About this group session

On the banks of the Gregório River​,​ in the state of Acre​,​ the Yawanawa people live in total harmony with nature in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Where the planet's greatest biodiversity is concentrated​,​ the Yawanawá possess an invaluable knowledge of the forest's healing plants and a cosmovision of great spiritual wisdom. Contact with Western man took place a little over a hundred years ago. It was an intense period of much conflict with rubber barons and foreign Protestant missionaries who invaded their land and tried to ban their culture and spirituality. In the 1980s​,​ the chief Biraci Nixiwaka Brasil led his people in the struggle for recognition of their native territories​,​ making the Yawanawá the first indigenous people to obtain official rights to their lands in the state of Acre. Since then​,​ the Yawanawá have been regaining their sacred medicines​,​ rituals​,​ songs and dances​,​ festivals​,​ traditional games​,​ body painting​,​ art and crafts in a profound journey of cultural renaissance. The old village where the contact took place is now a space dedicated exclusively to spirituality. Known today as Sacred Village​,​ the place houses the cemetery with their ancestors​,​ a garden with more than 2700 varieties of medicinal plants and is where the formation of their spiritual leaders through isolation diets takes place. Putanny Great Female Leader of Spirituality Yawanawa​,​ wife of Chief Nixiwaka​,​ had the visionto live in the Sacred Village and open your house to receive visitors from all over the world. PUTANNY YAWANAWA Daughter of the legendary Yawanawa leader Tuin Kuru​,​ Putanny and her sister Hushahu were the first women of the tribe to receive the highest spiritual initiation from the elders. They earned their communities’ respect as spiritual leaders​,​ opening the way into this sacred path for other Yawanawá women. It was a break in tradition that united the male and female universe​,​ and brought the magic of feminine spirituality to strengthen the Yawanawá culture. For this achievement​,​ they received a commendation from the Brazilian senate as recognition of their important role in Brazilian women’s empowerment. BIRACI BRASIL NIXIWAKA Biraci Nixiwaka is one of the most relevant indigenous leaders of our time. He has dedicated his life to reclaiming his people’s ancient culture and spirituality. After reconquering the rights over their ancestral territory​,​ Nixiwaka​,​ alongside his family​,​ led the opening of their culture to the outside world. It’s main element is the Yawa Festival​,​ which is held annually since 2002 in the village of Nova Esperança (“New Hope”). In the past years he has spent most of his time in the Sacred Village​,​ dedicated to spirituality and healing​,​ receiving teachings from the elders​,​ in order to carry on the Yawanawa legacy. In his few journeys out of his village to represent his people​,​ he’s also visited other spiritual leaders around the world and has partaken in the sharing of many cultural traditions. In March 2023 we will be immersed in the Sacred Village with the family of Chief Nixiwaka and Putanny. These will be days of deep connection with nature and with the teachings of the Yawanawa culture. We will have herbal baths​,​ clay baths​,​ storytelling​,​ body painting​,​ ceremonies with sacred medicines such as Uni​,​ Rapé and Sananga. In this moment that we live in humanity​,​ it is a great privilege to receive this invitation from the Yawanawa people for a moment of retreat​,​ meditation and transformation. Each of us is part of the great change we want for the world. Let's go on this journey together.