Wajãpi people's Kusiwa art to undergo revalidation review as Brazilian heritage

Members of the Cultural Heritage Advisory Board of Brazil's National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN) will meet in Brasília Thursday (April 27) to discuss whether Kusiwa art made by the Wajãpi, an indigenous people that lives in the far-northern Amapá state, should still be recognized as intangible cultural heritage of Brazil.

Kusiwa art was one of the first assets listed as intangible heritage in the country, in 2002. An intricate graphic representation system is used by the Wajãpi people to depict and keep alive their lore, way of life, mythology, and traditions, and will be the first of the national intangible heritage assets to undergo a revalidation review.

The IPHAN advisory board will discuss if the paintings used by the Wajãpi in Amapá to decorate their bodies and artifacts still retain the significance that earned them a place among listed forms of expression, a register of cultural expressions unique to specific social groups that includes literature, music, art, drama, and play, regarded by IPHAN as relevant for the cultures, heritage, and identities of these groups.

“Because cultural heritage is a changing, living, thing, which is continually created and recreated by communities, it has to be reviewed by IPHAN's advisory board to determine if they have retained the features that earned them heritage status, and if keeping them in the register is still in the interests of the community,” said IPHAN's Intangible Heritage Director Hermano Queiroz. Depending on the result, the asset is revalidated as heritage or is listed simply as a cultural expression of its time.

Translated by Mayra Borges