Luakam Anambé wanted her newborn granddaughter to have a doll – something she’d never owned as a child working in slave-like conditions in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
Atyna Pora, of Brazil's Anambe indigenous group, clips the hair made of yarn of an indigenous doll, at a sewing workshop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, May 24, 2022. Pora and her mother Luakam Anambe who make the dolls bearing faces and body paints of different Indigenous groups, have sold more than 5,000 of their dolls.
“Before, only white dolls existed, then came the Black ones, but Indigenous ones didn’t appear,” said Anambé, 53, wearing a beaded necklace and a headdress of delicate orange feathers. “When Indigenous women see the dolls, they sometimes cry.”Since 2013, Anambé has sold more than 5,000 dolls at local fairs and through social media, mailing them across the country, and she is fundraising to attend a German fair with the aim of exporting to Europe.
Anambé worked for years as a cleaning lady in Belem, Para state’s capital. But she felt life had more in store for her and that she should seek opportunities in one of Brazil's biggest cities. She hitched an eight-day ride to Rio with a long-haul trucker and thought of him as a godsend, especially because he didn't abuse her.
While they were the first to reach a broad audience using social media, others have followed in their footsteps.
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