó (Alagoas) and was raised in the village Fulni-Ô (PE) and has been the leader of the Thá-Fene Indigenous Reserve in Lauro de Freitas (BA) for 20 years.

With 21 years of artistic career, Wakay had the first CD, Caminho de Todos, recorded at WR studio, under the musical direction of the guitarist, singer and songwriter Luciano Bahia. Wakay Nativo is the show that gives name to Wakay’s second CD, recorded in London, in July 2015, whose main objective is to bring indigenous culture closer to contemporary societies.

Wakay performed in Germany, Italy, England. It brings with it the mission of disseminating the traditions of the first inhabitants of Brazilian lands. To maintain ties with their ancestral culture, Wakay and his people who reside in the Thá-Fene reserve, always return to their original villages, especially during periods of seclusion in the sacred territory. In order to invest in the dissemination and appreciation of indigenous culture, and as a way to contribute to the sustainability of the space they inhabit, indigenous people who hold workshops in schools, receive groups of visitors, make native cultural presentations and sell the handicrafts they produce.

Participants: Ibã Sales (Huni Kuin-ac), Kássia Borges (Karajá), Wakay (Fulkaxó-PE) and Anna Dantes (Wild)

Mediation: Magda Pucci

Music as a spiritual practice that reveals invisible worlds. The learning of specific songs and instruments to create dialogues with beings and spiritual entities that generate healing, through the relationship with plants, songs and mirations in the healing process.

Ibã Sales

Ibã Sales (Ibã) is Huni Kuin, a resident of the Xiku Kurumim village, T. I. Kaxinawá on the Jordan River. Ibã is a Txana, the leader of chants in the tradition of the Huni Kuin people. He became a professor in the 80s and joined the university in 2008, where he created the Spirit of the Forest Project. He is a professor-researcher (CPI/AC) and is currently pursuing his honorary doctorate from the Federal University of the South of Bahia. He is the founder of the group MAHKU – Huni Kuin Artists Movement, which has held several exhibitions in Brazil and around the world.

Kássia Borges

Kássia Borges from the Karajá ethnic group (Iny) is a visual artist, curator and teacher. She has a degree in Art Education – Fine Arts from UFU (1987), a master’s degree in Visual Arts in the area of visual poetics UFRGS. (2003), with the title; Origin: a principle to be founded; and a PhD in Environmental Sciences and Sustainability in the Amazon from UFAM (AM) with the thesis: Women ceramists from Mocambo: the art of living on environmental artifacts. It mainly researches origin, femininity and ancestry in the areas: ceramics, photography, design, installation, mixed media, sculpture and video.

Today she is a professor of three-dimensional and ceramics at the Federal University of Uberlândia MG.

In 2007, from May to October, he held two artistic residencies in France, where he also held two exhibitions and one curator, in addition to releasing an art book in French in that country. He has participated in salons and exhibitions such as the SARP Hall- Ribeirão Preto – São Paulo, the Porto Alegre City Hall -Porto Alegre – RS, the Victor Meireles Hall- Florianópolis – SC, the CELG Hall Award, Goiânia – GO, CCBB São Paulo, CCBB Rio, São Paulo, Brasília and Belo Horizonte. His works are in some collections, such as the Goiânia Museum of Contemporary Art, Goiás Department of Culture, Goiânia – GO, City of Luneburg – Germany, La Fraternelle – Saint Cloud – France. He has curated in Brazil and abroad.

Anna Dantes

It works by extending the editing experience to other formats — laboratories, workshops, magazines, curators, exhibitions, fashion collections, study cycles and films. Since 1994, she has created, carried out, and collaborated with projects for the transmission of knowledge and memory. Ten years ago, together with the Huni Kuin people in Acre, she carried out the project Una Shubu Hiwea, the Living School Book with partners such as the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden and Itaú Cultural, and two books have been published, including Una Isi Kayawa, winner of the Jabuti Prize in Natural Science. He is currently also dedicated to the Wild, a cycle of studies on life, conversation circles and the publication of books that deal with the correspondence between scientific, artistic, and traditional knowledge. He directs Dantes Editora.

Magda Pucci
Musician (arranger, composer and singer) and independent researcher of world music and Brazilian indigenous cultures. Graduated in Music from USP, a master’s degree in Anthropology from PUC-SP and a PhD in Artistic Research from the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. She is the musical director and founder of Mawaca, a music group based in São Paulo that researches and performs music in more than 20 languages and has received several awards in the area of music.
He worked on musical projects in collaboration with Brazilian indigenous communities such as Kayapó, Guarani Kaiowá, Huni-Kuin, Paiter Suruí and others, in addition to social projects with children and refugees. Magda Pucci’s experience with indigenous topics deepened when she completed her master’s degree in Anthropology, when she developed research on the oral art of Paiter Suruí from Rondônia. Since 2005, she has been developing projects to promote indigenous cultures since the publication of books, as well as shows and exchanges between indigenous and non-indigenous people, such as the CD and DVD Rupestre Sonoros — The Song of the Forest Peoples, with recreations of music by the Kayapó, Paiter-Suruí, Ikolen-Gavião, Tupari, Huni-Kuin peoples, and others. In 2011, he held musical exchanges in the Amazon with Mawaca with musicians Ikolen-Gavião, Paiter Suruí, Kambeba, Huni Kuin, Karitiana and the Bayaroá Community. In 2019, Mekaron performed the image of the soul — a meeting between Mawaca and the Kayapó.