Spirit of the Rainforest

As someone who has studied anthropology and the Yanomomo people, I found Spirit of the Rainforest extremely well written and informative. The first hand accounts of village life from the lips of the shaman Jungleman are riveting and astounding. The very dramatic effects, both positive and negative, of both missionaries and anthropologists on their primitive culture is an eye opener. Ritchey does a great job of keeping his accounts objective. While Jungleman's stories certainly make a strong case for the reality of the spiritual realm as taught in Judeo-Christian circles, this book is certainly not preachy or some ill-concieved proslytizing tool. It simply tells the truth as the Yanomomo see it. And that truth will open your eyes to a supernatural reality that exists all around us, whether you choose to believe it or not. I highly recommend this book, to anthropology students and people interested in unique cultures, as well as those with questions about the spirit world.

I am called Shoefoot. With my brother-in-Law and Mark I worked on this book. It is truth not lies. While we were suffering terribly the Supreme Being sent his people to us. We learned of His love. Because of His love, we now love. We live in peace. We no longer are shooting each other. We are no longer stealing women. We are alive. We have many children. They are alive. You (who say, "leave them alone") don't know anything about the Yanomamö. You have never come here. Although we are dying out, "that's OK" you say. Without seeing us, don't be lying about our condition. You are living well, so don't just want that for yourself, and try to keep us suffering. Stop lying. That is showing your contempt for our suffering. You have no idea how we lived. If you could come to my jungle I would really discuss this with you, but you are far away. I believe if you could really see how my people suffer you would not talk like this. So don't live your good life far away and talk about something you know nothing about. Just stay quite over there. Although you are far away, don't try to make us angry, and if you ever do come to my land, don't talk like this, because if the Yanomamö hear you say this, they will fight you. If the ones that are dying out hear you talk like this, they are going to believe you are mocking us and get angry. Just keep your thoughts to yourself. I am a leader in my village. I am one whose life has been changed. Dictated to Michael Dawson by Shoefoot (Original Yanomamo text available from Island Lake Press on request) Translated by Michael Dawson (Michael Dawson was born and raised in a Yanomamo village. He learned English when he went away to school at age seven.) Shoefoot has a long-standing invitation for a public dialogue with any member of the academic community on the topic, "Leave Them Alone." His invitation has not yet been accepted. (Although he has been publicly referred to as a token nigger.)

I received this book in the mail one day earlier this month, and finished it by about the same time the next day -- despite the fact that I had three 90 minute college classes to teach, and needed to prepare for a trip to Taiwan. It was that good, and that aweful. I had devoured a good chunk of the book by the time I turned on my computer and learned the terrible news from New York. I kept reading; there seemed to be a connection. The book is an absolutely mind-blower of a story, but if we were to translate the events it describes into a thesis, one sub-point of that thesis would be: "Mass murder and sincere spirituality are not mutually exclusive, by any means." As Ritchie put it, "(Ex-shaman and Yamomamo Indian Shoefoot) has no problem understanding the Columbine High School massacre or any other killing spree. The spirits of anger and hatred that own and drive a person are spirits he has known personally." It occured to me that we have the same choice as confronts the "converted" village in this book: to seek justice with mercy and caution, and danger to ourselves, or to pass on forgiveness and descend to the level of our enemies. While in Taiwan, I was asked to speak about the relationship between Christianity and Islam, and found myself wishing I'd brought the book along. Jungleman puts so many things so well. This is not a book you want to read your children to sleep by. It might not even work for your church (still less, coven) book-of-the-month club. Besides being full of violence, its message will be a challenge to skeptics and those who are attracted to the occult. But anyone who is untouched by it, by the pain, beauty, pathos, irony, and danger of being human that it reveals, of living in a spiritual jungle as responsible beings, must have a heart of stone. Jungleman reminds us that before a person is a "native" and subject of anthropological study, he is a human being -- and that "social scientists" and missionaries forget their common humanity and responsibility to Yai Pada, the Great Spirit, at their own peril. As a student of world religions who has written a bit about the occult in Asian traditions and the idea of God in Asian belief systems, I found a great deal that was a priori credible in this inside description of the Yanomamo culture, though of course I have no means of vouching for the specific accuracy of the events it records. Mark Ritchie's earlier book, God in the Pits, is also worth a read, though it is not as mind-blowning as this book. I also recommend Peace Child, by Don Richardson, which comes close to resembling Spirit of the Rainforest, though more conventional in approach, it is also a remarkable true story of a stone-age tribe that meets Jesus. author, Jesus and the Religions of Man // ...