Photos by Wagner Kaiowas
While taking the stage at Gillian’s Inn – a bar, restaurant and performance space in northern São Paulo, Brazil – the band Arandu Arakuaa compels the crowd into a moment of silence, unusual during a heavy metal show. Soft notes from the guitar, drums, contrabass and maracas, played by four men in the dress and facepaint of indigenous Brazilians, places the audience under a spell. A few seconds later, a petite female singer, her face painted like the others, joins the musicians. She shouts, breaking the spell, and as she begins singing, the crowd starts to jump around, bouncing their heads to the hard-hitting music that’s also kicked into gear.
The band combines traditional metal sounds with indigenous Brazilian stylings executed on flutes, foot rattles, and other instruments. The two singers present lyrics completely in Tupi Guarani, an ancient language spoken by tribes throughout Brazil and other South American lands. Arandu Arakuaa, whose name translates in Tupi Guarani – or just “Tupi” for short – to “wisdom of the cosmos,” is the only contemporary band to sing in that language, and their colorful lyrics are about indigenous legends, rights, and the struggles facing native Brazilian tribes today. Some call Arandu Arakuaa the first “folk-metal” band in the history of Brazil.
“It’s something new and is the most original thing I’ve heard in years,” says one audience member, Marcos Simão. “Who could ever imagine that two things that seem so different as heavy metal and indigenous culture, would result in something so cool?”
Arandu Arakuaa.
The person who dared to imagine that combination is Zhândio Aquino, the group’s founder, second vocalist and lyricist. Aquino descended from a Tupi-speaking tribe in the northern Brazil state of Tocantins, where he lived until he was 24 years old. “I had a very close contact with indigenous culture because of my grandmother and classmates,” Aquino says. “When I [began] playing in bands, it just felt natural to put my background on it.” Now 37, Aquino’s first experience with music came from the tribes and quilombos – villages populated by descendants of slaves who ran away from the farms they worked on in the 19th century. His love for heavy metal began when he was a teenager, when he emulated the genre’s brutally honest, expressive artists.
When Aquino moved to Brasília, the national capital, in 2004, he performed in a few amateur bands and people always observed that his music had an indigenous touch. “It was not always said as a compliment,” Aquino quips, “and I faced some resistance from some people at first.”
Aquino started looking for like-minded musicians to form his own band. It took three years to put Arandu Arakuaa together, but they’re still going strong, and are beginning to make waves in Brazil with their unique musical approach.
Before colonization began in about the year 1500, there were over a thousand languages spoken across Brazil. Today there are 170 indigenous languages, 40 of them with fewer than 100 speakers. Some experts believe 30 percent of the remaining indigenous languages may disappear in just the next 15 years.
“It’s a dramatic situation,” José Levinho, director at the Indigenous Museum in Rio de Janeiro, recently told Agência Brasil. “Those languages are a patrimony, not only to Brazil, but to the whole world.” Levinho observes apathy among the youth of various tribes when it comes to learning their respective language.
One of the biggest challenges for Arandu Arakuaa fans is understanding the lyrics. Most translation websites do not include Tupi, and few people speak it. To solve the problem, the band has included Portuguese subtitles in their video clips on YouTube.
Arandu Arakuaa performing at Basement of Rock Festival 2014 in Brazil. (Photo courtesy Arandu Arakuaa)
The tribes of Brazil face other concerns on top of their dying languages. Many are in constant conflictwiththe government as they try to maintain control of their lands, which are valued as potential revenue streams to land developers. Tribal gods and ancient rituals are often labeled as evil by Brazilian society. “There is a stigma around the tribes,” Aquino says, “and a lot of prejudice around them since they are often labeled as lazy, which is not true.”
Arandu Arakuaa addresses these struggles in their lyrics. One song titled “Red People” includes lyrics that tranlate into English as:
Some of us ran away, we hide in the forest
We still fight
The red people still resisting, while there is land, while there is forest
Everything became different
Our spirits are called demons
Each day less trees, less animals, less histories, less songs…
Some heavy metal fans say Arandu Arakuaa isn’t “real metal.” The group’s brightly colored outfits certainly contrast with the leather and spikes of many old-school acts. But such critiques do not deter the band members from their collective vision.
“What I like about Arandu Arakuaa is that people are not indifferent to our music: they will love or hate it,” says Aquino. “Most people think it’s strange at first and then we have to prove that we are good.”
His band is not the first Brazilian metal group to include tribal affects. The most famous heavy metal act from Brazil, Sepultura, infused references to indigenous culture in their 1996 album Roots, although not to nearly the same degree as Arandu Arakuaa.
The band has now released two albums and garnered thousands of followers on social media.
“We always had the intention to bring up a discussion that goes beyond music,” says a proud Aquino, who has a degree in pedagogy. Arandu Arakauaa often receives invitations to play in schools and other tribal-centric events. They have even lectured at universities about the importance of preserving the culture and languages of Tupi and other tribes. In the near future, they hope to perform for an indigenous tribe on their grounds for the first time.
“When we started we just wanted to have fun and we never had the intention to be pioneers in anything,” Aquino says. “Our music aims to show who we really are and what we believe. It is really rewarding to see our work being recognized.”
Luana Ferreira has been a journalist for nearly a decade. She is currently based in Brazil, but has also lived in The Netherlands and Belgium. Her work can be found in places like the BBC and Huffington Post.