T1 Bruce Albert e Davi Kopenawa
The fall of the sky
Lo sciamano Davi Kopenawa è da decenni il portavoce del popolo Yanomami, composto principalmente da contadini e cacciatori che vivono in un’area della foresta amazzonica. Per questa popolazione, e per l’ambiente in cui vive, l’incontro con i bianchi e il processo di colonizzazione hanno avuto conseguenze devastanti. Nel seguente brano Kopenawa racconta all’antropologo Bruce Albert il mito yanomami della caduta del cielo.
The falling sky. Words of a yanomami shaman, Harvard University Press, Harward 2013, pp. 129-131
Sometimes, when the sky makes threatening noises, women and children whimper and cry in fear. These are not empty cries! We all fear being crushed by the falling sky, the way our ancestors were in the beginning of time. I still remember an occasion when that nearly happened to us! I was young then. We were camping in the forest, near a small stream that flows into the Rio Mapulaú. I had accompanied a few elders on the search for a young woman of the Uxi u River who had been taken away by a man from a house in the Rio Toototobi highlands. It was early in the night. There were no sounds of thunder or lightning in the sky. Everything was quiet. It was not raining and we could not feel a breath of wind. Yet suddenly we heard several loud cracks in the sky’s chest. They came in rapid succession, each more violent than the last, and they seemed very close. It was really alarming! Every one in our camp started to yell and weep in fear: “Aë! The sky is starting to collapse! We are all going to perish! Aë!” I was also scared! I had not become a shaman yet and I anxiously asked myself: “What is going to happen to us? Is the sky really going to fall on us? Are we all going to be hurled into the underworld?” At the time, there were still great shamans among us, for many of our elders were still alive. Several of them instantly started working together to hold up the sky. Their fathers and grandfathers had taught them this work long ago, this is how once again they were able to prevent its fall. Then, after a moment, every thing got quiet. Yet I think that this time the sky nearly did shatter above us again. I know it has happened before, far away from our forest, where it is closer to the edges of the world. These distant places’ inhabitants were wiped out because they did not know how to hold it up. But where we live the sky is very high, and more solid. I think this is because we are at the center of the terrestrial layer. But one day, a long time from now, it may finally come crashing down on us! It will no longer want to stay in place. It will come apart and crush us all. But this will not happen so long as the shamans are alive to hold it up. It will lurch and roar but will not break. This is what I think! All the beings who live in the forest fear that they could be crushed and wiped out by the sky’s immensity, even the xapiri1!
1. xapiri: spirits.