Get to Know Artist Kulikyrda Mehinaku

To the people that don’t speak the Mehinaku indigenous language, Kulikyrda presents himself as Stive. Born in 1985, Stive is not only an artist, but also an agroecology technician and an indigenous health agent. He has also been a striker in the municipal soccer championship of Gaúcha do Norte, Mato Grosso. In 2018, his work of art was exhibited at the BEĨ collection exhibition, Brazilian Indigenous Stools, held at the Japanese Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, and at Benches of the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples: Human Imagination and Wildlife, at the Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, in Tokyo, Japan.

Stive told us about his story, motivations, and learning of stool production. Read his account:

“When I was around thirteen years old, I started to make stools.There were two reasons why I decided to make them: first, it was a habit of my people Mehinaku, used for their own purposes inside the oca; second, to commercialize it. Each family had its own benefits with the selling, that, at that time, it was the only way they could buy their belongings, such as clothes, hammocks to sleep, blankets, fishhooks, rifles, outboard motors, bicycles, motorbikes etc. This motivated me to make stools.

My uncles and cousins used to travel to São Paulo state to sell. I was attracted to that and started to watch their production, how the tree trunk was transformed into different animal forms, which wood would be chosen etc.

I started to get closer to the other artists in the village. When they would make the stools next to their ocas, I went to them and watched their work. I would chat, ask how the stools were made. And I started to follow, watching for the details until the pieces were painted. I got curious to know and learn quickly. While I approached the artists, I learned with them, just by looking.

So, I started to put my knowledge into practice, without anyone helping or teaching me. I would make the stools medium or large-sized. I would make different animal forms, knowing that selling them was important to earn money. Later, I would offer my stools to the people that were going to São Paulo, so they would sell them for me. And they succeeded for real! When they came back from the trip, I would receive my money. And so I realized that selling the stools was an efficient way to buy things.

And so, I learned how to make stools. I kept on producing and improving my works, learning by myself. There wasn’t a main person responsible for teaching me, I just learned by looking at the Mehinaku artists. I didn’t learn from my father, but by myself; my father used to make only shaman stools and two-headed sparrow-hawks, and, sometimes, some basketmaking.

Besides the stools, nowadays I make paddles, graters, masks, humming instrument, manioc graters, scoops for beiju, statues, maces, cabeçudo and bow and arrow for the children.”