The Yanomamo of the Amazon Basin Essay

The Yanomamo are a tribe of twenty thousand who live in about two hundred and fifty widely dispersed villages in Brazil and Venezuela. It was first thought that the Yanomamo were a group of hunter-gatherers, but contrary to that thought they actually cultivate their own crops for food. They also hunt and forage, but only as needed.

They used Yanomami for their own purpose and benefits. They ignored the ethics and norms of their discipline. They used them for their experiments. Chagnon was blamed more than any other anthropologists, whose studies of the Yanomami Indians of the Brazilian rainforest were controversial enough before Patrick Tierney wrote an explosive article for The New Yorker accusing Chagnon and his associates of everything from pedophilia to attempted genocide. Some argue that he should tell Yanomami what they are doing to them or about their experiments and these all things are for study, that the result would be useful to cure them, which was the half-truth.

Throughout the article, Doing Fieldwork among the Yanomamo, by Napoleon A. Chagnon the reader is able to read along as if they were a real anthropologist’s on a journey throughout the villages of tropical forests in unoccupied lands. Changnon begins his writing explaining the culture and life style of the Yanamamö people. How their daily lives focus on gardening, hunting, visiting and completing tasks to get through the day. He describes their short life expectancy and the risks of violence between surrounding villages. The amount of men is exceedingly larger than the women, and often time’s men have multiple wives. Changon describes how each village is apart of broader political demographic. However he expresses how difficult it is to understand all of this simply from his descriptions.

It is admirable to see Chagnon’s efforts remain critical as he builds relationships with the Yanomamo People. One relationship in particular is very interesting because of contradictions on previous observations and statements. Chagnon stated, “I would be bitterly disappointed that my erstwhile friend thought no more of me than to finesse our personal relationship exclusively with the intention of getting at my locked up possessions, and my depression would hit new lows every time I discovered this.” He observed for an extended period of time that friendship was based on lasting debts to be reimbursed, often at unequal ratios. This behavior rang true not only of him, but of Rerebawa, who married into the tribe. It becomes interesting to consider that his value was that of material objects and debts, much like we experience in some parts of American culture. As Chagnon

The oral history of these people talk about how groups or bands of people were entrusted to care for the environment and resources within their ancestral territory (About The Hualapai Nation, 22). They are descendants of a group called the Cerbat (“Hualapai Tribe”). The tribe’s ancestral territory estimated to be about five million acres (About The Hualapai

In Patrick Tierney’s article “The Fierce Anthropologist,” he discussed the faults that are, or may be, present in Napoleon Chagnon’s anthropological research of the Yanamamo, or “The Fierce People,” as Chagnon has referred to them in his best-selling book on the people.

The curiosity of what people would be like without western influences pulled Nepolean Chagnon in, leading him to the Yanomamo, a tribe in the Amazon who has only recently come in contact with some western culture because of church ministries. The ministries showed up only a few years before Chagnon, meaning that the majority of the Yanomamo have had very little influence from them. Chagnon’s goal was to record all aspects of the Yanomamo’s life, everything from their individual interactions to the social politics between the villages. Although it takes time to gather all the data and verify that it is in fact true, Chagnon started to notice patterns of violence throughout the Yanomamo culture.

In this article written by Miner, he describes the tribe of the Nacirema vividly and descriptively. The Nacirema are a tribe known for only twenty years. When they were discovered there was almost no information

Today we live in a globalized world, the world is interlinked on so many social, political, and economic levels that everyone’s culture has somewhat bled into each other’s. So it is extremely rare for anthropologist to find tribes like the Yanomami. “The Yanomami are a tribe of roughly twenty thousand Amazonian Indians living in 200 to 250 villages along the border between Venezuela and Brazil.” (Borofsky, R., & Albert, B. 2005). The Yanomami have been studied by anthropologist since the 1950’s and are said to be important to anthropologist because of the unique lifestyle they live mostly unpolluted by the western world (Tiffany,S., Adams, K., 2002). When people are as isolated as the Yanomami, it gives anthropologist an amazing opportunity to study the unique development of a society. A product of society is social construction, a social construct is basically a set of rules that a society establishes for themselves over time, the members of that society may follow those rules but the rules aren’t inherent. The world that we know and the most rules that we follow are socially constructed. One of the biggest social constructions is gender, gender is a social construct that can seep into every area of life, this paper will explore the Yanomamis childrearing, politics and religion through the lens of gender. While the Yanomami live very unique lives that we can and should learn so much from, today the Yanomamis way of life is under threat.

He even questioned why he chose anthropology and almost decided to quit and leave. The Yąnomamö were so vastly different and "strange" to him. The lifestyle that he came from almost made the Yąnomamö look like savages. They steal food, use threats and violence to test people (even in their personal communication). He also experienced culture shock about his daily life. Eating, bathing, privacy and loneliness are specific things he missed about his own culture. He was made extremely uncomfortable. The insects and the behavior of the Yąnomamö continued to bother him. Once he was able to adapt in this lifestyle, things became much more tolerable for Chagnon. He had adjusted to the circumstances. However, the aggressive, demanding and taboo behavior of the Yąnomamö continued to bother him. Chagnon asked about ancestry, and the Yąnomamö found it rude to ask about the dead. So, the Yąnomamö tricked him and told him fake names. After spending five months collecting what he thought was good data, he found out it was based on trickery and he had to start all over again. Ultimately, he realized the aggression towards him was more of a test, and he had to be like them in order to get some peace and successfully conduct his

Located in the Amazon Basin of Southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil, the Yanomamo are an indigenous group numbering close to 23,000. They utilize slash and burn horticulture, hunting and gathering to survive within their ecosystem. Napoleon Chagnon termed the group, “fierce people”, citing their numerous disputes within non-allied villages. Aside from their periodic warfare, they have managed to build and sustain their unique culture through adaptations to their environment for generations.

Traveling deep into the Amazon rainforest, Napoleon Chagnon, lived amongst the Yanomamӧ tribes that occupied the land on the border of Brazil and Venezuela. In doing so he was able to write an ethnography about his observations and interpretations of the culture and human behaviors of the Yanomamӧ people. From his studies, Chagnon found that the Yanomamӧ have always been one of the most violent culture, who are always living in chronic warfare, often over women, so they can maximize their reproductive success and be honorable in their society. I agree with Chagnon in a sense, but also believe the Yanomamӧ are violent with reason and are less violent than industrialized nations, who have contributed to their increase in violence.

My first offspring has a very strong relationship with the land, the territory is very important for the Mapuche, my maternal great-grandmother lived in southern Chile, where these people lived fastest growing in the country, the Mapuche, they lived in shacks "houses" with customs quite marked, a well-marked face, dark, short, dark hair, dark eyes, agriculture and hunting traditions depending on the group to which they

The Yanomami Tribe of Brazil and Venezuela has been in existence for over 15,000 years and have migrated between Asia and America to South America. The current population of the tribe is at a low of approximately 32,000 living in two hundred to two hundred fifty villages. In my research I will explore some events in the history of the Yanomami tribe the have contributed to the reduction of the tribe and challenges that women of the tribe

My name is Sarah Ohly. I am a Cultural Anthropologist, I am in the Southern Kuril Islands