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The Falling Sky
La chute du ciel: Paroles d'un chaman yanomami
Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert · 2010; English translation 2013 · Long (over 350 pages)
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What it is
The life story and thought of Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman and spokesman from the Brazilian Amazon, subtitled Words of a Yanomami Shaman. It was composed from many years of recorded conversations in Yanomami with the French anthropologist Bruce Albert, published in French in 2010 and in English in 2013, translated by Nicholas Elliott and Alison Dundy. The book has three parts. The first describes Kopenawa's initiation as a shaman, his work with the xapiri spirits called down with yãkoana powder, and the Yanomami account of creation by Omama. The second tells of first contact with outsiders, missionaries and road builders, the epidemics that followed and the invasion of gold miners in the 1980s. The third follows his travels to Europe and the United States to defend the forest. Throughout, he criticises the 'people of merchandise' who destroy the forest for goods, and warns that if the shamans die the sky will fall on everyone.
Why read it
It is a rare, first-person philosophy of the forest from an Amazonian shaman, and a forceful critique of Western consumption from the people who live with its effects.
Where to start
Read Albert's introduction, 'Setting the Scene', then the first part on Kopenawa's shamanic initiation; Albert's closing chapter explains how the book was written.