In the past, the matsés built large common houses called shubu kimo, which had a regular exogenous shape, often covered with a roof of palm leaves, folded and stacked up to the floor, with an opening at the front and back of the maloca. The malocas had a precise and strategic location, they were placed on an elevated piece of land oriented parallel to the watercourse situated at a lower level and surrounded by a circle of gardens in production. In addition, a transition zone was arranged between the community and the surrounding forest. In 1976, the largest Matsés malocas observed in Peru were up to 35 metres long and 10 metres high, and housed 100 people.
The construction of small improvised huts or shubus was common, after a walk in the jungle, before arriving home, they kept in the shubu non-perishable food, and temporarily left animals that they had captured, since it would not be convenient to make them pass abruptly from the jungle to the interior of the malocas.
Today, the vast majority of contemporary Matsés houses have been built in the regional non-indigenous mestizo style, large and cool stilted homes made from fattened palm slats and roofed with palm leaves. The Matsés never build their houses in floodable areas, so the stilts do not serve the purpose of water protection for them. This house style was developed as they copied the structure from mestizos who dwell in the floodplain, The attraction for the Matsés is that this house style allows them to not have a dirt floor.
Before contact with the outside world 50 years ago, all Matsés lived in the traditional malocas, today the mestizo style home is the norm. To construct a maloca only the remaining elders have the knowledge to do so, showing how this once fundamental ancestral art is on the verge of being forgotten.
As dusk falls in Matsés land and as in most of the Amazon, activity stops and families congregate at home to share food and conservation. In Matsés villages today, and like how it was 50 years ago before western contact, ‘shupiwii’ torches flicker in smokey homes as families settle down for the evening. Shupiwii are traditional torches made with copal resin - wrapped in palm leaves, the torches last for several days and are still widely used today to light homes during the evening.
There are always plenty of pets in the villages, orphans of hunted animals which Matsés children happily take under their care. Sloths, monkeys and birds are amongst the most common but many other animals are also adopted.
