Sometimes I also dreamed that I was climbing a tall rapahi tree with yellow flowers. I climbed slowly, clinging to its trunk. Then I passed its main branches and finally moved to its top. From there I could contempate the forest in the distance, seeing in every direction. I could see other houses, a great river, mountains, and hills. I observed spider monkeys jumping from tree to tree, macaw couples, flights of parrots, and herds of peccaries. It was very beautiful.

After a while I wanted to go back down. So I looked beneath me. But suddenly all the branches I had used to climb so high seemed inaccessible to me. Alarmed, I asked myself: "How will I get back to the ground? What will I hold on to?" I did not know what to do.

I tried to squeeze the tree trunk between my arms but its bark became increasingly slippery. Suddenly my hands lost their grip. I hurtled towards the ground. But at that very instant I woke with a start. Terrified, I would ask myself again: "What happened to me?"

Other times, I answered the call of the water-being women we call Mãuyoma. These are the daughters of Tëpërësiki, Omama's father-inlaw; the sisters of the wife he fished out of the river in the beginning of time.

I dived in to join them in the deep of a great river. But to my surprise, I came into the inside of a vast house, without getting wet at all. Everything here was dry and you could see as clearly as outside. The house's central plaza was lit by the sun reflecting on the water's surface. I stayed standing without moving, calmly looking all around me. Many doors led to paths cut through the forest. I watched the coming and going of Tëpërësiki's daughters and daughters-in-law, as they went in and out of the home with their children.

I found them really beautiful. Though their father terrified me, I couldn't stop admiring them. Yet as soon as I tried to follow them, I woke with a start. Sometimes all it took was for me to turn back to the door through which I came in for my dream to end there and then. I was sorry that I could not stay in the water beings' house!

The next day I asked my stepfather "Who owns that house under the river I saw when I was sleeping? It was so beautiful; I would have liked to contemplate it longer." He kindly explained to me: "You went to the house where Omama's father-in-law lives with the fish spirits, the caiman spirits, and the anaconda spirits. The xapiri [spirits] are starting to want you. Later, when you are a teenager, if you want to acquire the power of the yãkoana [psychedelic herb used by shamans], I will truly open their paths to you."

This dream recurred often because as a child I spent a lot of my time fishing along the rivers. This is why the water beings constantly captured my image to make me dream.

Sometimes the images of other unknown beings like that of the ayokora cacique bird presented themselves to me in my sleep. Its feather adornments were magnificent, and their colors shone brightly in the light. Its presentation dance and songs were outstanding. This spirit did not scare me like the others. I felt happy to be able to admire it.

Yet sometimes I also saw the moon spirit, which looks like a human being surrounded by a halo of intense light. It would fly in my direction and come very close to me before loudly bursting into laughter. It showed its prominent canines while its beard and luminous hair quivered in the dark. Then suddenly it disappeared downstream of the sky, where the sun rises. I can still remember it: its image truly horrified me

The unknown beings who appeared in my child dreams were xapiri spirits who watched me and were interested in me. At that time I did not know it yet. I was very worried by all these images seen in dream during my childhood. But much later, when the elders gave me the power of the yãkoana to drink, I understood that they had come to meet me so I would become a shaman.

The people of our house were often annoyed when I sobbed or yelled during the night. My stepfather would patiently explain to them: "The spirits are watching this child and he is behaving like a ghost. This is why he moans and talks in his sleep." He took a lot of care of me, just like my mother. He was a man of wisdom, a great shaman.

When I woke in tears during the night, he would reassure me by saying: 'Abandon that dream, come back from that ghost state! Don't be scared! It is the animal ancestors that you are seeing. If you want, when you grow up I will let you drink the yãkoana and they will build their house near you. Then you will be able to call them in your turn." Then he passed his two hands over me and blew. After a while I grew calm.

Yet a few days later it would all start again. Countless xapiri would come back to me, resuming their presentation dance in blinding light, then disappearing as soon as I woke up. My stepfather comforted me again: "Dont be afraid! You will get older and once you are an adult you will become a great shaman. You will really know how to make the spirits dance. You will protect your children and the people of your house from the evil beings and cure them when they are sick." When I heard these words, I calmed down and fell back asleep.

PRONUNCIATION
x is a sh sound; xapiri = shapiri
ã, as in yãkoana, is a nasal a, like French sang, blood;
ë is like the u in English but
i is between the vowels of English 'fit' and 'foot'

SOURCE: The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman by Davi Kopenawa (English ed. 2013), pp.38-40. But read the whole chapter, "The Xapiri's Gaze".
DATES: Kopenawa was born around 1956; these dreams date to several years before he first tried yãkoana, around age 8, or 1964.