Building a Sacred Medicine House in the Amazon

In Iskuya Village, within the Hene Baria Namakia Indigenous Land in Acre, Brazil, a new House of Traditional Medicine now stands as a sacred home for healing, ceremony, and the ancestral wisdom of the Huni Kuin people.

Community members stand beside the new wood-burning furnace, where traditional medicines will be carefully prepared within the completed Medicine House.

The Huni Kuin are an Indigenous people of the western Amazon whose communities span parts of Brazil and Peru. Their name is often translated as “the true people” or “the people with true customs,” reflecting a way of life rooted in kinship, ceremony, and deep relationship with the forest. Across generations, Huni Kuin elders, medicine keepers, artists, and spiritual leaders have carried knowledge of plants, rivers, animals, seasons, songs, and sacred medicines. This living wisdom continues to guide how communities care for one another and for the territories that sustain them.

Members of the Huni Kuin community gather together in the Amazon, Caucho Village - Tarauacá - Acre. Photo by Melanie Pyne.

The Medicine House was made possible through a donation from the Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange and implemented by the INU Institute in partnership with Chief Ninawa and the Huni Kuin community of Iskuya Village.

Built from the ground up by the community, the house provides a dedicated space for preparing and storing nixi pae, rapé, medicinal baths, and other sacred medicines. It includes an open area for preparation and teaching, secure storage, and a wood-burning stove where medicines can be carefully cooked.

Top: Community members carry timber down to the Envira River, where it will begin its journey to Iskuya Village. Bottom: The timber is transported by boat along the Envira, bringing the materials needed to build the new Medicine House.

Step Inside the Medicine House

In the video below, Shyrlene Oliveira da Silva Huni Kui introduces the completed Medicine House and shares how the space will serve the community.

Shyrlene leads the INU Institute in Brazil, which implemented the project. She holds a Ph.D. in Plant Production and specializes in Indigenous Peoples, human rights, and international cooperation.

Hear directly from Shyrlene as she shares how the space will be used. See the furnace where medicines will be prepared, the areas where vines, leaves, ashes, pots, and other materials will be stored, and the rooms where prayer, song, and ceremony will guide the work. Her words carry deep gratitude for the donation, partnerships, and community effort that helped bring this sacred space into being.

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The Medicine House will also support the continuation of traditional ecological knowledge. Elders, spiritual leaders, youth, and families will be able to gather around teachings that connect plant medicine, ceremony, land stewardship, and care for the wider community.

Top: Builders gather beside the timber as they lay out the footprint of the new Medicine House in Iskuya Village. Bottom: The exterior of the Medicine House takes shape among the trees in Iskuya Village.

Within Huni Kuin tradition, sacred medicines are part of a living system of knowledge held through relationship with the forest. This knowledge includes understanding which plants to gather, how and when to harvest them, how they are prepared, and the songs, prayers, and responsibilities that accompany their use. It recognizes that the well-being of the people cannot be separated from the well-being of the territory.

Top: Chief Ninawa stands beside a sacred tree in the Amazon. Photo by Lucy Martens. Bottom: Chief Ninawa dances with members of the Huni Kuin community. Photo by Melanie Pyne.

This work is closely connected to Elder Chief Ninawa Inu, a medicine man, cultural guardian, and President of the Huni Kuin People’s Federation of Acre. Through his leadership, Ninawa works to protect Indigenous rights, defend the Amazon, strengthen organic agriculture, and ensure that Huni Kuin wisdom continues to guide future generations. He is also the founder of the University of the Forest.

Through our vision for Earth Schools and Centers of Ancestral Wisdom, The Earth Elders is working toward a growing network of Indigenous-led spaces where traditional knowledge can be practiced, protected, and passed forward in relationship with the land. Our first phase envisions 13 Earth Schools, with a longer-term goal of creating a global constellation of 52 across biocultural territories and sacred sites.

The Medicine House is one of the community-rooted ways this wider mission comes to life. By supporting places where elders can teach, young people can learn, and ancestral medicines can be prepared with reverence, we help strengthen the living foundations from which future Earth Schools and Centers of Ancestral Wisdom can grow.

As the community celebrates the completion of the house, gratitude moves through the project in every direction. The forest offers medicine, materials, and teaching. The community offers knowledge, labor, ceremony, and care. Partners offer resources in support of a vision held and led by the Huni Kuin people.

Each contribution becomes part of a living circle of reciprocity, helping ancestral wisdom remain rooted, practiced, and alive for the generations to come.