Kiki – the Kaingang resistance ritual revived after 10 years
Every tradition is made of rituals. And Indigenous tradition is no different. Descendants of the Kaingang people can still be found in the western regions of RS, SC, PR and SP. For a long time, practicing their own rituals was a way of resisting Portuguese domination, of keeping their cultural traits alive.
Kiki, the Ritual of Worship of the Dead, is the most important of the Kaingang Indigenous people. It was held annually so that the village’s recently deceased could make a good passage to the world of the dead (numbê).
The ritual was revived in 2011 in the Condá village, in Chapecó, in the far west of Santa Catarina, ten years after the last time it had been held. Its preparation took more than 10 days. The drink is prepared inside the trunk of a tree. Faces are painted, defining two halves: kamé and kainru-kré. In this way, the film by Ilka Goldschmidt and Cassemiro Vitorino presents the Kaingang language, which resists cultural transformations.
In March 2017, copies of the short film were delivered to leaders of different peoples at the UN, during a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in order to show the cultural diversity of our Indigenous peoples. Copies were also delivered, on DVD, in the Condá village, where the film was made.
Margot Produções managed to make this production possible thanks to the support of companies and institutions — Unochapecó, Parfor (National Plan for the Training of Basic Education Teachers), the Religious Studies program (Unochapecó), Consórcio Itá, the Diocese of Chapecó, the City of Chapecó through its Culture Department, Aurora Alimentos and Yázigi. The film is presented in four languages: Kaingang, Portuguese, English and Spanish.
Discover the trailer, the credits and more information about Kiki, the Kaingang Resistance Ritual on the film’s page, at this link, here on our site.
