REPOT Nº 16 URIHI

Foreword

The message from Davi Kopenawa Yanomami in this booklet was recorded at the end of 1991, and the interview with him in June 1992. Since then the situation of the Yanomami lndians has changed significantly. In February, after considerable national pressure, the Brazilian govermment launched the operation "Free Jungle II" to evict lhe gold-panners from the Yanomami lands. The idea was to force out the remaining gold-panners by stopping oil and food from entering the region and to prevent gold-panners from re-entering the region by cutting off access by air land and river.

Early reports suggested that the operation was proving successful but later information did not confirm this. In an interview with the press in Brasilia on 23 March, Davi Kopenawa Yanomami said: "The gold-panners are digging holes and hiding oil and food in the jungle so that they can return later. Many powerful mining companies have interests in the Yanomami land”.

According to reports from Boa Vista in late March, gold-panners were already flying back into the region. The monitoring of the air traffic of the "garimpeiros" proves totally inefficient. The authorities are unable to prevent them from returning to the Yanomami territory. Despite operation "Free Jungle II", the situation of the Indians remains as critical as ever.

The Future of the Demini Health Project

Message to Bruce Albert, taped by Lucimara Montejane. Demini, December 1991

Translated from the Yanomam into French by Bruce Albert, anthropologist. consultant to CCPY (ORSTOM, Paris)

DAVI KOPENAWA YANOMAMI

Bruce, here is what I think about what you call "the future". In the future, if we, the Yanomami, remain alone, if doctors stop coming here to teach us to use medicines, things are going to be bad. So far, none of us knows these things. We don't know how to read white people's writing, nor how to use medicines. You white people must teach us how to use the medicines: for malaria, or tuberculosis and for otther diseases. When our young people have learnt all this, we will be able to treat ourselves. That is what I think.

Now that our lands have been demarcated, I want the Demini health project to continue. I want it to carry on for a long time. Without this project, I think more Yanomami are going to die. We don't know how to use your medicines; we can't treat ourselves. The Yanomami don't know these things; They don't understand white people's language. They can't yet read your writing. For this reason, the project must continue for a long time. First, you white people must come and treat us. Later, when your doctors have taught us to how we can treat ourselves, just as they treat us, that is, in the future, our young Yanomami, our children, will be able in their day to treat us, the way your doctors and nurses treat us. When they have learnt what is necessary, then we will be able to be on our own. We will treat ourselves, but you will continue to give us support, from afar. You will continue to help us.

Meanwhile, we don't yet know all that we need to know. In the past, before the whites reached here, we were not ignorante. Our shamans knew how to treat us when the evil spirits of the forest, ne waribe, devoured our lifeblood When the spirit Riori attacked us, the shamans used to suck out the diseases that he had put in our body, and spit them out. But now, lhe shamans don't know how to do this with malaria and tuberculosis. These are diseases that have come from far away, that they don't know. Only white people's medicine can deal with them. If the sick person is treated with medicines when the illness is in its early stages, he will recover. This is what we think.

This project must continue. It is working well: the Yanomami are treated when they are ill. This must continue. We treat people from Araca, Ajuricaba, Toototobi and also the Ayaobetheri, the Weyukutheri, the Shihometheri, the Mashababitheri. ...None of these Yanomami know how to treat white diseases, and this is why I want the project to continue. If it does not, people are going to start dying. I am not a doctor and there's nothing I can do.

I am a shaman, but practicing shamanism doesn't enable me to see and destroy malaria. People die. Shamanism doesn't help people still die. We try to destroy the power of malaria, but if the sick don't take the pills they need, they die. And so I want my Demini project to continue.

I want it to continue and I want it to expand. For this, I need to raise the necessary money together with those who are helping us. We are a long way from cities. We live deep in the forest. Because of all this, I am anxious. If the project doesn't continue, we shall be utterly bereft. The project must continue, and the Health Foundation (FNS) must carry on helping the Yanomami. If not, we are all going to die. If we are left alone, without doctors, we are going to disappear and the white people will occupy our lands, because they will be empty.

(...)This is why I defend my project. We have to continue the work. The Yanomami cannot manage without it Later, in the future, our young people will learn to administer white people's medicines and then we will be able to look after ourselves. This is what I think. When the white doctors have taught us how to use their medications, the pills for malaria and tuberculosis; when we know how to use them, then we will can carry out the treatments ourselves. But for now, the whites must carry on treating us. This is what I think. We don't yet have young people who know the white people's language well and can write; Who know how to examine for malaria, who know what malaria looks like under a microscope. We don't yet know these things. But we will learn, and one day we will be able to look after ourselves. In the future, when I am old, the .Yanomami will have learnt this, and then I am dead they will carry on looking after themselves. This is what I think. You say "future"; we say 'yutuha" (in a long time). When, in a long time, we who are here are dead, the 'Yanomami will not disappear. We are not very many, but Omamë, who created us, will continue to protect us. We will continue to exist. We will survive, but the malaria has to end.

I am afraid in case there are no more shamans in the future, because white people's presence darkens our thinking. Now, the young are afraid to practice shamanisrn. Unfortunately, they want only to imitate the whites. This worries me. Next time you come, we will talk together about this. We will also talk to the elders so that they might initiate new shamans. When there were no medicines, in the past, the shamans did their work and only a few died. Now it's no good trying to destroy the shawara (epidemic); it retaliates fiercely and kills even our shamanic spirits (shabiribe or hekurabe).

This is why I want to continue my project. To work as much with the project's doctors as with the shamans. This way, it will be all right. The shawara is very strong, but this way we will win. The shamans and their attendant spirits are friends of the medicines. The shamans attack the spirits of the shawara and the sick take the medicines. This way they will get well, and this is why I want the project to continue. This is what I want to say to you. You will pass this on to other white people. When they ask you: "what are the Yanomami going to think if the whites halt their medical work?" "How are they going to cure themselves?" you will reply: "the Yanomami don't yet know how to use the medicines; we need to teach them, and only after we have done that will they be able to take care of themselves!"

We have Shamans, but the white people's shawara attacks the shamanic spirits which try to destroy it. Our shamanic spirits are very brave, but the shawara is like a huge cloud, its evil spirits sap the lifeblood of the elders, of the children, the women and the men, and consumes it. This is why we continue to want white people's medicines and for the project to carry on. We work in places far away in the forest, below Wanabiú and in Balaú ...far from where any white people live. It's a very long way and the Yanomami have no medicines. If they get malaria, they die. This is why my project must continue. Later, a long time hence, the Yanomami will grow again. This is what will be good. It is not enough for me to work alone on a project a the Demini Post. We Yanomami don't have aeroplanes. If white people work with us, we can call planes and go and treat people far away. And then we can beat the shawara. When white people come and help us, they are truly our friends.

Do not think: "they will defend their lands, they already have them demarcated, now let them take care of themselves and live by themselves." This mustn't happen any more.The whites came near us, and they brought the shawara here. The gold-panners worked all over our lands and the shawara never rests. It's very strong, and very hungry for human flesh. It kills people, and cooks them like monkeys before it eats them, even white people. It eats them little by little, when it is hungry. When it is satiated, it stops eating us for a while. Its in no hurry. It eats slowly, first the oldest, then the youngest ...

This is why I want my project to continue. I am still young and I still want to work in it. You who defend the Yanomami, must still help us with money. Don't think: "Davi is going to work on his own". If you start to think this, I am going to be very worried. If I am the only person working here, them I too am going to die of malaria and that will be the end. No! We must work together, with the whites. When I practice shamanism to destroy the shawara, it always comes back. I push it far away, but it returns. Now it knows us, we can't repel it like that. The number of whites in the forest grows, and the shawara grows with them. We are numerous and it likes to eat our children if eats while children too. It never sleeps.

I am a true Brazilian. I am a defender of the forest. Omamë wants the forest where we live to be protected. But some whites, sons of Yoasi, Omamë's wicked brother, want to abandon us to our fate. They say: "There you are! You wanted your lands. You've got them." If they say this, reply: "The Yanomami lands have been demarcated, but we must continue to help them because they still have problems." You will tell them that I want to defend my project I am not lying. I really want to continue it. This is what I want to say to you. Pass this on to other white people. If you want to write this down, do so, so that they can read it.

Before we had medicines, we cured ourselves by shamanism. But now that white people, the gold prospectors, are nearby, we are afraid of their epidemics. We fear malaria and tuberculosis. Only medicines can stop them. The shamanic spirits can destroy only other diseases, those we know well. When they try to fight malaria or tuberculosis, they themselves come under attack, and the shawara devours them and the shamans die too. This is what I think. This is why I'm sending you these words. I am doing this because you understand my language. You can translate what I say, so I am telling you all these things. If you didn't speak my language, I wouldn't talk to you. You have learnt our languge, so I talk, so that you can pass on my words and so that other white people will understand what is happening. This is what I want to say to you. You asked me again for my words, so I am sending them to you.

(...) Later I will ask the shamans and the elders what they think. If they talk, I will send you more words. My mother-in- law Lourival said to me: "send more words to the white people! We have learnt to swallow their medicines to be cured, and they must keep giving us these remedies." Do not think this of us: "'They want to be left alone on their lands, so let them cure themselves." No! What you must think is: "they are ill because of our epidemics, therefore we must keep giving them money and medicines so that they can continue their health project" If you think this, I will be very pleased. I will think: "Good! They are our friends. They concern themselves about the epidemics and they help us." If you stop helping us, I will be very worried and I will think: "OK We'll die alone. We won't take any more medicines, and when all the old men and all the shamans are dead, their spirits won't rest until they have wrought vengeance on the whites."

When I think all these things. I want my project to continue. I am preoccupied by the children, the young girls, the women, the young men, the old men ...I am very upset. I Whant you to help this project to continue, and this is why I am saying this again. As long as the project is working, when people are ill, we will have the money to call an aeroplane, doctors and nurses, and the medicines can come. People will be cured and will be happy. As long as the project exists the Yanomami will feel helped. I would like it if my words could be understood and if white people said to themselves: Yes. That's right, that’s true." If I don't say this, and stay completely alone, I no longer know what to do. If we didn't have any more epidemics in this forest, I would say simply: “Yes. We'll stay here alone, Without help." If there were no malaria, no tuberculosis, no other epidemics, I would say: "There's no more shawara in the forest. We don't need your medicines any more." But malaria is rife in our lands and we do need your medicines.

We still want health projects to help us. We want them to carry on until our children have grown up. You white people have lots of money: don't be greedy! Continue to help us. We live on the same earth. We all live on this earth, which is the back of the sky that fell in the first times. Continue to help us, you who are not poor. If your ancestors bad been greedy, you could be greedy. But they weren't Don't remain fixated on your money. It is paper made of tree bark. It’s the skin from the forest trees, don't withhold it from others. Give it to help the Yanomami. Don't let our health project end. We want it to continue, so that our children won't die. If it continues, we can continue to live in good health. These are my thoughts and this is what I want to say to you. No-one put this in my head. It is what I think when I am alone, at night. My shamanic spirits give me ideas in my dreams, and I spread their words. These words are very many, they never dry up. I didn't read all this somewhere, I don't have it written down, it is inside me, in my thoughts. These words are very many. I pass them on to you. I want the white elders, whose thought is blocked, to understand them. I want the young, those who go to school, to hear them. I want these thought to be written down, and all the whites to begin to think: 'It’s true. This is the true word of the Yanomami, not of the whites," and for them to start to want to defend us, even where they live, far away. So that the elders in the govenment in Brasilia understand us and respond to us. If they listen to us we will be satisfied. We will think: “They're far away, but they are our friends. They listen to us, therefore we can be friends."

Whites have a language as ineffable as ghosts, but they can be our friends. Some are wise, unlike the gold miners, and are our friends. We're happy that they help us. They live with us and help us, so I am happy with the health project. If it didn't exist, I would be very worried. But it does exist, and my thoughts are calm, and I feel sustained. In our villages in the Demini region we are still in good health, our children are still well. They Caught malaria, but nurses soon came with medicine and I am content. You white people know the medicines for malaria, but we don't; so you must carry on giving them to us. Don't say to us: “stay alone! Cure yourselves with your shamans.” Don’t be enemies. Be friends, as I am to you.

Davi Kopenawa at the Eco-92 Environment Summit, Rio de Janeiro (June 1992)

Interview filmed by Geoffrey O’Connors Realis Pictures (NewYork)

Translated from the Yanomam by Bruce Albert Orstom(Paris) Why are the white people so interested today in the life of Indians?

Davi: The people who live in cities, the white people, have no wisdom. They don't know how things are. We, the peoples of the forest, have wisdom and do know how things are. We have reliable knowledge. We have this wisdom because we were born and raised in the forest, and now the white people are interested in it and want to hear our words. Having understood that we are wise people, they want to hear our words because they find them to be good words, truthful words. They do this because their own words are not truthful. We speak truths, and this is why they want to take our words for themselves. This is why they are "interested".

Today white people are interested in supporting the Indians because the Indians have greater knowledge of the earth, the forest and the planet. White people are interested in taking our knowledge for themselves, in borrowing our words because their own knowledge is worth very little. What the Yanomami say, what the Xavante say, has more wisdom. They know more than white people. We know more. White people talk a lot but they know nothing. A Yanomami Indian, a Xavante Indian, a Kayapo Indian was born in the forest and can become a shaman, a shaburi, as we say. This is how he knows more than white people. So now white people come after us, because they are interested in hearing our words. Our words are wiser, and they tell the truth, because we see things with our own eyes, while walking and looking (in the forest).

Many gold miners say they are bringing the Indians progress and "civilisation ". What do you think about this?

Davi: The gold miners always lie. They want to treat us as slaves, and that’s why they say this. I don't want my people to be treated like slaves. They are lying when they say "we are going to transform the Indians into white men!". They simply want to do to us what was done to the Indians who used to live here (in Rio de Janeiro), and so they are lying. They want to make us die of hunger, to plunder our forest and dig its earth, that's all. We don't want to be transformed into white men. We are a different people and want only to be like our ancestors used to be.

Why do you involve yourself in politics? Wou1dn't life be easier if you stayed in the forest?

Davi: It would be easier. The forest where I live is beautifull and on1y when I am there can my mild be at peace. When I am in the city I get nervous. Only when I am near my relatives do I have calm thoughts. Before, I didn't know this word "politics", I learnt it from white people. Now I am beginning to understand your word "politics". I began to think correctly about it. First, I had it wrong. I used to ask myself: "are the whites good people? Are they friends? I don't think this way any more. I think there are many bad politicians, who want to make us forget our language and send white men to work in our lands. This is why they try to deceive us, saying: "When you are a white man, you are going to have money! You are going to live in the city among white people! You are going to drive a car!” They are lying, and anyway, I don't want to live where white people live. I want to live in our Yanomami land. I want to live where I really belong, in my own land.

Why did you go to Kari-Oca?

Davi: To Kari-Oca village? The people there invited me, so I came. Two friends of mine, Marcos Terena and Alvaro Tukano asked me to come, so I did. If they hadn't called me I wouldn't have come here to visit. They asked me to come to "talk tough" to the people here. This is why they asked us to come, to "talk tough" to them. If they hadn’t asked us, we wouldn’t have come. We came to speak us defence of our lands, that's the reason. When people ask us to do that, we are not difficult to persuade. So, when they asked us to come and provide some reinforcements we came.

Why is it important that the nations of the wor/d recognise the struggle of indigenous peoples?

Davi: Because we defend our lands. We Yanomami all ta1k persistently about this. The white people (here) are destroying our lands, and this is why we "talk tough". And because of this, people a long way from here hear what we say and support us. They really support us. You people here (filming) are also helping us. If we weren't supported like this, we would think: "are we going to die?" That's what we wonder: "are we all going to disappear?" And a lot of white people take our words round the world. Many people heard these words; they became well known. The Brazilian government tried to hide us, but they can't do that any more; our words are known everywhere. Help from the white world is important to us.

More gold miner are said to be invading Yanomami territory? What must be done to protect Yanomami lands in the future?

Davi: Funai and the government closed the borders of our lands. But the people who don't like us are very numerous. All these gold miners, who have no land, no house and no money, are coming back to our lands. They're increasing again and want our gold. When they've taken this gold they will give it in turn to other, rich and powerful, white people... These people -far, far away -ask for it, and the number of gold miners on our lands increases again I am very worried again. "Are funai and the government going to defend our land? Are they really going to defend it?" This is what I am asking myself. But they're not going to. If they had had been serious, the gold miners wouldn't have come back. Funai has no money. Funai, wich does defend us, hasn't got any money, and the gold miners are increasing again. You, abroad, are going to have to give funai money, so they can really help us. Recently, Funai has been trying to do something alone. They haven't got much power, but they have been defending us. Now they have nothing, they are really poor. They have no money, and the gold miners are taking advantage of this and coming back again. If numbers go on increasing like this, the Yanomami are going to start dying again. With the gold miners' malaria epidemics, we will start dying again.

Do you agree with the white peop/e when they say that they discovered Brazil?If not, why not?

Davi: You white people are in the habit of fooling yourselves with this story. White people didn't discover this land We have been here a long time. We Yanomami and other Indians were already living here. But, despite this, white people say: "we saw Brazil first!" And this is a lie. Simply a lie. We were already living here, from the first times. We, the peoples of the forest.The Yanomami and the others, we were created here.

According to the Yanomami, how were white people created?

Davi: We say that long, long ago, when our ancestors were created, white people were also created, when Omamë made us. But, whereas we were created by 0mamë, you are the people of Yoasi, his evil brother. White people are Yoasi's people, and that's why they don't like the 'Yanomami. Omamë created us. There were two brothers, in the first times: Omamë and Yoasi. The whites are the people of Yoasi. We Yanomami, the forest people, are the children of Omamë. Yoasi doesn't like us, and this is why white people don't like us.

Could.you describe to us what happened when gold miners began to enter Yanomami lands in large numbers a few year's ago?

Davi: When the gold miners arrived we were worried, because they were a people we didn't know. The Yanomami didn't know who the gold miners were. Then the gold miners tempted us (with their goods) and the Yanomami began to grow bad. The gold miners came looking for gold in the ground; they were very poor. Their chiefs who sent them bad ordered them to work in our lands. These gold Miners invaded our lands and we began to get ill. We got malaria. We were all ill with the white people's malaria epidemic that these gold miners brought to our lands, the Shawara. This is why none of us now want these gold miners in our forest

According to the Yanomami, what happens when a /ot of go/d is taken out of the ground?

Davi: I am going to tell you what we shamans say about this. We who use the hallucinogen yakoana. In the earliest times, our ancestors also smoked yakoana and practiced shamanism to hold up the sky and stop it falling. and also to master the spirit of the underworld, Shiwarirewe. who threatens to destroy the Earth. The gold miners dig frantically for gold, but these metals are poisonous things that Omamë made and hid in the ground. The gold miners are going to end up severing the roots of the sky. They will break them and the world will crumble. If the Yanomami shamans die because of the malaria fumes from the gold taken from the ground, if these wise men disappear, there will be no-one to hold up the sky, and all the Yanomami and all the white people will die.

How can disease /ike malaria be stopped? Do you use only white peop/e's medicine, or shaburi or both?

Davi: In the past, our ancestors were cured by the shamans. And that was it. When our ancestors were created, the Yanomami didn’t have white man’s medicine, they just had shamans. When people got ill. when the forest spirits took their lifeblood, the shamans would cure them. Today, in our lands. Many of us have died, many old people have gone, and we are still dying of white men's epidemics. When the gold miners came with their ma1aria epidemics and infected us, we began to die. Today, only the medicines given by the white doctors, who know how to kill malaria's power, can cure us. In the past, only the shamans would cure our diseases. Today, it's the white people's medicines that cure the Yanomami. We can only be cured by that which knows the power of malaria.

Why is the shaburi important to the Yanomaml ?

(NB. Shaburi -Xabori -means shamari, or shaman's attendant spirit, depending on the context. Here Davi took the question to mean shamanic spirit)

Davi: The Shamanic spirits were created by Omamë. You white people use the word "important". We say that they are totihi, good and beautiful. These spirits defend us, they fight the malevolent forest spirits, and they fight epidemics too. This is why we shamans want to have them with us, they are invaluable. Our ancestors always had them, they are really important".

When the go/d miners came to the Yanomami territory many of the Yanomami seemed to be attracted by white men's things, such as soap, machete and rice. Why does this happen?

Davi: When the gold miners came, some Yanomami were, unwisely, happy to have them around. They were thinking, Without knowing them: "maybe the gold miners are good people". 'They liked their food. The gold miners began to lure them with rice, manioc flour and old clothes. The Yanomami didn't think much of the old clothes, but the gold miners kept giving them some of their food and they were happy to eat it. They stopped working their plots of land and planting their own food. Soon, all of them grew very ill. Then they began to die, all the old people died, and the Yanomami were very frightened.These Yanomami had no goods to trade; They were isolated, they didn't have machetes or knives, which is why they came to the gold miners camps in the first place. If they had had enougth of these things, they woudn't have come anywhere near the gold miners.

Why did you go to New York /ast year?

Davi: Our people are ravaged by epidemics, they are ill, many us are dying. To defend our lands against the gold miners, we spoke to the government, but they didnt respond. We were angry, and so we went to New York, where some white people's elders live, where there are people who are involved with what happens in our lands. I went there to speak to some important people. It is from there that the call for gold from our land comes. They ask for it, and the gold miners, Brazilians, search for it to make money, to get your dollars. The people of New York want gold, too, so I went to tell them that this is bad and to put them right about it

What do you think of city life compared to forest life?

Davi: City life is awful, it’s so noisy. You can't hear anything. It’s impossible to hear the voices that we hear in the forest The noise of motors drowns everything. It fills the ears. This is why I don't say "cities are good!" They are noisy, full of fumes and disease. You cant hear anything, and people can't speak clearly. We Yanomami don't think cities are good. In our forest, we don't make such a noise. We remain silent, because we are listening to the forest We hear the macaws and toucans when they talk, the howler monkeys when they scream, the spider monkeys when they shout all at once. When the forest creatures speak, it is the only thing worth listening to.

Why is it important that the Yanomami have so much land?

Davi: For us Yanomami our forest is "important, as you put it, because we want to carry on living in it. It’s a beautiful land, very fertile and where we grow our food. We want to carry on living there, that’s why we defend it. You white people don't know how to protect the forest. You mistreat it and only cut it down. We Yanomami are experts and friends of the forest. To use your own word, it is "important”. In our language, which our ancestors spoke since time immemorial, I call my forest totihi, beautiful, and I am connected to it. I wish to keep it and defend it. We truly want to Carry on living on our lands. This forest is where we perform our death festivals, go on ritual hunts, where we go fishing, where we go on journeys to pay visits, where we make pathways to the wild fruits. It is in this forest that the game, the wild animals we eat, reproduce, where the fish reproduce, where the wild fruit grows. This is why we hold in our thought that the forest is "important.

For near/y five hundred years, white peop/e and lndians have had many prob/ems with each other. Why do you think this is so?

Davi: "Five hundred years". ..In our language we only say "a very long time ago. .."Five hundred years" ago, as you put it, is when the white people arrived here, after Yoasi sent them back from their country to the place where they were created (in Yanomami lands). They came back across the waters. Other peoples, like the Yanomami, were living here. The white people, the Portuguese, came and killed these people with their guns and epidemics. When they killed them, they used to take off the skin to show it to other white people. They killed the Indians, and while the bodies lay on the ground, they skinned them with knives. Then the whites showed these skins to their chiefs. This is what the spirits of these dead people say when we see them in our shamanic trances. A long, long time ago, the white people didn't live here, but we did. We have a1ways lived here, in our forest When the white people came, they shot the Indians and caused them to die in epidemics. So, I am not at peace. We are not at peace.

How woud you describe the difference between. the way in which the lndians and the white people look at the world?

Davi: Not all of us Yanomami really know the forest. The kids, the women, the adolescents, all who are not shamans, don't really know the forest. We shamans know it. We know it througth breathing in hallucinogens from its trees. Then we see all the forest spirits and the other shamanc spirits dance. We see them with our own eyes. When we die under the powerful strength of the hallucinogen yakoana, we see the supernatura1 image of the forest We see Hutukarari, the spirit of the sky.

Just as our ancestors used to see it It is our turn to see it. We don't study like the white people. We don't go to school. You white people tell only lies about the forest. You don't know it like we do. You simply think falsehoods and turn them into shapes on paper. We don't have writings about the forest, we don't have writings about the planet, we have no map. We don't insult the sky and the forest by writing about them. We are wise and we respect thing. The white people have no wisdom, and this is why they insult the spirit of the sky and the forest by writing about them on paper. We Yanomami really know them. When our elders practice shamanism we, the younger ones, go whith them and see these things. We see the moon's spirit, it's supernatural image. We see the sun’s supernatural image, the stars', the sky’s, the earth's. We don't know how to write on paper, but we have knowledge, and the words live in our thoughts.

What does Omamë say is going to happen to the wor/d if the gold miners go on working all ov er th e Amazon forest?

Davi: I will tell you what Omamë, the spirit of Omamë, says. He created the booshikë, the metal of the world's depths. He did this. If the white people, the gold miners, the people of the giant armadillo (mining companies) take it all out of the grould, they will break the feet of the sky. The sky’s feet are in the ground and the miners are going to break them. Omamë put them there, making them out of the metal be had created If the white people take it all out, the spirit of Omamë tells us shamans that all the Yanomami are going to die, and completely disappear, when all the shamans who know the sky and the supenatural image of Omamë's metal are dead. Omamë created also the attendant spirits of the shamans and when they gather, high in the sky, they are going to avenge themselves (for the death of their shaman fathers). They will batter the sky (with their machetes and axes) and it will fall.

When the sky falls, we are all going to disappear, all of us will die. The remaining Yanomami, too, will die. Everyone will be crushed by the falling sky. The white people, too, they are all going to die as well, all of them The sky is extremely heavy. On the back of the Sky there is another forest, like ours, and it is very heavy. This is going to happen in the future, if the gold miners don't stop working on our lands. It they don't stop dirtying the forest and digging in search of metals. These metals are poisonous. They have the power to start epidemics and cause all of us to die. This is what Omamë says. He says to the shamans who possess his ghost (as a shamanic spirit) and make him dance: “When the Yanomami disappear , the shamans' attendant spirits (those of the dead shamans) will cut the sky into pieces and it will fall."

Many lndians have died in the last five hundred years. When you think about the future, what do you think is going to happen to the indigenous peoples?

Davi: A long time ago, the white people ...Many Yanomami have already died. We who remain, when it is our turn to die, we shamans who know the sky and the evil spirits like Shiwarirewë, when we have all disappeared, the spirit of the sky will cry. The sky is already anxious and starting to cry, because it too is dying. In the first times, the sky had already fallen once. This earth here is the back of that old sky. The Yanomami's first ancestors also died (in this way). The sky fell because the attendant spirits of the dead Yanomami shamans cut it into pieces. The “future", as you call it, is for us the sky, that’s what we call it. When the sky, or the "planet”, as you put it, is cut up by the shamanic spirits, we will be crushed and will fall with it to the underworld We are going to die and disappear, all of us. Maybe then another people will be created. The Yanomami won't be created again. Perhaps another people, something like us, will be created, and another white people too. This is what my words, words belonging to our elders, say about the "future".

Anything else about the new invasions of Yanomami lands?

Davi: Now I’m going to speak in Portuguese. The gold miners returned to our lands this month. These people don't have the money to invade our lands. Who is really invading our forest are the people who have the money, the politicians (of Roraima). ..The average gold miner hasn't got the money to buy supplies, doesn't have aeroplanes, doesn't have the money to buy fuel. So who is really invading us (behind them) is the calha Norte project and businessmen from Brazil and other Countries. They are working together, and they are united. Every country has businessmen who take riches from the earth, who destroy the lands of (such as) the Yanomami, Macuxi and Waimiri-Atroari Indians. These important people have money to finance the gold miners' invasions. The gold miners have no land, no house, no proper work, they aren't public servants. Those invading our lands again are taking advantage of the fact that we are busy meeting here in Rio. The important people, the decision- makers, are all here in Rio. The gold miners are taking advantage of this. Everyone is busy here. Funai too. The gold miners' bosses are very powerful, they don't like the Yanomami, they are opposed to the demarcation of our lands. This is why they are retuning to our lands. I want them to stop the new invasion. I want you to talk to other friend in New York and in other countries, to kick up a row again (about this), to put pressure on the (Brazilian) government again. It is the government who must resolve this problem, because our lands have already been demarcated and a lot of money has already been spent (clearing out the gold miners). They can't invade again, they must leave us in peace. This is what we want: to live in peace. We are tired of death, of murders, of the destruction of the forest. That's enough! This is what I want to put in your camera for other people to hear, to send a new message to everybody who has already helped us, to put pressure again on the (Brazilian) government, on business leaders, on the head of Calha Norte (military project), on the leaders of the politicians who are against us .