Throughout my faraway travels to the white individuals’s land, I’ve generally heard them
declare that we’re warlike and that we spend our time capturing arrows at one another.
Clearly, the individuals who say issues like that have no idea us and they’re mistaken
or mendacity.
[…]
We Yanomami haven’t any liking for what the white individuals name ‘struggle’ of their language.
They blame us for arrowing one another, however they’re those who actually make struggle.
We definitely don’t struggle with the identical harshness as they do. […] They struggle in big
numbers, with bullets and bombs that burn down all their homes. They even kill
girls and kids!
[…]
The white individuals suppose themselves intelligent, however their ideas are mounted on the issues
they wish to personal. It’s due to these ideas that they rob, insult, struggle and, within the
finish, kill each other. Additionally it is due to them that they mistreat all those that get in
their means. It’s why they, finally, are the actually fierce ones! After they struggle wars,
they throw bombs in all places and don’t suppose twice about setting hearth to the earth and
sky. I’ve watched them, on tv, preventing over oil with their planes. […]It
nervous me so much and I mentioned to myself, ‘Hou! These persons are so warlike and
harmful!’
Excerpt from La chute du ciel, Paroles d’un chaman Yanomami (chapter XXI) by
Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert
An English translation of La chute du ciel, Paroles d’un chaman Yanomami entitled The Falling Sky:
Phrases of a Yanomami Shaman is because of be revealed by Harvard College Press in November 2013.
