Some Basic InformationArea: The Yanomomi territory covers an area of approximately 74,000 miles, located on both sides of the border between Brazil and Venezuela. Each area is roughly twice the size of Switzerland.

First Contact: 1929

Population: Approximately 20,000 Yanomamo today living in 200-250 villages in the Amazon rainforest

Today, continuous active genocide of the Yanomamo continues.

62% of Yanomami tested positive for new strains of malaria introduced by garimpeiros (gold miners) which have brought every conceivable disease known to modern man, from the common cold (Yanomami have no immunity to combat our most common ailment) right up to and including AIDS.

The adult life expectancy is only 45 years; and most children do not live past infancy.

The Yanomami are believed to be the most primitive, culturally intact people in existence in the world.

Name stems from the word “Yanomami,” which means “human beings”

They are hunters and gatherers but also tend small garden plots.

They cremate their dead, then crush and drink their bones in a final ceremony intended to keep their loved ones with them forever.

They have never discovered the wheel and the only metal they use is what has been traded to them from the outside (machetes, axes)

How do they react to the tin cans?

Yanomamo are horticulturalists, possessing a relatively advanced knowledge of crops and their culture.  In addition, they possess advanced bow and arrow technology, whose use was only introduced about a thousand years ago in the Americas.   

No genetic, anthropometric, or linguistic resemblance with their neighbors

Thought to be descendants of an indigenous group that remained relatively isolated for a remote period of time

According to their oral tradition, they originated from the copulation of the demiurge Omama with the daughter of the aquatic monster Teperesiki, owner of cultivated plants

demiurge means a powerful creative force

Live in hundreds of small villagesEach containing 40-300 individualsScattered thinly throughout the Amazon Forest

Grouped by families in one large communal dwelling called Shabono

Villages are autonomous but constantly interact with each other

Distance between villages varies from a few hours walk to a ten day walk

ShabonoDisc-shaped structure with an open-air central plaza (about 100 meters across) is an earthly version of their gods' abodeDivisions exist marked only by support posts, partitioning individual houses and spaces.Shabonos are built from raw materials from the surrounding jungles.

They are susceptible to heavy damage from rains, winds, and insect infestation. As a result, villagers build new shabonos every 1 to 2 years.

Cultural WaysNo Written languageVarious dialectsThere #’s are 1, 2 & more than 2

Gardeners-work 2hrs/day in garden

Bananas, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, tobacco

Hunt wild game in forest

Make bowls, hammocks, bows, arrows, pigments

Trade with other villages

Why is this important?

Social StructureVillages usually range

from 40 to 50 people and up to 300 people

Kinship & Marriages dominate relations

Men dominateCan beat their wivesCan have more than 1 wife

Marriages are arrangedUsually are from other villagesCould be relatedDone to create alliances

Polygene is accepted 10-20% of men have multiple wives

Families

Each village is an autonomous political entityfree to make war or peace with other villages

Coalitions between villages are important

Age, sex, and personal accomplishments are important in status differentiation– Mature men dominate positions of political authority and

religious practice– High status is earned, not inherited

• The village headman is the dominant political leader– Comes from the largest local patrilineage– The lead headman must settle disputes and deal with allies and enemies

Yanomamo Political Structure• Men dominate the

Yanomamo villages– Usually show their

leadership by fighting

– Either fighting games, or through war

• War is a common part of life– Fight over food,

women & to settle feuds

• Peace is arranged through marriages & trade

• Foraging is the most ancient technique humans use to exploit the environment

• Important resources are obtained through gathering– Honey– palm fruits– brazil nuts– palm heart– cashew fruit

• Engage in slash-and-burn horticulture

• They clear the forest by burning it and then they plant:– plantains (similar to bananas)– cassava (used for its edible

starchy root )– plants used for medicines and

other technology sources

• After 2-3 years, the garden is abandoned and allowed to grow back into a forest

• Main source of dietary protein

• An important social and ritual role for males

• Good hunters are differentiated from bad hunters based on skills in locating and stalking game

• Bows and arrows, measuring about 2 meters in length, are the main weapons used in hunting

• Received guns from trading with outsiders

• Specialized quivers depending on the game: – large tips for big game– poisoned pencil-shaped tips

for monkeys– harpoon points for birds and

small game

• Both men and women participate in gardening

• Both sexes share in planting

• Some gardening tasks are specialized according to sex:– Men do the heavy work of felling large trees,

slashing the undergrowth, and burning the debris

– Women do the daily tasks of weeding and harvesting

Spiritual Beliefs• Believe in ‘four layers’ of reality– Top layer is pristine– Natural & Spirit world

unified-nature is sacred

• Shaman-religious leader– Uses hallucinagens -

yopo

– Battles spirits from bottom layer

• Death– Cremate the dead– Crush bones & mix with

the ash & water– Drink the fluid to

maintain the family connection

• Called yopo or yãkõana

• Used to evoke the spiritual world

• The shaman (the spiritual leader) goes into a trance-like state and summons a spirit to help with the problems of the village

• Under the drugs, the shaman imitates the songs and actions of the spirit that they invoke

• Sometimes the rituals work, but not always

• This drug use is very painful, it usually causes headaches and nausea

• It is blown into the nasal cavity by a long pole

• Yanomamo using the hallucinogenic yopo

• Warfare and feuding is common

• Feuds are self-perpetuating – they lack any formal mechanism to prevent aggrieved

parties from exacting the amount of vengeance they deem fit

• Most combat is in raids– dispatch the enemy and abduct women if possible

• Main goal is to kill the men responsible for the feud– others may also be killed in the process

• Peace between villages may develop if conflict has remained dormant for a long period

• Reconciliation begins with a series of ceremonially festive visits– if old feuding does not flare, visits may lead to joint raids

and intermarriage between villages to solidify alliances

• About 40% of adult males have killed another person and about 25% of adult males will die from some form of violence.

• Violence will vary from chest pounding, in which opponents take turns hitting each others on the chest, to club fights, to raids which may involve the killing of individuals and abducting the women, to all out warfare.

Warriors

Isolated From the World• Villages are scattered

along uninhabited forest– Do not live along the

major rivers– Western world does not

venture into the jungle, so very little outside contact

• Gold Rush in 1980’s brought them into contact with the West

• Very little contact with the outside world until the 1980s

• Since 1987, have seen about 10% of the population die by massacres and diseases brought by invaders

• Thousands of miners illegally rushed into the territory after gold was discovered on their land in the 1980s

• Flights from supply plains and noise from pumps have scared away game animals

• Mercury dumped in rivers ascends through the food chain and affects child development – Child mortality rates are increasing while birth rates are

declining

• Miners have brought in diseases

• Begging, prostitution, and drunkenness have also been introduced in their culture

• In 1993, a group of miners tried to exterminate the village of Haximu, killing 16 Yanomami – It was classified as genocide

• State and local politicians are continuing to fight to reduce the Yanomami territory to have access to rich mineral deposits– This allows gold prospectors to be replaced by

large scale commercial mining operations, which will continue to devastate Yanomami land and people

Other Problems

• In the 1960s anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon’s accounts of his life among Venezuela’s Yanomami Indians made them—and him—famous.

• By the early 1990s, however, a growing number of critics were charging him with misconduct, and protests from government officials and activists made it impossible for him to secure a permit to Venezuela after 1993.

Darkness in El Dorado

• The charges stemmed from Chagnon’s allegedly culture-destroying practice of exchanging trade goods such as machetes with the Yanomami for delicate cultural information, including family genealogies (the Yanomami consider it taboo to speak of the dead).

• In 2000 native-rights activist Patrick Tierney detailed the anti-Chagnon case in his book Darkness in El Dorado. Just days after it was published, the Venezuelan government sealed off Yanomami territory to outside journalists, researchers, and scientists; banned Chagnon from the region; and began their own investigation into the conditions of the Yanomami and the supposed damage done by outsiders.

Continued• Among the most serious accusations: that Mr. Chagnon had

subtly encouraged murderous violence among the Yanomami, and that Mr. Neel's efforts to administer measles vaccines among the Yanomami were driven more by scientific curiosity than by sound medical practice.

• Other’s have also claimed Chagnon's account of the Yanomami are based on false, non-existent or misinterpreted data, and that Chagnon actually incited violence among them.

• Critics of Mr. Tierney's book have strongly denied these charges, and two previous reports -- by the American Society of Human Genetics and the University of California at Santa Barbara -- have found the accusations to be unwarranted.

• In a short preface to the report, the association's executive board declares that Mr. Tierney's book "contains numerous unfounded, misrepresented, and sensationalistic accusations about the conduct of anthropology among the Yanomami." But the report also says that the book, though "deeply flawed ... [presents] ethical issues that we must confront."

• Although it may seem that the Yanamamo are very different from our present day society, there are some similarities between the two:

– Family units– Feasts– Mourning the dead– Gossip– Language– Body art– Property– Creativity– Infidelity

– MoralityMorality– Hierarchy and high Hierarchy and high

statusstatus– Social interactionsSocial interactions– Medical use of drugsMedical use of drugs– Tit-for-tat relationshipsTit-for-tat relationships– Socialization of children Socialization of children

(boys by men and girls (boys by men and girls by women)by women)