Tag Archive for: indigenous

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Why Rebel | Jay Griffiths

Why rebel? Because our footprint on the Earth has never mattered more than now. How we treat it, in the spirit of gift or of theft, has never been more important.

Because we need a politics of kindness, but the very opposite is on the rise. Libertarian fascism, with its triumphal brutalism, its racism and misogyny – a politics that loathes the living world.

Because nature is not a hobby. It is the life on which we depend, as Indigenous societies have never forgotten.

Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars, and they are lining up now to write rebellion across the skies.

‘This, bluntly, should be our generation’s Gettysburg Address’ ~ Rishi Dastidar, selected Why Rebel for guest contribution to May 2023’s What We’re Reading Now.

Jay Griffiths has been a long time collaborator with Extinction Rebellion and Writers Rebel. Last year, in collaboration with actor Mark Rylance, composers Sam Lee & Anna Phoebe and Paint the Land, she co-produced Almost Invisible Angels, a haunting short film which speaks out in praise of insects. Her accompanying written piece for Writers Rebel gives us a chilling insight into a world without insects – a world that creeps uncomfortably closer with every month of global inaction to protect our remaining biodiversity.

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The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman | Davi Kopenawa & Bruce Albert

The Falling Sky is a remarkable first-person account of the life story and cosmo-ecological thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon.

‘A revelatory and passionate cosmo-ecological life story. He is a really extraordinary human, and this book is a more truthful account of environmental devastation than many of our more compromised attempts here in the ‘merchandise’ societies. It’s a book like no other.’ ~ Max Porter, guest contributor to March 2022’s Hot Reads

Representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy, Davi Kopenawa paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest–a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry. In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation and experience as a shaman, as well as his first encounters with outsiders: government officials, missionaries, road workers, cattle ranchers, and gold prospectors.

He vividly describes the ensuing cultural repression, environmental devastation, and deaths resulting from epidemics and violence.

To counter these threats, Davi Kopenawa became a global ambassador for his endangered people.

The Falling Sky follows him from his native village in the Northern Amazon to Brazilian cities and finally on transatlantic flights bound for European and American capitals.

These travels constitute a shamanic critique of Western industrial society, whose endless material greed, mass violence, and ecological blindness contrast sharply with Yanomami cultural values. Bruce Albert, a close friend since the 1970s, superbly captures Kopenawa’s intense, poetic voice.

This collaborative work provides a unique reading experience that is at the same time a coming-of-age story, a historical account, and a shamanic philosophy, but most of all an impassioned plea to respect native rights and preserve the Amazon rainforest.

 

Read more of Max’s recommendations in March 2022’s Rebel Library Hot Reads

Purchase The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman from Hive Books

 

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The Last Quarter of the Moon | Chi Zijian

‘A long-time confidante of the rain and snow, I am ninety years old. The rain and snow have weathered me, and I too have weathered them.’

At the end of the twentieth century an old woman sits among the birch trees and reflects on the joys and tragedies that have befallen her people. A member of the Evenki tribe who wander the forests of north-eastern China, hers was a life lived in close sympathy with nature at its most beautiful and cruel.

Then, in the 1930s, the intimate, secluded world of the tribe is shattered when the Japanese army invades China. The Evenki cannot avoid being pulled into the brutal conflict that marks the beginning of the end of life as they know it.

‘An atmospheric modern folk-tale, the saga of the Evenki clan of Inner Mongolia – nomadic reindeer herders whose traditional life alongside the Argun river endured unchanged for centuries… This is a fitting tribute to the Evenki by a writer of rare talent’ Financial Times

 

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