There are approximately 1200 Yawanawa living in the Brazilian state of Acre, in villages along the banks of the Gregório river, where they have made their homes since time immemorial.
The Yawanawa people’s first contact with the non-indigenous world happened around the 19th century. It was an intense period of much conflict with the rubber barons and missionaries who invaded their lands and tried to forbid Yawanawa language, culture and spirituality.
Yawanawa spirituality is a sacred territory where never a woman had dared to step, for since ancestral times, it had belonged exclusively to men. In 2005, Putanny and her sister were the first women to make the sacred oath of the Yawanawa people. They have since been recognized as the first women to undergo Yawanawa spiritual training. After a year of strict diet, Putanny earned her communities’ respect as spiritual leader, opening the way into this sacred path for other Yawanawa women. A break in tradition that united the male and female universes – and brought the magic of feminine spirituality to strengthen the Yawanawa culture. Together with her husband, Chief Nixiwaka, Putanny currently leads the place of origin of the Yawanawa people, considered the cultural sanctuary of this Nation.
