Singing, jãnaha, is the main form of musical expression of the Awa Guajá. Vocal music is present in many moments of your life, be they ritual, mundane, celebration or mourning. Children play singing from an early age, imitating adults who sing all the time. Singing is also the form of communication for the karawara, the beings that inhabit the celestial layers of the cosmos, the iwa. It is on the trip to the iwa that you learn to sing with the karawara. One of the privileged occasions for singing and listening to the chants is the ritual in which the awa men ascend to heaven, accompanied by the female chants, and the karawara descend to the ground to sing and dance. Concerned with the intergenerational transmission of songs and the recording of an almost endless repertoire, the Awa Guajá have experimented with performing outside the villages so that more people can get to know them and strengthen the song among the younger Awa. In this event, a group of Awa singers and singers from the Caru and Awa Indigenous Lands, both located in the Maranhense Amazon, will tell their story, present some of these songs, talk about their meanings and the experience of sharing them with indigenous and non-indigenous audiences. .
Singers:
Irakatakua Awa Guajá
Jawawyxa'a Awa Guajá
Piranẽ Awa Guajá
Tamata'ia Awa Guajá
Warixa'a Awa Guajá
Itaxĩa Awa Guajá
Majakatỹa Awa Guajá
Inamexĩa Awa Guajá
Singers:
Haxi'ĩa Awa Guajá
Imu'ĩa Awa Guajá
Researchers:
Guilherme Ramos Cardoso (Doctor in Social Anthropology – Unicamp)
Flávia de Freitas Berto (PhD in Linguistics and Portuguese Language – Unesp, professor at the U.I.E.E.I. Pape Japoharipa 'Yruhu)