Fires that roared across the northern Amazon Basin endangered an aboriginal culture

By J. MADELEINE NASH

o the Yanomami Indians who live on the northern edge of the Amazon Basin, it seemed as if their world was about to end. For something like 40 days and 40 nights, fires had blazed across the sere savannas of the Brazilian state of Roraima, and now flames were flickering in the remote corners of the 9.4 million-hectare Yanomami reservation, wrapping the landscape in a smoky shroud. "This is just the beginning," warned Davi Kopenawa, the tribe's chief spokesman. Someday, he said "fires will burn all the earth."

The fires were set by hundreds of peasant farmers, who annually burn the rubble-strewn fields and logged-over forestland of the region to clear it for planting. Normally, the ground retains enough moisture to keep the fires from spiraling out of control. But this time, because of a devastating drought brought on by El Nino, Roraima's brown grasses ignited like paper. Worse yet, the adjacent forest also burst into flames, which advanced through the trees at the pace of a kilometer a day. "We didn't start these fires--they invaded our land," lamented farmer Jose da Guia Ferrera as he watched flames lick at the edge of a newly planted field. "I've lived here 20 years, and I have never seen fires like these."

As the blaze continued unchecked, observers initially estimated that the Roraima fires had ravaged an area nearly twice as large as Belgium. A more careful survey has subsequently revealed that the actual zone of destruction is about half that, though dense smoke from the fires was causing widespread eye irritation and respiratory problems among farmers and Yanomami alike over an area six times larger. Moreover, the combination of fire and drought killed off many of the larger rain forest animals, depriving the Yanomami of important sources of food.

While Venezuelan, Argentine and Brazilian brigades fought the conflagration with helicopters, Yanomami shamans resorted to ritual chants that called on powerful spirits for help. Last week these entreaties were bolstered by visiting shamans from another tribe, who performed a rain dance on the banks of the Curupira River. A few hours later, as if on cue, the skies opened, quenching most of the inferno. If the rains continue, experts say, they should extinguish the fire danger in Roraima and diminish the threat to the endangered Yanomami way of life.

--Reported by Derek Gordon /Boa Vista and Sol Biderman / Sao Paulo