Yanomami
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami tells:
Dreams of the origins
The
xapiripë spirits have danced for the shamans since the earliest
time and continue to do so now. They look like human beings but
are as minuscule as particles of shining dust. In order to see
them one has to inhale the powder of the yãkõanahi
tree many, many times. It takes as long as it takes for the whites
to learn how to draw their words.
Yãkõanahi powder is the foodstuff of the spirits.
The eyes of those who do not 'drink' it like this become like
the eyes of a ghost and cannot see anything.
The xapiripë dance together on great mirrors that come down
from the sky. They are never gray like the humans. They are always
magnificent: their bodies are painted with urucum and lined with
black drawings, their heads are covered with white feathers of
king vulture, their beaded arm straps are full of parrot, cujubim
and red macaw feathers, their waists are wrapped with toucan tails.
Thousands of them come to dance together, waving leaves of young
palms, emitting cries of joy and singing ceaselessly. Their path
look like spider's thread sparkling like moonlight and their feather
ornaments move slowly at the pace of their steps. It's a joy to
see how beautiful they are!
The spirits are that numerous because they are the images of
the forest animals. Everything in the forest has an utupë
image: those who walk on the ground, those who climb in the trees,
those who have wings, those who live in the water. It is those
images that the shamans call and make come down to become xapiripë
spirits. Those images are the true center, the true interior of
the forest beings. Common people cannot see them, only the shamans.
But they are not images of the animals we know today. They are
the images of these animals' fathers, they are our ancestors'
images.
In the First Time, when the forest was still young, our ancestors
were humans with the names of animals and ended up becoming prey.
It is them whom we kill with arrows and eat today. But their images
have not disappeared and it is them who dance for us as xapiripë
spirits. Those ancestors are truly old. They became prey a long
time ago, but their ghosts are still here. They have names of
animals, but are invisible beings that never die. The whites'
epidemics may try to burn them down and devour them, yet they
will never disappear. Their mirrors always sprout up again.
Whites draw their words because their thoughts are filled with
forgetfulness. We have kept the words of our ancestors within
us for a long time and we continue to pass them on to our children.
The children who know nothing about the spirits hear the chants
of the shamans and then want to see the spirits in their turn.
This is how, even though they are very old, the words of the xapiripë
always become new again. It is them that increase our thoughts.
It is them that make us see and know far away things, the things
of the old ones. It is our study, what teaches us how to dream.
This way, those who do not dream the whiff of the spirits has
the thought short and smoky; he who is not looked upon by the
xapiripë does not dream, he just sleeps like an axe lying
on the floor.
Discovering the whites
Of the cannibal spirits
A long time ago, my grandparents, who lived in Mõramahi
araopë, a house very far, on the headwaters of the Toototobi
River, sometimes visited other Yanomami established in the lowlands
along the Aracá River.
It was there that they met the first whites. These strangers
gathered fiber of the piassava palm tree along the river.(1)
During those visits our old ones got their first machetes. They
told me that many times, when I was a child. At that time they
only ran into whites when they traveled very far, and they would
not go see them without a reason, simply to visit them. They had
seen their metal tools and they longed for them, because they
had only pieces of metal that Omama had left.(2)
It was during those long trips that, every now and then, they
managed to get a machete or even an axe. Then they would work
in their fields and lend them to one another. When one had cleared
his field he would pass it on to another and so on and so forth.
They also lent those few tools from one village to the other.
It wasn't to get matches that they went so far to see the whites,
oh, no: they had their cocoa sticks to make fire. Of course they
thought that aluminum pots were very beautiful, but it wasn't
because of that that they made those trips either: they also had
terracotta bowls for cooking what they hunted. It was really because
of their machetes and their axes that they visited those strangers.
But it was a lot later, when we lived at Marakana, closer to
the mouth of the Toototobi River, that the whites first visited
our home. At the time our old ones were still all alive and we
were many, I remember. I was a boy, but was beginning to become
conscious of things. It was there that I started to grow up and
discovered the whites. I had never seen them, I knew nothing about
them. I didn't even think that they existed. When I saw them I
cried, I was so afraid. The adults had already met them a few
times, but I hadn't! I thought they were cannibal spirits that
were going to devour us. I thought that they were very ugly, whitish
and hairy. They were so different they terrified me. Besides,
I couldn't understand a single one of their entangled words. It
sounded like they spoke a ghost's language. They were people from
the "Comissão" (Commission).(3)
The old ones used to say that they stole children,
that they had already captured some and taken them when they went
up the Mapulaú River, in the past.(4)
That's also why I was so scared: I was sure that
they were going to take me away too. My grandparents had already
told that story many times, I had heard them say: "Yes, those
whites are children thieves!", and I was very scared. Why
had they taken those children? I still wonder about it.
When those strangers would come into our house my mother would
hide me under a large woman carrying basket, in the back of our
house. Then she'd say: "Don't be afraid! Don't say a word!",
and I stayed there, trembling under my basket, saying nothing.
I remember it, but I must have been very small at the time or
I wouldn't have fit under that basket! My mother would hide me
because she too was afraid that the whites would take me with
them, like they had stolen those children the first time. It was
also to calm me down, because I was terrified and would stop crying
only when I was hiding. All the things that the whites carried
with them scared me too: I was afraid of their motors, their electric
flashlights, their shoes, their eyeglasses and their watches.
I was afraid of the smoke from their cigarettes, of the smell
of their gasoline. Everything scared me because I had never seen
such things and I was still little! But when their planes flew
above us I wasn't the only one to be afraid, the adults also were
frightened; some of them would even start sobbing, and everybody
ran to the neighboring woods! We are inhabitants of the forest,
we didn't know airplanes and we were terrified. We thought they
were flying supernatural beings that were going to fall upon us
and burn us all. We all were very afraid of dying! I remember
I was also afraid of the voices that came out of the radios and
of the explosion of the shotguns that killed game. I asked myself
what all those things that looked supernatural could be! I also
asked myself why those people had come to our house.
Later I really began to grow up and to think straight, but I
continued to ask myself: "What are the whites doing here?
Why do they open paths in our forest?". The older ones would
answer: "No doubt they come to visit our land in order to
live here with us later!" They understood nothing of the
whites' language; that's why they let them enter their lands in
such a friendly way. Had they understood their words, I think
they would have expelled them. Those whites fooled them with their
presents. They gave them axes, machetes, knives, clothes. In order
to make their distrust sleep they would say: "We, the whites,
will never leave you deprived of things, we will give you many
of our products and you will become our friends!". But, shortly
thereafter, almost all of our relatives died in an epidemic, then
in another one. Later, a lot of other Yanomami again died when
the highway entered the forest(5)
and many more when the garimpeiros (gold prospectors) arrived
with their malaria. But this time I had already become an adult
and I thought straight; I really knew what the whites wanted when
they entered our land.
Discovering the Discovery
Whites are ingenuous, they have many machines and products, but
they have no wisdom. They no longer think of what their ancestors
were when they were created. In the beginning they were like us,
but they forgot all their old words. Later they crossed the waters
and came towards us. They keep repeating that they discovered
this land. I realized that only when I began to understand their
language. But we, the inhabitants of the forest, have been living
here for a very long time, since Omama created us. In the beginning
of things here there existed only inhabitants of the forest, human
beings.(6)
Today the whites claim: "We discovered the land of Brazil!".
That's nothing but a lie. This land has existed forever and Omama
created us along with it. Our ancestors had known it forever.
The whites did not discover it! Many other peoples, such as the
Makuxi, the Wapixana, the Waiwai, the Waimiri-Atroari, the Xavante,
the Kayapó and the Guarani lived there too. But, despite
that, the whites continue to lie to themselves thinking that they
discovered this land! As if it were empty! As if the human beings
didn't live in it since the beginning of time!
The whites were created by Omama in our forest, but he expelled
them because he was afraid of their lack of wisdom and because
they were dangerous to us!(7)
He gave them a land very far from here because he wanted to protect
us from their epidemics and their weapons. That's why he set them
apart. But those ancestors of the whites told their children about
this forest and their words spread for a long time. They remembered:
"It's true! There was, very far, another, very beautiful
land!", and they came back to us. On the edge of this land
of Brazil where they arrived there lived other Indians. These
whites were few and they lied: "We, the whites, are good
and generous! We give presents and food! We will live side by
side with you in this land! We will be your friends!". It
was with those same lies that they have tried to fool us since
they arrived also at us. After those first lies they went away
and talked among themselves. Then they came back in great numbers.
In the beginning, without houses to live in this land, they showed
friendship towards the Indians. They had seen the beauty of the
forest and they wanted to settle here. But since they actually
settled, since they built their houses and opened up their planting
fields, since they started to raise cattle and dig the earth looking
for gold, they forgot their friendship. They started to kill the
peoples of the forest who lived near them.
In the early times, human beings were very numerous in this land.
That's what our old ones say. There were no dangerous diseases,
measles, the flu, malaria. We were alone, there were no garimpeiros
to burn gold, factories to produce iron and gasoline, cars and
airplanes. The forest and those who lived in it were not ill all
the time. It was only when the whites became very numerous that
their smoke-epidemic xawara began to increase and to spread all
over. That evil thing became very powerful and that's how the
peoples of the forest began to die.(8)
When they lived without the whites our ancestors didn't have factories,
they hunted and worked in their fields to make their food grow.
They also didn't make all the rivers dirty like those whites that
now look for gold in our lands.
"We discovered these lands! We have books and, because of
that, we are important!", say the whites. But these are only
lying words. They did nothing more than take the lands from the
peoples of the forest and start to devastate them. All lands were
created together, the whites' and ours, at the same time as the
sky. All this have existed since the early times, when Omama made
us exist That's why I don't believe in those words of them discovering
the land of Brazil. It was not empty! I think that the whites
always want to take our land, that's why they keep repeating those
words. Those are also the words of the garimpeiros' about our
forest: The Yanomami didn't live here, they come from another
place! This land was empty, we want to work on it!". But
I'm a child of the old Yanomami, I live in the forest where my
people have lived since I was born and I don't tell all whites
that I discovered it! It has always been there, before me. I don't
say: "I discovered this land because my eyes fell upon it,
therefore I own it!" It has existed forever, before me. I
don't say: "I discovered the sky!". I don't say: "I
discovered the fish, I discovered game!". They have always
been there, since the beginning of time. I simply say that I also
eat them, that's all.
The Commodity People
When I traveled far I saw the whites' land, there is where, a
long time ago, their ancestors used to live. I visited the land
they call Europe. It was their forest, but they stripped it, little
by little cutting down their trees in order to build their houses.
They made many children, they would not stop growing in numbers,
and there was no forest any longer. So they stopped hunting, there
was no game left. Later their children started to produce commodity
and their spirits began to become dark because of all those goods
upon which they fixed their thoughts. They built stone houses
so that they would not deteriorate. They continued to destroy
the forest, telling themselves: "we are going to become the
Commodity People! We are going to produce many of them and money
too! So, when we are really very numerous we will never be miserable!".
It was with such thought that they destroyed their forest and
fouled their rivers. Now they only drink 'wrapped' water, that
they have to buy. The real water, the one that runs in the rivers,
is no long good for drinking.
In the early times the whites lived like us in the forest and
their ancestors were few. Omama told them his words too, but they
didn't hear him. They thought they were lies and started to look
for minerals and oil everywhere, all those dangerous things that
Omama wanted to hide underground or underwater because their heat
is dangerous. But the whites found them and thought of making
with them tools, machines, automobiles and airplanes. They became
euphoric and said to themselves: "We are the only ones that
are so ingenious, only we know really how to make the products
and the machines!". It was at that moment that they really
lost all wisdom. First they ruined their own land before moving
on to someone else's in order to increase their products non-stop.
They never said to themselves again: "If we destroy the land,
will we be able to recreate another?".
When I saw the whites' land I was distressed. Some cities are
beautiful, but the noise never stops. They run around in them
with cars, on the streets and even with trains underground. There's
a lot of noise and people all over. One´s mind becomes dark
and entangled, one can no longer think straight. That's why the
thought of the whites is full of dizziness and they don't understand
our words. All they say is: "We are very happy to roll and
fly! Let's continue! Let's look for oil, gold, iron! The Yanomami
are liars!". The thought of those whites is obstructed, that's
why they mistreat the land, stripping it everywhere, and they
dig it even under their houses. They don't think that one day
it will end up collapsing. They are not afraid of falling into
the underground world. However, that's how it is. If the 'white-spirits-giant-armadillos'
[mining companies] enter underground everywhere to take out minerals,
they will get lost and fall into the dark and rotten world of
the cannibal ancestors.(9)
We, we want the forest to be kept as it is, always. We want
to live in it with good health, and that continue to live in it
the xapïripë spirits, the game and the fish. We plant
only the plants that feed us, we want no factories, no holes in
the ground, nor dirty rivers.
We want the forest to remain quiet, the sky to remain clear,
that the evening darkness really falls and that the stars can
be seen. The whites' lands are polluted, they are covered by a
xawara-epidemic-smoke that has extended very high to the sky's
bosom. This smoke is coming towards us but has not reached us
yet, because the celestial spirit Hutukarari still repeals it
incessantly. Above our forest the sky is still clear, because
it hasn't been that long that the whites came close to us. But
later, when I'm dead, maybe this smoke will grow big to the point
of extending darkness over the Earth and turn off the Sun. The
whites never think of these things that the shamans know, that's
why they are not afraid. Their thought is filled with forgetfulness.
They continue to fix it ceaselessly on their products, as if they
were their girlfriends.
About the narratives
The two testimonies above by Davi Kopenawa Yanomami were collected
in 1998 in the village where he lives, translated and edited by
Bruce Albert (anthropologist, Institut de Recherche pour
le Dévéloppement - IRD). The second had been previously
published in: Novaes, Adauto (org.). A Outra Margem do Ocidente.
São Paulo, Minc - Funarte/Companhia das Letras, 1999.
The Saga of Davi Kopenawa Yanomami
By Bruce Albert:
Davi Kopenawa, born in 1956, lives in the yanomami village of
Watork, located at the foot of the Demini range ("Windy Mountain"),
in the State of Amazonas. His group of origin was almost entirely
annihilated in the Upper Toototobi River (near the Venezuelan
border) by two successive epidemics after contact was established
by the Serviço de Proteção ao Índio
(SPI) and with the Evangelical mission Novas Tribos do Brasil
(NTB) (1959-60, the flu [?]; 1967; measles). Thus when still a
child Davi Kopenawa lost the most of his relatives. Next he was
subjected to - and later on rejected it - the proselytism of the
NTB missionaries, and in his adolescence left his native region
in order to work at the Fundação Nacional do Índio
(Funai) as an interpreter. In the beginning of the 1980's he fixed
residence in Watork, where he married the daughter of the community
leader, a renowned shaman who initiated him and, a determined
traditionalist, continues to be his mentor. He is today at the
same time the chief of the Demini Indigenous Post and one of Watoriki's
most influential shamans.
The invasion of their lands by about 30,000 to 40,000 garimpeiros
cost the lives, between 1987 and 1990, of more than 1,000 Yanomami
in Brazil. Shocked with this tragedy, which revived in him the
reminiscences of the epidemics that decimated his family in the
1960s, Davi Kopenawa engaged himself in a relentless struggle
against the destruction of his people and of his land's forest.
Thanks to his experience with the whites and the intellectual
solidity his shamanistic knowledge gives him, he soon became the
main spokesman for the yanomami cause in Brazil and in the world.
During the 1980s and 1990s he visited many countries of Europe
and the United States. He received, after Chico Mendes, the Global
500 Award of the United Nations Program for the Environment and,
recently, the Rio Branco Order, Brazil's most important condecoration.
NOTES
(1)Aracá River, which, like the Toototobi
River, is a tributary of the Demini River, itself a tributary
of the Negro River's right margin.
(2)The old Yanomami possessed
very worn out fragments of machetes and axes, which they obtained
through a complex circuit of inter-ethnic exchanges, but whose
origin they attributed to Omama, their cultural hero.
(3)A team from the Comissão
dos Limites - Limits Commission - (CBDL) sailed up the Toototobi
River in 1958-9.
(4)Allusion to a fist visit
by the CBDL to the Toototobi River, in 1941.
(5)The BR-210 (Perimetral Norte)
Highway, opened in 1973-4 and abandoned in 1976,
after cutting through two hundred kilometers Southeast of the
yanomami territory.
(6)The Yanomami self-designation
- yanomae thëpë - means in the first place "human
beings", and is applied also to the other Indians, in opposition
to animals, supernatural beings and non-Indians (napëpë).
(7)The whites were created
by Omama from the blood of a group of Yanomami ancestors that
was devoured by otters and alligators during a great flood caused
by the violation of a menstrual interdiction.
(8)The expression xawara wakëxi
("smoke-epidemic") designates here at the same time
epidemics and pollution, to which is attributed the same origin:
the fusion of gold, ore and oil extracted from the ground to manufacture
the products of the whites and supply their vehicles.
(9) The yanomami universe is
composed of four superposed levels suspended above a "great
emptiness". The underground world was formed by the lowering
of the Earth's level in the beginning of times. It is inhabited
by the Yanomami ancestors of the first humanity, who have become
cannibal monsters (the aõpataripë).
