Stories and memories from the forest: an interview with Davi Kopenawa Yanomami

Abstract

Davi Kopenawa is a shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami, the largest indigenous population of recent contact and inhabitant of a territory of more than nine million hectares located in the states of Amazonas and Roraima, Brazil. President of the Hutukara Yanomami Association (HAY), Kopenawa is known internationally as one of the most important voices in defence of the Amazon. He is the author of the books A queda do Céu: palavras de um xamã Yanomami and, more recently, O Espírito da Floresta, in which he tells his life story and his struggle against illegal mining and in defence of his territory and his people from the perspective of Yanomami cosmology.

On 30 January 2023, newly inaugurated president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva published Decree No. 11.405, determining federal measures to deal with the public health emergency and to combat illegal mining. This decree aims to respond to the serious health crisis in which the Yanomami found themselves after four years of federal management by former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is under investigation by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and has been indicted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for allegedly committing genocide against the Yanomami.

In March 2024, President Lula signed a Provisional Measure that released an extraordinary credit of 1 billion reais for actions linked to the urgent and structuring work plan in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, aimed at assisting the Yanomami people and the disintrusion of mining. These actions are aimed at maintaining the presence of federal agencies in the region, combating illegal mining, distributing food baskets and tools, as well as carrying out structuring actions aimed at food security, social protection, environmental monitoring and indigenous school education.

This interview was carried out on a night in March 2024, when I received Davi at my home in Boa Vista, Roraima, weeks after his participation in the carnival parade of the Salgueiro Samba School, which had the Yanomami people as its theme. The aim of the interview is to enable more people to get to know Kopenawa's life story and political struggle. In it, Davi discusses the story of his childhood and his perspective on the arrival of the whites in his territory, his realisation of who the invaders are and the consequences of contact with non-indigenous society. He also emphasises the importance of memory for the Yanomami, his role as a cultural translator and holder of shamanic knowledge, as well as talking about current challenges and his role as a representative of his people.