Puyanawá Rapé

The ending -nawa means “people” in the Pano languages. The community calls itself Puyanawa (the territory is spelled Poyanawa in official records). Reputable sources don’t give a firm translation of the first part of the name, so we won’t guess at one — the honest reading is simply “the Puya people.”

In Acre, in the municipality of Mâncio Lima, on the Terra Indígena Poyanawa in the Rio Môa region — chiefly in two villages, Barão do Rio Branco and Ipiranga.

In 1913 the rubber baron Colonel Mâncio Lima seized their land and forced the Puyanawá into labour on his rubber estate. They call the era that followed — roughly 1913 to 1950 — the cativeiro, the captivity: families separated, culture and language forbidden under punishment, and the population cut from around 800 to some 200. The town itself is named after that baron.

Through a long fight. FUNAI began identification studies in 1977; in 1990 the community carried out its own self-demarcation; and in 2001 the Terra Indígena Poyanawa was finally homologated — the turning point that made the cultural revival possible. They even won the right to replace the surname “Lima,” imposed by the estate, with “Puyanawa.”

It belongs to the Pano family and is called Ûdikuî, “the true language.” It’s critically endangered — down to a handful of elder speakers after the language was banned during the captivity — and is now being taught again, an effort led by elders such as Railda Manaitá.

It’s the Puyanawá’s great annual celebration, held in July. Atsa means cassava, their staple; the festival brings together song, dance, body paint, crafts, food and language, and has become the centrepiece of their cultural revival — drawing thousands of visitors to Mâncio Lima.

Yes — we source directly from the makers, so the money reaches a people who reclaimed their land and are rebuilding their language and traditions. Their rapé (hapé) is part of that living revival of forest medicine and ceremony.