Article originally published in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo
At this time when much is being said about the Yanomami tragedy, there are those who attribute the causes of the suffering of these people to their way of life. They suggest that hunger and disease are products of the supposed inefficiency of the indigenous productive system, not of the predatory economy that has been devouring peoples and territories across the planet for years. They ignore that this same way of life guaranteed an abundant existence for centuries, while non-indigenous extractivism is the true producer of scarcity — something that is seen, for example, in large urban centers that claim to be monuments of Western civilization. As Davi Kopenawa would say, “the merchandise people” are doomed.
It is not difficult to notice the contradiction in the discourse that imputes the blame for this tragedy to the indigenous people. It is enough to observe what happens in the places consumed by mining on a daily basis. Where there is mining there is no prosperity. There is poverty and violence, nothing more. In these places, while the majority suffer from diseases such as malaria or are poisoned by mercury, only a few accumulate riches, which are displayed far from the craters from which they are extracted.
In the midst of tragedy, it is urgent not to lose sight of the beauty of this people. The beauty of the reahu parties, of the presentation dances. Blue sky, bodies painted red, the ballet of yellow straws. Nor lose sight of the beauty of the forest and the millenary knowledge that helped build it and make it even more beautiful. Bees eating in the jatobá-roxo, the scents of the depths of the forest, the majesty of the kapok trees and the fantastic islands of peach trees and cocoa trees. We cannot lose sight of the beauty of shamans and their auxiliary spirits, who contribute to cosmic balance. The beauty of the Yanomami language and its songs, which have the subtlety of haiku and the rhythm of the songs of animals.
For the enemies of indigenous peoples, one form of extermination is the destruction of this beauty. Because it is through beauty that the Yanomami affirm their humanity in the world.
Living with the forest is an art and requires a wisdom that cannot be manufactured in a laboratory. The Yanomami manage more than 160 wild edible plant species, know in detail the behavior of more than 80 game animals, catch around 50 types of fish, collect 30 different varieties of wild honey, 11 species of mushrooms, dozens of invertebrates and cultivate more of a hundred foods, with emphasis on bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, taro, yams, sugarcane and corn.
Davi Kopenawa, with his unusual perspicacity and intelligence, has been warning us about this for years, just as he has been fighting for the napë (non-indigenous people) to recognize the beauty of their people, their humanity.
Read his words in “The Falling Sky”. Watch the poetry of the residents of Serra do Vento in “The Last Forest”. Let yourself fall in love with these people and their unique way of creating worlds. David’s wager is that respect for his people can only be born of admiration, not pity or commiseration.
A people whose children can name more than two hundred types of flowers during play is a treasure. And this is the kind of treasure that Brazil and humanity need.
The horror scenes circulating today certainly say more about who the napë are than about the Yanomami.