Huni Kuin Living School

The Huni Kuin people in Rio Jordão, Acre boast a unique approach to schooling: Shubu Hiwea (the Living School) is how the elder pajés coordinated by Dua Busẽ describe all culture relay activities. 

Shubu Hiwea (Living School) is the rich sharing of knowledge that takes place in and out of school, during and outside school hours. This approach is being discovered, experienced and created in multiple ways, in everyday life at the villages, in interactions between master weavers and their apprentices, elders and children, students and teachers, and in the process of bringing this “Living School” to spaces outside the community. 

Renato Maná Huni Kuin teaches children and adolescents at the Novo Segredo Village school. Realizing that students did not identify with the government-provided learning materials, he encouraged them to design and craft their own schoolbooks: bespoke learning material with proprietary, authorial visuals.

As he pondered the schoolbook creation process, Renato Maná ascertained that new references were needed. He came up with a live pedagogical exchange-based dynamic that involved on-site observation of cultural and educational institutions across Southeast Brazil. To this end, he joined the artist and teacher Itsairu Huni Kuin and his wife, Zenira Nixiani, a strong female leader boasting deep knowledge of her people’s chants, graphisms and customs. 

They traveled across the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, witnessing different teaching approaches and delivering Huni Kuï knowledge workshops in which they shared the Shubu Hiwea (Living School). The journey saw them bring workshops to cultural and educational institutions in places such as the villages of Guarani do Rio Silveira (Bertioga) and Jaraguá (São Paulo), and it helped enhance the connections between different peoples. 

The Shubu Hiwea Journey is a spinoff of “Una Shubu Hiwea – Book of the Living School,” out on Dantes Editora with coordination from Dua Busẽ. 

The Shubu Hiwea Journey was held in partnership with Instituto Maracá, with backing and funding from multiple institutions – Perestroika, Projeto Âncora, Museu da Casa Brasileira, Arco Escola Cooperativa, Instituto Singularidades, Sesc 24 de Maio, Museu de Arte do Rio, Escola Parque, Fábula, and Parque Lage.