The Indigenous Architecture of the Cosmos in the Amazon

Maloca is the name given to the houses where indigenous communities of the Amazon rainforest live, settled in regions of the forest in Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Malocas are architectural structures in which multiple families share daily activities and ritual practices. For the communities living in the Amazon rainforest, the maloca represents a physical manifestation of the cosmos, their ancestral knowledge, and a spatial strategy for living in harmony with nature.

The architecture of the maloca is deeply symbolic, reflecting the structure of the world and the cosmos as seen through the eyes of the indigenous groups who construct them. Through their architectural design, malocas depict these societies’ myths of origin and cosmological and sociological structures. The houses act as a symbolic representation of the human body, Mother Earth’s uterus, or the sun’s or moon’s house.

The maloca’s role as a home for nuclear and extended families reflects the conception of the house as a central spatial unit for the construction of society and the reproduction of life. Malocas are spaces where knowledge is transmitted to new generations through oral history and material culture, such as tools and ritual objects. It is also a place where collective decisions are made and the politics of the communities are put into play.

Malocas are constructed in community gatherings called mingas, which occur when several families unite to further collective goals, including exchanging goods or celebrating ritual events. The structural design of the maloca can vary depending on the community. However, in general terms, the base floor is a square or circle from which walls rise to support a conical or triangular roof. The techniques used to build and design a maloca are passed from generation to generation to preserve the community’s traditional knowledge.

The materials used for their construction come from natural resources in the surrounding environment. They include specific types of wood and plant leaves, mainly related to sacred elements depicted in different myths. These are gathered through sustainable strategies that protect environmental balance while granting the community protection from rain, heat, and humidity.

Some malocas are also constructed to track time and the year’s seasons. Their roofs have two openings, one pointing to the east and the other to the west. This allows the maloca to serve the community as a solar clock. As the sun moves throughout the day, the rays illuminate specific parts of the maloca’s roof, penetrating the interior space and shedding light over specific parts of the floor. At midday, the light is blocked, and the inside becomes completely dark.

The path of the sun’s light signals the time when different daily activities should be undertaken. Moreover, due to changes in the tilt of the sun throughout the year, the angle of the sunlight entering the maloca also changes, helping the community to determine seasonal periods for sowing, fishing, hunting or harvesting. The openings also serve a physical purpose, allowing air circulation and the escape of cooking smoke.

The central space of the maloca represents the center of knowledge, which is governed by men. This space is also dedicated to ritual dances and ceremonies, which may also exclude women. This inner area is designated by four pillars surrounded by an octagonal floor, which creates nine outer subspaces assigned to specific daily and ritual activities. The founder of Gaia Amazonas, Martin von Hildebrand, wrote about the symbolic-spatial distribution of the maloca, explaining how these four central pillars indicate the space reserved for the world of knowledge, with its surrounding areas, where women dominate, available for everyday activities such as cooking, eating, and sleeping. The symbolism of these four pillars can vary. Among the Makuna people, for instance, four central pillars represent four mountains that serve as the base for the sky of the world.

Malocas are a tangible representation of how locals believe physical and social spaces function, defined and organized in accordance with their myths. For instance, in the Makuna community, the maloca is perceived as a replica of the universe on a smaller scale. The two opposing doors represent the masculine and the feminine, which are divided by an imaginary “River of Milk.” This is the river through which an ancestral anaconda traveled to give birth to different indigenous communities and to create the world and the universe.

Malocas also act as a map of where different indigenous communities are located. In the horizontal plane, the central part of the house represents the community’s location in the broader territory; the outer areas surrounding the center of the maloca represent the locations where the neighboring and related communities live.

In the vertical plane, the maloca is situated in the terrestrial plane, between spiritual worlds located above and below the ground. These mythical—but not imaginary—territories are inhabited by spiritual beings that the community’s shamans contact through visions induced by consuming yajé, a sacred preparation made from the ayahuasca plant.

In Makuna mythology, malocas are located in one of the planes that comprise a multilayered cosmological structure. These different layers mirror the “real” world and include, in the upper levels, the Maloca de la Dulzura (Maloca of Sweetness), Maloca de la Gente Estrella (Maloca of the Star People) and the Maloca of the Day. The lower levels consist of the Maloca de la Tristeza (Maloca of Sadness), where the dead live, and the Umarí River, the path below the earth that the sun follows overnight.

Malocas are the heart of cultural life in the Amazon rainforest. They spatially reflect the cosmology and mythical stories that serve as the foundation of cultural life amongst local communities. Many families can live together in a single maloca, which may include 50 to 80 people. In some communities, members of the families are even buried under the space where their hammocks used to hang. Although communal life rules inside the malocas due to the necessary cohabitation of different families, malocas are also spaces for social disputes and interpersonal conflict resolution.

In the maloca, ancestral histories and beliefs are exchanged; it’s a space not only for everyday activities but one that transcends its practical purpose, serving as an architectural embodiment of their cosmogony. This happens through the everyday sharing of stories or rituals, including the Yuruparí, the most significant ethnological event to take place in the Amazon rainforest, the rite of passage marking men’s transition from childhood to adulthood.

The Architectural and Cultural Legacy of Amazonic Malocas

Today, malocas are an excellent example for understanding how indigenous communities maintain a concrete bond with their past, present and future in an ecological and architectural manner. Malocas are structures that weave together the community’s ancestral history, myths and daily activities. They create a space that embodies the sustainability of the relationship between humans, non-humans and the environment. This creates collective well-being and preserves social life in harmony with the rainforest.

Historically, malocas have been targeted and destroyed over the years. Many were destroyed by Catholic colonial missionaries in the 16th century, who considered them to be pagan and demonic spaces that had to be erased in order to facilitate the evangelization and indoctrination of local communities into the Catholic faith. Despite this, malocas remained.

From the end of the 19th century until the mid-20th century, the Amazon rainforest faced intensive destruction due to rubber exploitation. Indigenous peoples were enslaved, and many malocas were burnt. Deforestation and illegal mining also threaten these communities and their homes. Today, malocas are at risk of disappearing due to a number of threats harming the Amazon rainforest, including climate change, intensive animal breeding and deforestation.

These threats are the result of capitalist intervention in the territory, damaging the natural and social balance of the Amazon rainforest that these communities have worked to preserve. The social and geographical isolation that have characterized the Amazon rainforest throughout the years, as well as the lack of state presence, have caused the Amazon rainforest to historically be subject to many destructive influences, first from foreign settlers and, today, from multinational companies seeking to exploit natural resources.

Despite this, many local indigenous communities have organized themselves into political action groups to fight for their land rights. These efforts include gatherings and conversations that take place inside the malocas themselves. These houses are becoming increasingly vital places for safeguarding the natural and cultural heritage of the Amazon rainforest in the face of negligent national governments that favor economic growth over the preservation of the rainforest as a resource for developing strategies to address the contemporary challenges of climate change and the destruction of natural environments.