Menire, the life of the Kayapó woman and her home

We, Kayapó women, self-identify ourselves as "menire". This is the name used in our mother tongue to differentiate us from other women, as non-indigenous women are called "kubenire".

When we start talking about ourselves, we usually say: "menire tyx", "menire djàpej kumej'ti", "menire mejkumrej", which, translated into Portuguese, means strong, hardworking and beautiful Kayapó women.   

Our characteristics of strength and work come from an arduous routine of domestic and family tasks, such as fetching wood over long distances, with basket loads on our backs, [...].

preparing food, opening and maintaining the fields, taking care of the house and children, and collecting Brazil nuts and cumaru, all require hard work and effort.    

We like to adorn ourselves to make ourselves more beautiful. Our beauty is in our haircut, the use of babaçu oil, the use of bead ornaments, the wearing of colorful dresses, and especially body painting with jenipap and urucum.

Our strength is in our culture, for we are warriors, and also the ones primarily responsible for maintaining, strengthening, and passing on the knowledge given to our children and grandchildren every day.

This stage of our daughters' lives goes from birth to the time when they can walk and start playing in the house, in the river and anywhere, but always accompanied by an adult or older child.

When our daughters are young they help us with everything. At this stage, girls already know how to paint and work with beads. She is taught not to take anything from anyone when she goes to town, to help her mother, and she is also given guidance when it is time for marriage.  

When she marries, the woman goes to live with her parents or builds her own house with her husband. The man leaves his home and goes to live under his wife's roof. Women never leave their mother's house. This stage of a woman's life is very important because it is when she has her first child.

The next stage of the Kayapó woman's life is old age, when she stays more at home and reduces her activity to an extent. But, it is at this stage that most women pass on information and knowledge to the younger ones.   

Our home is the forest. We have our land, and we want to stay that way, with our place protected, taking care of our rivers, our forests and our food.   

We live in two indigenous territories, which are in the southwest of the state of Pará, in the middle of the Amazon Forest, on land protected by Kayapó families.   

The forest, or rather our home, has a diversity of places such as streams, ponds, rivers, and many species of wildlife such as animals, plants, fish, insects and birds.   

We are defenders of the forests and make good use of our lands, with management through the collection of nuts, cumaru and the opening and maintenance of family farms.

We live on our land with our families and relations in various villages, which have changed over the years. Until some time ago, we lived in only 3 large villages, but now there are more than 12 villages of various sizes.

At present, nine villages are served by the Kabu Institute. The largest village, and therefore the political centre, is the village Kubenkokre, where about 200 women live with their families.    

We live in community, sharing resources, contributing to the increase of our production, generating resources, living our cosmology and transmitting to future generations the fundamentals of our culture.    

We practice our art and way of life through body painting, handicrafts, festivals, music, and various rituals.