With songs and seeds, Brazil's indigenous Maxakali faces climate change

The Maxakali territory once spanned at least three large valleys in the Atlantic forest. The elders in the village remember how the forest provides food, medicine and building materials - besides being the habitat of Yãmĩyxop, the spiritual creatures at the center of the Maxakali faith.

"We have medicine in the forest," Damasio explained. "When we have stomachache, we feel better off the tree with the bark. But now, it's just grass. The farmers burn everything."

However, the remaining four Maxakali reservations (down to 6,434 hectares (15,900 acres) of ranch) contain less than 17% of the original vegetation. Some experts believe that the Atlantic forest is extinct in the region.

This absence has many McSacali leaders turned to afforestation and found an ecological blueprint of the past in the form of musical traditions.

Damasio Maxakali feeds stems from banana trees in the lush vegetation of Hamhi Project. — Manuel Damásio Maxakali tends to banana trees in Minas Gerais, Brazil (Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera)

Singing organizes life in the village of Maxakali: for example, music is used to cure diseases, teach history or disseminate practical instructions such as how to make bags or weave fishing nets.

"The song brings the entire Tikmũ'n social structure together," said De Tugny, project coordinator at Hāmhi. "People didn't write songs. They have songs. ”

To have a song, she added, means being able to take care of the spirit of the creator who is considered a song.

The songs of the ancestors also provide an extremely detailed register of local ecology. Twelve music canons, grammar and dictionary, totaling about 360 hours of songs. Hundreds of animals and plants contained in the lyrics are now extinct on the territory.

“We sing: seedlings, bananas, ourselves,” explained Manuel Kelé, the village chief of Água Boa. “Even dogs have a song in our religion.”

Maxakali women tend to crops with ho head — The caregivers of Ham Nursery tend to grow trees and plants (Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera)

For example, a song lists 33 species of bees, some of which have no names in Brazil's national language (Portuguese), and only two names appear on the territory at present. The lyrics provide a lot of information about bees’ behavior that Maxakali never witnessed in person.

“The song is a snapshot,” de Tugny said. "They are like pictures of every detail that exists in the Atlantic forest: the name of the moment of relationship between insects, birds, plants, animals and leaves. All of them are registered."

For Maxakali, ritual songs also play a crucial role in helping forest regeneration. Singing is part of their work in the tree nursery in Hāmhi.

The nursery’s caregiver not only sings when he is buried, but also makes music as part of the rhythm of regular harvesting and cultivation. Caregivers are grouped together, position themselves in nurseries, and sing to each other. Song lyrics help participants remember their ancestors’ ecological knowledge.

While some of Hāmhi's work is dedicated to growing fruit trees and other crops, the project's leaders see reforestation as key to reducing the risk of fire in the region.

A woman leaning on Minas Gerais' outdoor wooden gardening tools — Songs are an important part of the growth cycle of Maxakali culture (Sara Van Horn/Al Jazeera)

Since its inception in 2023, the Hāmhi project has planted more than 60 hectares (148 acres) of fruit trees and 155 hectares (383 acres) of Atlantic forest vegetation. The goal is a reforested area that is almost twice the size.

Program participants also organized themselves into a temporary fire brigade using traditional methods such as planting fire-resistant vegetation plants, and even created natural fires.

“Songs can help forests grow,” said village chief Damásio. "We ask those who die to help us. They come here to help us. We call on the forest to grow up."