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.
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