Amazonian tribe members in Kew to chant blessings for its plants
MEMBERS OF an Amazonian tribe have visited the Royal Botanic Gardens in London to bless the plants.
Four people from the Kaxinawá Tribe from the Brazilian Amazon state of Acre, visited the gardens at Kew where they toured the Palm House and Herbarium, sharing their vast knowledge of plants and their healing properties with scientists and horticulturalists.
Two spiritual leaders known as Pajé, Txana Ikakuru and Isarewe Huni Kunin lead a traditional blessing ceremony in the famous Palm House. They were accompanied by a female tribe member Dani Shawarakani, who was on her first visit outside of her Amazonian homelands of the Kaxinawá.
Together they chanted two blessings while seated on the Palm House floor, which had been covered in a bed of leaves and centred with baskets of flowers.
The blessing invoked the forest guardian spirits and was intended to cover all the plants of the world housed at Kew.
Following their blessing, the visitors were given a tour of Kew’s Herbarium with the Kew Science team who lead much of Kew’s conservation and research work in that region.
Kew has worked in this region for most of its history including work to support biodiversity restoration in the southern Amazon ‘arc of deforestation’.
Initially supporting conservation planning and decision-making in new and emerging protected areas, this programme focused on local capacity building, vegetation mapping and floristic research.
Digital Amazon is another project led by Kew focused on increasing access to Richard Spruce’s ethnobotanical collections as a resource for environmental change and indigenous knowledge.
Spruce spent the years 1849– 1864 travelling and collecting plants, mainly in the Brazilian Amazon region.