Indigenous Impacts
Massacre. Disease. Forest destruction. Tribal members of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, located along Brazil’s border with Venezuela, continue enduring such calamities centuries later. Now, illegal miners and loggers invade their territory, bringing with them COVID-19, or xawara.
When the world is a chaotic, unknown place for the Yanomami, Mother Earth is a place of shelter. Generations ago, during the whooping cough epidemic, the Yanomami fled to the cold, mountainous regions within the forest for protection.
To the Yanomami, diseases like COVID-19 are spirits. Xawara is planet Earth’s revenge toward those who exploit and harm the planet. Yanomami shamans believe Mother Earth is sick and asks for the non-indigenous to stop destroying the planet.
According to tribal member Dario Vitorio Kopenawaa Yanomami, the creator Omama places xawara under the ground. When someone drills into the soil, the xawara is released, and spreads among people. The shaman is then responsible for returning xawara back to the earth.
Like in the past, the Yanomami find refuge from COVID-19 in the mountains through a practice called wayumi. It is the practice of “leaving one’s main residence” in order to “live in the forest in encampments.” Nature is their refuge when the world is their adversary.
A shaman on the Mucajal river in Northern Brazil translated COVID-19 into “Hapalisi,” and identified the relation with other diseases to find ways of combating the virus. The shaman advised for the community to drink special teas and bathe with certain herbs.
According to Yanomami nurse Clara, the Yanomami use Parika, a hallucinogenic herb, as a preventative medicine. If someone still gets sick, they go to the shaman who confers with the spiritual world of the ill and other elders to find which plants would be most beneficial.
“Everyone says there’s no medicine, but we have that which nature has given us,” said Erica Villela Figuiredo, Presidents of the Kumirayoma Yanomami Women’s Association.
The Eastern region of the Yanomami’s approach to traditional medicine remained constant even when miners, military, ministers, and linguists entered or outsiders introduced Western products like makeup, stoves, and televisions.
“The tribe chooses traditional medicine over western medicine because they have more trust in this type of medicine chosen by the Shaman.” Clara said.
Clara shared that COVID-19 is nothing new for the Yanomami community; they’ve dealt with diseases like measles and the flu.
By using nature as a source of medicine and isolation, the Yanomami make the most of their environment without exploiting it. As outsiders, we must do our part to prevent land exploitation and unwanted intervention to allow for the indigenous to prosper.
Art by Anna Kaminetz
Sources:
“Xawara: Tracing the Deadly Path of COVID-19 and Government Negligence in the Yanomami Territory” https://www.socioambiental.org/sites/blog.socioambiental.org/files/nsa/arquivos/coy_ingles_r03_2020117.pdf