For Brazilian Stone Age Tribe, Fires Are A Sign Of The Apocalypse Blazes Rage Unchecked In Remote Amazon Area

The midday sun burns red through the smoke rising from dozens of forest fires. For the Yanomami Indians, it’s a sign of the apocalypse - and environmentalists fear they may be right.

One 3-month-old fire is raging out of control just across the Mucajai River, where firefighters are struggling to protect the Yanomamis from the worst conflagration in the history of this remote Amazon region.

But it may be too late. Dozens of smaller fires are burning unchecked inside the 25-million-acre reservation that is home to the world’s largest Stone Age tribe.

Baby jaguars, separated from their mothers, lope past mile after mile of scorched forest. The fires are scaring away the game that sustains the reservation’s 9,000 Indians.

“The turtles and the armadillos are disappearing. We have food for now, but I’m worried about later on,” said Antonio Yanomami, who uses the tribe’s name as a surname.

So far, no Indians have died in the fires. But at least three malocas, or grass-covered huts, have burned down, said Manuel Canuto da Silva, who runs the Federal Indian Bureau post at Jaranei, 120 miles southwest of the Roraima state capital of Boa Vista.

The sun glows red through the ghostly shroud of smoke, making the Yanomamis uneasy.

“This is the sign of the apocalypse for them,” said Guilherme Danoli, an Italian priest who has lived among the Yanomamis since 1989. “They are beating on the walls of their houses to exorcise the evil spirits.”

Others perform the Xabori ritual, drawing on the ground and chanting to bring rain. “The rains will come tomorrow,” Antonio asserts.

Modern forecasters are less confident - they don’t expect rain before mid-April.

Barely 1/25th of an inch has fallen this year in Roraima, a wedge of Brazil between Venezuela and Guyana. The unusual dry spell is the work of El Nino, a warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean that changes weather patterns worldwide.

“This summer is very strong. It’s not like other weaker summers. We Yanomami call this ‘Tupan,”’ said Chief Davi Copenawa Yanomami.

“When the white man was still far away and there were only Indians here, the Tupan burned down all our forest,” he said. “Because of this, we are worried about how we are going to put out the fire and where we will get water.”

Vegetation has dried to tinder, and the annual brush-burning by farmers, ranchers and Indians roared over savanna and pastures that cover much of Roraima state. Only about one-fifth of the burned area is forest, but residents say the outlook is ominous.

“This is the first time I’ve seen the fire enter the forest,” said Danoli. “If the rain doesn’t come next month, the forest is gone.”

Roraima Gov. Neudo Campos says the fire has burned more than 1.5 million acres, or about 3 percent of the state. One man has died. In Boa Vista, a city of 150,000, smoke forced the airport to close for three days.

On Wednesday, federal environmental officials arrived in the city, 2,100 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, to meet with Campos and fly over the affected area.

Political wrangling has delayed federal aid, two months after Campos declared a state of emergency. Some say the state inflated reports of destruction to obtain more loans.

Gilberto Mendes, a firefighting specialist from Rio de Janeiro, first said it would take 1,000 firefighters to combat the blaze. After a closer look, he raised his estimate to 10,000.

But the state has only 270 firefighters and few tractors or other equipment. Workers have built 6,000 small reservoirs and dug wells to fight the blaze.

State Civil Defense Chief Kleber Cerquinho said firefighters have been deployed in Apiau, one of the worst-hit regions that borders the Yanomami reservation. But he had to rely on journalists for progress reports - he had no way to communicate with his men in the field.

Loggers, ranchers and farmers already have razed about 12 percent of Brazil’s 2-million-square-mile rain forest. Some scientists say the destruction adds to global warming.

The following fields overflowed: DATELINE = ON THE YANOMAMI RESERVATION, BRAZIL