The Baniwá indigenous people live in northern Brazil on the border with Colombia and Venezuela. There are only about 12 thousand people. They live from their own agriculture.
They manually work arumã fibers in the production of various types of basketry: hampers, urutu, sieves and jars.
The design of braiding forming concentric squares (waláiapo in Baniwa: balaio-ele ve), without the use of colored splints, is the first that every child learns and appears in the background of every urutu.
Through braiding techniques, various geometric motifs can be created, all with a specific symbolic meaning.
