The Falling Sky

4 ideas

1. Gold rush epidemics devastate Yanomami territory

   In the late 1980s, tens of thousands of gold prospectors (garimpeiros) invaded Yanomami lands in Roraima, Brazil, bringing malaria, measles and flu that killed a large share of the Yanomami population within a few years; Kopenawa lost kin to earlier road-building epidemics in the 1970s as well. He reads these deaths as 'xawara', epidemic smoke released from the metal and fuel of the whites, and this experience drove him to travel to cities and abroad to demand demarcation of Yanomami territory, which Brazil granted in 1992.

2. Merchandise people forget the forest

   Kopenawa names white society the 'merchandise people': their thought is fixed on manufactured goods, so they 'dream only of themselves' and cannot see the forest as alive. The attachment to objects is the mechanism of harm, because it turns the land's minerals and trees into things to be taken, and people who value goods more than the forest will clear it without seeing any loss.

3. Shamans hold up the falling sky

   The xapiri spirits, called down by shamans through yãkoana snuff, maintain the forest and keep the sky from collapsing as it did at the world's origin. Destroying the forest and killing its shamans removes that support, so deforestation becomes a cosmic catastrophe for everyone, including the whites, not only a local loss.

4. Writing on paper versus dreaming knowledge

   He nonetheless uses Albert's book to send his words to the whites. The co-authored text is his deliberate adoption of their medium to reach people who only listen to writing.

Save and mark ideas in the app