The line between reality and illusion, god and man, good and evil, the Earth and beyond, life and death, present, past, and future, becomes blurred. Other symbols protect from evil eyes and spirits, bring fertility, heal the body, grant magical powers, or support transformations and their connection with other realms.
Around the world, many people use their skin as living canvas, representing past experiences, bravery, status, beauty, protection, fertility, magic, transformations and connections with other realms. How we decorate our bodies tells others who we are as individuals. Sometimes, the marks of identity can be disturbing to others, but they have a very deep meaning. There are so many ways to be human, and many different views of beauty. "The Amazon is ending and that's why we're here - so that it doesn't end," said Lorival Tembe, the eldest chieftain and founder of the Tekohaw village, where about 600 members of the tribe live.Every major society has had at least one body art tradition. Tembe warriors wear colorful headdresses of macaw and other feathers, and wield bows and arrows for hunting and to protect their Alto Rio Guama reserve, which is constantly under threat in the globally vital Amazon region. "The body paintings are a symbol of out link to nature,” said Sandra. "Women are also "an important part of the fight for their territory." "Women teach children knowledge about their culture, the way the tribe is organized, customs and coexistence in the village," Sandra said. Women have organized in associations and gained an influential role as social activists fighting for the preservation of the environment and indigenous rights. Teenagers play soccer, swim in rivers and help their families tend fruits and vegetables or hunt and fish animals from the jungle that are later cooked on wood fires.Ī young man washes his clothes in a pond in the viallge Ka 'a kyr, in Para state, Brazil. Tembe children attend school and learn about the tribe's traditions while they grow up speaking Portuguese and their native Tenetehara tongue that is part of the Tupi-Guarani family of languages.
W omen and children congregate around an out of order public telephone after a gathering of Tembe tribe members. She wore a painted red eye mask and earrings made with yellow and red feathers.
"The body paintings are a symbol of out link to nature," said Sandra, the director of the school at Tekohaw village, where the walls are adorned with paintings of indigenous maracas and Amazonian animals like piranhas and snakes. Seven-year-old Emilia Tembe pulls back on her hand-crafted toy bow and arrow made of sticks and leaves. "The designs for the Tembe are the historical marks of our people," Sandra Tembe told The Associated Press.
Sometimes, they are geometrical or take the shape of butterflies or the paws of jaguars that roam the jungle.
They have been contemplating the skies since ancestral times, and the designs on their skins include stars, half-moons and suns. Tembe warriors pose for a portrait during a meeting of Tembe tribes in the Tekohaw village. They use the black dye extracted from the Jenipapo tree to mark the moment when the young reach adulthood and daub themselves in the red dye from the urucum seeds to prepare for battle. The Tembe indigenous people of Brazil's Amazon rainforest for generations have painted their bodies for rites of passage, weddings and to symbolize that they're ready for war.