Yanomami boys inside a maloca - the village house- Brazil copyright Fiona Watson/Survival

We learn with the great spirits’

Photos and Copy Courtesy of Survival International

For the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon, the spirit world is a fundamental part of life. Every creature, rock, tree and mountain has a spirit.
Omama, our creator, made us think and talk with the soul of the forest, the soul of the mountain and with the soul of the moon, sun and stars, says shaman Davi Kopenawa, who describes here how Yanomami shamans look after the world.

The word, ‘shaman’, is thought to have originated with the Evenk people of Siberia, but shamans have a pivotal role in many tribal societies. Typically, they are men and women who specialize in communicating with the natural world and its spirits; people who have a heightened awareness of the divine and the intangible.

Shamans have many roles. They are variously healers and priests, custodians of their peoples’ sacred rituals, weather diviners, cosmologists, dream tellers and keepers of botanical knowledge.

Guided by spirits (xapiripë) and the wisdom of their ancestors, Yanomami shamans (xapiripë thëpë) command thunder storms and caution the winds. They prevent the sky from falling down and use their powers to ensure hunting successes, cure human diseases and put flight to hostile spirits.

The shamans give orders to the sun, and instruct the spirits to speak to the moon.
Our wisdom is different. Our knowledge is a different knowledge.

It is the wisdom of our shamanic spirits, of the Earth, which is very important for the survival of humanity.
Through dreams and trances, Yanomami shamans transcend the physical confines of their bodies and the limits of the human consciousness to commune with the xapiripë.

We Yanomami learn with the great spirits, the xapiripë. We learn to know the xapiripë, how to see them and listen to them. Only shamans – those who know the xapiripë – can see them, because they look like humans but are tiny as specks of sparkling dust and bright like light.
Their songs are powerful, and their thinking is straight.

Yanomami shamans inhale the yakoana powder, extracted from the bark of the virola tree, in order to enter a dream state. The powder is administered through a long horoma tube, traditionally made from the hollowed stem of a palm tree. This is how we make the spirits dance, says Davi.

There are many, many xapiripë, not just a few, but thousands, like stars. Some live in the sky, some live under the ground and others live in the high mountains which are full of forests and flowers. We call these sacred places ‘hutu pata’.
When the sun is high in the sky, the xapiripë sleep. At dusk, they begin to appear.
When we are sleeping, they are dancing.

Davi first saw xapiripë as a child, and continued to see them in his sleep as he grew up. Only when he became an adult did he ask to be initiated as a shaman.

When for the first time you sniff the powder produced from the yakoana tree, xapiripë spirits begin to gather around you.
First, you hear from afar their chants of happiness, faint as the hum of mosquitoes. Then you begin to see scintillating lights trembling up high, coming from every direction in the sky.

Gradually the spirits reveal themselves, advancing and retreating with very slow steps.
The xapiripë descend to us on threads as fine as a spider’s web.
They are beautiful, painted with bright colors and urucum (annatto).

Their armlets are decorated with macaw and parrot feathers. They dance very beautifully and sing differently. There are different songs: the song of the macaw, of the parrot, of the tapir, of the tortoise and of the eagle.

The xapiripë have danced for shamans since the very beginning of time, and they continue to dance today.
Their heads are covered with white hawk down, and they wear black bands made of monkey tails and turquoise cotinga feathers in their ears.
They dance in a circle, unhurriedly.

To the Yanomami, each person has an image-essence’, a double called a utupë, to which they are joined until death.
A utupë can present itself in the image of many different living creatures, including a bird, mammal or insect. There are also spirits of trees, waterfalls and wild honey.

One by one the spirits arrived. The toucan spirits arrived with their big ear sticks and bright red loin cloths, describes Davi. The hummingbird people arrived and flew around. The moka frog spirits were there with quivers of arrows on their backs. Then came the peccary spirits, the bat people and the spirits of the waterfall.
My soul began to shine.
All came and slung their hammocks in my chest.

The Yanomami believe the xapiripë came into existence when the rainforest was young.
Today, as the Amazon is deforested, Davi is fearful that the forest spirits will flee, which will have a devastating effect on the rainforest and ultimately on the planet.

Do not think that the forest is dead, just left there without reason, he says. If it were dead, we would no longer be alive.
It is living; it gives us life. And it has a very long breath of life; much longer than ours. With the breath of the spirit of the earth, the forest becomes beautiful, rain falls on it, and there is always wind.
It breathes, though you don’t notice it.

Yanomami shamans also enlist the help of xapiripë to cure human illnesses, using different medicinal plants to treat fevers, stomach-aches, muscular pains and other ailments. Diagnosing and detecting diseases takes years of shamanistic experience.

In general, every ailment has its cure, except for diseases that have been brought in by outsiders, to which the Yanomami have little immunity.
If the xapiripë didn’t exist, we would no longer be alive. The evil spirits would have devoured us long ago. They know about the illnesses that afflict us. They throw the disease far away, into the underworld.
And so they cure us.

By communing with and controlling the xapiripë, the Yanomami shamans are not only protecting their own community, but looking after the rest of the world as well. Davi believes that many powerful shamans are needed to control the planet.

We, the shamans, also work for you, the whites, he says. Our shamans know that our planet is changing. We know the health of the Amazon. We know that it is dangerous to abuse nature, and that when you destroy the rainforest, you cut the arteries of the future and the world’s force just ebbs away.

The sky is full of smoke because our rainforest is being logged and burnt. The rains come late, the sun behaves in a strange way. The lungs of the sky are polluted. The world is ill. The forest will die if it is destroyed by the whites.
Where will we go when we have destroyed our world?
When the planet is silent, how will we learn?
The wisdom of the Yanomami xapiripë is ancient.
We have kept the words of our ancestors inside us for a long time, and we continue to pass them to our children, says Davi.
So the words of the spirits will never disappear.

And their story has no end.

Maria Yanomami, Catrimani, Brazil copyright Fiona Watson/Survival

The Yanomami are one of the most numerous, and best-known, forest-dwelling tribes in South America. Their home is in the Amazon rainforest, among the hills that line the border between Brazil and Venezuela. After the creation of the 10 million hectare Yanomami park in 1992, independent medical staff were recruited to work alongside traditional Yanomami healers. This health initiative, Urihi – which was supported by Survival International– reduced the number of deaths by half.
In 2004, the Brazilian government took it over by decree. Spending was doubled, but disease rocketed. Some communities saw fatal cerebral malaria increase four-fold.

How you can help
Please write to the Brazilian government expressing your concern about the deterioration of the Yanomami’s health since the government’s National Health Foundation took over responsibility for delivering health care to the Yanomami.

HE President Dilma Rousseff
Presidente da República Federativa do Brasil
Gabinete do Presidente
Palácio do Planalto
Praça dos Três Poderes
70150-900
Brasilia DF
Brazil

Your Excellency,

I am extremely concerned about the Yanomami people. Over 1,000 goldminers are working illegally on their land, polluting the environment and introducing fatal diseases to the Indians. The government funded Yanomami health care programme is in chaos and doctors and vital medicines are not reaching the communities. Yanomami are starting to die of diseases.

Many Yanomami oppose Congress’s plans to open up large-scale mining on their land and have not been adequately informed or consulted about the proposals.

I urge you to uphold the Constitution and remove the miners from the Yanomami territory, and resolve the health crisis as a matter of urgency. I also urge you and your government to prohibit any form of mining on their land as the impacts will be disastrous for such an isolated people.

Yours sincerely,

The preserve is designed to protect plants essential to the sacred ceremonies of the 2,600 tribe and ultimately, to protect the culture, territory and traditions of this indigenous group.

Image from http://www.chevrontoxico.com