TRAMA QUE TECE A VIDA

Art: Rita Huni Kuï

Web of life

We are a tangle of threads

of energetically interwoven feelings

Learning every day

how to weave the great web of life

The thread spins, spins, spins

The hand waves, weaves, weaves

The basis of the cloth 

That brings colour to this song

Between spiders' webs

And a profound vision

The arts come out, springing

Spinning, dyeing and cotton weaving.

The forest inspires the artist

Who meditates and is inspired

Mirroring in his beautiful creation

Messages to the world of respect and union.

Art brings the power of healing

The echo of politics in its creative and transformative 

Broad conception.

The artist is a sower,

In dialogue with bats, boas and spiders 

And through their ancestral knowledge and practices 

Touches the soul and decolonises the mind 

Shaped for centuries by a 

Monoculture of thought

Art has the possibility 

to metamorphose relationships

Between heaven and earth

Between the visible and the invisible

Showing us other paths 

Other possible realities

In an intellectual and creative fountain 

That dwells in the complex and beautiful existence 

of all the peoples who resist

with their songs, prayers, arts and philosophies.

The aesthetics of the forest is multiple

And dialogues with knowledge

That are not in books or museums

We are experiencing epistemic criminalisation.

Violence against ideas 

Against thinking 

And this reverberates in the earth's womb 

Wounded from sheltering us too long 

May we know how to awaken memories 

And weave good and beautiful words again 

And colourful fabrics to re-enchant life.

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Photos: Kawa Huni Kuï

 

Hand weaving is an art that has accompanied human development for many generations. Different peoples, depending on their culture, climate and region, have developed the process of weaving, spinning and dyeing to produce textiles. It's a form of ancestral language that transmits narratives full of meaning and enchantment. For some peoples, it was the Spider that taught them how to weave; for others, the Boa Constrictor; for others, Birds that make their nests by weaving fibres and branches. These are teachings often passed on from the spiritual world to humans.

For the Huni Kuï women, singing is part of the weaving process: while harvesting, taking off the seeds, beating and spinning the cotton fibres, the artisans sing asking for the power of the spiders to weave quickly, since, according to their cosmology, the thread picked by the spider comes out ready, without the need for beating or spinning.

 

Art: Rita Huni Kuï

 

For indigenous arts to continue to exist, there is a need for forests to exist. The way society has developed has led us to forget who we really are, and how to look deep into our essence in order to break through the barriers of the unknown. Along with this, the immense source of information in which we are immersed, the bad eating habits, the selfishness, the lack of love and common sense are disenchanting the humanity we dream of being.

One of the main pieces of knowledge that indigenous societies have and that makes their thinking valuable is precisely another way of conceiving the relationship between society and nature, between humans and non-humans, another way of conceiving the relationship between humanity and the rest of the cosmos. The existence of a balance, in which all beings interact and respect each other. Not just the older ones, the elders and shamans, but everyone; young people, children, ants, bees, trees, all forms of life.

 

Photo: Cris Takuá

 

For indigenous peoples, nature is the one who gives meaning to life. Everything has its balance. Like an immense web in which everything is interconnected, a living organism. Nature's power lies in directing us, showing us the path of light to follow in search of wisdom. Every sign we receive has a meaning for our lives. The song of a bird can indicate something, the thunder that passes by is a sign that something is about to happen, the ants in the middle of the road, the shapes of the clouds, the direction of the wind, in short, many presages are transmitted to us by the signs of nature who, delicately and wisely, guide us and teach us how to live well.

Art sprouts from a very ancient memory and the weaves that unfold from a creative process of imagination show the potential that dwells within each weaver. Between dreams and visions, shapes and signs are revealed, reflecting nature's origin of creation, pulsing the meaning of these relationships back to life.

 

Photo: Carlos Papá