Mythologies of the Waiãpi Tribe

These amazing village people are located in the dense jungle of the Amazon rainforest. The Waiapi are self-sufficient as everything they need to survive is found in the forest. They survive by hunting and subsistence farming. It is a backbreaking job to survive in the green jungle but once the work is done, the Waiapi relax by enjoying their self-brewed beer known as the Caxiri. It is a brew made from yams and cassava. Cassava is their staple food and they practice nomadic farming. They believe that they can both understand and talk to animals. They respect the Amazon and live in full harmony with the rainforest.

Tzako Waiapi remembers perfectly the day he first stumbled across white men while hunting in the Amazon rainforest: within months nearly everyone he knew had died of a mysterious sickness. That meeting at the opening of the 1970s was a stunning encounter between two worlds—and also the start of a terrible tragedy. On one side were members of the Waiapi tribe. On the other were the pioneers of Brazil's relentless push to mine, log and generally exploit the Amazon's natural resources. Neither side even knew the other existed. "The whites pulled out revolvers, we had arrows and also reacted, and everyone faced off," the elderly chief from the village of Manilha, deep in the Amazon, recalled.

Illegal gold miners armed with automatic weapons and shotguns, invaded the remote indigenous community of the Waiapi and murdered one of its chiefs in Brazil’s northern Amazon last week, according to several of the group’s leaders and indigenous rights activists. The body of chief Emyra Waiapi, 68, was discovered last Monday with several stab wounds, including to his genitals, one of the group’s leaders, Viseni Waiapi, said in an audio message sent to NBC reporters Saturday in Portuguese. “We are in great danger,” Viseni said. The invaders assaulted women and children and were accompanied by a pit bull as they roamed around several Waiapi villages day and night last week, using special night vision goggles to navigate the area in the dark, he said. This attack on Waiapi land is one of the latest in a slew of ongoing, and increasingly frequent, invasions and assaults on indigenous territories throughout Brazil by illegal miners, ranchers and loggers.

When Japarupi Waiapi looks into the dense foliage of the Amazon rainforest, he sees the equivalent of a supermarket, pharmacy, furniture store—and that's just the beginning. Food like coconuts, roots and bananas grows plentifully. Animals and fish are readily available for hunting, and the bark of many trees has medicinal uses. Just in terms of different wood types, "we see thatch for our roofs, we see bows, we see arrow heads," Japarupi Waiapi, 45, says in the heart of Waiapi tribal land in eastern Brazil. Add to that palm for weaving backpacks, calabash for making bowls, reeds to use as drinking straws, banana leaves as table cloths, animal bones for tools—and all this literally there for the taking.

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, Ajareaty Waiapi performs one of her tribe’s most traditional rituals. The tribal chief crushes blood red urucum seeds into a thick paste and generously applies it to her face, bare chest and torso. The mixture protects her skin from the sun and insects. It’s also believed to ward off evil spirits. For decades, the Waiapi have lived in the Brazilian state of Amapa in near-isolation from the non-indigenous world and in harmony with the rainforest. The river and trees that support their way of life are often described as the lungs of the world. Now, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro wants to change that, with proposals that include moving the tribe out of their legally demarcated territory and opening the land to miners to exploit dormant deposits of copper, iron, and gold near their homes. His pro-business policies in the Amazon have recently come under attack for encouraging deforestation, as massive wildfires now rip through large swaths of the rainforest. The Waiapi believe they are the guardians of the Amazon and are wiling to do whatever it takes to protect it.

The Waiãpi tribe in Brazil have defied a hostile government to defend their land rights. The tribe has circulated a powerful open letter in which they state: “We’re against mining because we want to defend our land and forest. We believe the land is a person”. The letter was written in response to the Brazilian government’s attempt to open up the Amazon forest around the tribe’s land to large-scale mining. Following a global outcry by Indigenous peoples and campaigners, the government backed down. However, given the power of Brazil’s notorious agribusiness lobby, the Waiãpi are on the alert. In the letter they vow to defend their territory at all costs against mining interests. The tribe say mining will not bring benefits to them. They are concerned about conflict and disease brought by an influx of outsiders, and the opening up of their land to destructive economic interests such as hydro-electric dams, ranching and gold mining.

An ancient tribe, Waiapi, living in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil now fears invasion by international mining companies. They appear silently, seemingly from nowhere: a dozen figures, naked except for bright red loincloths, blocking the dirt road. These are the Waiapi, an ancient tribe living in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest but now fearing invasion by international mining companies. “We’ll keep fighting,” says Tapayona Waiapi, 36, in the settlement called Pinoty. “When the companies come we’ll keep resisting. If the Brazilian government sends soldiers to kill people, we’ll keep resisting until the last of us is dead.” The Waiapi indigenous reserve is in pristine rainforest near the eastern end of the Amazon river. It is part of a much larger conservation zone called Renca, covering an area the size of Switzerland.

The Waiapi, an ancient tribe in a remote part of Brazil's Amazon rainforest, live in fear of invasion by international mining companies. Surrounded by rivers and towering trees, the tribe exists much as their ancestors did before Europeans arrived in South America five centuries ago, living in harmony with the planet's biggest rainforest. Yet all the dangers of the 21st century are barely a few hours' drive away. The Waiapi reserve, near the eastern end of the Amazon river, is part of a much larger conservation zone called Renca, covering an area the size of Switzerland. Brazil's centre-right government is pushing to open Renca to international mining companies who covet the region's rich deposits of gold and other metals. A dirt road is the only route into Waiapi territory. To get here requires several layers of authorisation, then a bumpy two-hour drive from the small town of Pedra Branca. Known as the Northern Perimetral, highway 210 was started under the 1964-1985 military dictatorship with the aim of linking Brazil to Venezuela. Funding collapsed and the road was abandoned in the 1970s, literally stopping dead in the deep jungle, more than 700 miles (1,100 km) from its intended goal.

Living inside of these ever dwindling rainforests are numerous indigenous tribes, one of which is the Waiapi tribe. After making contact with non-indigenous individuals in 1973, the Waiapi decided to demarcate their land to protect it for generations to come. The Waiapi received 1.5 million acres of protected land, most of which is rainforest, for their personal use and governance in 1996. Part of the land that the Waiapi people were given is above the National Reserve of Copper and Associates (RENCA), an area rich with valuable ores like gold and silver. Bolsonaro wants to move the Waiapi tribes out of their protected land so that the ores in the RENCA can be mined and sold to bolster the economy of Brazil. After removing the Waiapi tribes from their home, Bolsonaro hopes to integrate them into modern society and completely remove them from their indigenous lifestyles. He believes that the Waiapi people want to be introduced to and integrated into modern society, stating, “they want television, they want internet, they want soccer, they want to go to the movies. They want to do what we do…That’s what we want for the indigenous people, to integrate them into society––as human beings, just like us.” Contrary to Bolsonaro’s belief, the Waiapi tribes are extremely opposed to removal from their native lands and integration into modern society. One tribe member, Tapayona Waiapi, stated, “If the Brazilian government sends soldiers to kill people, we’ll keep resisting until the last of us is dead.”

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, Ajareaty Waiapi performs one of her tribe’s most traditional rituals. The tribal chief crushes blood red urucum seeds into a thick paste and generously applies it to her face, bare chest and torso. The mixture protects her skin from the sun and insects. It’s also believed to ward off evil spirits. For decades, the Waiapi have lived in the Brazilian state of Amapa in near-isolation from the non-indigenous world and in harmony with the rainforest. The river and trees that support their way of life are often described as the lungs of the world. The Waiapi believe they are the guardians of the Amazon and are wiling to do whatever it takes to protect it. The Waiapi believe they owe their existence to a melody played by divine creator Jane Jara. According to legend, Jane Jara began playing a song on a long flute made from the trunk of an embauba tree. As he sang and played, the Waiapi were born.

Wajãpi is the name used to designate the Indians who speak this Tupi tongue, and live in the region delimited by the rivers Oiapoc, Jari and Araguari, in Amapá. They are the same Guaiapi mentioned in the lower Xingu region, which is their provenance since the 17th century. The Indians recognize the word Wajãpi as the comprehensive designation of all subgroups which live in this area, corresponding, therefore, to the people’s self denomination. They also use as their self-denomination the expression iane, meaning us. In their provenance myths, the Wajãpi position themselves as a globally differentiated ethnicity from other peoples they know: the Brazilians (karai-ku), the French (parainsi-ku) and the neighboring indigenous groups (Wayana-Aparai, Tiriyó, Karipuna, Galibi and Palikur). Tradition establishes that, in mythical times, all peoples lived together and were separated by the creator hero, Ianejar ("our owner"). Following this separation, the other ethnicities became distant, and since them the Wajãpi inhabit what they call "the center of the land." There they split into different groups which recognize each other as "kin."

Wayampi or Wayãpi are an indigenous people located in the south-eastern border area of French Guiana at the confluence of the rivers Camopi and Oyapock, and the basins of the Amapari and Carapanatuba Rivers in the central part of the states of Amapá and Pará in Brazil. The number of Wayampi is approximately 2,171 individuals. Approximately 950 live in French Guiana in two main settlements surrounded by little hamlets, and 1,221 live in Brazil in 49 villages. The Wayampi are also known as the Wajãpi, Wayapi, Wajapi, Oiampi, Barnaré, Oyampi, Oyampik, Waiapi, Walãpi, Guaiapi, Guayapi, Oiampipucu, Oyampí, Oyampipuku, Oyanpík, Waiampi, Wajapae, Wajapuku, Wayapae, and Wayãpi people. The Wayampi people speak the Wayampi language, which belongs to Subgroup VIII of the Tupi-Guarani languages. Wayampi has three dialects: Amapari Wayampi, Jari, and Oiyapoque Wayampi. The language is written phonetically based on the International Phonetic Alphabet, and not according to the French or Portuguese orthography. The literacy rates are low.

Waiapi Amazon tribal territory, Brazil -- There’s a point, whatever corner of the world you’re traveling in, when you may have that urgent question: where’s the toilet? But at the start of a rare visit to Waiapi tribal territory deep in the Amazon, the question we had was more nuanced: what even was the toilet? The Waiapi tribe only came into contact with the outside world in the 1970s and they’ve worked hard to preserve their way of life. Dressed in red loincloths and covered in red urucum and black jenipapo dyes, they still subsist entirely on hunting, fishing and small-scale slash-and-burn farming in Brazil’s teeming rainforest. Then came that urgent question and a Waiapi leader, resplendent in beads and body paint, pointed us down a mud track through the jungle to a shallow river, where he left us. We surveyed these Waiapi "toilets" in considerable puzzlement. In one part of the river, children wearing small versions of the ubiquitous red cloth splashed about in knee deep water. A short distance away in the middle of the stream rose a table-sized wooden platform.