The Shanekaya Village - The Blue Bird People

Located in the municipality of Feijó, 360 km from Rio Branco, capital of Acre, the Shanekaya village is located in the Katukina/Kaxinawá indigenous lands, in the Amazon, and is home to a Shanenawa family. Known as a warrior, welcoming and very hospitable group, the Shanenawa make music, cooking and storytelling in their ancestral language one of the main instruments of contact with their ancestors and a tool for the development of their culture.

According to Chief Yawa Kumã, a young man with long hair and painted body, the sacred language of the Shanenawa, the Pano, allows the sacred medicine of their culture, the resumption of their ancestry. Since then, it has been revitalized with the construction of the village and the resumption of the old original customs, which were almost extinct in the last centuries.

To give you an idea, today 16 peoples share the same linguistic trunk as the Shanenawas, that is, they have a language similar to these Amazonian peoples and seek to recover the traditions that have been lost throughout European colonization.

One of them is Shanenawa's music. By incorporating modern instruments to chants and traditional storytelling, the indigenous people reconnect with their origins and transmit values to the new generations, who were born and will live immersed in the world of technology. For these original people, adapting drums, guitars to bells, flutes for ancestral orality allows this knowledge to echo louder and farther.

Another characteristic that is very present in the Shanekaya village, located in the Amazon, is its appreciation for cooking. xipi mutá, xipi mité, xipi pichã, ataxiru; iskî furacu and iskî xui, respectively, banana porridge; banana flour, cooked green banana; cassava with traditional vegetables fish cooked in banana leaves and fish grilled over coals are ancient dishes that are eaten every day in the village. Along with local fruits and vegetables, such as açaí, guava, biorana and cajarana, meals are always served in glass dishes and eaten with the hands, and sometimes with the help of a spoon.

Eating with your hands is ancestral and connects us with the food we are eating.