[1] He served as President of the Instituto de Pesquisa Etno Ambiental Xingu.
He was the son of indigenous chief Paru Yawalapiti and his wife, Tepori Kamaiurá.
[2][3] During his childhood, he was mentored by the Villas-Bôas brothers, who taught him the importance of maintaining a natural habitat.
[4] In 1964, when he was 15 years old, he met the former king Leopold III of Belgium while the latter was on an expedition into indigenous reservations in Mato Grosso.
Prepared from a young age, Yawalapiti ascended to the rank of cacique in the 1980s, devoting himself to the rights of indigenous people in Brazil.