The Walpole Bay Hotel event

I decided that we needed to have a launch event to inform students and other interested parties, not least to have a record. 


So we held a presentation and discussion event in Margate at the Walpole Bay Hotel I called the event “small river, more hazards” [INSERT POSTER] following a remark by Nixiwaka in one of our conversations about the travel route and means of transport.


At the event the presentation and questions went well, though there were some tense moments when some in the audience questioned the rationale for my part of the trip. This was possibly because there was insufficient time to go into all the details and background to the trip but I was adamant that the project must be kept open with the distinct possibility of failure, given the fact of traveling across ‘two worlds’ or rather two worlds that have collided, a dominant one with a vulnerable one. Any discussion about rationale would start to instrumentalise the project and turn it into a research, awareness raising or similar project. So, it may have appeared as an uncomfortable position to some in the audience, possible also due to inexperience in these matters, but I knew I needed to be firm on this. A key aspect, not only to protect the project but also to protect myself from false or unrealistic expectations, was therefore the invitation itself by Nixiwaka and his tribe, which I had accepted and as such had no strings attached. Wondering though myself about the invitation I ‘passed the buck’ to Nixiwaka as to why he invited me. He responded (verbatim below and the answer is actually somewhere in the middle. Also note that festival referred to happened from 25-30 October 2014 but there appeared to have been another one in August 2014 in the village of Mutum as far as I can fathom now, see the various links below):


“Many years ago we started having people visiting us in my tribe, from 2002 my leaders, we, they, we altogether have this idea to make this traditional festival, which now happens every year in October, it is a big festival, it is a big moment in our lives, and I also believe that it is a great experience for people that are coming. The idea of this festival was to show to the world that we are still alive, our culture was still alive, and that we still have shamans, shamans are usually the oldest person, we have two, one is 102 years old, and one we don’t know his age. Then it was formed to show us that we are proud to be what we are as indigenous people, we believe in nature, we had a big problem in the past about the land, we also didn’t have the right to the land, our parents, our leaders fought hard to get the right and then when we got the right we started living again because in the past when we didn’t have the right other people non-indigenous people where living together with us, big bosses, I mean there were there because of these rubber trees, and we used to work hard for them, our situation was not good, but when we got the right we asked them to leave our land so we kicked them off our land in a way. So from 2002 we also have often visitors, it is very good when we have people from other places, when they are willing to go, they are interested to know, to find out about tribe people, in this case our people. And we don’t have many people like me at 27 travelling a lot around Brazil, especially around the UK, outside Brazil, and when one young person travels and learns a bit about the Western culture and the language and when they bring I mean friends, good friends with good intentions to see us our family we welcome them in a very special way. We often we make a big party, we cook our traditional dish, our food we have for those people, this is actually happening right now, it finished last week and many people went from here and from everywhere went, and I suggested to Uwe to come with me, it is a way that I also as a young person it also empowers me to be someone who left the tribe but with a reason not because I left the tribe and now I forgot them or I am not going to do nothing for them, because many people think about that. It is a way to show them that, to show respect as a person, for me as well, it shows the eldest. Because we now trying to teach the young people to be strong to defend our land because in a general way indigenous people, our land is being threatened, our rights is being, people against our movement are trying to destroy our rights, and if they destroy our rights they will exploit our land, and they will change our way of life, and we don’t want this to happen, so the old leaders they are advise young people to understand and to be proud of what they are and to do something, to continue our struggle, the fight to protect the land of our family, and that is what my fathers told me and the only way you can show them that I am also able to work together and do good things, bring benefits and also to share what we have, our knowledge with the outside, that would be good. And then I was thinking I go around and take pictures, ok but it is not very powerful, but if I bring the person who had this idea, that would be powerful, and that was the main reason for this work, this project to happen, the chance for the success would be if we are together working and sharing, discussing the ideas, it would be powerful. Yes, also people they will meet Uwe, my parents and leaders, I am sure they will welcome you. And it is also for you as a person to have experience of being in a tribe and experience how, to see how we live and be part of our daily life but also we have other as I said before we practice a lot our spirituality and I think you will be part of our ceremonies, because this is something different, which is exactly what we are trying to show the world how nature is so important in our lives, how beautiful how peaceful nature is and when you know and you experiment is like you are the person, there is no one more you are your own god, and you see yourself, your family, you see the word different, and that is an experience that you have in our ceremonies, our shamans will be there. But yes the idea for you to come is just for you to see and make this project happen. I am sure that they will be very happy to answer any questions and show their concerns as well what they think about this world and I myself will tell them what I think as a person leaving this experience. The reason, yes that is the main reason, and then you see”.

I had already seen videos of the YawanawáFestival when an actor called Joaquin Phoenix travelled there and wondered how that what I saw actually related to Nixiwaka’s presentations about his tribe that was posted by Survival International? Doing a little more background research I found that the tribe had forged a link to major Western cosmetic company over 20 years ago called Aveda, an introduction was made in the context of the Rio 1992 Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992), to which indigenous tribe representatives were invited, including the Yawanawá. Many who attended the conference put their hopes up for achieving significant environmental changes and positive impact to so-called developing regions in the world. A number of initiatives followed this event including the founding of The ResponseAbility Alliance at the summit by my friend and former Creative Challenge speaker Gary Waterworth-Owen who had attended at the time.


Nixiwaka reassured me that we would discuss this but that it was complicated. I didn’t quite appreciate what ‘discuss’ actually meant in the end.