Irka Mateo

Irka Mateo is a Taino elder from Kiskeya, modern-day the Dominican Republic. She is a ceremonialist and traditional healer who conducts earth-honoring ceremonies and traditional amazonian healing throughout the year. Ms. Mateo has documented Taino cultural and spiritual survival in the Dominican countryside for two decades and currently produces documentaries on these topics. She also has documented the Dominican folk music that is performed in the spiritual ceremonies. In 2013 she was supported by the Grammy Foundation for creating an archive on this folk music project. She worked for ten (10 years) at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian, creating and implementing Taino cultural programs for children and adults. She is an award-winning singer-songwriter and recording artist, one of the pioneers of the Dominican alternative music movement. She lives in Los Angeles.