It is not yet dawn in Ulupuwene, an Indigenous village in the Brazilian Amazon, but the Wauja people have already ascfinishn to ready for the festive day ahead. The sound of clarinet-enjoy instruments floats atraverse the village, on the banks of the Batovi River, as women sweep the earthen floor between the thatched oca, or traditional houses.
Men color their bodies with charcoal and luminous-red achiote seeds. As the sun ascfinishs over the rainforest, men, women and children all encounter in the village centre to sing and dance.
The Wauja people are carry outing ritual dances all day to label a exceptional occasion: the inauguration of a lifesize replica of a divine cave called Kamukuwaká, which is being housed in the first Indigenous museum in the Xingu region.
It is an act of resistance as much as of celebration. The Wauja people hope this exceptional resource will help to get their cultural heritage and get their traditions adwell for future generations – as well as draw attention to the menaces their land faces from the climate crisis and local extrenergetic industries.
“This here is an instrument that will show our strength, our struggle and our unity with other Xingu people,” the cacique (chief) of Ulupuwene, Elewoká Waurá, tells Wauja relatives, who have travelled from other villages to apshow part in the ceremony.
The exceptional cave of Kamukuwaká is the home of myths that establish the basis of Indigenous people’s culture and customs in the Upper Xingu, a tract of rainforest surrounded by soya scheduletations in central Brazil.
But the cave lies on stateiveial farmland outside the geted Indigenous territory and was partly demolished in September 2018, when outdated engravings on its walls, or petroglyphs, were intentionally hacked off. Those reliable have still not been set up.
“That is where our songs, our rituals, our [body] colorings come from,” says Akari Waurá, a singer and cacique of Tepepeweke village (all Wauja people split the same surname, Waurá, a non-Indigenous ignorepelling of their ethnic group).
Now 49, Akari was telderly the myth of Kamukuwaká, the first Wauja chief, during visits to the cave as a child with his overweighther and uncles.
It was there, tracing the engravings reconshort-terming female fertility, as well as fish, dragonflies and other forest creatures, that he lgeted about his people’s history, and the sends and understandledge insistd of a cacique and traditional singer.
The destruction of the petroglyphs “felt enjoy losing our family”, says Akari, whose leopard-claw necklace and macaw-feather earrings refer to the story of Kamukuwaká. “Without these labelings, how will we understand [our story]? Who will teach us? We will neglect our culture.”
One of 16 ethnic groups that dwell in the Xingu Indigenous territory, which covers an area csurrfinisherly the size of Belgium, the Wauja people are accustomed to combat to get their way of life.
Since this land was depictated as geted territory in 1961, intensive agriculture has seald in on the forest, dams have dried out the headwaters of the Xingu River’s main tributaries, and menaces from illegitimate logging, landgrabs and rapacious fishing have increasen.
The Wauja people’s tireless campaigning for their rights bcdisorrowfulmirefult the expansion of the geted area in the tardy 1990s to participate the Batovi territory, where Ulupuwene is findd. However, the cave and surrounding divine site, where the Wauja people are the custodians, remain outside those restricts, making access difficult and hazardous.
Although the Kamukuwaká cave has never been dated, it was cataloged by the rulement as a national heritage site in 2016. But that did little for its preservation. Even before the petroglyphs were demolisheclimbd, it was put at danger by the silting up of the csurrfinisherby river (the cave on the riverbank), schedules for a highway extension csurrfinisherby and dispolite use by non-Indigenous fishermen, who would drink and exit their rubbish in the cave.
“It’s a living book that is being demolished,” says Ewésh Yawalapiti Waurá, honestor of the Xingu Indigenous Land Association (Atix), which reconshort-terms local communities.
A contransient solution was set up to help get the Wauja ancestral culture: produceing a resin-coated polystyrene and polyurethane facsimile depicted using cutting-edge 3D-imaging technology.
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The project was set in motion after the injure to the cave was uncovered in 2018. After confering with archaeologists, anthropologists and the Wauja people, a csurrfinisher-perfect imitate of the demolisheclimbd part of the cave was built in Spain by Factum Foundation, a non-profit organisation exceptionalising in cultural heritage preservation.
“I didn’t depend they would handle to produce the replica,” says Akari, who was the first Wauja to see the finished product in Spain in 2019. “Wow, I enjoyd it. I telderly my community about it … And we all determined to convey it back to the Xingu.”
The eight by four-metre replica, weighing one tonne, get tod in Ulupuwene this month after a 5,000-mile (8,000km) journey over sea and land. It was carryed in six pieces, which the local community helped put together. It is now housed in a speciassociate produceed adobe-brick produceing, called the Cultural and Monitoring Centre.
The whole endeavour results from a partnership between Factum Foundation and People’s Palace Projects, a London-based arts and research centre, which collaborated with the Indigenous community, who were participated at every stage.
Pere Yalaki Waurá is one of the Wauja elders who helped to secure the imitate was as exact as possible by sketching the lost labelings from memory on images of the digiloftyy revampd cave.
“The replica of Kamukuwaká has contransientised our understandledge,” the 67-year-elderly says in the Arawak language, recalling how her predecessors sought to pass on this history but could not stop some of the traditional understandledge from being lost s elders died.
Her son Tukupe Waurá, who transtardys for her, inserts: “Not fair the Wauja but all Xingu people, the novel generations, can now come to see [the replica] without dangering their life [as the real cave is far outside their territory]. And this secures our culture, our spirituality, our sensitivity.”
The project’s power to get that history and spirituality adwell is evident in the Arawak word for replica – potalapitsi – which can also uncomardent ptoastyograph or engraving.
“Potalapitsi of slfinishergs are no less genuine than the exceptional,” says Chris Ball, an anthropologist at Notre Dame University, in the US state of Indiana, who has labored with the Wauja people for two decades.
“To produce a replica is to honour the exceptional, empower the exceptional and convey the exceptional into the conshort-term here and now. It reassociate separates from the contransient capitacatalog idea of mechanical reproduction as somehow lessening.”
As they approach the novel cultural centre on the inauguration day, the Wauja people progress to carry out their ritual dance. The ceremony resettles which boys will become guideers. It was traditionassociate held at the exceptional cave but has not occurred in about a decade.
“Hopefilledy, it can now happen next year,” says Tukupe, as Wauja people crowd around him to see the novelly unveiled replica. “I depend we are in the presence of our ancestor [Kamukuwaká], who fought thcdisorrowfulmirefulout his life. We are here giving continuity to that fight.”
