Bruce Parry, Tribe
The Sanema People
Live in: Upper Caura region of Venezuela
Culture: spiritual rainforest dwellers, partly nomadic
On Bruce's visit: he trains as a shaman
Part of a larger group of 20,000 people known as the Yanomami, the Sanema people believe that spirits dwell in everything around them. The trees, rocks, rivers and animals all have a spirit with whom the tribal shamans can communicate. Once totally nomadic, the Sanema now settle in villages and cultivate papayas, bananas, yuccas, chillies and sugarcane. Though they live in a biosphere reserve, an area protected by law, their way of life is threatened by the continual destruction of huge swathes of the surrounding rainforest.
"A powerful shaman can invite particular hekura to occupy him. The spirits crawl in through your feet or arsehole and up into your chest cavity, then hack away at the foliage which they believe to be there. They then string up a hammock between your ribs and start to sing. This is the song you hear coming out of the mouths of the shaman." Bruce Parry "Tribe: Adventures in a Changing World" (Michael Joseph Ltd, 2007
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