Over the last number of decades, the Amazonian Yanomami tribe has had its existence threatened by a series of epidemics, wildfires and rampant deforestation, as well as government persecution. Ever since the discovery of gold in their homeland along the Venezuela - Brazil border in the 1980s, the Yanomani, one of South America’s oldest cultures, have witnessed a huge rise in outside influence. This has led to aggressive destruction of their forests, while the human influx has brought with it illnesses like the flu and measles, which have been catastrophically fatal for the Yanomami.
To add insult to injury, the 2019 Amazon wildfires have led the Yanomami to fear that they will soon be completely extinct. 89 year old photographer Claudia Andujar hopes that her work can be a catalyst for change, though. Andujar first met the Yanomami in the early 1970s while on an expedition, “When the Yanomami women first saw me, they were not sure if I was a man or a woman because I wore clothes and they did not. When they found out that I was a woman, they invited me to live with them.” Through her close relationship with the tribe, Andujar has been able to document misunderstood aspects of Yanomami life, and is trying to use her photography as a way of raising awareness of the plight of the Yanomami.
Since 2012, a new gold rush has boomed, and it has led to violent clashes between the Yanomani and gold miners, who have reportedly killed dozens of tribesmen. Even at the age of 89, Andujar is keen to help them. ““I am still very much involved in trying to defend them and their land because I know that their survival and their culture depends on the possibility of being able to go on living according to how they feel, their ability to live together as a people.”
