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Yanomami

The Yanomami have a very special place in the human record being that they are what one might consider a 'primitive' people and still exist in the same way that they have for thousands of years. Such as their situation is they not only can be studied via the remains their ancestors have left behind but by actual observances while living among their populations. The yanomamo live in the forests of Southwestern Venezuela and Northwestern Brazil spread over an area of 300 square miles with an estimated population of 10,000 people. The original studies of this anthropological culture revolve around the efforts of an individual named Napolean Chagnon whose resulting report are still shrouded in controversy due to his portrayal of the Yanomami people. Of course a basic question for any culture or civilization is how does it sustain itself. Farming for the yanomamo produces ninety percent of their caloric intake while hunting and trading accounts roughly for the remaining ten percent¹. Consistent with the other indigenous tribes of the Americas they utilize the slash and burn approach to farming, which is known for exteremly high yields the first few growing seasons but then a rapid reduction in productivity due to the stripping of nutrients from the soil due to the fire and the lack of crop rotation. Chagnon describes the Yanomamo clearing and planting process as such; "Smaller trees are cut and low lying bush removed, then all but the largest trees are cut down and allowed to dry out for several weeks. The brush and smaller tree limbs are piled up at several spots in the garden and burned. The larger timbers are left lying helter-skelter on the groud and the crops are planted around and between wherever possible."² Also a common theme among indigenous cultures of America which the Yanomamo also subscribe to is the community farming ground with typically each village sharing one cleared area of land. Each plant is owned by the individual who cultivates it and to avoid too much confusion as to who owns what families tend to do their specific farming next to each other. Subsistence crops usually consist of cooking bananas, root crops, maize, and peach palm trees while the non-food crops consist of tabacco, cotton, arrow cane, pigments for decorating, hallucenogenic drugs, and magical plants which are used in sorcery.³

Trade is very common between the hundred plus villages which the Yanomamo occupy but is done on much less an economic basis but with more emphasis on the social bond which the interaction creates. Proof of this is the fact that the same item exported from village A to village B will then be imported from village C to village A. Cotton, and the goods procuded from its use, are very important trading commoditites. The Yanomamo women use cotton to make hammocks, arm and legs bands, thread to be used for arrow fletching, and the fringed aprons worn by girls.⁴So far as the males are concerned with economic production and trade a specialty item among them are the large arrows used in battle. Each individual usually has four arrows all with different types of points. The fletching used comes from a large turkey-like bird and it is fastened using a slight radial twist that causes the arrow to spin and shoot more accurately.⁵

Central to the Yanomamo religious experience are the hallucenogenic drugs they intake. The //Virola elongata// is a tree which the crush the bark of into a fine powder which is mixed with the crushed seeds of the //Anadenanthera Peregina⁶.// The //Justicia// plant is used for its psychedelic and aromatic properties. The adult men of the tribe will take this and other hallucenogentic snuff daily. The powder is blown into the nose by another individual viz a hollowed tube and the initial sensation is very painful. The physical consequences are the over production of mucus and saliva which are constantly running from their nose and mouths. The resulting mucus is believed to be the wasts of the hekura, small humanoid spirits that dwell in the forest, and is not permitted to be wiped away⁷. Some of the many spirits the Yanomamo believe in include the Moon spirit, the Toucan spirit, spirit of the Whirlpool, Vulture spirit, Sloth spirit, Monkey spirit, and Electric fish spirit among others. When these spirits visit a man, or when a shaman comes to obtain power over them, they are believed to reside in a mans chest which is obviously considered the physical center, or at least container, of an individual's spirituality⁸.

Visitations and feasts are key to the social interaction via cementing alliances between villages. Once two villages become comfortable enough with one another they invite each other to bring the entire village to participate in a feast. The host village cleans their dwellings and prepares food with the main entree being a "thick, sweet soup made from the boiling of cooking bananas."⁹ Interesting is the inclusion of sweeping as a preparatory activity prior to both feasts and shamanic practices inciting one to ponder the signifance of a clean floor to the Yanomamo. The guest 'dance' their way into the center of the host village and once all the guests have arrived they wait there to be individually invited by specific members of the host clan to sit and eat. At the end of the feast pairs made up of an individual from each village chant together and promise each other goods, this is seen as a frienship building and alliance creating activity.

Warfare is believed to be a central theme among the Yanomamo and the main weapons being wielded by the warriors bows and arrows and large staffs. The bows are two to three feet taller than the average man while the staffs are many times twice as tall as a man. While it seems as though the violent nature of the Yanomamo was slightly over emphasized by Chagnon he did witness a very interesting event which he labled the 'ax fight.' The altercation seemed to erupt between a village and a faction of visitors which had previously lived in that village. The fight had many characters with women shouting insults at each other and the opposing side's men, some individuals trying to calm the tension, and others who were not originally involved in the fighting who escaladed the level of violence by choosing axes as weapons instead of the previously chosen staffs. The entire episode is difficult to follow but does display the willingness of the Yanomamo to use violence as a means to settle disputes.

At least as significant as the research Chagnon provided is the controversy that surrounds his efforts. The originial portrayal of the Yanomamo by Chagnon as an extremely war-like people was negatively used by Venezuelan and Brazilian politicians as reason to reduce the amount of land set aside for their usage in favor of governmental desires for the same land. On top of this he is said to have broken many anthropological ethical conduct rules in the manner by which he obtained his information. Chagnon openly wrote about his persistent search to discover the name of each individual in the main tribes he was studying. He would do this by bribing children, taking photographs of tribesmen to enemy villages for identification, as well as using in-tribe fighting as a means to learn the names of individuals.¹⁰ While his efforts would seem shady in any setting the fact that names are very much entwined in Yanomamo religion and superstition and very rarely spoken the disrespectful nature of Chagnon's actions illuminates why much of his work is still despised by many anthropologists today. Coupled with his infractions Chagnon also stated that he visited over sixty villages in forty-two months making it very difficult to imagine that he was able to make significant enough contacts to ensure the accuracy of the knowledge he was recieving from his informants. To his defense though he was moving around constantly to collect blood samples and his seemingly devious attempts to collect names in order to construct geneaologies was done so at the request of his financial backer and therefore essential to the continuation of his research.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Asch, Timothy and Chagnon, Napolean, //Yanomamo: A Multidisciplinary Study//, Documentary Education Resources(1968) 2. Asch and Chagnon, //Multidisciplinary study 3.// Asch and Chagnon, //Multidisciplinary study// 4. Asch and Chagnon, //Multidisciplinary Study// 5. Asch and Chagnon, //Multidisciplinary Study// 6. Asch, Timothy and Chagnon, Napolean, //Tales of the Yanomamo: Daily life in the Venezuelan Forest//, Documentary Education Resources(1976) 7. Asch and Chagnon, //Tales of the Yanomamo// 8. Asch and Chagnon, //Multidisciplinary Study// 9. Asch and Chagnon, //Multidisciplinary Study// 10. Barofsky, Robert, //Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn From it//, University of California Press(2005), p. 40