Between Worlds

Disintegration is at hand: while the Yanomami still celebrate ancient marital customs and rituals, life as they know it is being threatened. The rights of the Yanomami people to ownership of their territory and the integrity of indigenous land and traditions have been guaranteed by the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, but still the so-called ‘Garimpeiros’, illegal gold miners, intrude the land and exploit the Yanomami’s natural habitat. Dario Kopenawa, a young Yanomami, left the forest and went to the city when he was a boy of 17 years. Far away from his homeland he started to work on new ways of saving the Yanomami’s cultural heritage.

Very often, identity is connected with ancestry, origin and cultural heritage. How people, who have to live in different conditions than they would wish for, adapt to change, can be witnessed in different societies. Respect towards modern societies does not necessarily mean adaptation.The Tarahumara, indigenous people in Mexico, sell homemade snacks to the passengers of stopping trains, but otherwise renounce society and live their lives in small autonomous families.