Davi Kopenawa Yanomami

Survival International and many others with extensive experience of the Yanomami have severely criticized Chagnon’s work which portrays the Yanomami as ‘sly, aggressive, and intimidating’ and falsely claims that they ‘live in a state of chronic warfare’. This characterization has undoubtedly been detrimental for them. It was referred to by the Brazilian government when it planned to fragment Yanomami land in 1988, in a proposal which would have been catastrophic for the Indians and which was only prevented by a vigorous campaign.

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami together with the Hutukara Yanomami Association (Brazil) have won the Right Livelihood Award in 2019

His non-Yanomamö supporters in Brazil, intelligent and well-intentioned advocates of the Yanomamö cause, are promoting him as a spokesman for his people. Such a role exists largely because our culture must deal with other cultures through their leaders – it is the only way we know how to deal with them. Everything I know about Davi Kobenawä is positive, and I am confident that he is a sincere and honest man. When I read his proclamations, I am moved – but I am also sure that someone from our culture wrote them. They have too much the voice of Rousseau’s idealism and sound very non-Yanomamö. My concern is that he is being put into a difficult position, fraught with consequences for the future of the Yanomamö. For one thing, there is currently no such thing as a pan-Yanomamö awareness, and so he cannot possibly be speaking for the Venezuelan Yanomamö.

In 2009 he was honoured by the Bartolome de las Casas award in Spain and later gave a speech to the UK parliament where he warned that the goldminers are once again invading Yanomami land and disease is spreading.

In 2004 Yanomami and other Yanomami in Brazil set up an organization called Hutukara to defend their rights. As well as advocating for Yanomami rights, it runs educational projects where Yanomami teachers work in the communities teaching literacy, maths, geography and human rights.

Since the invasion of Yanomami territory began in 1987 by illegal goldminers, Yanomami has worked for their removal from the area and for the creation of a parkland therein. His action resulted in death threats from the miners and an award from the United Nations Environment Programme in 1988. After a major international campaign led by Yanomami, Survival International and CCPY, the Brazilian government finally recognized Yanomami land rights in 1992 just before the UN’s Earth Summit.

In the 1980s, he began working for the Brazilian government organization Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI) at a post in Demini in the center of Yanomami territory as an intermediary between the government and indigenous peoples with whom outsiders had little or no contact. He also accompanied health workers to Yanomami villages and has worked closely with organizations such as Comissão Pró-Yanomami (CCPY) and Survival International in the fight for the integrity of Yanomami lands in Brazil.

Yanomami is the son-in-law of another traditional tribal leader with whom he apprenticed to be a shaman. His wife lost much of her family to measles and other diseases brought to the area in the 1970s by road construction crews and garimpeiros (small-time gold miners). Yanomami has mentioned this as part of his personal motivation to speak out on his people's behalf. Yanomami was orphaned as a child when his parents died from diseases transmitted by outsiders.

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, name also written Davi Kobenawä Yanomamö (born Toototobi, Brazil, c. 1956), is a Yanomami shaman and Portuguese-speaking spokesperson for the Yanomami Indians in Brazil. He became known for his advocacy regarding tribal issues and Amazon rainforest conservation when the tribal rights organization Survival International invited him to accept the Right Livelihood Award on its behalf in 1989. In 2019, Yanomami and the Hutukara Yanomami Association were also awarded the Right Livelihood Award. Yanomami spoke to both the British and Swedish parliaments about the catastrophic impact on Yanomami health as a consequence of the illegal invasion of their land by 40,000 ‘garimpeiros’ or goldminers. Prince Charles publicly called the situation ‘genocide’. In a seven-year period from 1987-1993 one fifth of the Yanomami died from malaria and other diseases transmitted by the miners.