Ecology under the falling sky: Nature, ecology and entropy in Yanomami cosmology

Abstract

This article is a theoretical engagement with the book The Falling Sky, written by anthropologist Bruce Albert and Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa. It presents how the concepts of nature and ecology in Yanomami cosmology, as developed by Kopenawa, break with stereotypes of indigenous people living in harmonic and stable relationships with nature. Instead, this ecology is a way of dealing with an unstable nature that can derail into chaos, disarranging the cosmic arrangement of humans, non-humans and spirits that shamans should work to keep in place. Kopenawa named this cosmic entropy the fall of the sky, which now is an imminent risk caused by the destruction of the forests. His conception of ecology shows that maintaining forests in indigenous land is not merely a spontaneous fact. Rather, it is also a consequence of the intellectual engagement of indigenous people and their collaboration with other living beings.