Figure 2 – Kayapó Painting

The Kayapó tribe is located in the state of Pará, in the Xingu basin, surrounded by the

Amazon Rainforest. The Kayapó are known for their traditional art of body painting, created by

women, to celebrate rituals. The style involves the use of geometric lines, typically in black or

red paint, which symbolize social status and behavior (Funbio, 2021). An image of a traditional

Kayapó painting on textile is shown in Figure 2. The paint is handmade by using the jenipapo

and urucum fruits and seeds found in the Amazon rainforest (Funbio, 2021). This practice has

been a source of income to the Kayapó community, which has recently innovated by painting on

textiles that can be easily marketed. Furthermore, because the tradition of body painting is

restricted to women, the art empowers them as the holders of traditional knowledge with the duty

to pass it down to future generations. All Kayapó women are painters, and they present

themselves with one black hand, which is the palette, and one white hand, or the hand that paints

(Vidal, 1992).

Figure 2

Kayapó Painting

Note. Jenipapo and charcoal paint on textile

Benches carved out of a sole piece of wood are the traditional woodwork of various

indigenous communities, predominantly those surrounding the Xingu region, such as the

Kayamurá, Mehinako and Waurá. In fact, benches made by these tribes were exhibited in 2018

in the Teien Museum in Tokyo, followed by an exhibition at the Japanese Pavilion in São Paulo.

The monkey bench previously displayed at these exhibitions, by the Mehinako artist Kamalurré,

has recently been incorporated into an exposition that showcased the 90 years of Brazilian

architecture at Serviço Social do Comércio, or Commercial Social Service (SESC), São Paulo.

The monkey bench is referenced in Figure 3. The importance of this craft comes from a myth of

origin that tells the story of how the grandmother of the universe created men, animals, the Earth

and waters as she sat on a quartz bench, and then handed it to the ancestors of the Tukano tribe

(Barreto, 2021). These are sacred objects and a symbol of the power of creation; they are

reserved for men, while women use straw mats (Barreto, 2021). Additionally, due to the material

used and its duress, this type of art is also inherent to the men of the tribe. The benches are

sculpted in different sizes, indicating the age and prestige of its owners, in the shape of animals

found in the Amazon, and hand painted with natural pigments extracted from the pequi fruit

(yellow), urucum or mawatan wood (red), and coal (black). Barreto (2021) noted that benches

are “resistant” objects, for they have withstood the substitution of original indigenous articles to

modern, more functional items that were introduced to their culture.