Seven Yanomami die in suspected swine flu outbreak

Seven Yanomami Indians living on the border between Venezuela and Brazil have died from an outbreak of the Type A H1NI "swine flu" virus in the last three weeks, according to reports from Venezuelan sources and the UK-based NGO Survival International.

Raidan Bernade, a Venezuelan doctor based in La Esmeralda on the Orinoco, said that a 35-year-old Yanomami woman was confirmed to have died from swine flu but it was not possible to confirm that the six babies who died - the oldest just 1-year-old - had died of the illness.

Some 1,000 Yanomami are reported to have contracted the virus and Yamilet Mirabal, the government's deputy minister of indigenous affairs for the region, has confirmed that suspected cases of swine flu had been detected in the jungle villages of Mavaca, Platanal and Hatakoa and that medical teams had been dispatched to treat the sick.

Bernade, meanwhile, told news agencies that: "everything is under control" and that many of the flu cases the indigenous Yanomami are suffering from are down to a seasonal flu.

The UK-based indigenous rights group Survival International has called on the governments of Venezuela and Brazil to take urgent action to protect the 32,000 Yanomami who live in the isolated border area, where there is little access to medical care.

"The situation is critical. Both governments must take immediate action to halt the epidemic and radically improve the health care to the Yanomami. If they do not, we could once more see hundreds of Yanomami dying of treatable diseases," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International.

"This would be utterly devastating for this isolated tribe, whose population has only just recovered from the epidemics which decimated their population 20 years ago," he added, referring to malaria outbreaks in the 1980s and 1990s introduced by wildcat gold miners known as garimpeiros.

The Yanomami, who are linguistically and culturally related to the Sanema, are the largest relatively isolated tribe in the Amazon rainforest and due to their isolation have very little resistance to introduced diseases such as flu.

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 1: The Origin of Fire

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Endo-Cannibalism

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

The Dolphin People: Novel set in Venezuelan jungle

A small plane crashes deep in the Venezuelan jungle. A family fleeing the post-WWII nightmare of occupied Germany is captured by a warlike tribe living far from civilization who think they are magical river dolphins in human form. Can they keep up the pretence? Or will they be discovered and cast out or even killed?

To read more about Torsten Krol's debut novel "The Dolphin People" click here:

Maria Lionza - indigenous myth or folk legend?

This is just one version of the many myths that have been linked to Maria Lionza, the cult figure from Yaracuy State who is venerated throughout Venezuela.

With so little known about the origins of the cult it is impossible to know if Maria Lionza was a real historical figure or if the legends refer to an Indian girl from one of the historical tribes that inhabited the area around Chivacoa, where the sacred mountain of Sorte is located.

What is clear is that adherents of the cult, who refer to her simply as "La Reina" ("The Queen"), have continuously added stories and attributes to this local folk figure to increase her importance and power.

Adding to the confusion is the iconography of Maria Lionza. In some images she is shown as a Virgin Mary figure, others depict a European-looking lady with green eyes, an elegant dress and a crown.

The most famous image of her is the statue by Alejandro Colina which was placed on the Francisco Fajardo Freeway in Caracas in 1953 by the dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez. It shows a muscular indigenous woman sitting astride a tapir and holding aloft a female pelvis.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the cult became more widespread as people from the countryside moved to Caracas and other big cities. It was also a time when writers and artists were looking back to Venezuela's indigenous past in response to a spate of archaeological finds from the late 1930s and there was a conscious attempt to link "La Reina" to this rediscovered past.

Yara, or Maria Lionza as she was known afterwards, was an indigenous princess. She was the daughter of Yaracuy, the chief of the Nivar tribe, the granddaughter of Chief Chilua and the great-granddaughter of Chief Yare, all great warriors and leaders.

The birth of Maria Lionza must have occurred around the year 1535 in the state that today is named after her father.

The shaman of the village had predicted before Yara was born that if a girl was born with strange, watery-green eyes, she would have to sacrificed and offered to the Master of the Waters, the Great Anaconda, because if not it would lead to the ruin and extinction of the Nivar tribe.

However, her father was unable to sacrifice her and so he hid the little girl in a mountain cave, with 22 warriors to watch over her and stop her from leaving.

She was also forbidden from looking at her image reflected in water.

But one day, her guards were mysteriously put to sleep and the beautiful young girl left the cave and walked to a lagoon, where she looked into the water and saw her reflection for the first time.

Captivated by her own image, she was unable to move, but her presence awakened the Master of the Waters, the Great Anaconda, who emerged from the depths, fell in love with the girl, and drew closer to take her away.

When she resisted its advances the anaconda swallowed the girl, but immediately he began to swell up, forcing the water out of the lagoon, flooding the village and drowning the tribe.

Finally, the anaconda burst and Maria Lionza was set free, becoming the owner of the lagoon, the river and the waters, the protecter of the fish and later of all the plants and animals.

Translated from various sources by Russell Maddicks

Yanomami-Sanema

The Yanomami

The Yanomami are easily the best-known of Venezuela's indigenous peoples. But not for the best of reasons. A series of National Geographic articles describing them as Stone Age savages or isolated survivors of a prehistoric age have only perpetuated stereotypes about the group. The main person responsible for this depiction of the Yanomami as warlike and primitive is anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, whose book "The Fierce People", perhaps the most succesful anthropological book ever published, focuses on warfare between different groups.
Yanomami groups are found in Venezuela and Brazil and appear under a host of different names in the literature: Yanomami, Yanomame, Yanomam, Yanam, Ninam, Guaika, Waika, Guaharibo, Guajaribo, Sanuma, Tsanuma, Sanema, Samatari, Samatali, Xamatari, Chirichano and Shirishano.

Yanomami vs. Sanema

Some people classify the Sanema and Yanomami in separate linguistic groups, but generally they are lumped together as Yanoama speakers, an independent group not linked to the main Arawak, or Carib language families found in the region.
There are four branches to the Yanoama language family: the Yanomami, who make up over half the population, the Yanomam, who represent about a quarter, the Sanema, who represent just under a quarter, and the Yanam (or Ninam), who are the smallest group.
In Venezuela, the Yanomami are mainly found in the Orinoco basin and the Sanema in the Caura River basin. The Yanomam live mostly in Brazil and the Yanam are divided into communities living on both sides of the border.

Russell Maddicks

Click here to read Sanema Myth on Origin of Fire

Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Endo-Cannibalism

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

Yanomami-Sanema: The Origin of Fire

Yanomami Myth 1: The Origin of Fire

This Sanema myth is taken from a report by Daniel de Barandiaran which appeared in the Venezuelan journal Antropologica in January 1968 and was republished in "Mitos de Creacion de la Cuenca del Orinoco" (FUNDEF, 1993).

Long, long ago, Iwarame, the caiman, was a person like all the other animals. All the animals could speak.
There were Sanema-Yanomami Indians as well back then but the people ate their food raw because they did not have the secret of fire.

Iwarame, the caiman, was the only one who had fire. Iwarame, who was also known as Iwa, spent the whole day in the water hunting but he prepared his food in the cave where he slept.
All the other animals knew that Iwarame had fire. They also knew that everything he ate was roasted and when he roasted his food it smelled fantastic.
The other animals thought that Iwarame was the the most powerful of all the animals because he ate his food cooked.
When Iwarame opened his mouth you could see the fire, so the Sanema Indians and many of the animals brought meat to place in front of Iwarame's cave so that when he opened his mouth it would be cooked.
Usually the Indians and the animals could only take away a little of this food as Iwarame would eat a large part of the food that they placed outside his cave and then he would sleep.
When he was asleep he would close his mouth and nobody could see the fire.
When he awoke he would go hunting and would bring back different prey, animals and fish. He would bring it back home and when he wanted to eat it he would open his mouth and that would set light to the wood and over the fire he would roast everything he ate, meat or fish, but only at night and then he would close his mouth so nobody could steal the fire.
One day a young Sanema hunter, who was out hunting with his father, got lost in the jungle and arrived, by chance, at Iwarame's cave. Iwarame was asleep.
As soon as the boy realised he was in the home of the "owner of fire" he was really scared. He looked all over for some cooked food or a burning log but he couldn't find anything except a burnt leaf, which, shaking with fear he took with him as he left the cave.
In the jungle he found his father and he showed him the burnt leaf.
- Father, he said, I found this burnt leaf.
- Where did you find it?
- In the house of Iwarame, the caiman
- Did you find fire?
- No, nor any roast meat. He keeps the fire inside his mouth.
His father thought long and hard about it: How are we going to steal the fire from Iwarame?
His father continued to think of a way to steal the fire from that terrible caiman and one day he organized a big party for all the Sanema and all the animals.
It was going to be a fun party with eating and drinking and it had to be immediately after sunset. Iwarame was invited and he left his house to come to the party.
All the Indians and all the animals had been told they had to make jokes, do tricks and anything else that would make them laugh.
So, they were all falling about laughing. All except Iwarame. He didn't laugh. He kept his big mouth tightly shut.
All the animals showed off their skills, especially the birds, who did swoops and turns in the air.

Jashimo, the purple gallinule (Porphyrio martinica) danced around and jumped from side to side, lifting its tail and shooting out streams of excrement as it cried: Plo, plo, plo.
All the guests fell on the floor laughing and some held their bellies they were laughing so much.
But Iwarame did not even smile. And he did not open his mouth.
Then Hiima, the dog, dancing and doing turns, did a massive shit and threw it at the other animals who were dancing and they all laughed again.
But Iwarame was as serious as before.
Finally, Jiomonikoshwan, the clever green-tailed jacamar, its belly as red as fire, began a very exotic dance and lifted its tail and showed its arse to all the other dancers. When it passed in front of Iwa, it lifted its tail, stuck its arse in his face and then sent a fine stream of shit into his face. This did make Iwa laugh and he let out a thunderous chuckle: ha, ha ha...
The fire then started to leap out of his mouth in bursts of flame, making a "flum, flum" sound.
Immediately, Maipomue, who is a hummingbird with a very long double tail. flew quickly and shot into Iwa's mouth like a bolt of lightning, grabbed the ball of fire in his beak and then flew over the heads of the guests, taking the ball of fire to the heart of the Puloi tree.
Iwa's wife, called Blajeyoma, ran over to the Puloi tree and urinated on the roots of the tree to put out the flame but as it was in the heart of the tree she couldn't.
When the fire came out of the caiman's jaws his tongue shrank and now it's small.
Since then, Iwa the caiman, ashamed by his defeat has left his cave and gone to live in the water. That's where he lives now, sharing his territory with Lalakilpara, the great water snake, who is the true master of the water.
From that time on, the Sanema and the Yanomami go to find fire in the heart of the sacred tree, Puloi, because that is where Maipomue left it.

Translated by Russell Maddicks


Click here to read Yanomami Myth 2: The Origin of Eating the Dead

Video of Sanema Shaman Ritual with Bruce Parry

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