one of the most insane books i've ever ridden

Fascinating.

Wow. Just such a powerful book. Has moved me to tears multiple times. The Story of God's heart for all people and how He works on the mission field. Really highlights the work of Satan and his demons, to keep people from life in Jesus. Shows how the Gospel changes everything, whole societies, not just individuals. EVERY Christian should read this book TODAY.

Powerful and graphic. This book delves deeply into a culture that focuses heavily on the spiritual realm

It's a pretty amazing book and at times shocking and at other times impossible. But to see a group of people transformed, to see people longing for transformation is always kind of beautiful.

Fascinating look into the missionary work to a violent and spiritual tribe in the Amazon. Powerful stories of redemption and interesting stories about spiritual warfare. Disclaimer- it’s hard to read because of the description of evil and depravity. Especially the violence against women and children. The author was too descriptive in many parts but I know why he was, to be as authentic about the stories as possible. But it was rough to read at times. Heartbreaking in many ways.

This book was so amazing that I wish I could rate it 10 stars. This book, although highly graphic and violent, was extremely enlightening to the ways of spiritual warfare. It is an easy read, but an emotionally draining book as I cried throughout most of it.

I went back and forth on 4 or 5 stars. It is a graphic book, but an excellent one. It addresses so many topics including anthropologists and missionaries, the help and harm western people have done, our assumptions we place on cultures we don't understand, and how the gospel story can be understood in such a beautiful and personal way in a culture so different from our own. Their telling of the gospel is so different for ours, and yet so accurate.

A CROSS-CULTURAL CRITICAL REVIEW OF
SPIRIT OF THE RAINFOREST

Summation and Content

The broken heart of a Yanomamö shaman expresses the story of his people in this vivid account of an Amazonian tribe and their passage through the spirit world to meet the great creator Spirit. Spirit of the Rainforest reveals a people imprisoned in darkness, captive to lives of murderous vengeance, savage raping, and unceasing fear for their enemies hidden both in the shadows of the rainforest and lurking in the darkness of the spirit world. The story gives a glimpse into Yanomamö wars, the shamans’ interactions with their spirits, and the journey of a few Yanomami who have found forgiveness and life.

Narratives of the Yanomamö people have been told many times by missionaries, anthropologists and other interested parties, but Mark Ritchie offers a perspective in Spirit of the Rainforest that differs from most of his predecessors. This account arrives through the storytelling of Jungleman, one of the fiercest shamans of the Yanomamö people. Whereas many others have described the Yanomamö as living in Eden, a fortunate people unaffected by the evils of the modern world; Jungleman, the narrator, describes his people in vividly darker tones.

His story takes his audience through vicious night raids into villages where warriors seek prestige by taking vengeance on those who have killed or stolen people from other villages. He accounts the stealing, raping, and murdering of women from other tribes, revealing the desperate situation which young girls and mothers find themselves in as subjects to a male dominated society that has little regard for the wellbeing and lives of their females aside from their ability to procreate and increase the size of the village. Jungleman also expresses the fear that captures each Yanomamö community after they have taken revenge on other villages. This fear drives men, women, and children deep into their “shabonos” (village shelters) where they hide fearing to seek out food, dispose of waste, or even to sleep. It is this fear that drives the Yanomami to their shamans and spirits for protection and strength. But the spirits tell “split truths” and only lead the people to longer wars, increased suffering, and greater fear.

Jungleman also gives a Yanomamö perspective toward the “nabas” who arrived in the rainforest in the 1950s and of their continued interaction over the next few decades. Some of these foreigners brought medicine and gifts of superior technology, some just asked questions and studied the Yanomamö, and others took advantage of the people for their own pleasures and greed. However, a few came to tell the Yanomamö villages about Yai Pada.

Spirit of the Rainforest reveals the battle between the spirits of the shamans and Yai Pada, the great creator Spirit. Jungleman describes the inner struggle he and other shamans faced as his spirits urged him to live a life of vengeance, rape, and taking hallucinogenics (to induce trances); on the other hand, Yai Pada offered a different life that rejected their old ways and offered what the nabas call “forgiveness,” a concept for which the Yanomamö had no word. Many of the Yanomami, particularly those in Honey Village and their former shaman leader, Shoefoot, chose to follow Yai Pada. Spirit of the Rainforest is their story of transformation and Jungleman’s struggle with his own spirits who fought to maintain their stronghold in him.

The strengths and weaknesses of Spirit of the Rainforest are one in the same. Many other outside perspectives have been written to describe this endangered rainforest tribe, most being ethnographic observations written by trained anthropologists providing more objective and holistic views of the Yanomamö people. While Jungleman’s account conveyed through Ritchie is more subjective and comes from one individual, his account comes from an insider, one who has lived his entire life knowing the turmoils of the rainforest and its spirits. His story gives a glimpse, albeit a small cross section, of a leader whose heart breaks for his people and whose heart has been broken before Yai Pada. Jungleman demonstrates himself to be one who has come to know the forgiveness, love, and eternal life that only his Creator can give.

Comparison and Contrast

Our battle is against flesh and blood, or so western civilization has nearly convinced us. Jungleman’s perspective clearly takes into account the reality of spirit beings who are at war with our Creator and with us. He understands the attraction that makes these spirits so desirable and the deception that makes them so reprehensible. He states, “I wish I had known the truth about Yai Wana Naba Laywa when I was a young man—it would have saved me so much pain and misery. But how could I? My spirits lied so much to me and tricked me. They were so beautiful, so wonderful, so hard not to want. They were the best at telling me split-truth.”

Jungleman tells his story from an animistic perspective. As a shaman he saw spirits behind every rock and log. Sometimes this was certainly the deception of angelic beings who were communicating with Jungleman. Perhaps at times, this was merely his worldview as an animist. Nevertheless, the narrator keenly communicates the existence of demonic spirits and his communication with what the apostle Paul called “angels of light.” Western culture has grounded itself in naturalistic thought and thus rebuffs the reality of angels, a world of spirits, and God. Too often, the Christian community succumbs to this worldview and loses sight of the war that it is within, a war against “spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

On a personal note, Spirit of the Rainforest challenged this writer to evaluate his own beliefs and behavior. Jungleman’s testimony reminds one of the means God has provided to stand firm and to resist the devil. The narrator testifies, “Now I lie in my hammock and talk to him at night just like I used to do with my old spirits. And now even I have stopped many of the old ways.” His story has challenges one to cling to the same privilege in the midst of the battle.

A week after reading Spirit of the Rainforest, this writer spent the night at a coworker’s house to avoid an extra commute the following morning. While there, my pagan friend of western culture asked to share with me a new television series depicting gladiatorial life in the Roman Empire. What ensued was a depiction of orgiastic lusts, violent rapes, and brutal scenes of glorified bloodshed. What was seen of the episode was, in summary, true to ancient Roman gladiatorial culture, but what seized my attention was the parallel between Yanomamö culture and what my friends were celebrating in their own – as entertainment. One of Ritchie’s statements regarding Shoefoot during his visit to America resounded, “He has even identified the signs and symbols of many of the spirits right here in our ‘civilized’ culture. He has no problem understanding the Columbine High School massacre (Colorado, 1999), or any other killing spree. The spirits of anger and hatred that own and drive a person are spirits he has known personally.”

Both, the Yanomamö culture that Jungleman and Shoefoot lived within and the western culture that surrounds the church existing within it, have glorified sin. Sex, violence, abuse of women and children, and narcotics pervade both cultures. The Yanomamö live it and fear it. Westerners watch it and chalk it up to the art of storytelling, yet the more they do so the more it becomes reality in their civilization and they grow to fear it as well. The Yanomamö washed themselves of their murders, waiting long periods of time for purification, but then they returned to their reveling and violence. Westerners wash their hands of it saying, for example, as my friend did, “Wow, pretty disgusting the way they lived!” but then they quickly return for the next round to watch it again. Sin enthralls us. We are enraptured by it. Unless a greater Spirit rescues us from its dark clutches, we are continually imprisoned by it.

Both the Yanomamö and the western worlds continue life day by day. The citizens of both cultures continue on as they provide for their families and take their place within their communities. Men and women marry, children are born, leaders rise and leaders fall as the events of life continue to transpire in both worlds. Their cultures differ greatly in the way they dress, how they eat, how they give and get what they want. Yet both the Yanomamö and westerners are ensnared in their sin and serve (whether they are aware of them or not) the spirits of a heavenly realm that are involved in a battle that began ages ago when the Creator spirit was rebelled against. The Yanomamö can name their spirits and are vividly aware of their presence and control whereas westerners deny these demonic forces and proclaim their freedom of individuality. Their human dilemma remains the same, but even more so is the answer and solution for both peoples.

Communicating a Christian Understanding

The Yanomamö need Jesus just as much as one’s neighbors next door in the American Bible belt. It remains the call of the church to communicate the message of the gospel. But as outsiders the difficulty is finding a way to contextualize the message so that those of another culture may clearly understand its meaning.

Of fundamental importance are the similarities between the dissimilar cultures. All men desire to be loved, are looking for hope in some form, and need to see the transformation that the true God makes in individual lives of those who follow him. To communicate a basic Christian understanding of the spirit world, humanity, and sin to the Yanomamö, the western believer must begin with a transparent life in the presence of the people. Frequent interaction with, or better yet, living with the Yanomamö, will give rise to occasions in which they will witness these qualities in the life of the believer. These are the differences that people of any culture will grow to desire and search out.

As Yanomamö language and culture are learned by the westerner and as the Yanomamö have opportunity to see the believer’s Christian life in action, one can then begin to present the truth about the spirit world. The Yanomamö have a firm grasp on the existence of the spirit world, but the spirits they serve are truly demonic and are at war with the God of Christianity. This writer agrees with the approach which was taken in Spirit of the Rainforest. The Yanomamö need to be presented with the truth that the great Creator spirit is more powerful than all the other spirits and desires to be reconciled with the Yanomamö. He is at war with their spirits, but loves the people. This last truth is the solution to the greatest error in Yanomamö theology and remains the pivot point upon which the gospel message may be presented.

I believe that the Yanomamö are well acquainted with their sin. They may choose to justify themselves and seek life and salvation by other means, but their sin haunts them every sleepless night as they wait for vengeance to come back upon them. It must be communicated that Yai Pada is angry at their sin as well and has guaranteed that he will judge it. He is a God who must bring judgment because of their murders, because of their rapes, and because of any sin committed, for every sin is against him and not just against other Yanomamö. They fear the vengeance of other villages for sins committed, but it must be communicated that it is the vengeance of God that should be taken even more seriously. Yet he desires to be reconciled. He does not want to stay angry at them for their sin.

As this Christian understanding of sin is communicated, of even greater importance is the place of Jesus Christ in the message. The Christian teaching of humanity is that all men were created by Yai Pada, not just the nabas. He created each Yanomamö as well. He also created the spirits, but the bad spirits chose to rebel against him. It was those spirits who then led the nabas and the Yanomamö alike to rebel against Yai Pada. All men sinned against Yai Pada and he promised that death had to be paid by humanity. So Yai Pada became a human and lived as a man, showing them how to live differently. Men still rebelled against him and killed him, but what they did not know was that when he died, he was dying the death that all nabas and Yanomamö alike were supposed to die. He took vengeance on himself so that men could be his friends. Shoefoot’s description of faith seems to be well contextualized and clearly communicates the response required of every man, Yai Pada “is the friend of any Yanomamö who hangs his desires on him.” It is when a Yanomamö man or woman does this that Yai Pada’s anger goes away and he will show that person what it really means to be human.

The message of the gospel can not change, but how it is contextualized will drastically effect whether the Yanomamö understand that message. It is the responsibility and privilege of the church to contextualize this message and present it clearly to the Yanomamö. Yet no matter how hard we try, this writer believes that the message will be most clearly presented through the Yanomamö themselves. Thus it is imperative that Yanomamö believers are trained to preach the word of God and to share the gospel message. They will be able to describe it in words that a westerner could not and will be living demonstrations of their Creator’s work in the life of one of their own people.

Ultimately, it is the Creator’s heart that breaks for the Yanomamö and who desires for them to throw away their spirits so that they may meet him. He offers to throw away his anger and give them life. The truth about the spirit world, humanity, and sin must be communicated clearly so that the Yanomamö people may know their Creator and experience this life with him.

Mark Ritchie endeavors to tell the story of a Yanamamo shaman in through the shaman's own words. It is compelling and I enjoyed reading it. I couldn't help but think that in places it was like a real life account or Joseph Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS. The bad behavior of some of the "civilized" people who interacted with the tribe over the years was deeply disturbing. The missionary accounts are more hopeful, but it was interesting that the shaman recognized a spiritual struggle and seemed to connect with God (or at least be aware of Him) apart from the missionary efforts. Not being a missionary myself, but having spent a great deal of time among missionaries in far flung places, the account rings true to me. It's not a book about manners and customs, but about spirits and the influence they have, both good and bad among both primitive and civilized people.

This book was recommended to by a good friend as a must read book. After reading the subtitle I thought I would gain interesting insights into an animistic culture and some their religious beliefs and mythologies. There was indeed some of that in the book. What I was not suspecting was the vivid and at times horrifying portrayal of life for the Yanomamö people. I simply could not believe the fear and deception which plagued the people and the ghastly treatment of women and even relatives for the Yanomamö people. There are no rosy-colored glasses through which to read the miseries of these people. I would caution potential readers from getting into this book without a clear recognition of what the book entails. That said, I appreciate that the author doesn’t pull any punches but tries to accurately recount the people’s story. Mark Ritchie writes in a novel way which greatly helps one try to see the world through Yanomami eyes. This book will make your heart weep as you come to grips with the reality of the misery of Yanomamö life and rejoice as you seem some within this culture liberated from the social, emotional, and spiritual bondage finding hope and freedom in good news of Jesus who became Yanomamö, returned from the grave, and cut a trail for the Yanomamö to where he lives.

This is an awesome view of spiritual warfare. It's a great non-fiction book.