Art promoting the launch of the book Nixi Pae – Spirit of the Forest
Source: Academia Mineira de Letras

Professor Maria Inês de Almeida, resident at the Institute of Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies (IEAT) at UFMG in 2024, will be at the launch of the book “Nixi Pae – Espírito da Floresta” on April 3, in the auditorium of the Academia Mineira de Letras (AML), at 7 pm. The event is open to the general public.

The result of much research and translation workshops, the book “Nixi Pae – Espírito da Floresta” brings together 34 songs, whose lyrics were written in Hãtxa Kui by the txana (song master), researcher, artist and teacher, Ibã Huni Kui, and translated into Portuguese and Spanish.

The work is a product of the residency of professor and researcher Maria Inês Almeida in the research project “The living book and the path of the master” carried out at IEAT. However, the author of the book is Ibã himself – Isaías Sales, in Portuguese – who lives in the Kaxinawá do Rio Jordão Indigenous Land (Acre), in the Xiku Kurumĩ village. The graphic design is by Marina Bylaardt.

During the book’s launch, there will be a showing of the documentary of the same name as the book, as well as a presentation by Ibã Huni Kui, who will speak and sing. The event will also feature the participation of researchers Rômulo Monte Alto, from the Faculty of Letters at UFMG, and Patrícia Kauark, director of IEAT and professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences at UFMG.

About the work

Researcher Ibã Huni Kui, founder of the Huni Kui Artists Movement (MAHKU) – which opened the 2024 Venice Biennale – felt the desire and need to learn to sing the songs of Nixi Pae, thinking about preserving the language and history of his people through song. “I live with my community, with 150 people, where I began my research, thinking that our language is disappearing, our master teachers are dying, with many different diseases, and we are left without archives and without knowledge. That is why we are thinking that it is better to recover the oldest language through Nixi Pae than to lose all knowledge. Thinking about the new generations, so as not to lose this knowledge. Rather than learning the Western language, we prefer to strengthen our language more. And even children can learn to sing, which is our own language”, says Ibã Huni Kui.

The launch of “Nixi Pae – Espírito da Floresta” is part of the II Unã Baina Seminar of the Indigenous School and celebrates the closing of the residency of professor and researcher Maria Inês Almeida in the Institute of Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies at UFMG. “If the search for poetry – to show with words the miração of ayahuasca – guided the masters of the songs: Romão Sales, Miguel Macário, Agostinho Manduca, in the translation, the work was guided by the same search. (…) The book also shows an example of how the partnership between university and indigenous masters can be profitable. Through translations and editions, the partnership contributes to the expansion of Brazilian literature as well as to the strengthening of the indigenous language”, highlights Maria Inês Almeida.

II Unã Baina Seminar of the Indigenous School

The II Unã Baina Seminar of the Indigenous School is supported by the Postgraduate Program in Literature: Literary Studies (Pós-Lit) and the Institute of Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies of UFMG (IEAT), in addition to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). The launch of “Nixi Pae – Espírito da Floresta” is taking place within the scope of the “Annual Plan of the Academia Mineira de Letras – AML (PRONAC 248139)” projects, provided for in the Federal Law of Incentive to Culture. The event is sponsored by the Instituto Unimed-BH – through tax incentives for more than five thousand and seven hundred cooperative doctors and collaborators.

There will be a book signing session during the launch event. The book can be purchased at the event or by email: crenac@gmail.com.

(Communications Office of the Academia Mineira de Letras)