During my first trip to Europe, I often slept in a ghost state after eating white people food I did not know. One day while dreaming I saw the image of the bee women of the beginning of time. They were shouting out their own names in every direction to attract the attention of the marten ancestor Hoai, who collected their honey from one place to another. Finally they made his head spin with their constant calling, and he tripped over a root. So he furiously cursed at them and made them flee all over the forest. Their images concealed themselves everywhere where honey is hidden today. This is why it is so hard to find honeybees' nests today.

Some even fled all the way to the white people's land, where they keep them in large wood boxes to this day. Our elders have always made these bee spirits dance. It was they who came to speak to me in my dream.

They wanted to tell me of their concern: "You who know how to become spirit, speak firmly to the outsiders who will listen to you! The white people truly lack wisdom! They must stop mistreating the trees in the forest! Soon there will be no more sweet-scented flowers to feed us and make honey. If this continues, we too will perish!" Bees are also xapiri [nature spirits]; this is why their images spoke to me this way during my sleep.

The next day, I revealed their complaint to the city inhabitants who had come to listen to me. I was upset to hear of these spirits' suffering and think that the white people mistreat them so. These animal ancestors feel threatened and, like us,they want to defend the forest where they came into being. Bees are very wise and work relentlessly in the flowers they go in search of far away, from tree to tree, to make their honeys. This is why these honeys are so tasty and both children and adults like it so much. Cutting down trees is also destroying the bees' paths through the forest. Without flowering trees, they will no longer know where to work, and they will flee from our land forever.

This is why I told the white people: "You often claim to love what you call 'nature'. Then do not settle for making speeches, truly defend it! You must help us to protect what still remains of the forest. All its inhabitants already speak to us with the fear of disappearing. You do not see their images dance and you do not hear their songs in your dreams. Yet we shamans, we know how to listen to the bees' distress, and they are asking us to speak to you so your people will stop eating the forest."

SOURCE: The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman by Davi Kopenawa, 2013, p.323-4.