Fernanda Cristina Moreira

This project, conducted in partnership with Munduruku teachers, elders, and youth of the Kabitutu River region, documented people’s cultural heritage through collaborative research and knowledge exchange. With support from Wenner-Gren Foundation, the team carried out 54 interviews in the Munduruku language, numerous visits to sacred and historical places, participatory mapping activities as well as workshops on health and artistic production. Guided by a commission of Munduruku educators and historians, the research resulted in The Cultural Patrimony of the Munduruku of the Kabitutu River (Patrimônio cultural Munduruku no rio Kabitutu), a four-volume bilingual book series (Munduruku–Portuguese) covering the topics of geography, origin histories, biographies, health, and art. The books are designed as tools for a differentiated Indigenous educational curricula, aimed at strengthening the Munduruku language, ancestral knowledge, and territorial defense. They also embody the community’s understanding of knowledge as distributed across the body, memory, and land, affirming places as active agents in history. Teachers and elders emphasized that the volumes are not simply records, but living instruments – “treasures” that carry authority, guide younger generations, and honor the ancestors whose voices and presences are contained within them. By combining collaborative ethnography, translation, and creative production, the project highlights Indigenous epistemologies and provides lasting educational resources, reinforcing Munduruku efforts to care for their territories and transmit cultural heritage across generations.