The Falling Sky
eBook - PDF

The Falling Sky

Words of a Yanomami Shaman

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

About this book

The 10th anniversary edition

A Guardian Best Book about Deforestation
A New Scientist Best Book of the Year
A Taipei Times Best Book of the Year


"A perfectly grounded account of what it is like to live an indigenous life in communion with one's personal spirits. We are losing worlds upon worlds."
—Louise Erdrich, New York Times Book Review

"The Yanomami of the Amazon, like all the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, have experienced the end of what was once their world. Yet they have survived and somehow succeeded in making sense of a wounded existence. They have a lot to teach us."
—Amitav Ghosh, The Guardian

"A literary treasure…a must for anyone who wants to understand more of the diverse beauty and wonder of existence."
New Scientist

A now classic account of the life and thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami, The Falling Sky paints an unforgettable picture of an indigenous culture living in harmony with the Amazon forest and its creatures, and its devastating encounter with the global mining industry. In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation as a shaman and first experience of outsiders: missionaries, cattle ranchers, government officials, and gold prospectors seeking to extract the riches of the Amazon.

A coming-of-age story entwined with a rare first-person articulation of shamanic philosophy, this impassioned plea to respect indigenous peoples' rights is a powerful rebuke to the accelerating depredation of the Amazon and other natural treasures threatened by climate change and development.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
No, books cannot be downloaded as external files, such as PDFs, for use outside of Perlego. However, you can download books within the Perlego app for offline reading on mobile or tablet. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access The Falling Sky by Davi Kopenawa,Bruce Albert, Nicholas Elliott, Alison Dundy, Nicholas Elliott,Alison Dundy in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword by Bill McKibben
  6. Maps
  7. Setting the Scene
  8. Words Given
  9. I. Becoming Other
  10. II. Metal Smoke
  11. III. The Falling Sky
  12. Words of Omama
  13. How This Book Was Written
  14. Appendix A: Ethnonym, Language, and Orthography
  15. Appendix B: The Yanomami in Brazil
  16. Appendix C: Watorikɨ
  17. Appendix D: The Haximu Massacre
  18. Notes
  19. Ethnobiological Glossary
  20. Geographic Glossary
  21. References
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. Index