The Awa Guajá live in close contact with the forest and accumulate ancestral knowledge, such as the classification of dozens of bee species and their characteristics, part of their rich repertoire historically built in their relationship with the forest, expressed in their worldviews, stories, and songs.
On this World Bee Day, May 20th, we announce the launch of the publication. Hai rawirokaha pape rehe (Book of Honey) which brings together stories told by people of different generations of the Awá people, who live in the Amazon region in northwestern Maranhão, about the knowledge they have accumulated regarding bees and honey.
Written in Guajá and Portuguese, these narratives contribute to the production of teaching materials for Awá indigenous schools, strengthening the use of their native language while supporting the learning of Portuguese. The work also makes accessible to the general public the knowledge that this indigenous people possesses about a significant set of 49 bee species and their characteristics.
Linguist Marina Magalhães, from the University of Brasília (UnB), one of the organizers of the publication, has been studying the Awá language for 25 years and has lived with them since 2001.
"I never tire of admiring their wisdom and the level of detail in their knowledge of the environment in which they live: the forest, with the many natural and supernatural beings that inhabit it," he emphasizes.
According to Uirá Garcia, an anthropologist at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) and also the book's organizer, one of the most interesting things to highlight is the Awá people's interest in creating this book.
"It was something that came largely from them, part of a dialogue with us, but it's something they wanted to have recorded, because they are proud of this type of knowledge," he reports.
According to Marina Magalhães, the experience of producing this publication was extremely fulfilling.
“Recording stories about honey and bees through recording, transcription, and translation, in addition to numerous conversation and clarification sessions, allowed anthropologist Uirá Garcia and me to delve deeply into the intricate classification system that connects animals, plants, and spirits in a kind of network.”
Species diversity
While most surveys conducted with other indigenous peoples on the subject list around 20 species of bees, the Awa Guajá went further: they identified 49 distinct types, according to their own classification, based not on biological criteria of Western taxonomy, but on their worldview.
The methodology stemmed from the Awá people's profound knowledge of their territory, combined with careful dialogue with references to Brazilian meliponiculture, such as the e-book. Stingless bees relevant to meliponiculture in Brazil (Menezes et al., 2023) and the Brazilian Association for the Study of Bees (ABELHA)Far from being an entomological study, the book primarily records the Awá way of thinking about these insects.
“We believe that this may be the largest collection of honeys that an indigenous people has ever inventoried, according to their own methods. It's not a work of entomology, it's not a work of ethnobiology, we are starting from the classification of the Awá themselves, from their stories,” explains Uirá Garcia.
Husbands, wives, and Karawara spirits
The Awá classification is constructed from various elements, including spirituality, kinship networks, and nest shapes. Bees are described as "related" to one another through the terms imẽna – hamirikoa ("husband – wife"). These relationships are established through cohabitation in the same tree, the similarity of their honey, behavior, the effects they cause, or their appearance.
For example, the hairaxi'ĩa and hairaxũa bees produce honeys with a similar flavor; tataipinuhũa and tataipinỹ bees cause skin burns; uhua and uhupa'ỹ bees have similar nest entrances. The nests of the "husbands" tend to be elongated, while those of the "wives" are round or in tree holes.
Furthermore, many bee names refer to forest animals, behaviors, or physical characteristics. Ahairuhua (“big bee”), for example, is indeed large and builds voluminous nests; hairaxũa ('white bee') has white stripes on its thorax; and tihapahira ('eye bee') is so named because it is tiny and will enter people's eyes when they are walking through the forest.
The collected narratives also brought to light the Karawara, beings who, according to the Awá, inhabit the celestial realms but descend to earth to feed on the honey of the forest. Many of the Karawara feed on forest honey even while living among spirits, such as the Haira Jara (honey-eating people), who open the bees' nest with an axe, or the Warajuxa'a, who is a butterfly-person and also feeds exclusively on honey. The Awá sing songs to communicate with these Karawara..
“When the Awá spoke of bees, they automatically spoke of the songs of honey, of the stories of honey, a part of mythology, a part of narratives even about stories of memories. The way they worked with this theme of honey was very different, for example, from how a biologist would work. They brought honey, but soon with honey come other references that are as important as, or even more important than, the species itself, than the classification, the taxonomy, which are the poetics of the songs, the memory of the narratives,” highlights Uirá Garcia.
A book for all audiences.
With photos, narratives from women, men, and elders, and careful translation work, the Honey Book It goes far beyond a catalog: it's a dive into the soul of the Awa Guajá people, into their inseparable relationship with the forest, and into the power of indigenous leadership in the production of knowledge.
At the end of the publication, there is a detailed list, organized by the Awá themselves, describing which honeys are harmless, which require attention, and which should never be consumed. Consuming the wrong honey at the wrong time of life (childhood, postpartum, old age) can cause anything from allergies to paralysis in the legs.
“The Book of Honey is the result of a partnership involving many hands, beginning with the Awa Guajá and ending with future indigenous and non-indigenous readers. Along this journey, in addition to the linguist and the anthropologist, there are storytellers, illustrators, photographers, editors, and funders. Therefore, bringing all these actors together to contribute to the realization of some of the aspirations of the Awa Guajá gave me immense satisfaction, but nothing compares to the joy of continuing to learn from them,” describes Marina Magalhães.
This publication is one of the products resulting from the Oral Literature and Traditional Ecological Knowledge project, funded by Firebird Foundation, and it had the support of the Indigenous Landscapes Project, executed through a partnership between the Institute for Society, Population and Nature (ISPN), the Center for Indigenous Work (CTI) and the Nupef Institute, with support from Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI).