Our church believes the gospel of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection, is the “Power of God” for salvation and life.  Because of this singular belief, we have an 148 year old tradition of sending missionaries all over the face of this globe to share this “Good News.”

One of our missionaries, who is currently serving in the country of Brazil, is named Trevor Miller. Not only did he grow up in our church and was in our youth group for a number of years, but he is as white-bread as they come. His parents dressed him in practical button-down shirts, khaki pants, he played a lot of pickup basketball and ate vast quantities of our local town’s famous “Papa P’s” pizza. This once normal American kid is now wrestling with pythons and fighting giant ants in the faraway wilds of Brazil.

This past Christmas break he and his wife were home on a short furlough. That means they came back to the States to visit with family, update the churches on the gospel’s progress in their region and tried to rest. On two occasions Trevor joined our pastoral staff for breakfast and gave us each a book so we could learn about the type of people he daily works with, South American jungle natives. The name of the book is called, “Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo shaman’s story.” 

I wasn’t so sure about it, so I put it in my stack of books to read at a later date. Two weeks ago I decided to put it in my man purse (I am not ashamed to admit fashion when I see it), figuring if I had some down-time I may pick it up and read a little. Well last week, while waiting for my daughter to get out of volleyball practice, I opened up to page one… now I am hooked.

The book is about a culture I knew absolutely nothing about; the animistic world of a shaman named Jungleman. The author defines a shaman as a “person whose life is given to finding and communicating with beings of the spirit world; usually becomes more interested in the spirit world than the real world and often cannot distinguish between the two.” All the stories are told from Jungleman’s point of view, and I must say, I never read anything like it.

Being a product of white-bread America myself, and from the influence of our schools of higher learning there is this general naive belief that living in the jungle without technology, no televisions blaring nor cars screaming down the road, would be a wonderful, pure form of living. Sleeping in hammocks under the cover of verdant green jungles would be paradise, and the natives would be a free and happy people unspoiled by civilization and it’s lust for money and possessions. 

How could anything be better than living the life of a “Noble Savage”? After reading this book – – I began to realize nothing could be further from the truth. Fear, hatred, violence, sexual slavery, unceasing vengeance and death rule in Jungleman’s world.

A person in the jungle becomes a shaman at an early age: they begin to hear voices in the trees, under rocks and spurting up from bubbling brooks. If a boy is discovered with this talent for connecting with the spirit world, they are encouraged to go further by inviting the spirits into “their chest”. This will give them a new power to lead, heal and protect their tribe. The spirits own the shaman and promise never to leave them nor deceive them:

“‘Do we have any ebene?’ A warrior asked. Deemeoma knew that they did. She had seen her brother grinding the plants into powder. He was learning the many ways of the spirits and would soon be a shaman himself. 

“It was almost dark when Deemeoma’s big brother squatted on his heels and blew eben powder through the long tube into Wyteli’s nose. He rolled back onto his back and grabbed his head as he felt all the pain. But he sat back up on his heels and took another blow. By then the effect of the powder was ready to take him to his spirits. The ebene dripped out of his nose and down his chin and he went into a trance, dancing and chanting. By the time the cooking fires died, he came back from his spirits. Then the village gathered around as they always did to hear what Wyteli’s spirits had said.”

Throughout the many stories of Jungleman, the spirits always led the people to do the same things; “fighting, drinking bones of the dead to gather information for vengeance, raids, stealing the daughters of the other tribes, making war to slaughter whole tribes who pose a threat and then raping their women to show the victorious tribe’s dominance.” Doesn’t sound as idyllic as you might first have thought.

Story after story is laced with fear, hatred and death. Story after story the reliance on the spirits is what unknowingly bring the shaman and their people into more slavery of passion and lust for sick desires. 

Then the Nabas came, the white people with funny clothes from another world: some were good, some were evil, but then there were some who had a spirit in their chest that was different, superior, and much more dangerous than the shaman’s spirits. The spirits in the shaman hated those Nabas with the superior spirit.  Often after meeting with the Nabas in their village, the spirits would beg their shaman, “Don’t go back there, you will throw us away – – don’t leave us, we love you.” 

Not all the Nabas were good, and not all the Nabas had any type of spirit in their chest. The evil Nabas came to take pictures, write scratchings on white paper, and often traded radios and machetes for young girls. One large Naba without a spirit in his chest traded for young boys. A shaman father of one of the boys who was used by the Naba got mad, his neck bulged when he yelled, “How long will we let someone turn our boys into women? How will our people ever reproduce if they start that habit? I say we kill him!”

One day, one of the Nabas with the superior spirit invited some sick Yanomamo’s into their village to stay. The Naba with the spirit was kind, never asked for young girls or boys, and began to teach out of his book on spirits. One shaman was curious about the Naba’s spirit, but to be able to invite him into his chest he had to get rid of all his other spirits. At night they pleaded with him, and when he didn’t comply they got angry. He saw them for who they were and eventually he threw them out of his chest.

The superior spirit was invited in. He learned his name, “Yai Pada”. He learned Yai Pada was the creator of everything, including the other spirits, but they hated him because they wanted to rule. One of the strangest stories of Yai Pada was that he once became a Yanomamo himself:

“He came as a baby, grew up, and showed us a completely different way to live. Even though he knew he would be killed in the end, he did it all anyway. His death was a death for all Yanomamo.”

Many shamans wanted this to be true because they were tired of seeing their people make war, and die. They wanted the peace that Yai Pada brought when he came to live in your chest. However, many of the untrusting Yanomamo shaman got angry at the stories because their spirits would wake them at night telling them to “kill the Nabas, we are enemies of Yai Pada.”

I am still reading the book, taking my time with it, because I am learning something from these interesting yet strange people called the Yanomamo – – they readily accept an unseen world as normal. They understand that more wonder and danger is lurking in the shadows of everyday life. They know spirits are real, and even vital to survival. And they know that the Superior Spirit is not to be trifled with.

I have never really looked at it like this even though I have dedicated my life to teaching the book of spirits. Too often I read it as a mere textbook to get information than a window into the shadow-world that lies just under all of our noses. I fail to run to the Great Spirit as often as I should, I fail to invite him daily to fill my chest, to lead me in decisions and insights. As a man raised under the teaching of logic, reason and believing that science is king, I have failed to see the bigger picture of the world beyond the thin veil of sight.

Angels, demons, promises of reward and judgment, and life everlasting is real. More real than watching my tv show, hoping my team wins in the NCAA tournament and making sure I vacuum my carpets. We may be civilized, but in our effort to control the minutia of the moment, most of us have lost touch with the unseen world. The one where the Great Spirit lives.