Wewito Piyáko Asháninka, a member of the Indigenous Asháninka people, inspects an arrow. His daughter, wife and son surround him. Historically, the Asháninka traded heavily with the Incan empire, providing the mountain-dwelling Inca with forest products such as feathers, cotton and fine wood in exchange for metal and wool.
The Suruwahá people live in massive communal houses some 100 feet tall, nearly the height of a 10-story building. Each house, or oca, is named for its “owner” and architect—in this case, a man named Kwakway.
Wewito Piyáko Asháninka fishes by standing in a canoe and casting his net into the river. The traditional kushma tunic he wears once sported vertical stripes but has been dyed dark brown as the colors have faded.
Andecleia Macuxi lived in the town of Maturuca, Brazil, in 1998, when this photograph was taken. At the time, the Macuxi people were fighting for the right to reclaim their own land, which was finally recognized by the Brazilian government in 2009. Today Andecleia lives in the village of Mutum.
Biraci Brasil (center), also known as Bira, assumed leadership of the Yawanawá people in the early 1990s, after decades of abuse from colonizers. “Our beliefs and traditions were considered demonic by the missionaries and a lot of us believed it. We began to live as slaves, at work and culturally,” he told Salgado.
The Yanomami people represent the Americas’ largest low-contact Indigenous group. Like many Yanomami communities, the village of Watoriki is surrounded by lush, curated forest and is constructed in a ring encircling a central courtyard where celebrations and rituals are held.
Alzira is a member of the Yawanawá people, a group that has, since the 1970s, rebounded from 120 members to more than 1,200 as a result of hard-won Indigenous sovereignty. In their native language, Yawanawá means “white-lipped peccary people.”
