Maxakali territory as soon as spanned at the least three giant valleys within the Atlantic Forest. Elders within the village bear in mind how the forest provided meals, medication and development supplies — along with serving as habitat for the yãmĩyxop, religious beings central to Maxakali beliefs.
“There have been medicines within the forest for us,” defined Damásio. “After we had stomachaches, we’d use the bark from the timber to really feel higher. However now, it’s simply grass. The farmers burned the whole lot.”
However the 4 remaining Maxakali reservations — lowered to six,434 hectares (15,900 acres) of pasture — include lower than 17 p.c of their authentic vegetation. Some consultants contemplate the Atlantic Forest to be regionally extinct.
That absence has many Maxakali leaders turning to reforestation — and discovering of their musical traditions an ecological blueprint of the previous.
Singing organises life in Maxakali villages: Music, for example, is used to treatment sickness, train historical past or transmit sensible directions, like find out how to make luggage or weave fishing nets.
“Songs tie collectively the entire Tikmũ’ũn social construction,” mentioned de Tugny, the Hāmhi undertaking coordinator, who can also be a musicologist on the Federal College of Minas Gerais. “Individuals don’t compose songs. They’ve songs.”
To have a tune, she added, means being able to taking good care of the spirit thought of to be the tune’s creator.
Ancestral songs additionally present a particularly detailed register of native ecology. Twelve musical canons, distinct in grammar and lexicon, whole about 360 hours of tune. Contained within the lyrics are a whole lot of species of natural world now extinct within the territory.
“We sing about the whole lot: the saplings, the bananas, ourselves,” defined Manuel Kelé, chief of the village of Água Boa. “Even canines have a tune inside our faith.”
One tune, for instance, lists 33 species of bees, a few of which don’t have names in Brazil’s nationwide language, Portuguese, and solely two of that are at present current within the territory. The lyrics provide details about bee behaviour that many Maxakali have by no means witnessed first-hand.
“The songs are snapshots,” mentioned de Tugny. “They’re like images of each element that exists within the Atlantic Forest: the names of bugs, birds, crops, moments of relationship between an animal and a leaf. All these are registered.”
For the Maxakali, ritual songs additionally play a vital function in serving to the forest regenerate. Singing is a every day a part of their work in Hāmhi’s tree nurseries.
Nursery caretakers not solely sing to seeds as they’re buried, however in addition they make music as a part of the common rhythms of harvesting and cultivation. Caretakers divide into teams, place themselves across the nursery, and sing in live performance with one another. The tune lyrics assist individuals bear in mind the ecological information of their ancestors.
And whereas a number of the work at Hāmhi is devoted to planting fruit timber and different crops, the undertaking’s leaders see reforestation as key to lowering the area’s fireplace dangers.
Since its inception in 2023, the Hāmhi undertaking has planted over 60 hectares (148 acres) of fruit timber and 155 hectares (383 acres) of Atlantic Forest vegetation. The objective is a reforested space practically twice that dimension.
Programme individuals have additionally organised themselves right into a provisional fireplace brigade and even created pure fireplace obstacles, utilizing conventional strategies like planting species of fire-resistant vegetation.
“Songs assist the forest develop,” mentioned Damásio, the village chief. “We ask those that have died to assist us. They stroll right here and help us. We’re calling on the forest to develop again.”
