THE STORY OF BRAZILIAN URUKUM

The small village of Nova Esperanca sits on a red-dirt cliff on the banks of the Gregorio River in the Western edge of Brazil's Amazon rainforest. It is a village where celebrations are filled with the drumming of footsteps, voices in song, arms interlaced with one another in dance, and the vivid red-orange hues of urukum pigment painted on radiant faces and bodies. This is the home of the Yawanawa tribe. Its members are the custodians of the precious urukum trees. Their story is a painting of the human spirit and a colorful tradition of rich culture.

Nova Esperanca is surrounded by vibrant rainforests growing the urukum plant, a bushy tree that stretches nine feet tall and produces spiky red or green pods. If you open a pod with your thumbs you find a collection of small red seeds hugged together. Each of these seeds is filled with a deep orange pigment known as urukum, or, Bixa Orellana. Squeeze the seeds in your hands and your fingers become paintbrushes, giving brilliant color to whatever you touch.

For the Yawanawa, urukum is the color that inspires their rituals and brings harmony with their lands. It connects them to spiritual realms, protects them from evil and purifies their bodies and minds. In daily life, the pigment is worn as a shield from the sun, to protect from mosquitoes, and as an expression of health and beauty. For special ceremonies, the Yawanawa draw intricate geometric patterns on each others' faces and bodies or rub the urukum evenly across their skin. Each design is unique and each person is an artist, painting a fellow tribe member with magnificent reflections of the mind and spirit.

The Yawanawa have cared for the seemingly endless miles of thick rainforest that nurture these urukum trees and they have struggled to keep it their own. Adventurers, missionaries and rubber barons unrightfully claimed their territory and settled into their village. In an effort to strip the indigenous people of their traditional rituals and tribal customs, rubber barons and missionaries tried to convert them to Protestantism. The Yawanawa were enslaved as rubber tappers, while revenue went exclusively to the new owners. Generation after generation, the Yawanawa struggled to hold onto their people and their customs and to break free from the tight control of merciless patrons.

The first signs of change came in 1984, when missionaries chose a young man by the name of Bira to join their mission. A native member of the Yawanawa, Bira was sent to the small city of Rio Branco to study. While in Rio Branco, Bira discovered the existence of laws guaranteeing rights for indigenous peoples, and a government agency set up to oversee indigenous affairs. He returned to Nova Esperanca armed with proof of his people's rightful ownership of the land and led the Yawanawa in a fight to reclaim it. In 1987, Bira was elected leader of the tribe and successfully lifted the village out of invader's hands.

Having lived under missionary rules for so long, the village of Nova Esperanca became economically dependent upon the rubber patrons. Determined to create economic independence for the community, chief Bira led his people into a revival of the urukum trees. In 1992, Aveda founder, Horst Rechelbacher and anthropologist May Waddington started a partnership to create a urukum tree plantation that would help the Yawanawa to sustain themselves. Aveda's research chemists discovered that the urukum pigment harvested by the Yawanawa was ideal for creating superior lip color.

Aveda's first step as partners with the Yawanawa People was to provide them with 13,000 seedlings that were planted in groves, between houses, along paths, and in the deforested areas of the community. Today, chief Tashka Yawanawa and shaman Yawarani have seamlessly taken the reigns of the tribe and continue to lead their people toward growth and renewal. With chief Tashka's hard work and guidance, the tribe was recently able to recover 60,000 more hectares of their native land from the federal government. This additional state contains the burial site of the founding chief and shaman as well as the heroic warriors who once saved the integrity of the Yawanawa nation.

The partnership with Aveda has since evolved into a sustainable business model, helping to prevent the breakdown of the Yawanawa community. It continues to create jobs and a means of cultural survival for the community, while preserving the pristine beauty of the Yawanawa's land from the threat of loggers and rubber-tappers. Over the years, Aveda has helped the community build a solar energy system, a school and a dispensary to treat malaria. Aveda helped the Yawanawa gain organic certification and also develop partnerships with a pharmaceutical facility that processes their urukum.

Today, the Yawanawa are poised for a prosperous and sustainable future. Urukum trees continue to deliver pods filled with rich, resonant color that is free from petrochemicals. From the rich Earth to Aveda's products, uruku pigment is free from synthetic dyes and fragrances. The people of Nova Esperanca are once again the owners and artists of their signature color—from their painted fingers to Aveda's colorful lips, giving both partners many reasons to celebrate.

Importantly, when indigenous cultures and languages vanish around the world at a speed parallel to that of the collapse of ecosystems, the Yawanawa are moving forward and expanding their culture. They have just published the first book written in their traditional language and co-produced with Aveda a movie explaining their culture to the world. This reminds us that clocks can be reversed and we can all contribute to the creation of a world we want future generations to experience.