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Any Ye´kuana can acquire a certain ritual skill to control evil power, even if it is specific. But the ritual system is dominated by specialists who have command over special powers : the jöwai (also known as cadeju), whose principal function is to cure sicknesses. They possess a power which is similar to Wanadi and his brothers, who were the first shamans of the earth. This power is not the same among all shamans, but is stronger in some.

Another group of specialists is the "owners" (edamo) of sacred songs (generally known as a´churi or aremi) and are called a´churi edamo or aremi edamo. Both types of specialists are able to perform rituals for good or evil purposes, since Wanadi and Cajushawa come from the same source.

The rituals celebrated by an a´churi or aremi edamo generally consist of : a) an exorcism, a magical invocation or sacred chants (aremi or a´churi) which vary in size and content; b) appropriate gestures – with the hands or breath – to expel and drive out the malignant forces or demons (odosha) ; c) use of magical amulets (eritrotojo).

The rituals can be classified as “communal", "private" and "individual". The entire community participates in the first type which is led by the a´churi or aremi edamo. They occur rarely and consist of ceremonies connected to events such as the clearing of a garden or the inauguration of a house.

The private rituals are more numerous and the number of participants varies. They include, for example, the celebration of a birth, first menstruation or the first harvest.

Individual rites are even more numerous, and their sole participant is the a´churi or aremi edamo. Examples of these rites are the exorcism that accompanies the blowing over any kind of meat that will be eaten by an individual for the first time; or before consuming forest fruits ; or to neutralize the evil forces that come with great rains or floods; to find a lost person or animal; for the making of canoes, woven cloth or other objects. There are also individual rites that act as preventive or curative magical medicine, or even « black magic » (lethal blowing on the victim).

The "Ye´kuana promise"

Ye´kuana cosmology has a prophetic dimension that is protagonized by the shamans. Besides knowing the past, the shamans can see the future, the “Ye’kuana promise”. And fate is dramatic: “first the shamans will disappear, then the wise men, then the singers, when the last Ye’kuana dies the earth will burn, the Whites will suffer greatly because they will be many, there will be no more water, the rains will cease to fall.” The Ye’kuana will meet Wanadi; but there is no “salvation” for all in the Ye’kuana “promise”. Thus, shamanism is the main reference point for collective destiny, or in other words, the vision of the Ye’kuana fate is related to shamanic practices.

For the elders, the present changes are the result of the changes in the times; according to them, the lack of observance of the taboos, as well as certain food restrictions and use of body painting, work together to produce an increase in sicknesses and weakening of the young people. Even with an apparent dose of pessimism, the present-day problems confirm and give value to the “traditions”, especially for the shamans who foresaw such changes.

Presently, the Ye’kuana do not have shamans in their communities in Brazil, but there are specialist midwives, traditional singers and specialists in magical and medicinal plants. Contact with their shamans in Venezuela takes place both by way of visits and by radiophone. Although they receive permanent health assistance in their communities, various problems still are treated in a traditional way, with songs, blowing, and use of plants, all of which go along with a food diet.

The Time of the festival and the Time for the School

Presently, the main festivals, or those of greater duration, take place in the period of the school holidays, except for Carnaval, which they have already incorporated into their calendar. But other activities, especially the building of houses, can be done independently of the school calendar. Also, several rituals, like the inauguration fo a house or the end of a period of restriction after first menstruation, require the consumption of Yaddadi [fermented beverage] and they don’t always take place outside the school calendar, which causes a certain tension.

In relation to the rite of passage of the girl to adulthood, for example, after the girl’s first menstruation, traditionally the girl stays for a year secluded most of the time weaving cotton in a compartment of her house which is set aside for that purpose. She cooks her own food and goes fishing alone. During this period she doesn’t use ornaments, she cuts her hair very short and reduces to a minimum her body decoration and social contact. The end of her seclusion is marked by a ceremony during which those who went through seclusion paint themselves and put on their beads. All of this goes along with songs and, at the end, the young women drink a lot of traditional drink, and are later taken to their hammocks. From that time on, they can marry, paint themselves and go to parties, among other things.

The period of seclusion overlaps with the school calendar, but in any case, the school has adapted as it can to the Ye’kuana calendar, letting the student who is in seclusion go to classes whenever possible. Besides that, currently the school year begins and ends before the urban calendar, which means that the end of the school year takes place in the middle of November, coinciding with the dry season, which is also the time for clearing the gardens and for building, that is, collective activities. There is greater movement among the families in this period, when they cut their gardens, various families visit their kin in other communities or they simply go off into the forest to hunt.

Renewing the Tanöökö

The main festival of the Ye´kuana is the Tanöökö, but it hasn’t been celebrated in more than 15 years in Brazil. Generally it took place when the men who had gone to Boa Vista over the rivers with their canoes, returned. These days, only the men from Waikás still make the trips by canoes to the ranches near Boa Vista. In Auaris, from the 1990s on, river transport has intensified.

Two of the men who conducted the Tanöökö festival unexpectedly died in the beginning of the ‘90s, one of them because of measles and the other because of a snakebite. No doubt this loss was important for explaining why the festival was no longer held. In any case, the teachers and traditional Ye’kuana leaders intend to show the younger people how the Tanöökö festival was done.

According to the elders, the festival involved the whole community which had to make musical instruments; there are wrestling matches in which one needs to know the rules; part of the community goes off to hunt; and another part prepares the food that will be consumed during the festival along with the game animals.