The Falling Sky : Words of a Yanomami Shaman / Bruce Albert, Davi Kopenawa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kopenawa, Davi, Author.

Albert, Bruce, Author.

Contributor:

Dundy, Alison, Contributor.

Elliott, Nicholas, Contributor.

McKibben, Bill, Contributor.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (648 p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2023]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The 10th anniversary editionA Guardian Best Book about DeforestationA New Scientist Best Book of the YearA Taipei Times Best Book of the Year“A perfectly grounded account of what it is like to live an indigenous life in communion with one’s personal spirits. We are losing worlds upon worlds.”—Louise Erdrich, New York Times Book Review“The Yanomami of the Amazon, like all the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, have experienced the end of what was once their world. Yet they have survived and somehow succeeded in making sense of a wounded existence. They have a lot to teach us.”—Amitav Ghosh, The Guardian“A literary treasure…a must for anyone who wants to understand more of the diverse beauty and wonder of existence.”—New ScientistA now classic account of the life and thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami, The Falling Sky paints an unforgettable picture of an indigenous culture living in harmony with the Amazon forest and its creatures, and its devastating encounter with the global mining industry. In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation as a shaman and first experience of outsiders: missionaries, cattle ranchers, government officials, and gold prospectors seeking to extract the riches of the Amazon.A coming-of-age story entwined with a rare first-person articulation of shamanic philosophy, this impassioned plea to respect indigenous peoples’ rights is a powerful rebuke to the accelerating depredation of the Amazon and other natural treasures threatened by climate change and development.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword

Maps

Setting the Scene

Words Given

I. Becoming Other

1. Drawn Words

2. The First Shaman

3. The Xapiri’s Gaze

4. The Animal Ancestors

5. The Initiation

6. Spirits’ Houses

7. Image and Skin

8. The Sky and the Forest

II. Metal Smoke

9. Outsider Images

10. First Contacts

11. The Mission

12. Becoming a White Man?

13. The Road

14. Dreaming the Forest

15. Earth Eaters

16. Cannibal Gold

III. The Falling Sky

17. Talking to White People

18. Stone Houses

19. Merchandise Love

20. In the City

21. From One War to Another

22. The Flowers of Dream

23. The Spirit of the Forest

24. The Shamans’ Death

Words of Omama

How This Book Was Written

Map

Appendix A. Ethnonym, Language, and Orthography

Appendix B. The Yanomami in Brazil

Appendix C. Watoriki

Appendix D. The Haximu Massacre

Notes

Ethnobiological Glossary

Geographic Glossary

References

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Jan 2023)

ISBN:

0674293568

9780674724686

9780674726116

9780674727076

OCLC:

1368027523