Huni Kuin / Kaxinawá Ethnicity of the Amazon Basin

Learn about the Shamanic practices, the art, the language and the history of this great peoples that to this day inhabit the Amazon Forest.

The Kaxinawá people are a proud people. They are one of many amazonian cultures which fight to stay alive, maintain their knowledge, their language, their practices, their medicines and understanding of life. Who are they? They belong to the Pano linguistic family, which spans from Peru to the south of the state of Amazonas, being that the villages are in the state of Acre and spread over the rivers Tarauacá, Jordão, Breu, Muru, Envira, Humaitá e Purus. These two groups were divided after a rebellion with the rubber tappers, one part went up to the head of the Purus River in Peru while the other remained here. Even today they maintain cultural ties from marriages between tribes, but the differences that this change of location has caused in these two groups are visible. All Nawá subgroups belong to this family because they have both language and culture that is very similar to each other. Each of these subgroups call themselves Huni Kuin (real men), perhaps because they still keep the tradition and culture of their people alive, something that distinguishes them from other men who are the transitions of names they suffer. History The first contacts with non-natives took place when the rubber tappers made excursions in the region in search of slaves, but little is known about these excursions due to the lack of information that was written or stored. The arrival of these rubber tappers, unfortunately, was not a passing thing, because in order to have rubber, trees need to be maintained and preserved, which meant that they remained in place, regardless of the high and lows of the current market. Something very shocking but commonplace at the time was the violence suffered by the indigenous people, who, in addition to the diseases brought by white men, were forced to move from their place of origin in violent confrontations with the bushmen (men responsible for opening the roads for the syringes), who, in addition to their usual service, should clean the area of ​​remote Natives. With the time and pressure of the rubber tappers, the Indigenous became quiet, those who were not in favour changed their region, and until recently there were tribes in Peru that avoided any kind of contact with non-Indians. The creation myths of these people are always linked to some animal that taught them. The animal is the "enchanted Huni Kuin" and the Yuxin belonging to it, taught men everything they should know. Some examples are: the squirrel that taught the art of planting (for its figure of stocking food, something that is necessary to learn planting), the monkey that by its habits taught how to copulate, the rat that taught how to birth, the spider with the gift of weaving and many other animals.

Rituals

• Txidin: It is characterized by the corners of the creation of the world, the dance of the leader and the companion. It is done with several elements and each of them has its own characteristic and importance well established, with the children of the jaguar on one side and the children of the brightness on the other, complementing each other in the myth of creation;

• Katxanawá: It is the fertility ritual and is usually done several times a year. Basically it is the dance representation of the forest's yuxin around a log that has been cut, peeled and emptied into the forest by the men who play the role of invaders;

• Festival of the new fire: It consisted of switching from the old fire to the new fire in a ritualistic way, with hunts that gave food for several days of celebration. Nowadays this ritual has lost its meaning because the new fire can be and is made every day;

• Marriage: The interest in girls in the tribe for men becomes legitimate after the first menstruation, a number of factors can influence the choice of the suitor, such as being a cousin close to the same village in the case of the first marriage. Before the marriage is consummated, the mother consults her daughter about the suitor, who consulted the mother, who in turn goes to consult her husband. The marriage is consummated from the moment the suitor begins to sleep in the father-in-law's house, if he already has a wife, a house should be built close to the suitor's house where they will live together. The wedding itself is not considered important enough to have a party and the most that occurs is the ritual described.

Other rituals practiced: Nixpupima and Dau. Art Something very important for them, body paintings can be done on the occasion of parties or simply because they like to dress up. Children do not receive drawings, they are blackened with the genipapo paste from head to toe while adults have their entire faces painted. Painting with genipapo is considered something feminine, at parties many of them can go without the drawings but in the daily life when the husband brings the genipapo from the forest, they immediately get excited about making the paste and ask someone to paint them. The same shapes as face paintings can be found on bodies, ceramics, weaving and other diverse means of artistic representation.

Shamanism Shaman gives and takes life. To become a shaman, he goes alone to the forest and ties his whole body with “envira”. He lays at a crossroads with arms and legs spread. First come the night butterflies, the husu, they cover your whole body. Then come the yuxin who eat the husu until they reach your head. Then you hug him tightly. He turns into a murmuru, which has a thorn. If you have strength and don't let go, the murmuru will turn into a snake that coils around your body. You can take it, it turns into a jaguar. You keep holding on. And so it goes, until you hold nothing. You won the test and then you speak, then you explain that you want to receive muka and he gives you. Siã Osair Sales The Kaxinawa claim that the true shamans, the Mukaya, those who had the bitter and shamanic substance called Muka within them, died, but this fact does not prevent them from practicing other forms of shamanism, which are considered less powerful but which seem equally efficient. Only the withdrawal of Duri, equivalent to Muka, among the Kulina, seems to have been the privilege of Mukaya. Other skills, such as knowing how to communicate with Yuxin (spirits), are the domain of many adults, especially older ones. In this way we could both say that there are no shamans and say that there are many. A salient feature of kaxinawá shamanism is the importance of discretion in relation to the possible ability to heal or cause disease. The invisibility and ambiguity of this power is linked to its transience. I therefore suggest that the claim that there are no more shamans as powerful as they used to be interpreted in the light of a de-emphasis on the figure of the shaman. Shamanism is more of an event than a role or a crystallized institution. This fact is also due to the strict abstinence rules that affect the practice of the shaman in his Mukaya form, who could not eat meat or have contact with women. The use of ayahuasca, considered a privilege of the shaman in many Amazonian groups, is a collective practice among the Kaxinawa, practiced by all adult men and adolescents who wish to see "the world of the vine". The Mukaya would be one who needs no substance, no outside help to communicate with the invisible side of reality. But all adult men are a bit of a shaman as they learn to control their views and interactions with the Yuxin world. Two easily observable facts that point in this direction are the frequent and public use of ayhauasca (approximately two or three times a month) and the long solitary walks of some old people without the aim of hunting or searching for medicinal herbs (explanation usually given). These two activities show an active search to establish an intense contact with Yuxindade. Yunxity is a category that synthesizes well the Kaxinawá shamanic worldview, a view that does not consider the spiritual (yuxin) as something supernatural and superhuman, located outside of nature and outside of the human. The spiritual or the vital force (yuxin) permeates all living phenomena on earth, in waters and in the heavens. In daily life we ​​see a side of reality where this universal kinship of living things is not revealed: we see bodies and their immediate utility. In altered states of consciousness, however, man faces the other side of reality, in which the spirituality that inhabits certain plants or animals is revealed as yuxin, huni kuin, “our people”. Because it manifests itself both as a vital force and as a soul or spirit with its own will and personality, no term captures this ephemeral and versatile character of yuxin well. In the Purus region, the Kaxinawá themselves translate yuxin by soul when referring to the yuxin that appear at night or in the twilight of the forest in human form. The use of this word comes from living with the rubber tappers, who also see and speak about souls. When talking about the person's yuda baka yuxin or bedu yuxin, spirit is used more often: "It is the spirit of the people who see, right ?, and who speaks". Another translation used by the Kaxinawá is "enchanted". The activity of the shaman who seeks to know and relate to the yuxin is indispensable for the well-being of the community. The ultimate cause of all malaise, illness or crisis has its roots in this yuxin side of reality, in which the shaman, as a mediator between the two sides, is necessary. The shaman works with what has yuxin in the world, with the category I call yuxinity. The places with the highest concentration of yuxin are the ravines (where the yuxibu mawam live, identified by the place where they live), the lake and the trees. For the Kaxinawá, the person is made up of flesh (or body) and yuxin. Animals have a body side and a yuxin side, just like plants. Among animals there are those with strong and dangerous yuxin, and others with negligible yuxin. The quality of the animal's yuxin influences the diet and taboos of human beings. Plant yuxins are generally not harmful or dangerous. In many fasts bananas and peanuts, for example, are allowed, although the yuxin of these plants are mentioned regularly as part of the souls that appear in the village at the request of the shaman to heal. Within all this ambiguity, yuxin can appear “as a person”, huni kuin, as well as in the form of certain animals.

Muka: the power of the Yuxin and the Shaman The power of the yuxin, which is revealed by their capacity for transformation, is called Muka. Muka is a shamanic quality, sometimes realized as a substance. The being with Muka has the spiritual power to kill and heal without using physical force or poison (remedy: dau). The human being can receive muka from the yuxin, which opens the way for him to become a Shaman, or Mukaya. Mukaya means man with muka, or in Deshayes' translation “pris par l’amer” (‘caught by the bitter’). The shaman has an active role in the process of accumulating power and spiritual knowledge, but his initiation will take place only on the initiative of the yuxin. If the yuxin do not choose him, they do not pick him up, their solitary walks in the forest are of little use. Once caught, however, the apprentice becomes ill in the eyes of humans ("they go crazy when a woman comes close"). The weak point of yuxin is the body, that of man is its yuxin; “yuxindade” threatens the man's body, and the body, the (female) blood threatens the head of the yuxin. If the man who is caught wants to follow the mukaya path, he undergoes prolonged and severe fasts (sama) and seeks another mukaya to instruct him. Another characteristic of kaxinawá shamanism, expressed by the name mukaya, is in the opposition between the bitter (muka) and the sweet (bata). The kaxinawá distinguish two types of remedy (dau): sweet remedies (dau bata) are leaves from the forest, certain secretions and animals and body adornments; bitter remedies (dau muka) are the invisible powers of spirits and of the mukaya. The specialty of huni dauya (man with sweet, herbal remedy) does not normally combine with that of huni mukaya (shaman). The apprentice's learning process is quite different from that of the shaman. If he does not deal with poisonous leaves, the herbalist is not subject to fasting and can develop his normal hunting activities and married life. He acquires his knowledge through learning from the other specialist and needs an acute memory and perception. The first sign that someone has the power to be a shaman, a developed relationship with the world of yuxin, is a failure in hunting. The shaman develops such a familiarity with the animal universe (or with the animals' yuxin), managing to establish a dialogue with them, that he can no longer kill them: “And I walk in the woods, animals are talking to me, I say. When I see the deer, then he calls ‘hey my brother-in-law’, he said, then I would stay put. When a pig comes, ‘ah’, it calls ‘ah, my uncle’, there it is. Then in our word he said ‘in txai huaí!’ (‘Hey, brother-in-law!’), then I don’t eat ”. Thus, the shaman does not eat meat, and not only for emotional reasons. The impossibility of eating meat is also linked to the muka, the change in smell and taste of the person with matured muka in his heart. The taste and smell of the meat becomes bitter. The Shaman The shaman is feared for his ability to cause illness and death without doing anything physically. You can throw your muka (which is invisible when fired) at the victim from great distances; or you can convince any of the yuxin you are familiar with, to kill a person. The greater the number of yuxin allies of the mukaya, the greater their power. Because its healing power lies, on the one hand, in its ability to negotiate as an active healer (when it seeks the lost spirit of its patient who joined the yuxin), and on the other, in the quality and quantity of yuxin it can summon to a healing session, where the yuxin (his friends) will be the healers, working through (or gathered around) the shaman's body. Even so, the shamanic journey remains, however, a crucial feature of Kaxinawá shamanism. The bedu yuxin travels, free of the body, in the dream, or when the shaman is in a trance under the effect of snuff or ayahuasca. These trips fulfill objectives beyond the cure of a specific case. They are exploratory excursions. They seek to understand the world and the ultimate causes of disease. They explore the paths that the dead Bedou yuxin will have to follow in order to reach heaven and strengthen relations with the spirit world for the well-being of the community. There are some types of disease: one material (poison) and the other spiritual (power). The disease caused by poison is due to the dauya (herbalist), and the disease caused by spiritual power (muka), has a guilty enemy mukaya (shaman). There is a third type: the disease caused by the yuxin, which is the patient's loss of his bedu yuxin. The disease caused by the yuxin at the request of a mukaya also means loss: from the shaman his muka can be stolen, from a common being his soul. The two types of illnesses caused by men have different treatments. The poison causes a loss of fluids and vital forces (the patient vomits, has diarrhea, becomes anemic). In this case, the shaman heals with his strength: he smells a type of snuff specially prepared for healing and blows on the patient. In the case of the cause being the muka, the problem is not the loss, but the presence of a negative force that takes the form of a foreign body that acts and destroys the body from the inside. Diseases caused by muka are acute pains in the liver, stomach or heart (three important organs in the kaxinawá view of the human body). At this stage, there is still healing. The shaman sucks on the pain site to remove the intruder. Sucks, and takes out the muka that the enemy shaman sent to the patient. Shamanic thinking among the Kaxinawá is permanent, omnipresent. Although there are no more healing sessions and public rituals, as there had been in the past, it is necessary to consider their worldview in the larger scope of the practices of his neighbors (Yaminawa, Kulina, Kampa), with whom they maintain increasingly intense relations, because they are no longer declared enemies. The exchange there is great and can become a stimulus for the Kaxinawá to revitalize their spiritual powers, kept in the memory of the forest. The Human person for the Kaxinawá is conceived of three parts: the body or the flesh (yuda), the spirit of the body or the shadow (yuda baka yuxin) and the spirit of the eye (bedu yuxin). The flesh or any living body turns to dust when its yuxin aspect is taken away.

Shamanic Initiation There are several ways to be intiated in shamanism. Some result from a deliberate search by the apprentice, others occur spontaneously due to the initiative of the yuxin who catch the chosen one off guard. The presence of muka in the apprentice's heart, a sine qua non condition for any exercise of shamanic power, depends ultimately on the will of the yuxin. There are two ways that the apprentice can follow to favor an encounter with the yuxin who can give him the germ of his muka: he can increase his dream experience by sleeping a lot and taking medicine (drops of juice from certain leaves in the eye and bathing) to dream more and to remember dreams; or you can take the forest path, decorate yourself with envira or murmuru shoots (pani xanku) and fragrant leaves, sing, whistle to call the yuxin. The taste of things also provides information about the yuxin quality of things. There are things that only yuxin or animals eat: husu, the night butterfly that sucks blood, is one of the favorite foods; mai xena, worm, too. But man is terrified of eating this. The person in a trance, under the effect of yuxin, eats leaves as if it were food. Another characteristic related to taste, is that the man does not eat anything raw: at most a fruit from the forest, or in the case of children, a ripe banana when they cannot stand their hunger until meal time. It is also exceptional to drink water. Yuxin, on the contrary, are characterized by the habit of eating raw things and especially by the thirst for raw blood: all animals and insects that suck blood are yuxin. The young shaman, when initiated, must follow the paths indicated by smells, sounds and images that lead to contact with the yuxin. It is necessary to have a strong heart, otherwise it dies, because death is a consequence of the collapse of the heart in fear. The collapse in initiation (death or madness) can occur due to the inability of the initiate to bridge the two sides of reality. In the period that begins with the first yuxin “assault” and ends when the muka is mature, the novice shaman will show signs of weakness, but this preliminary phase is necessary for the yuxin learning process. The apprentice is disinterested in social obligations and bodily processes, because his mind is turned to the spiritual world. He spends most of his time lying in a hammock, or walks randomly in the woods. These "symptoms", however, are not interpreted as a disease.