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Mankuna man resting in a traditional hammock.
As the spirit dancers glide through their moves they are joined by the women, demonstrating the male-female union of fertitlity and longevity. The dancers eventually approach a bowl of peach palm drink guided by Mukuna women. Women are considered the ultimate masters of life, not only are they the procreators of new generations of clan members, but also the ‘mothers’ of the cultivated plants. Every women fulfils in her life the procreative role of the Ancestral Mother, the female creator of the world and the mother of all plants.
The idea of the interconnectedness of all things is central to the tribal way of looking at the world. Practical knowledge of the environment, of crops and medicines, of hunting and fishing, is a byproduct of it. The Makuna believe that human beings, animals, and all of nature are parts of the same One. Animals and fish live in their own communities, which are just like human communities, with their chiefs, their shamans, their dance houses, their songs, and their material possessions. When human peoples dance in this world, the shaman invites the animal people to dance in theirs. If humans do not dance and shamans do not offer spirit food to the animal people, the animals will die out and there will be no more game left in the world. For the Makuna the radical disjunction so characteristic of Western thought between nature and culture, men and animals, dissolves. Eastern Colombia Amazon, Vaupes region, Population: 600 Museo Silver Rag (Color Digital Print) Dimesion: 10.411” x 16” US$500 Edition 1/25
Mukuna man creates the ritual costumes worn for the annual peach palm festival. The tree bark strips are made into grass, pounded flat and sewn into shirts and masks. Tree resin is cooked and mixed with urucum seeds before applying in to decorate the costumes.
A spirit tree.
The paintings on the fronts of the longhouses or ‘malocca’ as they are called, depict the cosmos and the four cardinal directions on the left side panel, whereas the right panel shows the local Mukuna symbols within the greater cosmos.
Mukuna Indian warrior
Mukuna people referred to as the Water People paddle the Apaporis River in the Vaupes area.
Mukuna kids at Elementary school built for the Mukuna by the missionaries in the Vaupes area.
Mankuna man resting in a traditional hammock.
Mankuna man resting in a traditional hammock.
Mankuna man resting in a traditional hammock.
See photo in original gallery.
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