Yanomami funeral feast Clip 1: preparing food
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For thousands of years, the Yanomami have thrived in the rainforests of South America.
Now, they are struggling as the government fails to protect them from criminal invasions, attacks and disease.
The Yanomami are one of the largest relatively isolated tribes in South America. They live in the rainforests and mountains of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela.
Like most tribes on the continent, they probably migrated across the Bering Straits between Asia and America some 40,000 years ago, making their way slowly down to South America. Today their total population stands at around 32,000.
At over 9.6 million hectares, the Yanomami territory in Brazil is twice the size of Switzerland. In Venezuela, the Yanomami live in the 8.2 million hectare Alto Orinoco – Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve. Together, these areas form the largest forested indigenous territory in the world.
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| Gold miners work illegally on the Yanomami’s land |
Over 1,000 gold-miners are now working illegally on Yanomami land, transmitting deadly diseases like malaria and polluting the rivers and forest with mercury. Cattle ranchers are invading and deforesting the eastern fringe of their land.
Yanomami health is suffering and critical medical care is not reaching them because of corruption and incompetence in Brazil’s National Health Foundation (FUNASA).
The Brazilian congress is currently debating a bill which, if approved, will permit large-scale mining in indigenous territories. This will be extremely harmful to the Yanomami and other remote tribes in Brazil.
The Yanomami have not been properly consulted about their views and have little access to independent information about the impacts of mining.
Davi Kopenawa, a leading Yanomami spokesman and President of Hutukara Yanomami Association, warns of the dangers, ‘Mining will only destroy nature. It will only destroy the streams and the rivers and kill the fish and kill the environment – and kill us. And bring in diseases which never existed in our land.’
Survival has supported the Yanomami for decades. We led the international campaign for the demarcation of Yanomami territory, along with the Brazilian NGO, the Pro Yanomami Commission (CCPY). We have also supported their health and medical projects.
Despite repeated requests from the Yanomami, the Brazilian authorities have failed to remove the illegal gold-miners and failed to sort out the health crisis.
The Yanomami’s health is now at risk as malaria and other diseases are spreading.
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami told Survival, ‘The Yanomami people do not want the national congress to approve the law or the president to sign it. We do not want to accept this law.
‘Our land has to be respected. Our land is our heritage, a heritage which protects us.’
Please join us in pushing for the Yanomami’s land rights and their protection from outsiders’ disease and violence.
Your support will help the Yanomami keep control of their lands, lives and futures. There are many ways you can help.
