At night, in this village near the Assua River in Brazil, the rainforest reverberates. The sound of generators at times competes with the forest, a sign that there are people here. Until recently, the Juma people seemed destined to disappear like countless other Amazon tribes decimated by the European invasion.

In the late 1990s, the last remaining family was made up of three sisters, Borea, Mandei, and Mayta and their father, Aruka, in his 50s. In 2021, Aruka died of Covid-19, pushing the Juma, a patriarchal society, closer to extinction.

Or so it seemed.

Mandei Juma became the first woman chief in this part of the Amazon and has been the chief for more than a decade now.

During a forced relocation earlier in their lives, Mandei and her sisters made the decision to marry men of other tribes, maintaining their people's lineage, despite a patrilineal tradition.

Today, against long odds, the Juma are making a comeback.

Fear of being invaded

The Juma Indigenous Territory, roughly the size of Las Vegas, is covered by old-growth Amazon rainforest. A top priority is to protect their territory, located in the south of Amazonas state, a hotspot of land-grabbing and illegal deforestation.

Mandei fears they could be invaded the same way as the Uru-eu-wao-wao village where she grew up. Once immersed in the forest, it is now surrounded by pasture illegally planted by non-indigenous invaders.

“I went back there for a visit, and the forest... ” she trailed off, weeping. “It's very painful; this is what we don’t want to happen here.”

The planned paving of a highway next to the territory increases the likelihood of being invaded by land-grabbers. Cattle farming and soya bean crop expansion across the region are palpably changing the environment and having a negative impact on their traditional way of life.

“The river doesn’t fill with water as it used to... The water shouldn’t dry up so much like this. It’s much hotter, it wasn’t like this before. Our concern is this: Why is this happening? Because of deforestation,” she said.

To protect against this, young men, including Mandei’s nephew Pure, patrol the territory by boat. They use drones donated by a local Indigenous non-profit, Kaninde, to monitor the most remote areas against loggers, poachers and fishermen.

“I kind of broke the anthropology rules and followed my mother’s lineage,” 22-year-old Pure proudly said in an interview in the Maloca. “If I don’t identify myself as Juma, who else will?”

'Largest responsibility': Not losing Juma culture

For Mandei, her people's language has also been key to this survival. Kawahiva is a severely endangered Amazonian language, spoken by approximately 560 people with 8 variations, including Juma, explains Santos, a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley.

Despite recent achievements, Mandei remains concerned about the future of Juma. The 24 inhabitants of their village are still very few, and there are not enough Juma men to increase their population, she reckons.

More than ever, the three women are grappling with how to pass down Juma’s traditions to the next generations.

“The largest responsibility I share with my sisters is to not lose Juma culture as taught by our father,” Mandei said.