A Shaman's Perspective on Western Civilization

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Davi Kopenawa has been dubbed the Dalai Lama of the Rainforest and is considered one of the most influential tribal leaders in Brazil. The Yanomami number about 30,000 and occupy a vast territory stretching across northern Brazil and southern Venezuela. They only made full contact with the west in the 1950s when their lands were overrun by thousands of gold prospectors and loggers. After waves of epidemics and cultural and environmental devastation, one in three of all Yanomami, including Davi’s mother, died.

Davi’s experience of white people has been dreadful but he is unusual because he trained not just as a shaman but also worked with the Brazilian government as a guide and learned western languages. In the past 25 years, he has traveled widely to represent indigenous peoples in meetings and, having lived in both societies, he has a unique viewpoint of western culture. With the help of an anthropologist, Bruce Albert, who interviewed him over several years, he has written his autobiography The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. It is not just an insight into what a Yanomami leader really thinks, but a devastating critique of how the west lives, showing the gulf between primordial forest and modern city world views. By way of his autobiography, and other conversations, the Guardian News recently compiled several of Kopenawa’s observations. Read More.