Word: spirited
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...other hand, what happened at Woodstock '99 (arson, pillaging, freelance mayhem) was much in the spirit of the music and of the occasion itself, which, for all the tie-dyed shirts, peace signs, long hair and dope, was only a venal shadow of an irrecoverable ghost...
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami cures ailing tribal brothers with incantations given to him by a fearsome anaconda spirit that slithers up from Amazonian waters. At least that's the way Davi describes it. Like other native medicine men in the Amazon rain forest, Davi relies on hallucinogenic powders to reach the spirit world, but this leader of the Yanomami Indians also wields a more modern means of communication: a two-way radio. When an otherworldly voice squawks through the speaker, Davi wraps up his shaman's crown of toucan feathers, dons uncomfortable city clothes and walks to a clearing...
...safeguard his Amazonian domain of woodlands, rivers and lakes, Davi has learned to master the world of airports and international assemblies as skillfully as he roams his spirit realm of giant anacondas. When Davi, in his 40s, speaks about the plight of the estimated 22,000 Yanomamis left alive in northern Brazil and Venezuela, he's a visionary who sees his people and their rain-forest gods being swept toward extinction. "When I go to the big city, I see hungry people, without anywhere to plant crops, without drinking water, without anywhere to live. I do not want this...
...interests and loggers want the territory cut into patches totaling 7,700 sq. mi. "They want us corralled like animals," says Davi. So when the radio in his hut calls him to a new battlefront, Davi is ready to go, no matter how far it takes him from the spirit world of forest and river...
Family history also drives Kennedy, who has the civil rights spirit of his father. "To me," he says, "this is a struggle of good and evil--between short-term greed and ignorance and a long-term vision of building communities that are dignified and enriching and that meet the obligations to future generations. There are two visions of America. One is that this is just a place where you make a pile for yourself and keep moving. And the other is that you put down roots and build communities that are examples to the rest of humanity...