From 13 to 16 November more than 1,500 participants from 48 Brazilian ethnic groups, as well as from more than a dozen other nations, have descended on Cuiaba, the capital of Mato Grosso state, for the games. All participants earned medals carved from wood, seeds and other natural items.

The more traditional sports are carried out as exhibitions rather than competitions.A crowd favourite is the wild tree-trunk relay race, with nine or more stout runners sprinting about 500 metres around a red-dirt arena, taking turns carrying a 100kg chunk of tree on their shoulders. Just getting to the finish line is considered a victory. Another sport, called xikunahity, resembles football, but with players crawling along the ground, only permitted to use their heads to push the ball forward. (…)

Chief Willie Littlechild, of the Cree nation and a former member of Canada’s parliament, said attending the games was “truly a blessing, to see that such a rich culture exists with indigenous peoples around the world.” For the non-indigenous people there, Littlechild said he hoped the games allowed them “to join us in a celebration of life.”

The games were hold on a 7-hectare park, with large, white, plastic tents dotting the area, each holding tables full of crafts, such as small pottery figures, wooden bowls, woven cloth and delicately carved musical instruments meant to mimic the songs of jungle birds.Other tables hold the seeds of dozens of types of edible plants. Food security is one of the main themes of this year’s event, with ethnic groups from throughout Brazil encouraged to trade seeds and take unknown varieties back to their villages.

Amelia Reina Montero, from the Nahua ethnic group of Mexico who was making her first trip to Brazil, summed up the prevailing mood of the gathering, saying it offered the rare chance for ethnic groups from the Americas, often with limited contact to the outside world, to interact and learn from one another. “Despite that fact that our languages are different, that our skin varies, we’re uniting here with one heart,” she said. “That’s the Indian way.”

Freely adapted: www.theguardian.com