Drawings by the Yanonami Indigenous community speak to climate change, deteriorating tribal rights

Jaden Sharp
February 19, 2023 | 11:18pm EST

“I’m in mourning because my people [are] dying … children are dying for nothing.”

These are the words of Davi Kopenawa, author of “The Falling Sky” and a prominent leader of the Yanomami Indigenous community, which resides on land traversing Brazil and Venezuela. The hardships that the Yanomami people have faced for the past decade result from neglect by the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments and systemic attempts of erasure by the Brazilian government.

On Jan. 31, the University community had the opportunity to hear Kopenawa speak about what he described as the ongoing systematic erasure of the Yanomami people and what it means for the Amazon Rainforest. Kopenawa, who delivered his talk in Portuguese, was joined by Harvard graduate student Ana Laura Boeno Malmaceda, who translated Kopenawa’s words; João Biehl, a Princeton professor of anthropology and the director of the Brazil LAB; and Deborah Yashar, Director of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.

Kopenawa’s discussed the “The Yanomami Struggle” exhibit on display at The Shed of New York, which includes drawings and paintings by Yononami artists, making a point about the planet’s rapid environmental decline and the deterioration of tribal rights, the Yanomami’s among others.

According to Kopenawa, the Yanomami consider themselves to be the primary protectors of the Amazon Rainforest and have taken a central role in its preservation. The destruction of the Amazon, one of Earth’s most important carbon sinks and one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, would have dramatic environmental consequences. While, according to Kopenawa, the Yanomami have worked tirelessly to safeguard this ecosystem, both the rainforest and the tribe are vulnerable due to the governments Brazil, Venezuela, and other stakeholders seeking to strip the forest of its material goods.

More:
https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/02/princeton-art-falling-sky-yanomami-brazil-colonialism