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We are all connected with nature: Nixiwaka Yawanawa at TEDxHackney
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Transcript

00:00
Translator: berat güven Reviewer: Hélène Vernet
00:06
Hello everyone!
00:08
(Audience) Hi!
00:09
Everyone is good? (Audience) Yes.
00:13
Sorry, I am not very used to speak with a microphone.
00:17
I hope it will be okay.
00:22
My name is Nixiwaka.
00:25
I come from the rainforest in Amazon, Brazil.
00:30
I have been living here for four years now.
00:37
When I came here, I didn't know any English.
00:41
I didn't know nothing, actually.
00:46
And the weather was crazy for me,
00:50
(Laughter)
00:52
especially the weather.
00:56
But it was okay afterwards.
00:59
If I walk in the street with just clothes
01:03
and my face not painted or not with my headdress,
01:09
people think that I come from Peru, Bolivia, Mexico.
01:17
But yes, I come from the Yawanawa tribe in the Amazon rainforest.
01:24
I will just put my headdress on.
01:36
It's much better for me.
01:39
(Cat call whistle)
01:41
(Laughter)
01:44
Thanks.
01:49
Yes!
01:51
I feel more comfortable.
01:53
(Laughter)
01:55
I really feel more comfortable.
01:58
I would like to say just some few words in my language, if it is okay.
02:02
" Mon sharai?"
02:06
"Mon sharai?" means "How are you, how is it going?"
02:13
"Nixiwaka ki.
02:16
Yawanava ehuhu.
02:19
Matu uwi yuwa."
02:24
I just said that "My name is Nixiwaka. I come from the Yawanawa tribe
02:29
and I'm here to visit you, to see you.
02:36
I would like to talk a little bit about Nature,
02:43
and how Nature is so important
02:49
for indigenous people especially tribespeople,
02:52
but also for everyone in this world.
02:59
If we think really deep,
03:04
I think everyone will feel something:
03:10
where you came from
03:13
and what this world looks like now.
03:17
Many things have changed all over the world.
03:23
But for tribespeople like me,
03:28
it didn't change anything.
03:31
In some countries, even in Brazil in South America,
03:36
some tribes are different.
03:39
They know the language, for example Portuguese or any other language.
03:44
Some of them lost their language.
03:47
They lost their culture, their tradition.
03:51
But still, many live in the same way that they used to.
03:59
I just want to talk a little bit about my people.
04:03
When we made the first contact with the white people,
04:12
it was my great-grandfather.
04:14
He was eleven years old.
04:18
He first saw the white man and he just ran away.
04:22
The white man didn't see him.
04:24
And he told our family that he saw some people,
04:29
strange people, different people,
04:32
with clothes, with beard,
04:37
with sunglasses or glasses.
04:40
And he didn't understand where these people came from.
04:44
He said, "How we will talk with them if we don't know the language?"
04:50
So he decided to kill a deer.
04:53
He went to those white people and just throw the deer.
05:00
And the white people gave him a small knife.
05:05
It was a positive contact, it was a good contact,
05:10
because usually when the first contact happened
05:14
with indigenous people,
05:18
battles happened, lots of killing,
05:21
and in most of South America, it happened like that.
05:27
We are glad that it didn't happen, no fight, nothing.
05:32
The only problem was the different kind of diseases.
05:37
Our shamans for example, our people start to get ill
05:41
and they didn't understand what was this illness.
05:46
The shaman did everything to heal but he couldn't heal
05:51
and all the shamans there were dying
05:54
because we, indigenous people, had no immunity
05:58
for simple diseases like flu, cold.
06:04
It was all new for us.
06:07
But we survived.
06:09
And we learned Portuguese.
06:12
I was very young when I went to a city,
06:17
a very small town and I learned Portuguese.
06:20
That's why I speak in English.
06:23
If you go to Brazil in the Amazon,
06:25
I am quite sure you would not find someone, an Indian person,
06:29
that can speak English to speak with you.
06:33
And I am really glad to be here,
06:35
to be able to speak about indigenous people culture,
06:40
about our tradition.
06:43
We still have our knowledge about medicinal plants.
06:50
Brazil, for example, is the home of more than 80 different tribes
06:56
that are still isolated.
06:58
They don't even have any contact with indigenous people like mine.
07:04
The reason I came to London
07:08
was to learn English first of all,
07:12
and to be able to speak for them,
07:15
because they have decided to not make contact with the white
07:19
or the western world.
07:23
We see that when we come close to them, they run away,
07:27
or they want to shoot us with their arrows and bows.
07:32
And we are telling the government to protect them,
07:35
to protect their territories.
07:40
The first thought I have was to adapt here because the weather is really cold
07:44
and it was very different for me.
07:49
Then, I went to a school and studied for one year.
07:54
Last year, I found this organization called Survival International.
07:58
They work with different tribespeople around the world,
08:03
especially in South America.
08:05
And I said yes when I had this opportunity to work with them
08:11
to raise awareness for tribespeople,
08:15
for the protection of tribespeople,
08:17
especially as well in Africa, South Africa and Botswana.
08:22
It has been really great for me.
08:24
it has been a really good experience.
08:28
I'm still learning the language,
08:31
so excuse me for my English.
08:35
We still practice our culture.
08:38
This is something that I would like to say,
08:41
and talk about how we are all connected with Nature.
08:47
We receive many people from Europe.
08:50
They want to visit my tribe, for example,
08:53
to see how we're still living.
08:57
And we have this week of traditional parties
09:03
and we have our sacred rituals.
09:07
It is the rituals that we have with our medicinal plants
09:11
that we use to communicate with the spirits of the forest.
09:17
We believe that in the forest, there are a lot of spirits.
09:20
When a shaman, for example, goes to take a plant in a forest,
09:25
he asks the plant, "I will take you, I will use you to heal someone,"
09:30
because if he just say nothing, the plant will have no effect.
09:35
The plant has an effect when the shaman asks for that:
09:41
"I am going to use you to heal my people."
09:46
Right now,
09:49
our forest has been disappearing
09:53
because of many big projects of the government,
10:01
for example mining and logging.
10:07
It is really hard for us to protect our forest.
10:12
Because we think that the forest is not just important for us,
10:16
for my people, but for other people in Brazil, in South America,
10:20
and especially to keep this balance in the world.
10:24
Because I think everyone needs to have the forest protected
10:30
because it cleans the air, it's a pure air for us to breathe.
10:36
I was really sad when I found out about the climate change.
10:42
The climate change is, we think, because there's something wrong with the world.
10:48
Why is the climate changing?
10:50
Why do lots of disasters happen in the world?
10:54
We don't understand why.
10:57
Our shaman says that it's because something is wrong with the world.
11:02
He used to say that it is the lack of love and understanding of each other.
11:09
Sometimes money is good, for many things,
11:14
but it can be really bad as well.
11:18
We think that the problem is that people
11:20
just want more, and more, and more and there is no end.
11:26
So the world is like there is no more control.
11:30
What people need is more love and to understand each other.
11:35
We think that it is going to be a solution:
11:38
to see yourself and to see other people,
11:41
to see how they live and how we communicate with Nature
11:45
and how we keep Nature alive.
11:52
That's why I am here to talk with people.
11:56
I am actually giving some talks at school for children,
12:02
and I tell them how indigenous people live in the forest.
12:08
I speak about how we hunt,
12:12
how we fish, how we build our houses,
12:15
and they all are interested.
12:16
They say they get really impressed
12:19
when they see someone coming from the Amazon
12:22
and talk with them about how indigenous people live,
12:26
and they ask a lot of questions.
12:29
It is very interesting for them because here, for example,
12:32
there is no indigenous people.
12:37
We, indigenous people, think
12:40
that we know how to keep this culture alive
12:45
and how we can share with the white,
12:49
with the outside world.
12:54
They don't know the community, for example, the public.
12:58
It was something that I thought really interesting.
13:01
It was that people from here, from out of Brazil
13:05
most of them I can say
13:07
really care about the preservation of Nature
13:11
and the preservation of different cultures and indigenous people.
13:19
That is the reason why I would like to stay a little bit more.
13:23
I want to go back to my tribe and live there the way I think is best for me.
13:29
But before I would like to say to people
13:32
that we are still there, we still live in the same way,
13:35
and our door is always open to welcome people
13:40
and let them see how we live.
13:44
Right now, because of the public, the international community,
13:49
the Brazilian government is taking action
13:53
to preserve the indigenous territory,
13:57
especially those that are still isolated from the outside.
14:03
We have some campaigns for some tribes in Brazil.
14:07
For example "Guarani" is the name
14:09
of the biggest population of indigenous people in Brazil,
14:13
more than 50,000.
14:18
They have a big problem
14:19
because their land is now replaced by sugar cane and soybean plantations
14:25
and most of people in the community are living by the roads.
14:28
They don't have access to any support from the government.
14:34
Malnutrition, even suicide happen a lot
14:39
because they don't have their land any more.
14:43
If indigenous people lose their land,
14:49
it means they lose everything especially their lives, starting with the culture.
14:56
We are saying to the Brazilian government
15:00
that we want to live in our lands,
15:04
we want to have our forest protected,
15:08
because forest means life, forest means our body,
15:12
forest means our everything
15:15
and we live because we have the forest.
15:17
It's more kind of an awareness.
15:19
What I am doing here is saying that we are in this situation
15:25
but we also have this knowledge to share with the western world.
15:31
And if you would like to know more, know what are tribespeople,
15:36
how they live, who are they,
15:41
there are many questions that people would like to know ...
15:47
I would like to tell you that if you would like to know more
15:50
about the tribespeople, how they live,
15:52
the importance of the rainforest for them,
15:56
you may visit our website "survivalinternational.org."
16:01
They work with indigenous people.
16:05
For example, in my tribe, every year in October
16:09
we have this festival, a traditional festival.
16:14
It lasts for five days.
16:16
We have lots of different kinds of games,
16:21
and during the night, we practice our sacred rituals.
16:28
We have this special drink called "Ayahuasca."
16:33
It is a very strong drink.
16:36
(Laughter)
16:37
a very strong drink!
16:39
You can see what is life,
16:43
starting by yourself, how you are,
16:47
see your spirit and what you are doing here in this world.
16:51
And you can see that through this ritual if you believe in this.
16:56
I believe that indigenous people have a lot to share
17:00
with the outside world.
17:04
Our doors are always open to welcome everyone
17:09
who want to visit and know more about tribespeople.
17:12
I would like to sing a small song.
17:16
It means,
17:18
when you visit someone,
17:21
it is like your are going
17:25
and you tell that there is this happiness.
17:28
It means "happiness."
17:32
(Singing in Yawanawa language) "Ganaro cheretete.
17:38
Ganaro cheretete.
17:44
Ato noma noma.
17:49
Ato noma noma.
17:55
Mahe mahe mahe.
18:00
Noma mahe mahe.
18:04
Noma mahe."
18:09
This is when we are visiting someone,
18:13
we are visiting our family, friends and houses and all places,
18:18
we always sing this song to say goodbye or this kind of expression.
18:24
Thank you very much for receiving me TEDxHackney.
18:28
I am really glad to be here, thank you.
18:31
(Applause)

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