This documentary shows the songs that echo the Guajajara Tentehar culture in the Araribóia Indigenous Land, a region of renowned fame for being the territory of valuable singers. These are generations that perpetuate ancestral singing, cheering their Mayra in the rituals of Moqueado (Wyra’o haw), Allowances and Festivities of Honey (Zemuishi o haw). In the last decade the Guajajara people lost their greatest singers, the Tumui Vicente of the village Araribóia, Chicão da Lagoa Comprida and Abrahão do Juçaral. Singers regarded as great masters who have passed to their disciples the knowledge of tradition. The main representatives of this new generation of singers were interviewed for this documentary. Also noteworthy is the initiative of the indigenous leaders who created the Tentehar Tukán Knowledge Center, to be another space for youth to keep their singing alive and to make the sound of the Maracá who carry the voice of the spirits be heard.
This documentary is a valuable record of the cultural resistance narratives of the guardians of the singer Guajajara Tentehar, in the Caru territory, in the Amazon of Maranhão, who also establish a special relationship with their relatives of the Tembé Tentehar people, coming from the neighboring State of Pará. It is the old guard of singers who packed for many summers the “Rituals of Moqueado” on the moonlit nights of the villages bathed by the Pindaré River. They evoke in their corners the ancestry linked to the forest, inheriting singings taken in honor of the beings that inhabit the forests, rivers and the sky. These singers want to pass the maracá to the new generations, however, they find difficulties, so they seek support for young people to hear this call.
Indigenous artist and journalist Djuena Tikuna and journalist and musician Diego Janatã direct three mini-documentaries produced especially for the CCVM Indigenous Music Festival. In this chat, he tells the recording process of the singers of two important peoples of Maranhão who live in three villages Maçaranduba, Lagoa Quieta and Escalvado. The melodies in the voices of the singers and singers of the Guajajara Tentehar and Kanela Rankokamekrá peoples pack the narratives of resistance and protagonism to keep these cultures alive.