Ancestral Echoes

Ancestral Echoes

Call Me João: Portugal's Strange Obsession With Naming Everyone the Same Thing

From Salazar's moral bureaucracy to the algorithmic age, Portugal's tiny name pool reveals a country still wrestling with its need for order — even in the chaos of identity.

Ancestral Echoes

Holy Brew, Dirty Politics: Guess Who Turned Ayahuasca Into a Fascist Sacrament?

Inside the União do Vegetal, where psychedelics are allegedly mixed with political indoctrination — proving that even enlightenment can be weaponized when religion and power share the same altar.

Ancestral Echoes

From Chains to Chants: The Black and Red Streets of Laranjeiras

The Festa dos Lambe-Sujos e Caboclinhos isn’t about costumes — it’s about memory, rebellion, and the unfinished story of liberation.

Ancestral Echoes

The greatest massacre in Rio de Janeiro began 525 years ago. And it never ended.

Indigenous activist and writer Yakuy Tupinambá exposes how state violence against Black and Indigenous peoples continues the unfinished project of colonization.

Ancestral Echoes

Forget Greta: These River Warriors Are Taking Climate Activism to Another Level

The Yaku Mama flotilla is bringing the fight for climate justice straight to the doorstep of next year's UN summit — by boat.

Ancestral Echoes

The Exotic Alibi: How Europe Still Uses Brazil to Forget Itself

A brief history of European thinkers finding salvation in Brazil — and erasing Brazilians in the process.

Ancestral Echoes

When the Beat Becomes a Crime Meter: Brazilian Courts Tell Cops to Back Off the Terreiros

It starts the same way almost every time: a neighbor calls, the cops show up, the drums fall silent. Afro-Brazilian terreiros—those sacred yards where atabaques mark the rhythm of the gods—are often treated like noisy bars rather than temples. The charge is always the same: “perturbação do sossego”

Ancestral Echoes

F*** Your Wig: A Bissau Project Is Turning Natural Hair Into Revolution

In Guinea-Bissau, a movement called Meninas Sem Peruca is ripping wigs off the colonial playbook and crowning Black women with their own damn power.

Ancestral Echoes

Katú Mirim: From the Courtyard to the Mosh Pit

The Bororo rapper is suing festivals, shredding stereotypes, and turning Indigenous rage into a future Brazil can’t censor.

Ancestral Echoes

Against the Museum Glass: Why Indigenous Culture Defies Patrimonialism

For Ailton Krenak and a new generation of Indigenous artists, culture is not an object to preserve but a living force in constant motion.

Ancestral Echoes

Ancient Grammar: When the Mind Speaks in Three Voices

How Tupi-Guarani philosophy mapped the mind long before psychology gave it a name.

Ancestral Echoes

The Meteorite Underground: Brazil’s All-Female Team Fighting for Cosmic Heritage

How Brazil’s As Meteoríticas are battling black markets, bad laws, and burned archives to preserve the oldest rocks in the solar system.