PERU
women — decorate every corner. Seated around a table topped with bowls of tropical fruit, Consuelo’s family — each also a Yana Rumi — welcomes us: her sister, two aunts, niece and grandmother. They all sport the same uniform as Consuelo, their blouses hand-stitched with geometric floral insignia, which, they tell me, is their family symbol. A similar emblem — in white, red and black, the colours of their ceramics — decorates the wall. Consuelo’s grandmother created the original design, based on the wildflowers she’d encountered in the Amazon, then her mother and sister painted the next layers. Pottery may be what the Yana Rumi is known
for, but they produce all manner of traditional crafts. The collective was formed in 2019 out of a desire to bring together the many craftspeople who work in Chazuta to better preserve their ancestral techniques. At the beginning, the Yana Rumi included some men. “But they all left,” she says. “The work was too difficult for them.” Each woman returns to her station and picks
up where she left off, weaving baskets made of palm-leaf fibre and spinning raw cotton into thread with a hand spindle. Her aunt sits at a traditional loom, folding threads in a rainbow of colours into complex, interlocking designs — a traditional Amazonian technique. I follow Consuelo to the other end of the studio,
where shelves are stacked with tools and giant hemp bags line the floor. These are filled with shaño, powder made from crushed pieces of fired pots, which is eventually blended with clay to make it grittier and easier to manipulate. Consuelo shows me how she makes the shaño using a giant maray — a grindstone that was passed down to her from her grandmother. Sitting on the ground, she rocks it back and forth over shards of pottery, pulverising them into dust. Next, it’s time to mix the clay. Tradition dictates
Clockwise from top: The Yuna Rumi’s carved pottery often reflects the natural world, with patterns inspired by rivers, plants, animals and ancestral traditions; all members of the collective wear the same blouse, which is hand- stitched with their family’s geometric floral insignia; no two pieces of artwork tell the same story
that this is done by foot, and Consuelo persuades me to join in. I take off my shoes and step into the giant trough where the clay is drying after being collected from local riverbanks. “This part is therapeutic,” she says, as her sister puts on a mix of pandilla music — a frenetic dance genre from the Amazon. “Baile!” orders Consuelo, and we stomp and shimmy, mulching the shaño into the wet earth. As the clay squidges between my toes, it becomes
smooth and pliant. Consuelo collects some and brings us over to her working table, where the pottery is shaped. “First, you roll it out to take out
the oxygen,” she instructs, slamming a handful down and flattening it with her palm. We follow her lead, pushing the cool clay down onto the table until it’s a flat circle. Then she demonstrates how to shape the raw material into a vessel by making long, wormlike coils and stacking them on top of the base. “It should look like intestines,” she says, before showing us how to smooth out each ridge so that we have a small, oven-ready bowl. We won’t be firing our wares today, though. The
traditional process, called shuntu, takes up to 13 hours and requires a colossal amount of lumber for a white-hot, open fire. The women begin at two or three in the morning, continually feeding the kiln with wood they’ve collected from the forest. I wander over to their enormous stone oven, its flames leaping out of the small opening as Consuelo’s aunt shovels logs inside. Once the vessels have hardened, they’re decorated using natural dyes made from materials from the rainforest. White earth is mixed with yellow earth to make lighter pigments, while black is made from the group’s namesake, the yana rumi — a local stone that’s long been used to give regional crafts their distinctive, glossy look. Consuelo picks up a tinaja (traditional jar)
that’s been fired, the greyish clay having turned a terracotta red in the process. It’s decorated with the same geometric flower motifs I’ve seen on the women’s blouses, daubed with thin brushes made from human hair. Around the rim, Consuelo has also painted three lines — another Yana Rumi signature, representing the three generations who work in the collective. The sun is setting now, bathing everything
— the pottery, the women quietly working away, the flowers on the wall — in a golden light. Watching Conseulo’s relatives buzz around the studio, conjuring precious treasures from the raw material of the rainforest, I can feel something else in the room with us: the spirit of her foremothers, guiding the hands of their descendants and keeping their heritage alive.
HOW TO DO IT: To reach San Martín, fly to Lima then catch a regional flight to Tarapoto. For the Nuwas, base yourself at Kantu Garden Lodge (from £79 per night) in the city of Moyobamba.
kantulodge.pe. To visit Chazuta, stay at Pumarini Amazon Lodge, near Tarapoto, where prices start from 444 PEN (£97) per night.
pumarinri.com Amazonian roads can be tricky to navigate, so it’s best to hire a local driver. You can do so via San Martín-based tour companies such as Millonarios Travel.
millonariostravel.com
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER – LATIN AMERICA COLLECTION 31
IMAGES: MARIO PORTILLA/CANATUR
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124
