We are all connected with nature: Nixiwaka Yawanawa at TEDxHackney

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Translator: berat güven Reviewer: Hélène Vernet Hello everyone! (Audience) Hi! Everyone is good? (Audience) Yes. Sorry, I am not very used to speak with a microphone. I hope it will be okay. My name is Nixiwaka. I come from the rainforest in Amazon, Brazil. I have been living here for four years now. When I came here, I didn't know any English. I didn't know nothing, actually. And the weather was crazy for me, (Laughter) especially the weather. But it was okay afterwards. If I walk in the street with just clothes and my face not painted or not with my headdress, people think that I come from Peru, Bolivia, Mexico. But yes, I come from the Yawanawa tribe in the Amazon rainforest. I will just put my headdress on. It's much better for me. (Cat call whistle) (Laughter) Thanks. Yes! I feel more comfortable. (Laughter) I really feel more comfortable. I would like to say just some few words in my language, if it is okay. " Mon sharai?" "Mon sharai?" means "How are you, how is it going?" "Nixiwaka ki. Yawanava ehuhu. Matu uwi yuwa." I just said that "My name is Nixiwaka. I come from the Yawanawa tribe and I'm here to visit you, to see you. I would like to talk a little bit about Nature, and how Nature is so important for indigenous people especially tribespeople, but also for everyone in this world. If we think really deep, I think everyone will feel something: where you came from and what this world looks like now. Many things have changed all over the world. But for tribespeople like me, it didn't change anything. In some countries, even in Brazil in South America, some tribes are different. They know the language, for example Portuguese or any other language. Some of them lost their language. They lost their culture, their tradition. But still, many live in the same way that they used to. I just want to talk a little bit about my people. When we made the first contact with the white people, it was my great-grandfather. He was eleven years old. He first saw the white man and he just ran away. The white man didn't see him. And he told our family that he saw some people, strange people, different people, with clothes, with beard, with sunglasses or glasses. And he didn't understand where these people came from. He said, "How we will talk with them if we don't know the language?" So he decided to kill a deer. He went to those white people and just throw the deer. And the white people gave him a small knife. It was a positive contact, it was a good contact, because usually when the first contact happened with indigenous people, battles happened, lots of killing, and in most of South America, it happened like that. We are glad that it didn't happen, no fight, nothing. The only problem was the different kind of diseases. Our shamans for example, our people start to get ill and they didn't understand what was this illness. The shaman did everything to heal but he couldn't heal and all the shamans there were dying because we, indigenous people, had no immunity for simple diseases like flu, cold. It was all new for us. But we survived. And we learned Portuguese. I was very young when I went to a city, a very small town and I learned Portuguese. That's why I speak in English. If you go to Brazil in the Amazon, I am quite sure you would not find someone, an Indian person, that can speak English to speak with you. And I am really glad to be here, to be able to speak about indigenous people culture, about our tradition. We still have our knowledge about medicinal plants. Brazil, for example, is the home of more than 80 different tribes that are still isolated. They don't even have any contact with indigenous people like mine. The reason I came to London was to learn English first of all, and to be able to speak for them, because they have decided to not make contact with the white or the western world. We see that when we come close to them, they run away, or they want to shoot us with their arrows and bows. And we are telling the government to protect them, to protect their territories. The first thought I have was to adapt here because the weather is really cold and it was very different for me. Then, I went to a school and studied for one year. Last year, I found this organization called Survival International. They work with different tribespeople around the world, especially in South America. And I said yes when I had this opportunity to work with them to raise awareness for tribespeople, for the protection of tribespeople, especially as well in Africa, South Africa and Botswana. It has been really great for me. it has been a really good experience. I'm still learning the language, so excuse me for my English. We still practice our culture. This is something that I would like to say, and talk about how we are all connected with Nature. We receive many people from Europe. They want to visit my tribe, for example, to see how we're still living. And we have this week of traditional parties and we have our sacred rituals. It is the rituals that we have with our medicinal plants that we use to communicate with the spirits of the forest. We believe that in the forest, there are a lot of spirits. When a shaman, for example, goes to take a plant in a forest, he asks the plant, "I will take you, I will use you to heal someone," because if he just say nothing, the plant will have no effect. The plant has an effect when the shaman asks for that: "I am going to use you to heal my people." Right now, our forest has been disappearing because of many big projects of the government, for example mining and logging. It is really hard for us to protect our forest. Because we think that the forest is not just important for us, for my people, but for other people in Brazil, in South America, and especially to keep this balance in the world. Because I think everyone needs to have the forest protected because it cleans the air, it's a pure air for us to breathe. I was really sad when I found out about the climate change. The climate change is, we think, because there's something wrong with the world. Why is the climate changing? Why do lots of disasters happen in the world? We don't understand why. Our shaman says that it's because something is wrong with the world. He used to say that it is the lack of love and understanding of each other. Sometimes money is good, for many things, but it can be really bad as well. We think that the problem is that people just want more, and more, and more and there is no end. So the world is like there is no more control. What people need is more love and to understand each other. We think that it is going to be a solution: to see yourself and to see other people, to see how they live and how we communicate with Nature and how we keep Nature alive. That's why I am here to talk with people. I am actually giving some talks at school for children, and I tell them how indigenous people live in the forest. I speak about how we hunt, how we fish, how we build our houses, and they all are interested. They say they get really impressed when they see someone coming from the Amazon and talk with them about how indigenous people live, and they ask a lot of questions. It is very interesting for them because here, for example, there is no indigenous people. We, indigenous people, think that we know how to keep this culture alive and how we can share with the white, with the outside world. They don't know the community, for example, the public. It was something that I thought really interesting. It was that people from here, from out of Brazil most of them I can say really care about the preservation of Nature and the preservation of different cultures and indigenous people. That is the reason why I would like to stay a little bit more. I want to go back to my tribe and live there the way I think is best for me. But before I would like to say to people that we are still there, we still live in the same way, and our door is always open to welcome people and let them see how we live. Right now, because of the public, the international community, the Brazilian government is taking action to preserve the indigenous territory, especially those that are still isolated from the outside. We have some campaigns for some tribes in Brazil. For example "Guarani" is the name of the biggest population of indigenous people in Brazil, more than 50,000. They have a big problem because their land is now replaced by sugar cane and soybean plantations and most of people in the community are living by the roads. They don't have access to any support from the government. Malnutrition, even suicide happen a lot because they don't have their land any more. If indigenous people lose their land, it means they lose everything especially their lives, starting with the culture. We are saying to the Brazilian government that we want to live in our lands, we want to have our forest protected, because forest means life, forest means our body, forest means our everything and we live because we have the forest. It's more kind of an awareness. What I am doing here is saying that we are in this situation but we also have this knowledge to share with the western world. And if you would like to know more, know what are tribespeople, how they live, who are they, there are many questions that people would like to know ... I would like to tell you that if you would like to know more about the tribespeople, how they live, the importance of the rainforest for them, you may visit our website "survivalinternational.org." They work with indigenous people. For example, in my tribe, every year in October we have this festival, a traditional festival. It lasts for five days. We have lots of different kinds of games, and during the night, we practice our sacred rituals. We have this special drink called "Ayahuasca." It is a very strong drink. (Laughter) a very strong drink! You can see what is life, starting by yourself, how you are, see your spirit and what you are doing here in this world. And you can see that through this ritual if you believe in this. I believe that indigenous people have a lot to share with the outside world. Our doors are always open to welcome everyone who want to visit and know more about tribespeople. I would like to sing a small song. It means, when you visit someone, it is like your are going and you tell that there is this happiness. It means "happiness." (Singing in Yawanawa language) "Ganaro cheretete. Ganaro cheretete. Ato noma noma. Ato noma noma. Mahe mahe mahe. Noma mahe mahe. Noma mahe." This is when we are visiting someone, we are visiting our family, friends and houses and all places, we always sing this song to say goodbye or this kind of expression. Thank you very much for receiving me TEDxHackney. I am really glad to be here, thank you. (Applause)
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Channel: TEDx Talks
Views: 1,991,353
Rating: 4.9496951 out of 5
Keywords: ted x, tedx talk, ted talks, ted talk, TEDx, tedx talks, ted, tedx
Id: xk0-yebNA_o
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Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)
Published: Fri Apr 25 2014
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