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Life in a state which practices internal colonization, or attempts to, tends to breed a pattern of

resistance within the periphery population. The situation has occurred and impacted populations across

the entire earth. In many instances, the periphery population tends to include groups of people who

were indigenous to the land which has been colonized and drawn into a nation. From the United states,

Russia, China, Korea, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Brazil there have been resistance patterns that are

expressed through millenarian movements, revitalization movements, and liberation theology. In the

nation of Brazil indigenous populations are ensuring their sovereignty by taking many legitimate,

political actions. The conflict created by the periphery populations in almost every part of the Amazon

forest is based in their part on the intent of protecting the forest from destruction, to preserve their own

beliefs and subsistence practices. The conflict created by the core nation is one advocating resource

extraction, infrastructure creation, and economic growth. Other groups are are also involved and

affected by this conflict, like christian missionary groups or other marginalized populations like the

Quilombola, or the empates and other Seringueiros of Brazil. (Todd 2003) Modern movements have

organized and incorporated themselves into connections with current globalized social structure, often

relying on transnational support in order to compete with a nation which opposes their sovereignty.

The creation of millenarian or revitalization movement ideology is not new to indigenous

peoples of the Amazon. A few notable cases were the emergence of Venacio A. Kamike “Christu” and

Alexandre Christu who were paye shamans belonging to Tukano and Wakuenai cultures residing in the

Northwest Amazon. These individuals claimed to have contacted the Christian god, and sometimes

claimed to be incarnations of Jesus Christ who “have returned from Heaven to help their peoples resist

colonial authority and white domination.” (Gross 2000: 40) Again, oppositional ideas and feelings

toward colonization and white settlers were espoused by these particular shamans. In this region of the

Amazon there are what can be seen as 'denominations' within shamanism. Anthropologist Stephen
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Hugh-Jones identifies these certain denominations as being horizontal shamanism, and vertical

shamanism where “Traditions of vertical shamanism involve elite groups of individuals who supervise

spiritual ceremonies and control access to sacred knowledge, whereas horizontal shamanic traditions

display a more democratic nature, and allow a greater number and variety of individuals to become

shamans.” (Gross 2000: 38) Both such denominations can exist alongside each other, and each have

had their own reactions to the introduction of christian missionaries into their environment. David k.

Gross mentions in reference to Stephen Hugh-Jones that “...the Catholicism of the missionaries, with its

hierarchies, tended to favor vertical shamans...Protestant Christianity lacks any such spiritual

hierarchies, and thus may have led to greater coexistence between vertical and horizontal shamans.”

(Gross 2000: 39) Among the horizontal shamanism denomination are the paye who practice spirit

journeys and trance, where “The various rituals of these millenarian movements blended Catholic and

indigenous rituals.” (Gross 2000: 40) As with other similar movements like the Ghost Dance religion,

the effects of a revitalization movement, or a millenarian movement faded over time as the dominance

of the state pressured a slow integration of indigenous culture into the fabric of national society. The

Tukano people are not yet 'accultured' and still maintain their indigenous practices, but the presence of

paye shamans declined after their association with millenarian movements, which helped to transfer

power to the kubu denomination of shamans which is seen as a vertical classification of shamanism.

Not only did the paye decrease their influence, but the associated millenarian movements fostered a

better working relationship between missionaries, the state, and indigenous communities.

Belief systems and cosmologies of Amazonian tribes center around aspects of conservation and

environmentally conscious/sustainable practice. “The Yanomami and seringueiros root their claims to

the land in indigenous relationship with nature rather then geopolitical claims to territories.” (Todd

2003: 367) Most indigenous communities that have been affected by expansion of the state of Brazil or

illegal resource extraction have seen how the decimation of the forest affects the natural ecology and
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thus, the indigenous way of life. “What people do about their ecology depends on what they think

about themselves in relations to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs

about our nature and destiny—that is, by religion.” (White 1967: 23) So, the concern for the survival of

indigenous culture encompasses the complete control of their native environment, and assurance by a

state entity that their native land will be protected from development, deforestation, and settlement. The

political climate has been apprehensive in the past to grant demarcation of Amazon forest lands into

specific zones of tribal occupancy, though there are a few movements which have had success in

gaining demarcated zones from the Brazilian state, in the case of the Kayapo indigenous group, and

groups claiming rights to Xingu National Park and other state reserves. (Todd 2003) (Turner 1993)

(Earth First! Journal 2017)

Out of the Yanomami indigenous group has emerged a shaman-prophet named Davi Kopenawa

Yanomami. “Kopenawa's life trajectory in the nineteen-fifties and sixties unfolded in relation to the

intrusions and the permanent establishment of outsiders (principally FUNAI and missionaries) in his

people's life-world.” (Mimica 2014: 320) During Kopenawa's life he interacted with Anglo-American

New Tribes Missionaries, and worked for FUNAI as an interpreter where “All these experiences

eventually became consummated and integrated through his shamanistic initiation. Thereafter, they

flourished and transformed, correlatively to his political activism, into a cosmo-ecological shamanic

soteriology, which feeds into current Western megapolitan sensibilities and concerns with the planetary

ecological crisis, the anthropocene, and the posthuman condition, as well as forecasts of the impending

global collapse.” (Mimica 2014: 320) The views expressed by Kopenawa are recorded in an extensive

ethnography, The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman which chronicles ethnographic fieldwork

by Bruce Albert. In this book are conversations with Kopenawa, during which he expresses his disdain

for the “White” society taken from his observations of how white people interact with and affect the

Yanomami and other indigenous groups. Kopenawa is recorded saying, in context to western
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materialism, “As for me, I do not have a taste for possessing much merchandise....I do not want to keep

such things in my mind. For me, only the forest is a precious good.” (Kopenawa and Albert 2013: 337)

The region the Yanomami inhabit has been subject to major infrastructure developments by

state powers and by individual gold prospectors, and with these developments a rash of diseases were

introduced into the Yanomami society, where “ about 2000 perished or, about 13-20 percent”(Mimica

2014: 320) of the Brazilian Yanomami population. Not only were diseases observed with the arrival of

outsiders, but smoke and fumes accompanied the pestilence, with these two “being the chief substantial

ingredients featuring in the Yanomami understanding of deadly infectious diseases...” (Mimica 2014:

320) Some of the intrusion into Yanomami territory is perpetuated by garimpeiros, or gold miners. On

one described account, Yanomami captured a garimpeiro leader called Zeca Diabo, then for three days

Kopenawa and other Yanomami held him captive at the airstrip where Zeca Diabo would be picked up,

and finally painted the man black with “anatto pulp and soot” (Kopenawa and Albert 2013: 274) before

sending him back to his plane, and the city. The act of painting the man black acts as a reference to the

smoke and disease which accompanies outsiders, people who wish to extract resources from the

Yanomami lands. Kopenawa is known for being charismatic, and has evidenced this by his trips

abroad, to New York where he met and talked with a group of Iroquois, and to California where he

embarked on a speaking tour, and his participation in the 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio. This, coupled

with his somewhat apocalyptic dreams and visions of a “falling sky” make me believe Kopenawa is

somewhere between a Yanomami shaman-prophet and a leader of a revitalization movement. “Linking

the local devastation of his land with wider socio-economic processes, Watoriki shamans develop a

theory of Whites’ world history and motivation that results in a prophetic announcement of the xapiri:

the return to the mythic cataclysm of the fall of the sky that will crush us all, Yanomami and Whites, if

the latter do not stop consuming the forest, retrieving the oil, gold, and metals that Omama wisely hid

far underground.” (Kelly 2014: 116) Another characteristic of a revitalization movement is represented,
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that is the constant message to repel and reject the colonists, the settlers, the 'whites'. “Yanomami

shamanic vision and dreams lead to true knowledge of the images of the world, lead to words of the

xapiri , mythical events and everything at the root of things. White knowledge, epitomized in reading

and writing, is “clouded,” “full of forgetfulness.” Having only the “eyes of spirits of the dead,” Whites

cannot see the true images of the cosmos. Blind, Whites are insensitive to immanent humanity.” (Kelly

2014: 113)

The impact of Kopanewa's teachings and influence within Yanomami society is largely

unknown, or unpublished. The fact that there are still untouched, 'isolated' groups of Yanomami in the

Amazon forest yields an incomplete picture of just how much influence Kopenawa has produced

among other shamans. The charismatic nature exhibited by Kopenawa is borne out of necessity, borne

out of the fact that he and his people still live in an area which is not recognized as being sovereign by

any state authority, an area where outside individuals and corporations can still apply for mining rights,

and the threat of Hydro-electric infrastructure still looms.

There is much to understand about the atmosphere surrounding the conflict of land management

by the state and the sovereignty of indigenous peoples in the Amazon. Most of the resistance that has

seen success is in the legal and political arena of the dominant social construct i.e. the Brazilian state.

Creation of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), 'debt-for-nature swaps' overseen by FUNATURA

and the Brazilian Institute for Environment and Natural Resources, the Organization of the Indigenous

People of Taraucá and Jordão (OPITARJ), the Fundacao Mebengokre, the Coordinating Group of the

Amazon Basin, and over 50 other organizations advocating indigenous sovereignty are examples of

legitimate organizations that have helped populations secure their identity and way of life, which

includes preservation of the Amazon forest. The peoples discussed here have a unique and strong belief

that their exact culture cannot exist in 'developed' societies, that the forest is part of their essential
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existence, and therefore have a extremely protective association with nature with respect to state-

sponsored development strategy. Protectionist strategies range from the aforementioned legal

organizations, to direct action groups who arm themselves and police their own territories, these stories

are documented by acivisim-centric organizations like Earth First! who reported one instance entitled

“PHOTO REPORT: Amazon Indian Warriors Beat and Strip Illegal Loggers in Battle for Jungle’s

Future” in September of 2014. This instance was violent, and involved the torture of loggers, and the

torching of their equipment. Much less seen are the shamanic rituals conducted by Amazonian cultures

in response to the intrusion of resource extractors into the forest. “For every indigenous people who

have found the courage, leadership, and ability to respond constructively to the threat of despoliation of

their ecological bases or the theft of their lands, others have been or are being decimated, dispossessed,

or destroyed.” (Turner 1993: 545)

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References

Gross, David K. 2000. Shamanism and the state: A conflict theory perspective. Master of Arts.,
University of Montana.

Kelly, José Antonio. 2014. "La Chute du Ciel: Paroles d'un Chaman Yanomami (The Falling Sky.
Words of a Yanomami Shaman)." Anthropology & Humanism 39, no. 1: 108-120. Humanities
International Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 25, 2017).

Kopenawa, Davi, and Bruce Albert. 2013. The falling sky: Words of a Yanomami shaman. Translated
by Nicholas Elliott and Alison Dundy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lazarus, Al Zachary. 2003. A war worth fighting: The ongoing battle to save the brazilian amazon. Law
and Business Review of the Americas 9 (2): 399-418.

Mimica, Jadran. 2014. Of shamanism and planetary crisis. Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4 (2): 319-
28.

Sim, David. PHOTO REPORT: Amazon indian warriors beat and strip illegal loggers in battle for
jungle's future. in Internation Business Times [database online]. Earth Frist! Newswire, September
4, 2014 [cited 11/22/2017 2017]. Available from
http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2014/09/04/photo-report-amazon-indian-warriors-beat-and-
strip-illegal-loggers-in-battle-for-jungles-future/.

Todd, Anne Marie. 2003. Environmental sovereignty discourse of the brazilian amazon: National
polotics and the globalization of indigenous resistance. Journal of Communication Inquiry 4 (27)
(October): 354-70.

Turner, Terrance. 1993. The role of indigenous peoples in the environmental crisis: The example of the
Kayapo of the Braizlian Amazon. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 36 (3) (spring): 526-45.

White, Lynn, Jr. 1967. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” Science 155 (10 March):
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