Thatxá

The pau-brasil Borduna¹  (in yathê language, Thatxá) is not merely an object: it is living memory, ancestral knowledge, and a symbol of Indigenous resistance. Carved from the wood of the tree that gave the country its name, it carries in its body the history of Indigenous peoples’ struggle to defend their territories, cultures, and ways of life. The deep red of pau-brasil evokes both the sap of the forest and the blood shed by generations of Indigenous people who fell defending life and Mother Earth. The borduna does not represent war for the sake of war, but the responsibility to protect the balance among beings, encantados, waters, forests, and future generations. It is an instrument of strength and wisdom, authority and care, crossing time as a witness to colonial violence and, at the same time, to the continued presence of Indigenous peoples. In its fibers burns the flame of ancestry: an ember that does not go out, transforming pain into resistance, memory into struggle, and existence into continuity.

_{1 – Borduna is a type of club, made by indigenous people.}