Wahya Circle
Wednesday Works
Tribal Stronghold
The Ancestors
Contrary to popular belief, Brazil’s Indigenous people are NOT all confined to the Amazon Rain-forest. There are more than a third of them, or about 315,000 individuals, living in urban areas such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasília proper. Many are taking over the colonized education system and have increased attendance — more than triple in the last ten years.
The Indigenous, or the Ancestors as many prefer to be called, are learning all things “colonized” they can to prevent the further destruction of humanity by Ego driven practices.
“Despite hundreds of years of contact with expanding frontier society, they have in most cases fiercely maintained their language and customs in the face of the massive theft of, and continuing encroachment onto, their indigenous home lands.
The largest tribe today is the Guarani, numbering 51,000, but they have very little home land left. During the past 100 years almost all of their land has been stolen from them and turned into vast, dry networks of cattle ranches, soy fields and sugar cane plantations, all very unnatural, NON-NATIVE SPECIES and extremely depleting to the natural condition of the soil. Some of the products from this destruction is consumed daily here in the US in various “sweetened” products as Americans have the highest addiction on Earth to SUGAR.
The US has surpassed the UAE and Mexico in consumption, overtaking the addiction numbers of cocaine usage.
Because of this displacement, many communities are now crammed into overcrowded reserves, and others live under tarpaulins by the side of highways.
The people with the largest territory remaining are the relatively isolated with 19,000 Yanomami, who occupy 9.4 million hectares in the northern Amazon, an area about the same size as the US state of Indiana and slightly larger than Hungary.
The largest Amazonian tribe in Brazil is the Tikuna, who number 40,000. The smallest consists of just one man, who lives in a small patch of forest surrounded by cattle ranches and soy plantations in the western Amazon, and eludes all attempts at contact.
Many Amazonian peoples number fewer than 1,000. The Akuntsu tribe, (good article) for example, now consists of just THREE people, and the Awá, “the First People” or “humans” as they call themselves, just 450.
This is considered the last Ancestor hold out on the planet. Seeing that those tribes who CHOOSE to participate in “worldly ways” can do so without prejudice and those that CHOOSE to avoid all outside contact can, is crucial to preserving all practices, even ones that are not shared with outsiders but that serve us ALL.
From the Ainu, to the Anuk, all the way to the Awá of Brazil … they are ALL our Ancestors.
To continue reading this article, please follow this link:
TRIBAL ARTICLE
(This article approx. 15 minutes to read.)
‘Why is it taking so long to believe that if we hurt nature, we hurt ourselves?
We are not watching the world from without. We are not separate from it.’
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami Shaman, Tribal Spokesman
Tribal Stronghold
The Youth
Those who walked the land for thousands of years, around the Pacific, stopped when they reached the Southern Atlantic Ocean. This was considered the end of the land mass. They settled here. They are known by many names, many who are still here today.
Those peoples who live in the savannas and Atlantic forests of the south, such as the Guarani and the Kaingang, and the dry interior of the north-east such as the Pataxo Hã Hã Hãe and Tupinambá, were among the first to come into contact with the European colonists when they landed in Brazil in 1500.
Sound familiar?
Now they fight to regain the right to occupy land that has been their Ancestral Land for thousands of years. Their YOUTH are taking up arms, with Knowledge.
To learn more about the plight of the people and how they are fighting for the future of the Ancestors and to save those practices, follow this link:
YOUTH FIGHT(This video will take 3 minutes.)
Think About It
Consider what we have learned in this Lesson, passages, and videos. Consider how much the Ancestors teach us. The Knowledge. The Ethnobotanical. Hear their words. These things we teach are meant by no means to sway your practice, nor are they constructed to cause you self hatred or cultural disappointments.
If you feel that way, we can heal that.
RIGHT NOW, we simply ask you to look at the state of the world and ask yourself, “is it sustainable?”
“Is the way I am practicing Medicine or Magick, sustainable?”
“Is the way I conduct my life, sustainable?”
Everything has a cost.
Somewhere. Somehow.
Ponder this.
Syncretic Macumba and Other Indigenous Practices
Sometimes considered by non-practitioners to be a form of “devil worshiping witchcraft” or “black magick”, it is not. The religions that are referred to under the umbrella term Macumba are Candomblé, Giro, and Mesa Blanca.
Candomblé and Umbanda are both Brazilian and Afro-inspired spiritual traditions that share a reverence for deities known as orixás, practice ritual incorporation or mediumship, and incorporate elements of Catholic syncretism.
Shared Beliefs and Practices
Orixás
Both religions worship and revere these powerful natural and divine deities (such as Iemanjá and Ogum)Spirit and Mediumship
Both traditions involve rituals where humans act as intermediaries or vessels for spiritual forces.Offerings and Nature
Both use ritual elements like candles, flowers, food offerings, and outdoor or nature-based spaces (such as forests, rivers, or beaches) to honor spirits.Historical Roots
Both systems arose in Brazil as a way for marginalized groups to preserve and adapt ancestral spiritual identities under the pressures of slavery and European colonization
We have previously learned about the practice Candomblé and will add Umbanda. The primary difference between the two, Candomblé and Umbanda is that Candomblé is practiced in Bahia and Umbanda in Niteroi.
In Niteroi, public offerings to the Orixás (One of four pronunciations, x = sh in Portuguese) are left in public places, such as beaches, on specific days pertaining to the spirit being venerated or honored. One that is not handled well as they do not understand it, is animal sacrifice when called for by those who practice Candomblé.
Sadly, the indigenous beliefs WORLD WIDE have been bastardized, vilified, and had their meanings corrupted by those outside of the culture. Their use has not been for improving the life around it. For many practitioners, who often have a colonized mind now, have influenced views. For animal sacrifice, many now feel that they are now used for “jealousy”, to cause financial ruin for others, loss, harm and even to try to sway Death.
Gone are many of the natural practices of divination, healing and spiritual evolution amongst the people as many have been corrupted a great deal by the Church with falsehoods implanted into their indigenous beliefs.
Vodou, Hoodoo, Conjure, & Santeria
All of these Paths fall into the same pretenses as Macumba. We KNOW that the folk beliefs brought from West Africa, Benin mostly, were brought with those that were enslaved through the Transatlantic slave trade for the Netherlands.
Primarily run and managed by the Dutch West India Company (WIC), along with the Dutch government, regional merchant guilds, and private traders.
We know those who were forced to assimilate in the foreign land did so and their faith syncretically grew here and in the Caribbean during that process. Their indigenous beliefs were hidden amongst those that came and then they were bastardized by Catholicism.
The More You Know!
Candomblé means “to dance in honor of the Gods”, while it was once called “Batuque”, which means “to cause an uproar” – which was made derogatory because it is again, mostly practiced by those that were transplanted by slavery to Brasil, the Americas and Caribbean.
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