The Women of the Javarí Turn to Handicrafts Amid an Unprecedented Migration Crisis
The population of one of the world’s most important Indigenous territories—the Terra Indígena Vale do Javari—is trading the abundance of their villages for urban precariousness in order to provide education for their youth. This represents a cultural crisis of unpredictable yet undeniably profound dimensions.
Silvana Marubo, leader of MAI (in Portuguese stands for Indigenous Women Artisans), displays two ceremonial Matsés spears at the collective’s storefront in Atalaia do Norte.
Text and photos by Carlos Suárez Álvarez
Originally published in El País in November 2023. This story was produced with support from the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.
The women of the Vale do Javarí Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon dream what mothers in any city in the world dream: that their children study, earn university degrees, and become successful professionals. But this dream can turn into a nightmare when they leave the good life of their remote villages to suffer hunger and overcrowding in the miserable shacks of Atalaia do Norte's poor neighborhoods, the last city before the world's most important indigenous territory.
"My struggle comes from seeing my people go through difficult situations," says Silvana Marubo, daughter of an indigenous father and white mother, driving force and coordinator of the MAI women's collective. "I feel this duty to help because I understand Portuguese and white people's laws well. That's why I decided to join with other women and we formed MAI." Since 2019, the MAI collective has supported mothers who migrate to the city with their children. "Here they go hungry and live in need. They end up suffering because there's no work, everything has to be bought, and they have no money for food, clothes or gas. These women make their handicrafts or work in family farming, and our role as MAI is to help them sell their products."
But selling is anything but easy in Atalaia, the city with Brazil's third worst human development index. Selling is anything but easy, but they keep dreaming.
Lindalva Mayoruna, of the Matsés people, in her home in Atalaia do Norte, surrounded by children and nieces.
territory in crisis
Dream and nightmare: the murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira at the hands of illegal fishermen—actors in a deep, dark plot still unresolved—brought global attention to the Javari Valley in 2022. The world saw how illegal resource exploitation, tied to omnipresent drug trafficking, exerts intolerable pressure on the vast, biodiverse, yet fragile territory of the Kanamarí, Korubo, Kulina-Pano, Marubo, Matís, Matsés, and Tsohom Dyapa peoples. Beyond these groups in contact with national society, this Indigenous territory—the size of Portugal—shelters the world’s largest number of voluntarily isolated tribes.
Yet the world missed a deeper, transformative process: the migration of youth from villages to cities to pursue secondary education, unavailable in their communities. While official data is scarce, estimates suggest half of the 6,317 people identified by health authorities as native to this territory now reside in Atalaia. In 2013, only 181 of the town’s 5,481 inhabitants were from the valley.
"Among the Matís, nearly all young people now come to the city to study," explains Clayton Rodrigues, an anthropologist with the Centro de Trabalho Indigenista, an NGO active in the region for decades. "In other ethnic groups, some villages have lost all their youth." The repercussions run deep. Short-term, Clayton notes, "villages left with only women, elders, and very young children face labor shortages." Mid-term, with intergenerational knowledge transmission disrupted, the consequences—though unpredictable—will undoubtedly be critical.
A group of Indigenous youth walks through downtown Atalaia. An estimated half of the Javari Valley's population has migrated to the city to secure education for their young people.
lindalva in the city
You have to navigate several rotten planks on a wooden walkway to reach Lindalva Mayoruna's stilt house in a neighborhood built on flood-prone land. Lindalva, from the Matsés people, appears distrustful, and the peculiar staccato of her language emphasizes the vehemence with which she demands payment for the interview. She lives with seven children, her husband, several nieces and nephews, and their parents. She misses the spaciousness of her village, the abundant hunting and fishing, the readily available cassava and plantains, but her goals are clear: "I came here because in our community there were only two teachers and my children weren't learning," she says. "I thought it would be better in the city, but it's been hard." The only regular income for this household is the Bolsa Família, a government subsidy that only she receives, which isn't enough to cover electricity, water, gas, and food. According to anthropologist Clayton Rodrigues, Lindalva's case is typical: "There are really tough situations - families of twenty people where not one has an income. Most Indigenous people can't manage three meals a day. They're in a very fragile situation."
Lindalva is one of the 120 women who make up MAI. "I didn't know handicrafts could make money," she admits. Her specialty is bags, hammocks, and bracelets, which she weaves from utucum fiber, a type of Amazonian palm. Periodically, she takes her products to Univaja's headquarters, the organization representing all the Valley's peoples, where MAI has its store. But selling is anything but easy: Atalaia's residents are already saturated with handicrafts; tourism is insignificant; MAI's Instagram page, where they showcase their mail-order products, has few followers.
Since selling is anything but easy, Lindalva takes her fishing rod in the afternoons and, accompanied by her children, goes to find dinner. But fishing is anything but easy at the city's port.
Using utucum fiber from an Amazonian palm, Lindalva Mayoruna weaves bags, bracelets, and hammocks that she sells through MAI.
ENTREPRENEURIAL ADAPTATION
Lindalva’s parents belong to the generation of the Matsés people who, in the 1960s and 70s, established stable contact with the world of the whites. That was the era of nakedness, communal houses, semi-nomadism, bows and arrows, and wars—either against white invaders or traditional enemies. Other peoples of the Javarí region, such as the Marubo or the Kanamari, have a longer history of contact, but even so, the gap between life in the forest and urban life remains vast. Walking the streets of Atalaia, one might see natives dressed in Western clothes, absorbed in their little screens, and think that the divide has vanished. That would be a mistake: the differences run deep. They remain hidden—until they surface, often dramatically, when, for instance, trying to set up a women’s association to sell handicrafts.
“Everything is going to be alright,” reads a small sign on the door of the tiny office lent to MAI by Univaja, but Silvana Marubo, the group’s coordinator, admits that at times she feels overwhelmed. She explains that they lack the training to, for example, turn the collective into a formal association—something that would allow them to apply for grants and subsidies, but also requires navigating complex bureaucracy, handling administrative costs, filing tax returns, and submitting financial reports. They struggle to access markets in Brazil’s major cities or abroad and to streamline the flow of their products. They’re also hampered by the lack of a dedicated space, with computers and internet access.
Leading more than a hundred women from five different Indigenous nations—each with its own language—is no easy task, especially considering that not long ago, many of these groups were in conflict or even at war. “Because they are different peoples with different ways of thinking, there will always be conflicts,” says Silvana, “but our fight is to bring people together more and more.” To address these internal differences, each group appoints a local coordinator to represent its specific needs and concerns.
Silvana Marubo, at the office of the MAI collective, located within the headquarters of Univaja—the organization representing all the Indigenous peoples of the region.
praise of the CHAGRA
Patricia Mayoruna arrived in Atalaia as a child, thirty years ago. Her fluency in both her native language and Portuguese makes her an ideal coordinator for the Matsés women, who are the specialists within MAI in producing fariña, a toasted cassava flour that is the daily bread of the Amazon. Patricia is one of the fortunate members of the collective who has a small farm near Atalaia, by the only road in the region—a twenty-kilometer stretch of potholes connecting Atalaia with neighboring Benjamin Constant. She grew up there and learned from her mother the quintessential female task: the chagra, the family garden, a foundational element of food production in Indigenous societies.
Barefoot, skillfully wielding a machete, Patricia walks proudly and cheerfully through her land. “In the city it’s very difficult for us Indigenous people to get food. Here, there’s cassava and plantain. The chagra is very important to feed our children. That’s what we worry about.” Her production was only for family consumption until Silvana appeared. “She started explaining to me: ‘Cassava brings money, fariña brings money. You have to gather your fellow women and make them understand this.’” But few women dared to sell. “They feel ashamed, afraid of the white man, afraid he won’t buy their products.” So, as with the handicrafts, MAI handles the marketing. “We go to the market, or to the radio station, and announce that we have cassava and vegetables from our sisters,” Silvana explains. But there’s always a catch: the cost of transporting the products from the chagras to the cities is so high that profits disappear. Patricia and Silvana dream: that thanks to this feature, a supporter will appear to sponsor a motocarro of their own.
Patricia Mayoruna, coordinator of the Matsés women's group in MAI, harvesting cassava, one of the main crops of the region.
fatal dependence
The case of María Potsad, from the Matsés people, adds a new twist to the transportation problem. María has traveled for two weeks by boat from her village to sell 300 kilos of fariña and buy the supplies she needs. Even in the most remote communities, soap and salt, machetes and knives, lighters and batteries, and of course gasoline, are indispensable. But María has sold her fariña at a low price and then has found rampant inflation. "I couldn’t afford to buy anything," she tells her fellow villager Patricia Mayoruna, who is visiting the port to spread the word about MAI’s work among the women arriving from the villages. "I didn’t know you existed. I wish I had known," María adds with discouragement. She remains in the boat, with her son and other villagers. Several are sick, perhaps with malaria. They are hungry. "It’s very hard, because here is not like the community. We have to buy food, and I spend the whole day just sitting in the canoe." Her sadness is dramatically underscored by the trash floating around the boat: beer cans, styrofoam trays, soda bottles… the backdrop of a nightmare.
An Indigenous boy at the port of Atalaia, where his family waits to collect government aid before returning to their community.
The nightmare: just a day before, only a few meters beyond where María languishes, a Kanamarí child died. The family had come down to the city to collect Bolsa Família, the government subsidy, but, as often happens, there was no money at the payment office. The family waited and waited, living on the boat in miserable conditions — cold, rain, hunger. Then, illness. In the end, death.
This is why the women of Javarí dream of schools and hospitals in their villages, doctors and teachers, computers and medicine. And this is why Silvana founded MAI and fights for a proper headquarters, for transportation means, for regular buyers, for allies to help them overcome the difficulties of the market economy. “We dream that MAI begins to walk on its own two feet,” Silvana invokes. “We are women who fight for our peoples; women who want to be heard.”
