Heir of her father and grandparents’ knowledge of handicrafts, Karine remembers her childhood in Macedonia, the birthplace of some of the best Amazonian bloodwood carvers. Her grandfather, Néstor Vela Torres, was one of the founders of this famous indigenous community. She identifies herself as woca, which means mestizo, because her Tikuna grandmother married an Italian solder when she was 13 years old, who gave her the surname Dinorio. She had an upbringing that always combined planting, the creation of handicrafts, and practicing traditional medicine—customs that still live on in the Nuevo de Leticia neighborhood. Due to the drug trafficking violence in the 1990s, they had to move to the capital of the department and, from there, she has continued to keep the craft alive, together with her whole family. The men keep carving and sculpting, replacing the endangered bloodwood with other woods, such as old fustic, macacauba and pona palm, while the women weave necklaces, baskets, bags, bracelets, traditional clothes, and crowns, which they now make with painted hen feathers to protect the environment. They work with many seeds, such as coconut, tucumã palm, huayruro, Job’s tears, and açaí, as well as the essential chambira or yanchama fibers. They combine everything with the essential planting of cassava and the medicinal plants with which they offer a whole medical repertoire that keeps them connected to their roots.

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