Living with the forest, together with the forest and for the forest.
Kukradjà is the Xikrin way of being and living. In the words of the people’s PGTA: “our ideas about the world, our actions, our society, our political organization, our health, everything is part of kukradjà, and the forest is part of all of it too”.
At the center of the village stands the Ngàb, the warriors’ house: the political space where each village makes its decisions. Meetings, celebrations and rituals happen there, and it is where the young learn from the Kubengêt about customs, stories, music, dance and body painting.
Warriors’ House project
The Xikrin year has its seasons: times for collective hunting and fishing, for making artifacts, for rites and rituals. Rituals bring the villages together and ensure knowledge passes from one generation to the next.
Traditional Rituals project
The menire, Xikrin women, learn graphic patterns from meprire, early childhood: they practice on clay dolls and, as teenagers, paint one another. The patterns are ancient; painting on fabric is more recent. Around 69 artisans make bio-jewelry, painted canvases and pieces with seeds and fibers from the territory. The Menire Xikrin Free School is certified by Brazil’s Ministry of Culture.
Menire handicrafts
The Kubengêt are the elders, “those who truly know”. The council of elders and chiefs is the highest collective decision-making body. In a young population, where elders are less than 3% of the people in the Association’s villages, Berê recognizes them as Living Heritage.
Page under construction. Coming soon: body painting, the Mẽbêngôkre language, hunting, fishing and gathering, food and gardens.
In the meantime, reach us through the contact page.