The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert (review)

The Falling Sky brings together a series of narratives by the Yanomami shaman and political leader Davi Kopenawa, as translated and edited by the French anthropologist Bruce Albert, and is the result of a partnership that spans three decades. Their book is divided into three parts reproducing Kopenawa's words, framed by opening and closing sections, written by Albert, that situate both the Yanomami people and the text. Of the three main parts, the first focuses on Kopenawa's experience with Yanomami shamanism, from initiation to the complex structures that the xapiri spirits reveal to shamans about the world, while the second and third bring to light his critical views on the nonindigenous world, alternating fragments of his personal history and his shamanic interpretation of these experiences.

At 648 pages, the book can make for intimidating reading, which may prevent its reaching as many nonspecialist readers as its relevance to the global ecological crisis would otherwise attract. Conceived primarily as a means to disseminate a warning from Kopenawa to the whole nonindigenous world, it is aimed at stimulating action to prevent the dramatic destiny evoked by its title. A primary idea is thus repeatedly stated by Kopenawa: nonindigenous peoples who do not know the words of the forest's protector spirits and of their creator, Omama, must cease to destroy what remains of it, lest the sky fall and kill us all.