The film that I watched and chose to write about is Xapiri. This film was made by Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima in 2012. The documentary takes place in Brazil and it consists of many different digital images, art, emotive photography, and much more to make this piece so fantastic. The movie was made to try and explain the Yanomami ideas and their connection to Shamans and the idea of Xapiri. The indigenous Yanomami people settled in the Amazonian rainforest mainly in Brazil and Argentina. Their culture has been known to believe in Shamanism which is the idea that a practitioner will be capable of going into other states of mind and perceive the world with indescribable transcendental energy found everywhere and in everything. The Yanomami people believed there was a Shaman that would enter into a trance state during a ceremony, which gave them the ability to feel the energy and spirits that are …show more content…
They believe that everything we have in our world has a life force that is lit up only by specific people with the power like a Shaman. The Shaman was believed to have full control over the spirit if they consumed the hallucinogenic drug named Yopo. To get the full effects of this drug Shamans would have someone aggressively blow it into their noses with a long pipe. The goal would be for it reach the leader or Shamans nasal cavity. If this action was done in the correct way then the Shaman would be put into a trance, which allows them to contact with all of the spirits in the spirit world. They also would participate in different types of dance and chants to communicate with different essences around them. Shamans would use the spirits around them in order to help in battles with the different entities near them and could also heal people around them. The idea of Shamanism was used for everything in the Yanomami people’s culture and depending on the spirit would either sing or dance to contact